A Million Ways to Die in the Fifties
- Niamh Barry
- May 4, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 25, 2020
PODCAST REFLECTON – by Snazzy Bazzy
In the beginning, we struggled to find something concrete to discuss in our podcast, as the designs from the 1950’s were made in a post war world with limited supplies and funding. Although there were some major breakthroughs in the fifties like the development of penicillin antibiotics, bar codes, oral contraceptives and the credit card, we found it difficult to find a strong link between all of these designs. So, instead of pretending to find the design of microwave dinners and colour television fascinating just to fill the podcast time, we decided to make a satirical podcast about the dangerous and down right bonkers ideas they had. We called it “A Million Ways to Die in the 50’s” after the popular movie “A Million Way’s to Die in the West”. We found a lot more to talk about; such as cars sans seat belts, dangerous advertisement for soft drinks encouraging people to feed their babies 7-up to make them “grow big and strong”, poorly designed planes and lead paint. We initially thought about making an entire podcast about their deadly designs but instead we wanted to talk about some other things too. We thought about having a podcast including three sections “A Million Ways to Die in the 50’s”, “Back to the 50’s” and the “Yí’s and Há’s” of the 50’s. In retrospect, we found that, that many sections made the podcast almost double the allotted duration so we cut the third section entirely. To be honest, we could have made an entire podcast for each of these segments and turn it into a series.
In the segment “Back to the 50’s”, we researched and discussed the predictions people back then had for 2020. None of them considered the possibility of a wee global pandemic however. Their predictions were a bit wacky but fun to discuss. They thought we’d have things like self-cleaning dining tables and ape driven vehicles. If we had more time it would have been interesting to see what predictions we have for the future. Provided the human race isn’t wiped out by the Covid-19; the producers of the new Bat Man must be regretting their decision big time. Personally in 2050, if we’re all still alive and kicking, I think we’ll be driving electric vehicles, they’ll definitely be some horrifying link between iPhone's and cancer and Queen Elizabeth will probably still be around since she’s basically immortal, probably from all the swans she’s been consuming.
I found the Podcast quite enjoyable to make. Even though because we had to record it remotely due to lockdown, my rural broadband connection made my screen look like war footage and sound like someone crinkling a packet of crisps, it was fun to record. As a result of my dodgy internet connection I don't speak as much as the others in the podcast itself as that would be pretty painful for the listeners. I did however write and research quite a lot of the material used i the script to make up for it. We initially followed the entire script by word but that felt unnatural and false so we used the script as cues instead. This made it feel more conversational and a lot less robotic and dull. We did have to record it multiple times because it ran over the time limit from all of our waffling. I’d like to think we took an interesting approach to the podcast without just listing some designs and calling it a day. I even got a chance to be a part of another podcast (1960's) where I was asked to discuss how women are represented in design, something I have researched a lot already for my debate a few weeks ago. I thought the girls idea to ask members of the public to submit a ten second recording about their thoughts on the matter was refreshing and almost had the sense of a news report on RTÉ. I think we’ve learned a lot about a design era recovering from a War in an interesting way in the sense that we focused on the design mistakes rather than the successes.. Obviously we didn’t get to record it as we would have liked but since we are all in the same (hopefully not sinking) ship it I think we made a good effort.
You can listen to our podcast here under the title: Podcast 1950-60
(Collectorsweekly.com, 2012)
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