This Was A Thing: The Retro Podcast

59: Hair Club for Men; Or, Whip Your Weave Back and Forth


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Wigs, plugs, toupés - so many solutions to hair loss, but all with their own issues and drawbacks. Was there any hope for real change? Was baldness an unavoidable condition? Would someone ever come along and provide a solution that truly brought satisfaction to those wanting to return to their days of luscious locks? Enter Sy Sperling: a man with a flat yet dulcet voice, a bald patch, and a dream.

Rob teaches Ray a brief history of baldness in several cultures across the globe; how one man’s backup ad eventually became one of the most successful and memeable commercials of the 1970s; how Rogaine disrupted the hair replacement industry through medical means; Rob’s experience as both a patron and a promoter of hair-replacement solutions; and how Sy Sperling’s business and hair-weave savvy led him to found an enterprise that continues serving loyal clients (of which he himself was one) to this day.

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TEAM

Ray Hebel

Robert W. Schneider

Mark Schroeder

Billy Recce

Daniel Schwartzberg

Gabe Crawford

Natalie DeSavia


ARTICLES
EPISODE CLIPS

1984 Hair Club for men "Sy Sperling I'm not just the president" TV Commercial

Dick Van Dyke - Mary Tyler Moore's Apology

Telly Savalas | Kojak | Is he really bald? | Jermyn Street | London | TN-82-073-002

I liked the shaver so much I bought the company - Remington Ad 1979

Perdue Chicken TV commercial (1982)

Hair Club for Men, Ltd.


ADDITIONAL MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS

"Happy Bee"

• Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

• Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Additional Sound Effects from Final Cut ProiLife, and Logic Pro

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This Was A Thing: The Retro PodcastBy Robert W. Schneider

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