05x06 - Underdogs

[bunniefuu]

We're gonna call this
"Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."

We got the puppets, we got
The Land of Make-Believe

and he saved PBS.

(Laughter)

Ida Tarbell takes down the
richest man in the world.

(Imitating typewriter)

Now I'm really starting to feel wasted.

Maya Lin designed the
Vietnam w*r Memorial.

She's a young Asian woman?

I'm not gonna give you any money.

(Groans, laughs)

(Patriotic music)

♪♪


No, I learned English
from a lot of PBS stuff.

I came to America when I
was three, turning four,

so it was those shows that were like,

"This is how you say this.
This is the word of the day.

This is the letter. This is the number."

And you're like, okay, I'm catching on

to how people saying things.

What about Teletubbies?

What the f*ck were they teaching?

Holy sh*t, I have no idea.

(Imitating Teletubby)

- (Laughs)
- That was a terrifying... I can't...

That was just an acid dream.

I don't do dr*gs, but now
I'm like, maybe I should

just to watch the Teletubbies.

Hello, this is Solomon Georgio

and today we're gonna be
talking about Mr. Fred Rogers.

Mmm!

- Cheers.
- Won't you be my neighbor?

♪ Won't you be my neighbor? ♪

- I would be your neighbor.
- Aww.

So it starts in .

Fred McFeely Rogers, he
watches children's TV

for the first time
and for the most part,

it's just slapstick.

Guys throwing pies in
each other's faces,

just being pranked and whatever

nonsense is happening.

He was like, well this is just garbage.

This is hot garbage,
what are we watching?

And he's like, I wanna do this

but I wanna do it for the kids.

And he actually got a job at NBC.

But they were like, we
gotta do commercials.

Cigarettes, alcohol,

alcohol made out of cigarettes.

- Yeah.
- All that fun stuff.

- Let's make the kids like this.
- Yeah. (Laughs)

And he just got fed up,

was like, this is not
good enough for me.

I gotta f*cking go back

to PTburgh,

f*ck off Pennsylvania

and see how I can... what I can do.

I can't believe Mr. Rogers would swear.

Oh, I'm pretty sure he was like,

gosh darn, flim flarn, ding dang,

goobly gock.

We gotta go back to PTBurghy

H-E double hockey sticks.

(Laughs) Pennsyl-vania.

They... they get back to Pittsburgh

and he starts working with WQED.

He gets an opportunity
to have his own show.

And he's like, oh,
that sounds wonderful.

Do you have any money?

And they're like... (Laughs)

No. So figure that out.

And he's like, oh, great.

We gotta do something with
this tight, tight budget.

Maybe we should just do puppets.

Puppets are tight.

Everybody loves puppets.

Then he's like, all right,
we're gonna call this

"Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."
We got the puppets,

we got The Land of Make-Believe,

We got Mr. McFeely, the... ooh...

the... the weird

(laughs) postman that I
named after my middle name.

And we're gonna make kids feel special.

And he does that.

And they started broadcasting

on the Public Broadcasting Station.

And guess what he deals with again?

What?

Financial problems.

sh*t.

He can't hide from them.

They're everywhere.

He's like, all right,
I need to do a fund raiser.

I... I guess I'll do

a fundraiser in Boston.

That's a good place for
fundraisers to happen.

And surprisingly, out of nowhere,

, people just show up.

, ?

, people.

And that piqued the interest

of our president at the time,

Mr. Lyndon B. Johnson,

who, honestly, dope as hell.

He goes, hey, I'm gonna set up

the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

You get to have $ million.

So Lyndon B. Johnson's like, peace.

And then Richard Nixon Showed up

and he was like aww,

the Vietnam w*r is happening.

I'm gonna cut the funding.

But... (clears throat)

before Nixon could take
all that money away,

they had to have a
Senate Committee hearing

led by Rhode Island
Senator John Pastore.

This is when Mr. Rogers slides in

Like part of me is
like... likes to imagine

Mr. Rogers just moonwalking
into the Committee.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

(Both laughing)

Mr. Rogers was like, this is what we do.

