Full Transcript for The Devil Made Us Do It: Inside the Satanic Panic

More families needed two incomes. 64 00:03:38,334 --> 00:03:41,234 Divorces were more common. So daycare was becoming a normal 65 00:03:41,234 --> 00:03:44,474 part of life for millions of families. That meant more 66 00:03:44,474 --> 00:03:46,994 parents were trusting people outside the family with their 67 00:03:46,994 --> 00:03:50,004 children all day. And for a lot of families, that was still 68 00:03:50,004 --> 00:03:54,354 relatively new and it created a lot of anxiety. Now most daycare 69 00:03:54,354 --> 00:03:57,214 workers were just doing their jobs. But once stories of abuse 70 00:03:57,214 --> 00:03:59,784 started appearing in the news, those ordinary worries became 71 00:04:00,014 --> 00:04:03,692 much easier to turn into something darker. We were also 72 00:04:03,692 --> 00:04:06,212 at a moment when the country started becoming more aware of 73 00:04:06,212 --> 00:04:09,362 things that could go wrong and nothing drove that home more 74 00:04:09,382 --> 00:04:14,556 missing children. Ethan Patz disappeared in New York in 1979. 75 00:04:14,556 --> 00:04:18,476 Adam Walsh was abducted from a department store in Florida in 76 00:04:18,476 --> 00:04:21,146 1981 and was later found murdered. In my home state, 77 00:04:21,116 --> 00:04:24,906 Johnny Gosch was kidnapped in 1982 while delivering newspapers. 78 00:04:24,906 --> 00:04:27,676 And he was never seen again. The stories were showing up 79 00:04:27,676 --> 00:04:30,425 everywhere. Then the missing kids started showing up on 80 00:04:30,425 --> 00:04:36,523 milk-cartons. In 1983, NBC aired Adam, the TV movie about Adam 81 00:04:36,523 --> 00:04:39,563 Walsh and it ended with a picture of real missing children. 82 00:04:39,563 --> 00:04:42,033 Ronald Reagan declared a National Missing Children's Day, 83 00:04:42,033 --> 00:04:46,772 Congress passed new laws dealing with missing children. Parents 84 00:04:46,772 --> 00:04:49,872 were getting the message from every direction. And people 85 00:04:49,872 --> 00:04:52,062 heard enormous numbers thrown around about children being 86 00:04:52,062 --> 00:04:55,892 kidnapped by strangers. Tens of thousands of children. But the 87 00:04:55,892 --> 00:04:59,712 actual number was far less. It was still terrifying, but it was 88 00:04:59,712 --> 00:05:03,673 much rarer than the country and the news led you to believe. most 89 00:05:03,673 --> 00:05:07,113 missing children cases involved runaways or custody disputes. 90 00:05:07,113 --> 00:05:10,453 But that's not what we remember. We remember the news stories in 91 00:05:10,453 --> 00:05:13,143 the kid on the milk carton. And once parents became convinced 92 00:05:13,583 --> 00:05:17,333 that predators could be anywhere, it wasn't a huge leap to believe 93 00:05:17,333 --> 00:05:21,138 they might be organized. And then add in religion and the 94 00:05:21,138 --> 00:05:25,778 culture wars. The moral majority was formed in 1979, and that 95 00:05:25,778 --> 00:05:29,018 gave evangelical Christianity a much bigger political and 96 00:05:29,018 --> 00:05:33,168 cultural voice. There are fights over school sex, music, 97 00:05:33,168 --> 00:05:35,678 television, and what people saw as the decline of traditional 98 00:05:35,678 --> 00:05:39,958 values. And then MTV shows up. Heavy metal gets louder and more 99 00:05:39,958 --> 00:05:43,478 theatrical, horror gets bloodier, kids are playing games full of 100 00:05:43,478 --> 00:05:47,498 demons and magic, everything has skulls on it. I mean, for a kid, 101 00:05:47,498 --> 00:05:50,558 that was just a Tuesday. But for some parents, it looked like 102 00:05:50,558 --> 00:05:53,758 something had gone seriously wrong. And for a lot of 103 00:05:53,758 --> 00:05:57,738 Christians, Satan wasn't just a figure of speech, he was real. 104 00:05:57,738 --> 00:05:59,878 Fear moved easily through churches because it traveled 105 00:05:59,878 --> 00:06:02,078 through people you already trusted. A speaker would come 106 00:06:02,078 --> 00:06:04,938 through town, there'd be a seminar or a special Sunday 107 00:06:04,938 --> 00:06:07,938 night program. Before long, you'd hear the same story from 108 00:06:07,938 --> 00:06:11,198 another church, another parent or somebody on television. And 109 00:06:11,198 --> 00:06:14,818 television was more than happy to spread it. Local news, talk 110 00:06:14,818 --> 00:06:18,138 shows, religious broadcasts, and tabloid television, all have an 111 00:06:18,138 --> 00:06:20,888 appetite for stories like this. Your teenager likes loud music 112 00:06:21,368 --> 00:06:25,196 isn't much of a headline. But your teenager's music may be 113 00:06:25,196 --> 00:06:28,556 recruiting him into a satanic cult, is a lot more interesting. 114 00:06:28,556 --> 00:06:30,906 Now you've got frightened parents, endangered children, 115 00:06:31,196 --> 00:06:35,236 secret rituals, hidden symbols, and a villain nobody can see. 116 00:06:35,236 --> 00:06:38,290 Television knows exactly what to do with that. So by the 117 00:06:38,290 --> 00:06:42,010 beginning of the 80s, the pieces were in place. Child abuse was 118 00:06:42,010 --> 00:06:45,654 finally being taken seriously. Parents were anxious about the 119 00:06:45,654 --> 00:06:49,174 people caring for their children. Missing kids were dominating the 120 00:06:49,174 --> 00:06:51,814 news. Churches and TV evangelists were warning that 121 00:06:51,814 --> 00:06:54,614 the culture was moving into dangerous directions and the 122 00:06:54,614 --> 00:06:58,273 media had learned that fear got attention. People didn't wake up 123 00:06:58,273 --> 00:07:01,573 one morning and randomly decide Satan was hiding in the 124 00:07:01,573 --> 00:07:03,713 neighborhood daycare. The country had been building toward 125 00:07:03,713 --> 00:07:06,973 that kind of fear for years. What it needed was a story that 126 00:07:06,973 --> 00:07:12,465 tied everything together. And in 1980,

