The late '90s were such a different time... kinda. But the last real decade still had plenty of fakers, grifters, and scam artists, all offering up questionable spirituality and easy answers... just like now! Enter Miss Cleo, the legendarily scammy fakin' Jamaican phony phone-based psychic and the face of a highly profitable long con, the Psychic Readers Network. 

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A Southern Gothic thriller for the ages, this is the tale of a Coen Brothers-esque kidnapping gone sideways. A bumbling couple take a magazine subscription heir prisoner to fund the purchase of their dream home, and the whole saga is later chronicled by the inventor of a game in which one hunts humans. Listener Lane Price tipped us off to this epic, delivering a Southern fried wild ride.

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1977 was the year punk broke. It was also the Silver Jubilee year, which was a special celebration to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Never one to miss publicity, the princes of punk rock, the Sex Pistols, released their new single, God Save the Queen, and chartered a boat tour just to mock the monarch, which resulted in a police beatdown. It was truly anarchy in the UK.

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Listen, we all love art. But this dude LOVES art. So much so that he steals it and never lets go. His mom, though, isn't afraid of turning some loose. It's like they say: if you love something, set it free…into a canal.

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At the start of 2024, a conservative mayor of a small charming French seaside nudist resort town was accused of embezzlement and illegal use of city funds. Allegedly, he was secretly paying a fortune-telling ventriloquist, a woman who claimed she could speak with the dead, so that the mayor could hear from his dear departed daddy. The result? Le scandal! 

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Sometimes you need to fly the friendly skies, but you don't have a ticket. There was a time when the solution was to just sneak onto a plane and act like ya know. Follow a handful of young and young-ish scofflaws as they sneak aboard, confound security, and have unforgettable adventures that, of course, end in cuffs. 

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In the early '80s, America faced a dire existential threat...in the form of "Pac-Man Fever." A moral panic feared that a generation of kids would be lost to the insidious new video game craze. Inspired by First Lady Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No," America's moral scolds fought back. 

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Zany! That's how people described Robert Baudin, aerial photographer and counterfeiter extraordinaire. But he was more than zany. He was bold. He was crafty. And like Exclamation Perfume, the popular scent of the early 90s, he made a statement without saying a word. 

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What do you get when the Supreme Leader of North Korea has a sports crush on Michael Jordan but can't get the NBA great to come see him? Well, you settle for Jordan teammate, Dennis Rodman. And before you know it that one choice leads to international hijinks, political intrigue, denuclearization talks, and the revelation that Dennis Rodman may be a real life superspy.

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It's one thing to bilk the gullible who are looking to make a quick buck, it's quite another to con those who are looking for healing and salvation. It's terrible. Sickening. Despite the valiant efforts of a skeptic magician, it looks like Peter Popoff is still selling holy water and phony debt relief. This episode sounds like a bummer, but somehow it isn't.

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