We look at kids and go hey,

you are legit a person

and you have an
importance in this world.

Also, your imagination
is a brilliant thing

that you have going on in your head.

And we should develop it
in this great, insane way.

He... he spoke the words
of a song that he wrote.

It's about what to do when you're mad.

He's like, "Well, what do
you do when you're mad?

"You wanna punch a wall?

"You wanna rip your mama's hair out?

"You wanna kick your
kid sister in the face?

"Well, how about you just sing

this precious, little song instead?"

And John looked at him and was like,

(Sighs) I am a rough, hard,

armadillo of a human man

but you gave me goose bumps.

You gave me spine chills.

They were like,

we get it.

What you do is wonderful.

You deserve this $ million.

We were dumb for even
bringing you here, Mr. Rogers.

That day, PBS was legit saved,

they weren't losing any funding.

They were like, you are legit

the greatest thing to
ever happen to television.

You're doing such a great job.

Kids are the best and you're the best

and never stop.

If it wasn't for what
Mr. Rogers did that day,

there would've been no "Sesame Street,"

there would've been no
"Lamb Chop's Play-Along,"

there would've been
no "Reading Rainbow."

It just... the list goes
on and on and on and on.

He left behind several decades

of some of the best children's
television programming

ever in the history
of not only television

but the whole world.

BOTH: Humanity.

BOTH: To PBS!

To Mr. Rogers.

And the good of humanity.

Amen.

(Squeals)

Well, cheers.

Do you have a specific
cheers you wanna do?

No. This is your cheers.

Hey, this is to dogs.

- No.
- No?

Let's cheers to all the
underdogs that we ever knew

to knowing that
they're gonna win. Right? Do we...

I'm so glad we sh*t on my cheers.

BOTH: To underdogs.

Hello, I'm Jon Gabrus

And today, we'll be
talking about Ida Tarbell.

Cheers.

Ida Tarbell's story begins in .

Her father Franklin
Tarbell was an oilman.

And a young Ida Tarbell
is seeing her father

being absolutely bullied by robber baron

J. D. Rockefeller.

So Rockefeller's going
through all of the Northeast,

just buying out all these
small, little refineries

until Franklin Tarbell's
like, not happening, bro.

Ida is like, nah, nah.

- Nah, she's like, nah.
- Nah.

She's like, nah, son.

And Rockefeller's like, Mr. Tarbell,

I'm gonna make things
very difficult for you.

But Franklin Tarbell,
he stood there proud.

Oh I'm gonna get a f*cking
belch on deck right now.

Get on that.

(Burps) Excuse me.

There's gonna be plenty
more where that came from.

Rockefeller's going to
all these railroad owners

saying like, hey, man,
if you charge me less

for more oil... which
I could bring you...

all these little dudes are
gonna bring you less oil.

f*ck them over, and in the long run,

they sell to Uncle Rockefeller.

He ends up owning % of the oil.

This made Rockefeller the
richest man in the world.

Franklin's like, f*ckin' Rockefeller.

He boned us all. We'll never eat again.

My whole livelihood is
sh*t because of this guy.

Poor Ida is watching this
all happen around her.

And, like, if you're watching that,

you're watching the
superhero origin story.

Like, this is where young Ida Tarbell,

holding in one hand a Barbie Doll

and the other hand a pen.

Well I know what I need to do.

So... (Burps)

She's hired as a staff writer
for "McClure's Magazine"

and Mark... Mark Twain
was a fan of her writing.

And Mark is like, look, I
think what you do is great.

And she's like oh, thank you.

She's like... I... I wanna do
something about Standard Oil.

These m*therf*ckers have
been f*cking with my family

since the get-go, you know?

Mark Twain is telling Ida Tarbell,

let me introduce you
to some of these guys

I've been talking to.

Um, so Mark Twain introduces her

to Henry Rogers.

And she's like, I'd love to talk to him.

He is high up at Standard Oil.

And... (Laughs)

Uh, Franklin Ro...

Wait, hold on.

So Rockefeller...

All right, hold on. I'll back this up.

I'll get this information out.

Now I'm really starting to feel wasted.

Mission accomplished, everyone.

(Laughs)

So Mark Twain is like...

he's setting Ida Tarbell
up with an interview.

Oh, hey, what are you doing, huh?

Blah, blah, blah. And
Rogers is thinking,

a woman is speaking to me.

Even if her job is to
currently speak to me

in this moment, I'm still gonna

misread this as attraction.

Let me put on the p*ssy show.

And then he starts
over-revealing information.

And he... he's telling her,

uh, oh, hey, take a
look at these documents.

Yeah, look at this,
huh? Isn't this cool?

Look at all the kinda cool
stuff we're doing at Rockefe...

Yeah, this is going on. Hey, yeah, uh,

exclusive information
that not everyone has.

Oh, you wanna take a look?

Yeah, you can look at court documents.

Take a look at this.
And then Ida's going,

you know, nice try, shithead.

You're dead, you're dead, you're dead.

Now we're in... Now we're in, uh...

Ida Tarbell's montage moment.

You know, she spends the next two years

organizing court... court documents,

research, interviews, this...

anything she can get her hands on

to start building a narrative.

Ida got down behind
her f*cking typewriter

at that moment, it was
just... (Imitating typewriter)

Yes, uh, ohh

(Imitating typewriter)

Rockefeller is a... (Blows raspberry)

(Imitating typewriter)

A money monster.

A hypocrite.

Rockefeller is a L-I-V-I-N-G M-U-M-M-Y

AKA, Rockefeller is a living mummy.

A-K-L-I-I-V-G-N-Y... la, la, la.

So she ends up publishing
a -piece article

called "The History of Standard Oil."

People are reading this
going, like, has anyone caught

that McClure's thing about
that J. D. Rockefeller dude

we were all worshipping for so long?

Turns out, might be a bit of a scumbag.

Upon further investigation,

I think this dude is bad news.

He's a bad hombre.

Her little article... little article...

well... that's the most
misogynistic thing you can do

is call a woman's article
a little article. (Laughs)

No, she writes a f*cking article

that President Teddy Roosevelt reads

and he's like, has any
one else been reading

this Ida Tarbell series?

This f*cking Rockefeller
guy is f*cking me

with his monopoly.

Guys, I've been working on this thing

called, like, the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Feel like it might work
in this situation.

Teddy, you bring up a
couple of valid points.

We could do something about this.

So in , the Supreme Court

says that the monopoly of
Standard Oil is illegal

and you must break down
into two companies.

So a woman who was unable to even vote

was able, via just writing

to take down the richest
man in the world...

Man, that is so cool.

They f*cking shut Standard Oil down.

Well... they let Standard Oil turn into

two small, bullshit companies
who would never make any money

Called Exxon Mobile and Chevron.

Two companies that didn't do anything.

So looks like journalism
wins in the long run again.

(Laughs)

- Ready?
- Okay.

Hi, I'm Jennie Pierson.

Okay.

Hi, I'm Jennie Pierson and today,

we'll be talking about... today?

Hi, I'm Jennie Pierson and today,

we're talking about Maya Lin.

Cheers.

So it's

and the people at the
Vietnam w*r Memorial Fund

are like, I got an idea,
let's have a competition

to see who can design the
best Vietnam w*r Memorial.

(Burps, laughs) Sorry.

You're okay.

So they get

, submissions to this contest.

They're walking by, they're like,

that one's too tall.

I think this one is a
little too political,

thank you very much.

And this one is too disgusting.

Then they... they walk up to one,

wow, this is f*cking beautiful.

Right, guys? Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're... we get this. We love it.

We love it. Let's... this one.

This is it! This is the one!

We love this one!

Whose is it? Reveal the winner.

And they're like, okay,
are you ready for this?

It is a -year-old college
student named Maya Lin.

And they're like, what?
It's just a college student?

That's crazy.

Cut to Yale and Maya Lin is

sitting in her architecture class.

And they're like, sorry
to interrupt your class,

but is Maya Lin here?

We have something to tell her.

And he's like, whatever, fine.

Maya!

Maya!

And she's like, huh? I... I'm over here.

Uhh!

And they're like, you won the contest

for the Vietnam w*r Memorial.

We're making your sculpture.

Can you imagine?

Um... and Maya was
just like, guess what?

I won. I won!

I guess I'm drunker right
now than I thought I'd be.

I'm sorry.

You're... don't be sorry.

- Okay.
- You're doing so good.

I thought I would be
more normal at this point.

You're fine.

Okay.

So all of these w*r veterans are saying

this memorial has no m*llitary symbolism,

there's no weaponry, we don't get it.

It's a black gash of shame.

And we are not on board with this.

Ross Perot, he was gonna donate $ ,

to the building of this memorial.

He walks up to them
and he's like, hold on.

This is a woman? And she's Asian?

She's a young, Asian woman?

I'm not gonna give you any
money to build this thing

if you don't stop... (Laughs)

I don't know...

Hold on. You better pick someone else.

I'm pissed, I'm pissed, I'm pissed.

I'm running for president in years.

f*ck you guys. I'm pulling my funding.

The committee that had chosen her,

they heard all of the... this backlash.

And they went to Maya
and they were like,

okay, so listen, a lot
of people are pissed off.

We have a couple of compromises.

We'd... we'd like to put more
m*llitary symbolism into it.

We'd... we'd like to have
a bronze... a bronze statue

of a solider carrying an American flag

um, placed in the center of your...

of your memorial.

Uh, and then also,

what if we paint the black marble white?

How does that sound?

And Maya is like, hell no.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Not in a million years.

And they were like, f*ck. (Laughs)

All right, you know what?

Let's bring it to Congress, bitch.

We're bringing it to
Co... no, that's dumb.

(Laughs)

(Both laughing)

Um, okay.

What do I wanna say next?

Okay.

So at this Congressional hearing,

politicians, veterans...
all testifying against her.

I don't like that it's the color black!

I don't like that it's abstract!

I don't get it!

What is minimalism?

I don't like that it
looks like a pee sign...

a pee sign? (Laughs)

I don't like that this
looks like a peace sign

because those damn hippies are always

flashing a peace sign at me

and I don't like it!

The chairman is like, all right,

we've heard all this shitty stuff.

Maya, you wanna come up here?

Maya gets up there

and she's like, okay, guys,

this memorial should
rise up out of the earth

like a wound that can be healed.

This is supposed to feel personal

so families and friends
of people who have d*ed

can come to the memorial
and feel the loss

of their loved ones as
if it was a gravesite.

It's not a political statement.

It's just a sense of
togetherness and community.

And the chairman is like, I get it.

I wanna feel sorrow, too.

Everybody just wants to feel something.

And okay, we're gonna do
it. We're gonna do it.

We're gonna do it.

(Uplifting music)

♪♪

So this memorial goes up.

And when it went up, there was, like,

this big celebration for it.

And , veterans marched
to the wall in commemoration.

But they were like, you know,

this is gonna be shitty, right?

This is gonna be crap.

This is gonna be, like,

just dumb and we're not gonna care.

And they get up to the memorial.

The granite is sort of reflective.

So what happens is the
Veterans would walk up

and they would see themselves
reflected in the names

of the fallen soldiers.

And it was a very emotional experience.

And they were like, whoa.

This is beautiful.

Maya was, like, watching
all of this sh*t go down.

And she was like, I f*cking told you.

I told you you would cry.

See all these people crying?

I told you they would cry.

- Yeah.
- She probably wasn't that mad.

Maya was able to see this outcome

and say, oh, this really did

have a really cool impact on everybody.

So Maya Lin goes from
this B student at Yale

to one of the most prominent architects

and artists of our time.

So Maya Lin's design
style made a difference.

On all the memorials going forward.

It all became more abstract after that.

She really influenced a lot of designers

and architects and artists.

So in , President Obama

presented her with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Obama was like, uhh,

good job.

I love your work.

Hope to see more of it.

And he kissed her on...

right on the lips.

(Both laugh)

(Kissing sounds)

I just made a fool of myself right now.

(Patriotic music)

♪♪