it got one. It first 127 00:07:12,465 --> 00:07:15,295 arrived in the form of a book, Michelle remembers, published in 128 00:07:15,975 --> 00:07:19,223 1980. It was written by a Canadian psychiatrist 129 00:07:19,223 --> 00:07:22,103 Lawrence-Pasder and his patient Michelle Smith. According to the 130 00:07:22,103 --> 00:07:24,813 book, Michelle had recovered memories and therapy of things 131 00:07:24,813 --> 00:07:27,403 that supposedly happened to her when she was five years old in 132 00:07:27,403 --> 00:07:31,443 British Columbia, months of ritual abuse, satanic ceremonies, 133 00:07:31,443 --> 00:07:35,044 murder, and eventually an appearance by Satan himself. The 134 00:07:35,044 --> 00:07:38,144 book became a bestseller and Pasner was invited to speak to 135 00:07:38,144 --> 00:07:41,544 police officers, therapists, and social workers. But when 136 00:07:41,544 --> 00:07:43,744 journalists and researchers started looking at all the 137 00:07:43,744 --> 00:07:46,284 extraordinary claims, they couldn't verify any of the story 138 00:07:46,284 --> 00:07:49,181 as it had been written. The problem wasn't simply that 139 00:07:49,181 --> 00:07:51,871 people believed one's sensational book, though. It was 140 00:07:51,871 --> 00:07:54,731 the book that gave them a way to explain almost anything that 141 00:07:54,731 --> 00:07:58,111 came afterwards. Once it was published in a bestseller, the 142 00:07:58,111 --> 00:08:01,671 book had already done its damage. It gave the panic a template. A 143 00:08:01,671 --> 00:08:04,711 person, usually a child, had buried memories. A trusted 144 00:08:04,711 --> 00:08:09,165 expert helps unlock them. The abuse expands from one person to 145 00:08:09,165 --> 00:08:13,505 a ritual group, then to a hidden network, and because the network 146 00:08:13,505 --> 00:08:16,585 is secret and powerful, the absence of evidence is explained 147 00:08:16,585 --> 00:08:20,849 away. If you say, "I can't find the evidence," the answer 148 00:08:20,849 --> 00:08:23,753 becomes, "Of course you can't, they're that good at hiding it." 149 00:08:24,283 --> 00:08:27,133 If a child says nothing happened, that can be interpreted as a 150 00:08:27,273 --> 00:08:31,423 repressed trauma. The theory starts to explain everything, 151 00:08:31,423 --> 00:08:34,777 including the facts that should challenge it. The story spread 152 00:08:34,777 --> 00:08:38,047 because it gave therapists and police officers, ministers, and 153 00:08:38,047 --> 00:08:41,337 television producers a common language to talk about. A 154 00:08:41,337 --> 00:08:44,977 strange comment from a child. A behavior change, a weird drawing 155 00:08:44,977 --> 00:08:47,617 or an interest in dark imagery could all be interpreted through 156 00:08:47,617 --> 00:08:51,479 the same lens. This was also the era when recovered memory 157 00:08:51,479 --> 00:08:54,319 therapy was getting a lot of attention. Some therapists used 158 00:08:54,319 -->

00:08:57,379 hypnosis, guided imagery, and repeated questioning to uncover 159 00:08:57,379 --> 00:09:02,053 memories they believed have been buried by trauma. The trouble is 160 00:09:02,053 --> 00:09:04,353 memory doesn't work quite like that. It's not a recording you 161 00:09:04,353 --> 00:09:07,673 can rewind and play back. It can be influenced by the way 162 00:09:07,673 --> 00:09:11,253 questions are asked and by what someone expects to find. That 163 00:09:11,253 --> 00:09:14,233 becomes important when the people being questioned are 164 00:09:14,233 --> 00:09:17,936 children. Certainly there were real crimes during that time. 165 00:09:17,936 --> 00:09:21,396 Ricky Kasso's 1984 murder case in New York was surrounded by 166 00:09:21,396 --> 00:09:24,799 drugs and a cult talk. Richard Ramirez, the night stocker 167 00:09:25,579 --> 00:09:29,389 famously displayed a pentagram on his hand in court. Every time 168 00:09:29,389 --> 00:09:31,529 something like that appeared on the news, you can hear somebody 169 00:09:31,529 --> 00:09:35,499 saying, "See?" I told you. But a murderer using a pentagram is 170 00:09:35,519 --> 00:09:40,289 evidence of a nationwide satanic conspiracy and with the template 171 00:09:40,289 --> 00:09:43,269 ready and a country already on edge, the story moved from a 172 00:09:43,269 --> 00:09:48,132 book to a preschool. Manhattan Beach, California, the beach 173 00:09:48,132 --> 00:09:51,092 town south of Los Angeles. The McMartin preschool had been 174 00:09:51,092 --> 00:09:53,592 there for years. A family business run by Virginia 175 00:09:53,592 --> 00:09:57,272 McMartin, her daughter Peggy McMartin Buckey, and Peggy's son 176 00:09:57,272 --> 00:10:02,152 Ray Buckey and other teachers. In August of 1983, a mother told 177 00:10:02,152 --> 00:10:05,002 police that her two-year-old son had been abused by Ray Buckey. 178 00:10:05,402 --> 00:10:08,452 Police opened an investigation, then they sent a letter to 179 00:10:08,452 --> 00:10:11,412 roughly 200 families of current and former students telling them 180 00:10:11,412 --> 00:10:13,812 their child might have been victims and asked them to 181 00:10:13,812 --> 00:10:16,332 question their children. Think about getting that letter as a 182 00:10:16,332 --> 00:10:18,752 parent. The police aren't warning you that something might 183 00:10:18,752 --> 00:10:21,432 be happening somewhere and they're telling you it may have 184 00:10:21,432 --> 00:10:24,952 happened to your child. From that point on, every strange 185 00:10:24,952 --> 00:10:28,092 answer, every behavior change, every half-understood thing your 186 00:10:28,092 --> 00:10:31,132 kid says is going to sound different. The children were 187 00:10:31,132 --> 00:10:34,232 sent to Children's Institute International for interviews and 188 00:10:34,232 --> 00:10:36,492 experts later criticized how some of those interviews were 189 00:10:36,902 --> 00:10:40,252 conducted. Very young children were questioned repeatedly. 190 00:10:40,252 --> 00:10:44,052 Interviews used puppets and anatomically correct dolls. Some 191 00:10:44,052 --> 00:10:46,552 questions were leading. Children who denied that something 192 00:10:46,552 --> 00:10:48,772 happened would be questioned again and again or told that 193 00:10:48,772 --> 00:10:51,852 other children had already talked. After repeated 194 00:10:51,852 --> 00:10:55,392 questioning, some of the stories became extraordinary. Secret 195 00:10:55,392 --> 00:10:58,872 rooms, tunnels under the school, teachers who could fly, animals 196 00:10:58,872 --> 00:11:02,952 being killed, witches and cemeteries, investigators were 197 00:11:02,952 --> 00:11:05,832 unable to verify any of the claims about hidden spaces or 198 00:11:05,832 --> 00:11:10,792 ritual activity. But in 1983 and '84, that wasn't the story. The 199 00:11:10,792 --> 00:11:14,532 story was, believe the children. For a long time, children who 200 00:11:14,532 --> 00:11:17,592 tried to disclose abuse had been ignored or dismissed. Nobody 201 00:11:17,592 --> 00:11:21,207 wanted to make that mistake again. The problem is that 202 00:11:21,207 --> 00:11:23,517 believing children and interviewing children properly 203 00:11:23,517 --> 00:11:26,937 aren't the same thing. Young children can be suggestible, 204 00:11:26,937 --> 00:11:29,457 especially when they're questioned repeatedly or given 205 00:11:29,457 --> 00:11:32,497 signals about what answers an adult expects. That's not the 206 00:11:32,497 --> 00:11:35,497 kid's lying. It's exactly why the adult asking the question needs 207 00:11:35,587 --> 00:11:39,017 to be careful. And then local TV picked up on the story and then 208 00:11:39,017 --> 00:11:42,617 it went national. Seven people were eventually ordered to stand 209 00:11:42,617 --> 00:11:45,827 trial. Charges against five of them were dropped, leaving Peggy 210 00:11:45,967 --> 00:11:49,677 McMartin Buckey and Ray Buckey. Ray spent years in jail while 211 00:11:49,677 --> 00:11:52,057 the case moved through the court system and the trial became one 212 00:11:52,057 --> 00:11:54,457 of the longest and most expensive criminal proceedings 213 00:11:54,457 --> 00:11:59,108 in American history. In January 1990, Peggy McMartin Buckey was 214 00:11:59,108 --> 00:12:02,517 acquitted on every charge against her. Ray Buckey was 215 00:12:02,517 --> 00:12:05,477 acquitted on most charges while the jury was deadlocked on the 216 00:12:05,477 --> 00:12:09,586 remaining charges. Prosecutors tried him again and that jury 217 00:12:09,586 --> 00:12:12,826 came back deadlocked. At that point, the district attorney 218 00:12:12,826 --> 00:12:17,221 decided there would not be a third trial. After roughly seven 219 00:12:17,221 --> 00:12:20,181 years of accusations, investigations, arrests, and 220 00:12:20,181 --> 00:12:24,933 trials, nobody in McMartin case was ever convicted of a crime. I 221

00:12:24,933 --> 00:12:27,493 don't think the takeaway from McMartin is that children lie or 222 00:12:27,493 --> 00:12:30,633 that abuse and daycare doesn't happen. Those parents believe 223 00:12:30,633 --> 00:12:32,873 they were protecting their children, but fear can come from 224 00:12:32,873 --> 00:12:35,973 a perfectly understandable place and still lead people somewhere 225 00:12:35,973 --> 00:12:39,138 terrible. The children were questioned again and again. 226 00:12:39,138 --> 00:12:42,138 Families were torn apart. The accused lost years of their 227 00:12:42,138 --> 00:12:45,558 lives, money, and reputations. And the more sensational these 228 00:12:45,558 --> 00:12:48,508 claims became, the harder it was to separate real evidence from 229 00:12:48,908 --> 00:12:51,518 everything that had grown up around it. Protecting children 230 00:12:51,518 --> 00:12:55,038 requires taking them seriously. It also requires careful 231 00:12:55,038 --> 00:12:58,358 interviewing, good evidence, and the discipline not to turn fear 232 00:12:58,358 --> 00:13:02,692 into proof. McMartin wasn't alone, though. Similar cases 233 00:13:02,692 --> 00:13:05,952 appeared around the country, different towns, different names, 234 00:13:05,952 --> 00:13:09,792 but often the same pattern. An accusation repeated interviews 235 00:13:09,792 --> 00:13:13,402 increasingly extraordinary claims, enormous news coverage, 236 00:13:13,402 --> 00:13:17,012 and years of legal battles. In some cases, people spent years 237 00:13:17,012 --> 00:13:20,112 in prison before being released or having their convictions 238 00:13:20,112 --> 00:13:23,533 overturned. So how does something like this spread from 239 00:13:23,533 --> 00:13:27,413 a handful of stories into a national panic? A one-big reason 240 00:13:27,413 --> 00:13:30,213 is the warnings weren't only coming from tabloids and rumors. 241 00:13:30,213 --> 00:13:33,113 They were coming from people who sounded like authorities. 242 00:13:33,113 --> 00:13:35,893 Therapists who had read the books. Social workers who had 243 00:13:36,023 --> 00:13:39,733 gone to workshops. Police officers who attended training 244 00:13:39,733 --> 00:13:43,903 seminars on occult crime. Ministers running anti-cult 245 00:13:43,903 --> 00:13:46,883 ministry self-styled cult experts with warning lists and 246 00:13:46,883 --> 00:13:49,943 impressive sounding titles. Seminars taught people to look 247 00:13:49,943 --> 00:13:53,353 for pentagrams, inverted crosses, black clothing, heavy metal, 248 00:13:53,643 --> 00:13:56,243 fantasy games, horror, fascinations with death, and 249 00:13:56,243 --> 00:13:59,776 interest in the occult. Now if you hold that list up to your 250 00:13:59,776 --> 00:14:04,616 average teenage boy in 1985, black clothes check, listens to 251 00:14:04,616 --> 00:14:09,396 heavy metal, check, plays D&D, check, watches horror movies, 252 00:14:09,396 --> 00:14:14,220 check. That isn't a cult. It's

a sophomore. And that was the 253 00:14:14,220 --> 00:14:17,540 problem. If your warning signs describe half the teenagers in 254 00:14:17,540 --> 00:14:20,660 America, they aren't very useful as warning signs. You've just 255 00:14:20,660 --> 00:14:25,285 made normal teenage behavior look suspicious. But fear also 256 00:14:25,285 --> 00:14:28,495 became a business. Books by supposedly former Satanist, 257 00:14:28,755 --> 00:14:31,605 church seminars, pamphlets, and speaking tours were running 258 00:14:31,605 --> 00:14:35,541 across the country. In 1988, Saintin's underground published 259 00:14:35,541 --> 00:14:38,461 in their name Lauren Stratford was marketed as a true account 260 00:14:38,461 --> 00:14:42,461 of ritual abuse. Christian journalists later investigated 261 00:14:42,461 --> 00:14:45,081 claims and found serious problems with the entire story. 262 00:14:45,371 --> 00:14:47,901 But by then the book had sold plenty of copies and the 263 00:14:47,901 --> 00:14:50,721 interviews were already out there. The scary story had 264 00:14:50,721 --> 00:14:54,061 already done its work. The correction came later. One of 265 00:14:54,061 --> 00:14:57,121 the people pushing back from inside law enforcement was FBI 266 00:14:57,121 --> 00:15:00,601 agent Kenneth Lannin. He had spent years working child sexual 267 00:15:00,601 --> 00:15:03,361 abuse cases and took these allegations serious enough to 268 00:15:03,361 --> 00:15:05,981 investigate them. The problem was the evidence wasn't matching 269 00:15:05,981 --> 00:15:10,601 the size of the claims. In 1992 he published a guide for 270 00:15:10,601 --> 00:15:13,621 investigators looking into allegations of ritual abuse. His 271 00:15:13,621 --> 00:15:16,961 point was simple, take the allegations seriously, 272 00:15:16,961 --> 00:15:19,801 investigate the crime, follow the evidence, but don't start 273 00:15:19,801 --> 00:15:21,911 with the assumption that a satanic cult must be involved 274 00:15:22,711 --> 00:15:26,584 and then make everything fit that conclusion. By the early 275 00:15:26,584 --> 00:15:29,504 90's investigators had spent years looking for the vast 276 00:15:29,504 --> 00:15:32,344 network people had been warning us about and they hadn't found 277 00:15:32,344 --> 00:15:36,484 anything. But in 1988, nobody was ready to hear that yet. In 278 00:15:36,484 --> 00:15:40,064 October of 1988, Geraldo Rivera gave the panic one of the 279 00:15:40,064 --> 00:15:43,924 biggest stages with the prime time NBC special called devil 280 00:15:43,924 --> 00:15:47,584 worship exposing Satan's underground, and that's a great 281 00:15:47,584 --> 00:15:50,804 title. It doesn't ask, is there a satanic underground? It 282 00:15:50,804 --> 00:15:54,144 doesn't say we have some questions about satinism. Nope, 283 00:15:54,144 --> 00:15:58,164 Geraldo is exposing it. The special presented allegations of 284 00:15:58,164 --> 00:16:02,184 ritual abuse, law enforcement experts, occult symbols, claims 285 00:16:02,184 --> 00:16:05,324 of organized satanic activity to the national audience. 286 00:16:25,555 --> 00:16:29,045 Whether a satanic exists is a matter of belief, but we are 287 00:16:29,045 --> 00:16:33,145 certain that satanism exists to some it's a religion, to others 288 00:16:33,145 --> 00:16:38,305 it's the practice of evil in the devil's name. It exists and it's 289 00:16:38,305 --> 00:16:41,445 flourishing. Members of our studio audience tonight will 290 00:16:41,445 --> 00:16:45,685 attest to that. They are friends and foes of satanism. Devil 291 00:16:45,685 --> 00:16:50,705 worshipers and law enforcers, experts and victims. They'll 292 00:16:50,705 --> 00:16:54,755 help us understand this force that exalts evil and darkness. 293 00:16:55,385 --> 00:16:59,325 We'll be asking, why? Why does it exist? And why does it appeal 294 00:16:59,325 --> 00:17:03,245 to so many vulnerable people, especially the young? Now, the 295 00:17:03,245 --> 00:17:05,865 very young and the impressionable should definitely 296 00:17:05,865 --> 00:17:09,925 not be watching this program tonight. This is not a Halloween 297 00:17:09,925 --> 00:17:13,765 fable. This is a real life horror story and it will give 298 00:17:13,765 --> 00:17:18,065 small children bad dreams. As for teenagers and their parents, 299 00:17:18,065 --> 00:17:21,095 we hope you are watching, because it's teenagers who are 300 00:17:21,095 --> 00:17:24,905 most likely to fall under the spell of this jumble of dark 301 00:17:24,905 --> 00:17:29,985 violent emotions called satanism. And in some cases to be driven 302 00:17:29,985 --> 00:17:31,075 into committing terrible deeds. 303 00:17:46,511 --> 00:17:52,334 Geraldo on NBC looking concerned. What else did you need? And you 304 00:17:52,334 --> 00:17:55,674 can't miss the irony. The same television industry warning 305 00:17:55,674 --> 00:17:58,734 parents about Satan was also selling us murderers, demons, 306 00:17:59,144 --> 00:18:02,994 monsters, and slashes sometimes on the same night. Fear was 307 00:18:02,994 --> 00:18:06,734 entertainment and the panic made fantastic television. Many of 308 00:18:06,734 --> 00:18:09,454 the experts clearly believe what they were saying. You don't have 309 00:18:09,454 --> 00:18:12,374 to be dishonest to spread something that isn't true. 310 00:18:12,374 --> 00:18:15,974 Belief and proof are different things. And for years, the 311 00:18:15,974 --> 00:18:20,389 satanic panic blurred the line. And then we get into one that 312 00:18:20,389 --> 00:18:24,419 had a lot of teenagers in the 80s. The music. Because sooner 313 00:18:24,419 --> 00:18:27,419 or later, every story about terrified parents in the 80s 314 00:18:27,419 --> 00:18:31,019 ends up in the record collection. Heavy metal was practically 315 00:18:31,019 --> 00:18:34,119 designed for this. We look at it from a parent's point of view, 316 00:18:34,119 -->

