Bing Crosby recorded the biggest-selling single of all time, ‘White Christmas’, on 29th May, 1942. The session took just 18 minutes, and the song was not considered the standout from the album: everyone thought the Valentine’s-themed ballad ‘Be Careful, It's My Heart’ had a better chance of chart success. The songwriter, Irving Berlin, was perhaps not an obvious person to pen the quintessential American Christmas song, given that he was a Russian-born Jew, who had never celebrated the holiday until his arrival in the United States. But the record’s airplay on US Army overseas radio stations during World War II struck a chord with homesick soldiers, and helped embed the tune deeply into the American psyche. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal why the version you’re almost certainly thinking of is NOT the version with which Bing initally topped the charts; unpick the confusing Russian Doll stack of genres into which the song has been repurposed; and explain why Berlin’s Oscar win became a pivotal moment in the Academy Awards ceremony…  Further Reading: • ‘'White Christmas' at 75: A Snapshot of the Most Successful Song In Music History’ (Billboard, 2017): https://www.billboard.com/culture/lifestyle/white-christmas-bing-crosby-history-8071111/#! • ‘Is White Christmas the Best Popular Song Ever Written?’ (Smithsonian Magazine, 2012): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/is-white-christmas-the-best-popular-song-ever-written-165989545/ • ‘Holiday Inn | Bing Crosby Sings "White Christmas"’ (Universal Pictures, 1942): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ36gbGlm8Y We'll be back on Monday - unless you join CLUB RETROSPECTORS, where we give you ad-free listening AND a full-length Sunday episode every week!Plus, weekly bonus content, unlock over 70 bonus bits, and support our independent podcast.Join now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks!The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. This episode originally aired in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before ‘Tomb Raider’, before ‘Mortal Kombat’, before ‘Street Fighter’, there was something even WORSE. ‘Super Mario Bros’ - which opened in the United States on 28th May, 1993 - was such a critical and commercial failure that for years afterwards Nintendo kept their franchises out of Hollywood hands. Relocating the action to ‘Dinohattan’, the film inexplicably disregarded most of what had made the videogame such a smash-hit and replaced these elements with allusions to Blade Runner and Tim Burton’s Batman. In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca reveal Bob Hoskins’ drinking and accident-prone habits on-set, consider the relative strength of today’s spinoffs such as The Lego Movie, and analyse the secret sauce that keeps the Mario brand strong in the face of such adversity…  Further Reading: • CinemaSins presents: ‘Everything Wrong with Super Mario Bros in 21 Minutes or Less’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYQHnPOYc5Q • ‘The Stench of it Stays With Everybody’, The Guardian (2018):  https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/mar/22/super-mario-bros-movie-killing-fields-chariots-fire-video-game • ‘Plumbing a Videogame To Its Depths’ - the New York Times reviews the film in 1993:  https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/29/movies/review-film-plumbing-a-video-game-to-its-depths.html Love the show? Support us!  Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY…  … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content.  Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. This episode originally aired in 2021. #90s #Film #Games #Inventions #US Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

William Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister when he and opposition MP George Tierney fought a duel on Sunday, 27th May 1798 on London’s Putney Heath.  Standing twelve paces apart, the two politicians prepared to exchange gunfire. Both men missed with their first shots. On the second round, Pitt deliberately fired away from his opponent, signalling that he considered honour satisfied without bloodshed. The seconds intervened, and the duel ended peacefully. The fight had escalated from an argument in the House of Commons during a debate over naval recruitment. Tierney had questioned Pitt’s rush to expand the Royal Navy, while Pitt accused him of obstructing the defence of the country - a serious slight at a time when fears of French sympathies ran high. When Pitt refused to withdraw the remark, Tierney challenged him to a duel. Even by the standards of the late eighteenth century, the affair felt faintly antiquated. Duelling still lingered among aristocrats and politicians as a ritual of honour, yet many Britons increasingly regarded it as incompatible with parliamentary government and the rule of law. Critics were appalled that the head of government would risk his life over a Commons dispute, particularly during wartime. Pitt’s ally William Wilberforce was horrified, while King George III reportedly reprimanded Pitt for putting personal honour ahead of duty to the country. Satirists, meanwhile, had a marvellous time portraying the pair as awkward amateurs more likely to wound their dignity than each other. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly attempt to unpick impenetrable eighteenth century cartoons of the incident; compare British duelling etiquette with the more theatrical “walk ten paces and turn” style popular on the Continent; and discover how, incredibly, Parliamentary duelling did not end with Pitt and Tierney… Further Reading: • ‘History of William Pitt 'The Younger' (GOV.UK): https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/william-pitt • ‘William Pitt and the Great War - J. Holland Rose’ (DigiCat, 2022): https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/William_Pitt_and_the_Great_War/IcmIEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=pitt+tierney+duel&pg=PT205&printsec=frontcover • ‘A Brief Introduction to the Rules of Historical Pistol Duels’ (Skallagrim, 2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Toi3JY3LLUM #UK #Politics #Strange #1700s Love the show? Support us!  Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY…  … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content.  Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A coalition of Australian community groups came together on May 26th, 1998 for the country’s first “National Sorry Day”, an annual day of atonement for the social-engineering policy that ripped an estimated 50,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families between 1910 and the 1970s. The first Sorry Day was marked with 300 events around the nation, and more than 1,000 people attended a ceremony in Parliament House, Canberra, but it took Australia’s government another decade to utter an official apology. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how in the Year 2000, skywriters turned the heavens into the biggest billboard of apology ever; speculate on whether Australia Day will be abolished due to its colonial associations; and discover that there is in fact one word that is harder to say than “sorry”…  Content warning: This episode contains discussion of the Stolen Generations, which may be distressing to some listeners. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that the episode also contains mentions of deceased people. Further Reading: • ‘From the Archives, 1998: Thousands say sorry, but not PM’ (The Age, 1998): https://www.theage.com.au/national/from-the-archives-1998-thousands-say-sorry-but-not-pm-20210521-p57tyr.html  • ‘Peter Dutton says it was a 'mistake' walking out on the apology to the Stolen Generations’ (The Daily Mail, 2022): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10866871/Peter-Dutton-admits-mistake-boycotted-national-apology-Stolen-Generations.html  • ‘This Is Why Australia Has “National Sorry Day”’ (Time, 2015): https://time.com/3890518/national-sorry-day/  • ‘Australia's first “Sorry Day” (1998)’ (ABC Australia, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OKsoqqXttE  Thanks so much for supporting the show! We massively appreciate it. The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Edit producer: Ollie Peart. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. This episode originally aired in 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hands Across America, a human chain from New York to California was formed on 25th May, 1986, in an attempt to raise awareness and funds for domestic poverty. The brainchild of advertising executive Jeffrey Nightingale and We Are the World producer Ken Kragen, the kooky concept gained traction once corporate sponsors Coca-Cola and Citibank jumped on board, McDonald’s turned placemats into promotion tools, and popstar Prince sponsored a mile of the chain. The event got a Super Bowl promo starring Lily Tomlin and Bill Cosby, but, in the end, raised less money than expected. In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca sample the official Hands Across America anthem (but can’t bear to endure it all); consider the Regan’s involvement in the chain from the White House lawn; and explain why the event wasn’t truly as original as many people were led to believe… Further Reading: • ‘Hands Across America might have been the most Eighties thing to happen in the 1980s’ (The Washington Post, 2016): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/05/25/hands-across-america-might-have-been-the-most-eighties-thing-to-happen-in-the-1980s/ • ’Us: What Was Hands Across America, the Creepy Event That Inspired Jordan Peele?’ (Vanity Fair, 2019): https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/us-movie-hands-across-america • ‘Bill Cosby for Hands Across America’ (1986): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-llI2voCn2Y Love the show? Support us!  Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY…  … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content.  Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Jerry Lee Lewis landed at Heathrow Airport for his first UK tour on 22nd May, 1958, he was met with a flurry of journalists eager for a scoop. Yet just one question brought everything to a halt: "Who are you?".  A wide-eyed girl in Lewis's entourage answered: Myra Gale Brown, his wife. But she was only 13 years old. As if this wasn’t scandal enough… she was also his cousin, and their marriage was bigamous. The press exploded with these revelations, turning what was meant to be a triumphant tour into a public relations disaster. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly pore over the disturbing details of Lewis’s tumultuous private life; consider whether he was on the path to equalling Elvis’s stardom in the UK, had this matter not come to light; and fruitlessly search the singer’s interviews for a later sense of contrition…  Further Reading: • ‘Myra Williams talks about marriage at age 13 to Jerry Lee Lewis’ (Los Angeles Times, 2022): https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2022-10-29/jerry-lee-lewis-myra-brown-williams-marriage-13-cousin • ‘Inside The Disturbing Marriage Of Jerry Lee Lewis To His 13-Year-Old Cousin’ (All That’s Interesting, 2022): https://allthatsinteresting.com/myra-gale-brown-jerry-lee-lewis • ’Jerry Lee Lewis Interview with 13 year old wife’ (1958): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwbty1kRCG0 CONTENT WARNING: domestic abuse, violence, child sexual abuse. We'll be back on Monday - unless you join CLUB RETROSPECTORS, where we give you ad-free listening AND a full-length Sunday episode every week!Plus, weekly bonus content, unlock over 70 bonus bits, and support our independent podcast.Join now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks!The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. This episode originally aired in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Carl Wickman started America’s first bus company on 21st May, 1914, they weren’t a bus company, and they weren’t called Greyhound - they were a commuter service for miners in Hibbing, Minnesota. But, despite their ‘dirty dog’ reputation (and the fact they’re now owned by a British conglomerate), the company is still seen as a cornerstone of American culture, and undoubtedly the most famous bus company in the world. In this episode, Olly, Arion and Rebecca consider the role of Hollywood in enshrining Greyhound’s exalted status in the popular imagination, speculate as to whether the development of highways killed the romance of inter-city travel, and reveal why, after the longest coach journey in the world, Father Christmas made Rebecca cry... Further Reading: • The ‘bus scene’ from It Happened One Night (1934): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvzgCo-As6A • Mental Floss celebrate 100 years of Greyhound:  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/54273/100-years-dirty-dog-history-greyhound • ‘Facts and Figures’ from Greyhound’s official website: https://news.greyhound.com/facts-figures Love the show? Support us!  Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY…  … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content.  Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. This episode originally aired in 2021. #1910s #Inventions #US Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a US patent for reinforcing work trousers with copper rivets on 20th May 1873; an innovation that would eventually create the global market for blue jeans. Davis, a Jewish tailor in Nevada, had already been using metal fasteners to strengthen horse blankets and other hard-wearing goods. When a labourer’s wife asked him to make trousers sturdy enough to survive her husband’s punishing work, Davis realised that the weak points were the seams and pockets, and used copper rivets to transform them from fragile clothing into industrial equipment. So he wrote to Strauss, from whom he regularly bought cloth, proposing a partnership…  Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant who had arrived during the California Gold Rush and built a thriving wholesale business supplying miners, railway workers and frontier towns with practical goods, agreed to finance the patent and mass production. It proved a remarkable pairing of talents. Davis understood the practical needs of labourers; Strauss understood supply chains, branding and expansion. Together they turned reinforced work trousers into a product that could spread across the American West more profitably than panning for gold itself. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly trace the origin of Levi’s enduring Two Horse logo of 1886; explain how the Second World War accelerated the adoption of the style; and reveal just how much money a pair of nineteenth-century Levi’s are worth today…  Further Reading: • ‘A Riveting Story’ (Levi’s, 2023): https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/blog/article/lvc-a-riveting-story?msockid=23c525cc0876634208c637a40951628f • ‘Cache of 19th-Century Blue Jeans Discovered in Abandoned Arizona Mineshaft’ (Smithsonian Magazine, 2022):  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cache-of-19th-century-blue-jeans-discovered-in-abandoned-arizona-mineshaft-180981014/ • ‘150 years of Levi's 501 blue jeans’ (CBS Sunday Morning, 2023): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LAxKoChwN8 #Fashion #Inventions #Jewish #1800s Love the show? Support us!  Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY…  … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content.  Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s musical comedy-drama ‘Glee’ was first screened on Fox on May 19th, 2009. In a strategy to whip up excitement before the season premiere in the Autumn, the network showed the pilot in a plum post-‘American Idol’ slot, and then besieged websites and social networks with advertisements over the Summer. The strategy worked - justifying ‘Glee’s enormous budget, relatively unknown cast, and complex musical rights negotiations - and by the end of 2009 the show had generated 25 Billboard Hot 100 hits from its soundtrack. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how this tightly-structured pilot cunningly conceals its Broadway roots whilst introducing its cast of characters; consider how the success of the series launched Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ onto an unsuspecting UK; and consider whether the show’s happy vibes had the good fortune to launch in the midst of the financial crisis… Further Reading: • ‘Glee Pilot Oral History, Part 4: The Premiere’ (Out Magazine, 2015): https://www.out.com/television/2015/3/19/glee-pilot-oral-history-part-4-premiere • ‘How Ryan Murphy Became the Most Powerful Man in TV’ (The New Yorker, 2018): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/how-ryan-murphy-became-the-most-powerful-man-in-tv • ‘Glee Pilot Promo - May 19th, 2009’ (Fox, 2009): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5O28G7TgOw Love the show? Support us!  Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY…  … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content.  Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. This episode originally aired in 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dreamworks’ irreverent animated comedy Shrek opened in 3,500 U.S. theaters on 18th May, 2001 - dethroning The Mummy Returns with a $42 million opening weekend, and eventually raking in nearly $500 million worldwide. But the journey to swampy superstardom was anything but smooth. The project bounced around for a decade, surviving the death of Chris Farley, the original voice of Shrek, and burning through so many scriptwriters (whose work never saw the light of day) that the animation department became known as the ‘gulag’. In this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca reveal how Jeffrey Katzenberg modelled Lord Farquaad after Disney CEO Michael Eisner; recall a time when computer animation needed to be seen to be believed; and consider how the film’s innovative use of pop music, celebrity voices and adult humour changed animated filmmaking forever… Further Reading: • ‘Shrek at 20: How a Chaotic Project Became a Beloved Hit’ (The New York Times, 2021): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/movies/shrek-20th-anniversary.html • ’How 'Shrek' was created as a skewed criticism of Disney’ (Far Out Magazine, 2024): https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/shrek-criticism-disney/ • ‘Shrek (2001) Trailer #1’ (Dreamworks, 2001): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXOrWvPBPk Thanks so much for supporting the show! We massively appreciate it. The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.  Edit producer: Ollie Peart. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. Love the show? Support us!  Join  🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode each SUNDAY…  … Plus, get weekly bonus bits, and unlock over 100 bits of extra content.  Join now with a free trial on Apple Podcasts or Patreon and support our show ❤️ The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices