Show Notes Episode 474: Santa Went to Sears
This week Host Dave Bledsoe was ejected from Macy’s after getting drunk and trying to climb on Santa’s lap. (He also tried to kiss him under the beard.) On the show this week we celebrate the True Meaning of Christmas™: The annual Sears Wishbook Catalog.
Along the way we learn that Dave was playing with dolls well into puberty. (It would be slightly less sad if they were sex dolls, but they weren’t). Then we learn a brief history of commerce in human history before he finally gets around to talking about Sears. We learn how the Wishbook went from a Depression era supplement to the annual announcement of the Christmas Season for an entire Generation. (This is one thing that belongs to Generation X entirely. Boomers got pensions, we got a discontinued catalog.) Dave explains the math behind toy acquisition before the Internet before detailing why the Wishbook is no more. (It is more Walmart than Amazon.) Finally, we close with the cultural impact of the Wishbook and a frankly unnecessary digression into how the catalog framed the sexual awakening of Gen X boys. (We’re so sorry.)
Our Returning Sponsor this week is the USS Flagg, the toy that made you realize you were poor. We open the show with a Sears commercial from 1985 and close Zoot Fenster who has some questions about the items in the catalog.
Show Theme: Hypnostate Prelude to Common Sense
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Citations Needed:
The Rise and Fall of Sears
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/rise-and-fall-sears-180964181/
The Sears Wish Book Changed the Way America Does Christmas
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/christmas-ideas/a29729515/sears-wish-book-history/
Sears' Wish Book What Does Its Passing Say About Us?
https://web.archive.org/web/20150218050815/http://articles.philly.com/1993-01-29/news/25961807_1_middle-class-sears-tools
Literature of Desire: The 1976 Sears Christmas Wish Book
https://rolfpotts.com/1976-sears-christmas-wish-book/
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