00:18:38,579 bands called Slayer, Venom Black Sabbath, album covers with 317 00:18:38,579 --> 00:18:42,589 demons, skulls, and fire, concerts with leather, pyro, 318 00:18:42,589 --> 00:18:46,109 techniques, and fake blood. Lyrics about death, hell, sex, 319 00:18:46,109 --> 00:18:49,119 and drugs. Then somebody started telling the parents that even 320 00:18:49,119 --> 00:18:52,759 the band names were hidden messages. RUSH was short for 321 00:18:52,759 --> 00:18:57,399 Raised Under Satan's House. ACDC became Antichrist Devils 322 00:18:57,399 --> 00:19:00,539 Children. WASP picked up to a couple of meanings with we are 323 00:19:00,539 --> 00:19:04,099 Satan's people fitting the bill nicely. And probably the most 324 00:19:04,099 --> 00:19:08,699 famous KISS supposedly meant knights in Satan's service. None 325 00:19:08,699 --> 00:19:11,279 of that was actually where those names came from. But once the 326 00:19:11,279 --> 00:19:14,779 rumors started, it didn't matter. And a lot of what frightened 327 00:19:14,779 --> 00:19:18,739 people about metal was theater. Dark imagery was fun. It was 328 00:19:18,739 --> 00:19:21,799 shocking. It sold records. Scaring somebody's parents had 329 00:19:21,799 --> 00:19:25,059 been a reliable teenage marketing strategy, since Elvis 330 00:19:25,059 --> 00:19:28,738 started shaking in his hips on the Ed Sullivan show. A guy in 331 00:19:28,738 --> 00:19:31,918 makeup breathing fire isn't automatically in a secret cult. 332 00:19:31,918 --> 00:19:34,898 He just figured out your mom hating the album is the best 333 00:19:34,898 --> 00:19:38,252 advertising he could ever get. Then came the theory that 334 00:19:38,252 --> 00:19:42,371 changed how a lot of parents listened, backmasking. If you 335 00:19:42,371 --> 00:19:45,151 spent any time in youth groups in the '80s, there's a good 336 00:19:45,151 --> 00:19:48,411 chance somebody played a record backward for you. The claim was 337 00:19:48,411 --> 00:19:51,941 that hidden messages praising Satan could be buried in songs, 338 00:19:51,941 --> 00:19:55,151 and slipping to your unconscious mind, even if you couldn't 339 00:19:55,151 --> 00:19:58,938 consciously hear them. Lawmakers held hearings, warning labels 340 00:19:58,938 --> 00:20:02,138 were proposed, preachers played records backwards for 341 00:20:02,138 --> 00:20:05,718 congregations, and some churches held record burnings, which 342 00:20:05,718 --> 00:20:07,958 probably did more for heavy metal sales than anything the 343 00:20:07,958 --> 00:20:11,118 bands themselves could have come up with. My mom didn't burn 344 00:20:11,118 --> 00:20:14,358 records but she did break every kiss album my sisters owned and 345 00:20:14,358 --> 00:20:17,038 threw them away. This wasn't something distant happening on 346 00:20:17,038 --> 00:20:20,618 the news. It made it into households around America. The 347 00:20:20,618 --> 00:20:24,458 problem with backmasking is the power of suggestion. Play almost 348 00:20:24,458 --> 00:20:27,858 any sound backward, tell someone what words to listen for, and 349 00:20:27,858 --> 00:20:31,638 there's a decent chance they'll hear them. That's suggestion. 350 00:20:31,638 --> 00:20:34,658 Play the gibberish first and then ask ten people what they 351 00:20:34,658 --> 00:20:37,618 hear, and you'll probably get ten different answers. Tell them 352 00:20:37,618 --> 00:20:40,518 Satan says something specific, play it again and suddenly the 353 00:20:40,518 --> 00:20:43,898 room starts hearing Satan. I mean give me a record of turn 354 00:20:43,898 --> 00:20:46,238 table and a decent imagination, and I'll get Mötley Crüe to 355 00:20:46,238 --> 00:20:49,238 order you a pizza. The funny part is that Christian metal was 356 00:20:49,238 --> 00:20:52,818 growing at the same time. Stryper had the hair, the loud 357 00:20:52,818 --> 00:20:56,038 guitars, the spandex, the bigger Reena show, except they were 358 00:20:56,038 --> 00:20:59,038 throwing bibles into the crowd. But if you couldn't hear the 359 00:20:59,038 --> 00:21:01,538 lyrics, good luck figuring out which side of the spiritual war 360 00:21:01,538 --> 00:21:04,358 you were looking at. But some of the arguments about Heavy Metal 361 00:21:04,358 --> 00:21:08,578 were tied to real tragedy. In December of 1985, two young men 362 00:21:08,578 --> 00:21:11,998 in Nevada listened to a Judas Priest album before attempting 363 00:21:11,998 --> 00:21:15,098 suicide. One of them died that night, the other survived but 364 00:21:15,098 --> 00:21:18,758 had catastrophic injuries and died a few years later. Their 365 00:21:18,758 --> 00:21:21,938 families eventually sued Judas Priest in CBS Records arguing 366 00:21:21,938 --> 00:21:24,818 that the subliminal message hidden in the music had 367 00:21:24,818 --> 00:21:29,022 contributed to the boy's death. Now the case went to trial in 368 00:21:29,022 --> 00:21:32,102 1990 and the judge ultimately ruled that the sound being 369 00:21:32,102 --> 00:21:35,002 interpreted as a hidden command had not been shown to cause the 370 00:21:35,002 --> 00:21:38,482 young man's actions. Their families were looking for an 371 00:21:38,482 --> 00:21:41,282 explanation for something unbearable and Heavy Metal and 372 00:21:41,282 --> 00:21:44,702 the larger panic offered one that seemed simple, the music 373 00:21:44,702 --> 00:21:48,560 did it. The trial also brought out problems involving substance 374 00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,100 use, family conflict and other struggles. A record gives you 375 00:21:52,100 --> 00:21:55,020 something you can hold in your hand and blame, but human pain 376 00:21:55,020 --> 00:21:58,440 isn't that convenient. There is a much bigger fight about music 377 00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:02,120 in the 80s involving the PMRC, Senate hearings, Dee Snyder, 378 00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:05,420 Frank Zappa and a warning sticker. It deserves its own 379

00:22:05,420 --> 00:22:08,440 episode and it's going to get one later in our lineup. But for 380 00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:11,460 today the point is simple. Metal didn't have to be literally 381 00:22:11,460 --> 00:22:14,840 Satanism to frighten people, it only had to look and sound like 382 00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:18,840 a world parents didn't recognize. And for a 13 year old kid having 383 00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,660 your parents absolutely hate your music was practically a 384 00:22:21,660 --> 00:22:26,528 five star review. When parents weren't blaming music they were 385 00:22:26,528 --> 00:22:30,268 blaming games, specifically Dungeons and Dragons. By the 386 00:22:30,268 --> 00:22:33,548 early 80s it was everywhere basements, bedrooms, cafeterias, 387 00:22:33,548 --> 00:22:37,228 college dorms, kids huddled over graph paper with funny shaped 388 00:22:37,228 --> 00:22:40,858 dice. If you've never played the D&D it's really a storytelling game. 389 00:22:41,248 --> 00:22:44,868 One person the dungeon master describes a world, everyone else 390 00:22:44,868 --> 00:22:47,908 plays a character. You decide what your character does and the 391 00:22:47,908 --> 00:22:51,178 dice help you decide what happens. It's all set in the 392 00:22:51,178 --> 00:22:54,108 fantasy world filled with places like the Isle of Dread, The Tomb 393 00:22:54,108 --> 00:22:57,839 of Horrors and The Temple of Elemental Evil. And if you're 394 00:22:57,839 --> 00:23:00,719 already worried about Satanism some of the vocabulary doesn't 395 00:23:00,719 --> 00:23:04,959 help. Demons, spells, necromancers, gods, magic. There 396 00:23:04,959 --> 00:23:07,639 were monsters called demons and devils right in their books 397 00:23:07,639 --> 00:23:10,999 complete with illustrations. So imagine you spent Sunday morning 398 00:23:10,999 --> 00:23:13,859 listening to a seminar about satanism. You walk downstairs 399 00:23:13,859 --> 00:23:16,479 and your kid and his friends are talking about summoning a demon 400 00:23:16,479 --> 00:23:20,559 lord. To you that's a confession. To your kid he just needs a roll 401 00:23:20,559 --> 00:23:24,759 of 14 or better. The panic over D&D got one of its early faces 402 00:23:24,759 --> 00:23:29,379 in 1979 when a young man, James Egbert, the third disappeared 403 00:23:29,379 --> 00:23:32,739 from Michigan State University. He was highly intelligent and 404 00:23:32,739 --> 00:23:36,439 deeply troubled. Earlier reports connect his disappearance to D&D 405 00:23:36,439 --> 00:23:39,139 and suggest he might have gotten lost in campus steam tunnels 406 00:23:39,139 --> 00:23:42,099 while playing some kind of live action version of the game. And 407 00:23:42,099 --> 00:23:45,579 the press ran with it. A brilliant teenager, a fantasy 408 00:23:45,579 --> 00:23:48,159 game, secret tunnels, you couldn't write a better made for 409 00:23:48,159 --> 00:23:52,590 TV setup. Egbert was found alive weeks later and later accounts 410 00:23:52,590 --> 00:23:55,190 made clear that D&D was not the explanation for what he'd been 411 00:23:55,190 --> 00:23:58,250 going through. He died by the following year, by then though 412 00:23:58,250 --> 00:24:02,950 the association with D&D had stuck. This D&D was a game that 413 00:24:02,950 --> 00:24:06,400 made kids disappear. Then it literally became a TV movie. 414 00:24:19,860 --> 00:24:24,670 That Tom Hanks. Before splash or big or forest gump, America got 415 00:24:24,670 --> 00:24:28,290 Tom Hanks losing his mind over a role-playing game in a cave. 416 00:24:28,290 --> 00:24:31,110 Hanks played Robbie, a troubled college student whose friends 417 00:24:31,110 --> 00:24:35,010 play a role-playing game called Maze's and Monsters. Now Robbie 418 00:24:35,010 --> 00:24:38,110 gradually loses his ability to separate fantasy from reality 419 00:24:38,110 --> 00:24:41,150 and his friends have to help him. The movie does make clear that 420 00:24:41,150 --> 00:24:44,030 Robbie already had serious problems, but the image that 421 00:24:44,030 --> 00:24:47,870 stuck was much simpler. Kid plays fantasy game, Kid loses 422 00:24:47,870 --> 00:24:52,050 touch with reality. Then came Patricia Pulling. In 1982, she 423 00:24:52,050 --> 00:24:56,130 lost her 16-year-old son Irving to suicide. Again, this was 424 00:24:56,130 --> 00:24:59,130 apparent dealing with unimaginable grief. She became 425 00:24:59,130 --> 00:25:02,550 convinced D&D had contributed to his death. She filed lawsuits 426 00:25:02,550 --> 00:25:06,390 that were unsuccessful and founded bad, bothered about 427 00:25:06,390 --> 00:25:10,730 dungeons and dragons. She became one of the most visible anti-D&D 428 00:25:10,730 --> 00:25:13,870 activists in the country. She spoke publicly, appeared in the 429 00:25:13,870 --> 00:25:16,670 media and warned that the game exposed children to Satanism and 430 00:25:16,670 --> 00:25:20,970 the occult. Claims are on the game expanded. Real spells, 431 00:25:20,970 --> 00:25:24,890 occult practices, murder, satanic recruitment. The claims 432 00:25:24,890 --> 00:25:27,770 were extraordinary, but the research didn't support any link 433 00:25:27,770 --> 00:25:31,350 between D&D and any of those outcomes. The controversy even 434 00:25:31,350 --> 00:25:34,530 affected the game itself. When the second edition came out in 435 00:25:34,530 --> 00:25:37,390 1989 some of the more controversial demons and devils 436 00:25:37,390 --> 00:25:40,930 in related material were renamed or even removed. And here's the 437 00:25:40,930 --> 00:25:44,790 part I love. In 1983, right in the middle of all the warnings 438 00:25:44,790 --> 00:25:48,810 about D&D, CBS started airing the dungeons and dragons 439 00:25:48,810 --> 00:25:53,470 Saturday morning cartoons. Six kids pulled from reality into a 440 00:25:53,470 --> 00:25:56,610 fantasy world, magic weapons, dungeon master, vanguard, the 441 00:25:56,610 -->

00:26:00,150 whole thing. So CBS warned America about a role playing 442 00:26:00,150 --> 00:26:03,950 game with Tom Hanks in 1982. Then they put dungeons and 443 00:26:03,950 --> 00:26:07,190 dragons in front of America's children on Saturday mornings in 444 00:26:07,190 --> 00:26:12,797 1983. That pretty much sums up the 80s. Adults saw D&D as 445 00:26:12,797 --> 00:26:15,697 isolating, but it was actually pretty social. D&D required you 446 00:26:15,697 --> 00:26:19,137 to sit around the table with a group of people. You had a talk, 447 00:26:19,137 --> 00:26:23,377 cooperate, solve problems, read, do math, improvise and use your 448 00:26:23,377 --> 00:26:26,197 imagination. If you were the awkward kid who didn't quite fit 449 00:26:26,197 --> 00:26:29,677 in anywhere else, suddenly you had a party of people who needed 450 00:26:29,677 --> 00:26:32,617 you because someone had to be the cleric. The thing Adults 451 00:26:32,617 --> 00:26:35,777 feared was cutting kids off from the world was for a lot of kids 452 00:26:35,777 --> 00:26:39,708 how they found each other. There's a bigger question 453 00:26:39,708 --> 00:26:42,588 underneath of all of this. What did the satanic panic actually 454 00:26:42,588 --> 00:26:46,528 do to the kids living through it? What did it do to us? And kids 455 00:26:46,528 --> 00:26:50,228 is kind of generic. A six year old, a 16 year old, and a 19 456 00:26:50,228 --> 00:26:53,908 year old lived through different versions of the same panic. If 457 00:26:53,908 --> 00:26:56,468 you were little, you may have absorbed a cloud of fear. You 458 00:26:56,468 --> 00:26:59,528 didn't really understand, stranger danger. Don't talk to 459 00:26:59,528 --> 00:27:03,508 anyone. Don't take candy, except for Halloween, I guess. Adults 460 00:27:03,508 --> 00:27:06,942 whispering about something too awful to explain. Now some of 461 00:27:06,942 --> 00:27:10,102 the safety education that came out of the era was useful. Kids 462 00:27:10,102 --> 00:27:12,322 learned more about boundaries and what they should tell 463 00:27:12,322 --> 00:27:15,162 someone if an adult hurt them or made them uncomfortable. Those 464 00:27:15,162 --> 00:27:18,762 are lessons children need. But the panic layered something else 465 00:27:18,762 --> 00:27:22,962 over them, the sense that danger wasn't merely possible. It was 466 00:27:22,962 --> 00:27:25,784 everywhere. If you were a teenager, the message was a 467 00:27:25,784 --> 00:27:29,795 little different. We don't trust what you're into. Wear the wrong 468 00:27:29,795 --> 00:27:32,975 t-shirt and a teacher gives you a look. Listen to the wrong band 469 00:27:32,975 --> 00:27:36,155 and your parents search through your room. Play the wrong game 470 00:27:36,155 --> 00:27:38,245 and someone starts wondering, what are you getting involved 471 00:27:38,245 --> 00:27:42,142 with? And a lot of us learned to hide it, not because we were 472 00:27:42,142 --> 00:27:44,782

doing anything dangerous but because explaining ourselves was 473 00:27:44,782 --> 00:27:47,962 more trouble than it was worth. And that was me. I wasn't 474 00:27:47,962 --> 00:27:50,642 allowed to play D&D, wasn't allowed to listen to heavy metal 475 00:27:50,642 --> 00:27:54,302 music. I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies, so naturally, I 476 00:27:54,302 --> 00:27:57,402 played D&D, listen to heavy metal and watch horror movies. I 477 00:27:57,402 --> 00:28:00,322 just did it all behind my parents back. And that creates 478 00:28:00,322 --> 00:28:03,322 its own problem. The more we hide things, the less our 479 00:28:03,322 --> 00:28:06,002 parents trust us and the less they trust us, the more we're 480 00:28:06,002 --> 00:28:09,242 going to keep hiding things. It's a vicious cycle. And a lot 481 00:28:09,242 --> 00:28:12,202 of us loved our parents. We loved our churches. But we also 482 00:28:12,202 --> 00:28:14,842 knew that the music, the movies, and the games we were being 483 00:28:14,842 --> 00:28:18,942 warned about didn't feel evil or satanic at all. At some point, 484 00:28:18,942 --> 00:28:21,642 we started realizing the world doesn't get divided neatly into 485 00:28:21,642 --> 00:28:24,982 good and bad as neatly as the adults told us it was. And for 486 00:28:24,982 --> 00:28:27,782 some people, the consequences went far beyond hiding an album 487 00:28:27,782 --> 00:28:31,092 from mom. People were accused of crimes. Families were destroyed. 488 00:28:31,702 --> 00:28:34,522 Children went through terrifying interviews. Real abuse cases 489 00:28:34,522 --> 00:28:38,262 became tangled up in sensational claims. There was real damage 490 00:28:38,262 --> 00:28:40,522 underneath the goofy stories about backwards records and 491 00:28:40,522 --> 00:28:43,722 20-sided dice. But there's another piece of the Gen X 492 00:28:43,722 --> 00:28:46,362 experience here. We built communities around the things 493 00:28:46,362 --> 00:28:49,362 adults told us were dangerous. If someone called you a devil 494 00:28:49,362 --> 00:28:51,822 worshipper because you listened to metal, you found other 495 00:28:51,822 --> 00:28:55,282 metalheads. If someone told you that D&D was dangerous, you went 496 00:28:55,282 --> 00:28:58,762 downstairs with your friends and built worlds. If horror movies 497 00:28:58,762 --> 00:29:01,702 were supposedly rotting in our brain, we found people who knew 498 00:29:01,702 --> 00:29:06,082 Tom Savini's name. Some started bands, made Zines, some became 499 00:29:06,082 --> 00:29:09,202 artists, writers, filmmakers, and game designers. That wasn't 500 00:29:09,202 --> 00:29:12,182 the benefit of the panic. It was what young people did in 501 00:29:12,182 --> 00:29:16,406 response to it. The stigma became part of the identity and 502 00:29:16,406 --> 00:29:19,166 communities got stronger because the people inside them had been 503 00:29:19,166 --> 00:29:22,766 told over and over that they

were the outsiders. And maybe 504 00:29:22,766 --> 00:29:26,306 the biggest lesson was even simpler. Adults could be wrong. 505 00:29:26,306 --> 00:29:31,658 Not casually wrong. confidently, publicly, and sincerely wrong. 506 00:29:32,196 --> 00:29:35,256 The expert on television could be wrong. The guy giving the 507 00:29:35,256 --> 00:29:39,433 seminar could be wrong. The newspaper could be wrong. Fear 508 00:29:39,433 --> 00:29:42,533 can sound a lot like certainty when you're a kid. Learning the 509 00:29:42,533 --> 00:29:46,854 difference was a pretty useful Gen X survival skill. So how did 510 00:29:46,854 --> 00:29:50,334 it all end? Not with some big televised correction. Nobody 511 00:29:50,334 --> 00:29:53,214 came on the news one night and said, "Okay, everybody, turns 512 00:29:53,214 --> 00:29:57,487 out there wasn't a giant satanic conspiracy. My bad." It just 513 00:29:57,487 --> 00:30:01,576 started falling apart slowly a little bit at a time. Cases 514 00:30:01,576 --> 00:30:05,476 collapsed. Convictions were overturned. Researchers 515 00:30:05,476 --> 00:30:08,596 challenged some recovered memory practices. Investigators like 516 00:30:08,596 --> 00:30:11,356 Kenneth Laning kept asking for evidence of the vast networks 517 00:30:11,356 --> 00:30:15,016 being described and the evidence never showed up. By the early 518 00:30:15,016 --> 00:30:17,796 90s, the cultural tide was turning and the wildest 519 00:30:17,796 --> 00:30:21,496 allegations gradually faded from mainstream coverage. 