George Bailey Was Never Born

A deep dive into the Wonderful Life Festival in western New York's Seneca Falls, a town that makes a powerful case that it is “the real Bedford Falls.”  Annually every December, one of the last surviving people associated with the production of It's a Wonderful Life, Karolyn “Zuzu” Grimes, travels there to join thousands of fans.  What about this nearly 80 year old movie keeps it so beloved?  And what motivates Karolyn?  We’ll learn the surprisingly pertinent answers, the story of how a Hollywood child actress turned rural everywoman – who never saw the movie until a fateful knock on her door at age 40 changed the direction of her life – found a second home and forever changed one small town.  SaveGeorgeBailey.com

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A fan love letter to It's a Wonderful Life, this episode dives deeply into the period over the 1970s and ‘80s when the movie played around the clock on local TV and Americans fell in love with it, asking why writer Philip Van Doren Stern’s sliding-doors butterfly-effect concept of each person’s value and impact on all others acquired such currency with Americans of that place and time.  What resurrected Wonderful Life after nearly three decades?  We become the first to tell the tale of how the combination of a whoops by Rashida Jones’ grandfather and a decade-long NYC viewing party launched this movie from obscurity to American icon.  We look at the endless string of TV episodes and movies inspired by Wonderful Life and talk with the writers of one of the very first, a 1979 Robin Williams starring sitcom’s “Wonderful Mork” episode, to understand the deep universal appeal of considering what the world would be like without you.  Finally, we come to 1989, peak year for “take-offs” on this movie, many decidedly dark.  Why?  SaveGeorgeBailey.com

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Bailey Was Never Born, a one-of-a-kind podcast experience, takes a definitive look at It’s a Wonderful Life, one of the most popular movies of all time, the story of Americans’ decades-long love affair with this cultural institution and how it may offer a light down the path we walk today, all 10 episodes available Nov 21, 2023.  Created by Kurt Engfehr, the editor-producer of Oscar- and Palme d’Or-winning documentaries, and Ray Nowosielski, 2022 NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast, the series is a co-production of iHeartMedia and Double Asterisk, in association with True Stories.  Narrated by a familiar angel, he takes listeners back and forth between the part of the multiverse where the events of Wonderful Life really happened and our own, one where George Bailey was never born!  SaveGeorgeBailey.com

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.