520 00:30:21,496 --> 00:30:24,736 Unfortunately, the damage didn't fade with them. Some useful 521 00:30:24,736 --> 00:30:28,516 lessons did survive. Child abuse and investigation became more 522 00:30:28,516 --> 00:30:31,816 careful about their interviewing. A lot of us got immediate 523 00:30:31,816 --> 00:30:35,016 literacy less in the hard way. Who is telling you this? How do 524 00:30:35,016 --> 00:30:37,776 they know? What is the evidence? And the question that probably 525 00:30:37,776 --> 00:30:40,713 should have been asked a lot more in the 80s? Are we sure? 526 00:30:42,032 --> 00:30:44,832 Meanwhile, the supposedly dangerous culture won. Metal 527 00:30:44,832 --> 00:30:48,552 survived, whore survived. Dungeon and Dragons more than 528 00:30:48,552 --> 00:30:51,812 survived. It's mainstream now. Celebrities play it. People 529 00:30:51,812 --> 00:30:55,672 stream campaigns to enormous audiences. Stranger Things built 530 00:30:55,672 --> 00:30:58,492 one of the biggest television shows in the last decade around 531 00:30:58,492 --> 00:31:01,452 kids playing D&D and the Demogorgon became a pop culture 532 00:31:02,282 --> 00:31:05,122 monster all over again. There are probably parents buying 533 00:31:05,122 --> 00:31:08,502 Demogorgon toys for their kids who had been told 35 years ago 534 00:31:08,502 --> 00:31:11,739 that the game was satanic. But the satanic panic wasn't 535 00:31:11,739 --> 00:31:15,019 interesting only because people believed some wild things in the 536 00:31:15,019 --> 00:31:18,479 80s. It's interesting because you can see how the machinery 537 00:31:18,479 --> 00:31:21,699 works. Starting with something real, child abuse, missing 538 00:31:21,699 --> 00:31:25,219 childrens, teenagers, struggling, parents scared by culture 539 00:31:25,219 --> 00:31:28,379 changing faster than they can understand. Then offer one 540 00:31:28,349 --> 00:31:31,639 explanation that connects everything. Give that threat a 541 00:31:31,639 --> 00:31:35,719 face. Find experts who confirm it. Put it on television and 542 00:31:35,719 --> 00:31:38,559 repeat it until everyone has heard the same story. And 543 00:31:38,559 --> 00:31:41,159 eventually the story everybody has heard starts getting 544 00:31:41,159 --> 00:31:44,786 mistaken for the truth. Today, a rumor doesn't need Geraldo 545 00:31:44,786 --> 00:31:47,566 Rivera and two hours of NBC primetime. It doesn't even need 546 00:31:47,566 --> 00:31:51,236 a church basement. It just needs social media. The machinery is 547 00:31:51,236 --> 00:31:55,196 faster now but the human part hasn't changed. Fear, 548 00:31:55,196 --> 00:31:58,056 uncertainty, the desire for a simple explanation and the need 549 00:31:58,056 --> 00:32:01,576 for somebody to blame. America had a legitimate reason to worry 550 00:32:01,576 --> 00:32:05,276 about kids. The mistake wasn't caring too much about them. The 551 00:32:05,276 --> 00:32:08,183 mistake was letting the fear decide what the evidence meant. 552 00:32:09,430 --> 00:32:12,670 And in the middle of it all were the kids. Us sitting in the 553 00:32:12,670 --> 00:32:15,610 folding chairs, rolling 20 sided dice, listening to records we 554 00:32:15,610 --> 00:32:18,570 weren't supposed to own, keeping it cassette hidden somewhere our 555 00:32:18,570 --> 00:32:21,250 parents would never find it. And wondering how something that 556 00:32:21,250 --> 00:32:24,470 seemed perfectly normal to us could look so terrifying to them. 557 00:32:25,252 --> 00:32:28,672 Now we're all adults, which is a little disturbing all by itself. 558 00:32:29,461 --> 00:32:31,881 We're the ones looking at whatever our kids are watching, 559 00:32:31,881 --> 00:32:34,221 listening to, playing or doing online wondering what the heck 560 00:32:34,221 --> 00:32:37,731 it is. So maybe the thing to remember is what it felt like 561 00:32:37,691 --> 00:32:40,641 when someone looked at our music and our games and decided they 562 00:32:40,641 --> 00:32:43,841 understood us without ever really asking. Every generation 563 00:32:43,841 --> 00:32:46,441 finds something about the next one it doesn't understand. That 564 00:32:46,441 --> 00:32:48,981 doesn't mean there isn't anything worth worrying about. 565 00:32:48,981 --> 00:32:51,617 It means being afraid of something doesn't make it true. 566 00:32:52,432 --> 00:32:58,176 And after all, we turned out okay. Mostly. That's going to 567 00:32:58,176 --> 00:33:01,336 end our at the satanic panic. One of the strangest, saddest 568 00:33:01,336 --> 00:33:04,516 and most revealing stretches of our childhood. And we talked a 569 00:33:04,516 --> 00:33:07,896 little bit about suicide in this episode and that subject is 570 00:33:07,896 --> 00:33:11,376 personal for me. So if you or someone you know is struggling, 571 00:33:11,376 --> 00:33:14,976 you can call or text 988 in the United States anytime day or 572 00:33:14,976 --> 00:33:19,447 night and get help. If you have a story about a banned album, 573 00:33:19,447 --> 00:33:21,627 the game you weren't allowed to play or one of those church 574 00:33:21,627 --> 00:33:23,987 basement warnings, you still remember I'd love to hear it. 575 00:33:24,297 --> 00:33:27,927 Send it over to podcast@genxarchives.com. Or 576 00:33:27,927 --> 00:33:33,487 call the voicemail line 720 722 1066. Especially the church 577 00:33:33,487 --> 00:33:35,647 basement stories. I know you have some of them and those are 578 00:33:35,647 --> 00:33:38,627 always the good ones. Now the full source list for this 579 00:33:38,627 --> 00:33:42,859 episode is in the show notes at genxarchives.com/3. If 580 00:33:42,859 --> 00:33:45,759 you're enjoying the podcast, the easiest way to support it is to 581 00:33:45,759 --> 00:33:48,299 tell someone about it. If you're listening on your phone, send 582 00:33:48,299 --> 00:33:50,919 them the episode right now. So thanks for listening and thanks 583 00:33:50,919 --> 00:33:53,769 for continued support of the Gen X Archives podcast, 584 00:33:53,769 --> 00:33:55,869 preserving analog memories in the digital world.