Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Rushion Interviews Adam Richman, host of the History Channel series "Adam Eats the 80s," & "The Food That Built America," gives us a blast from the past!

Transcript

Rushion Interviews Adam Richman, host of the History Channel series "Adam Eats the 80s," & "The Food That Built America," gives us a blast from the past! · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass. I'm your host with
0:05
Speaker 1: Sean McDonald. I recognize that we all have different definitions
0:08
Speaker 1: of success. For you, it may be the size of
0:10
Speaker 1: your paycheck. Mine is helping people and inspiring them to
0:13
Speaker 1: accomplish their goals and live their very best life. It's
0:16
Speaker 1: time to stop reading other people's success stories. I tell
0:18
Speaker 1: that people, I tell it every episode, and start writing
0:20
Speaker 1: your own. People always talking about purpose and gifts. If
0:23
Speaker 1: you have a gift or purpose, lead with your gift
0:25
Speaker 1: and don't let your friends, family, or co worker stop
0:28
Speaker 1: you from planning or living your dream. As always, I'm
0:31
Speaker 1: excited about about my guests of Money Making Conversation Masterclass,
0:34
Speaker 1: and today I'm even more excited when you sit down
0:36
Speaker 1: and watch a guy do things that you go I
0:38
Speaker 1: think I can do that. Not really, not really. His
0:40
Speaker 1: name is Adam Richmond. He is He made his name
0:43
Speaker 1: on TV as the start of Man Business few that
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Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many episodes I've seen that
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Speaker 1: this guy. He was willing to eat large amounts of
0:50
Speaker 1: food in short periods of time, taking these challenges from
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Speaker 1: various restaurants across the country. To me, it was the
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Speaker 1: world and alas now promoting this new series Adam the eighties,
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Speaker 1: like if you're a video, I got the big old
1:02
Speaker 1: box right here, they sit down here for marketing, and
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Speaker 1: I got all the little goodies that they put in
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Speaker 1: that box. The popular series also another populiceies that he
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Speaker 1: holds on the History Talent called The Food That Built America,
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Speaker 1: which is really really a cool show, is also airing
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Speaker 1: in season three. Both shows us like I said that
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Speaker 1: earlier or on Sunday nights on the History Channel. Now,
1:21
Speaker 1: let's get back to the eighties. That was a decade,
1:23
Speaker 1: you know, when food was all about the flavor. And
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Speaker 1: this ten episode series follows Richmond as he digs into
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Speaker 1: the most nostalgic and you said nostalgic because some of
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Speaker 1: the foods is out today and I'm still eating this.
1:34
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about that. So I may I
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Speaker 1: may be a bit of nostalgic and still just don't
1:38
Speaker 1: want to let go, just don't want to let go.
1:41
Speaker 1: But his views were relieved the decade by joining Richmond
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Speaker 1: and journey back to where these brands all began. That's
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Speaker 1: the really cool part about it. We're gonna talk about
1:49
Speaker 1: that during the interview learned about their majing secrets. Never
1:52
Speaker 1: reveal and watch this. Richmond tries versions of products that
1:55
Speaker 1: were never intended for public use. Please Walk with the
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Speaker 1: Money Making Conversations Masterclass. The host of two History Channel shows,
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Speaker 1: My man, Adam Richmond. How are you doing? Adam? Thank
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Speaker 1: you so much for having me. It's an honor. And
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Speaker 1: I'll tell some Adam, I would just go back to
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Speaker 1: a little history. Uh, just becoming a fan of yours.
2:12
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, as a younger guy, you know,
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Speaker 1: people always say, man, you can eat, you can eat,
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Speaker 1: you can eat. Okay, now now know on you. I
2:21
Speaker 1: can't eat. I can't eat. I I consume a nice
2:25
Speaker 1: amount of food. But I would tell you this. I'm
2:28
Speaker 1: gonna tell you this. I okay, how much money I make,
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Speaker 1: I'll still go to buffet's, man, I go to the corral.
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Speaker 1: I'll still roll up in there, man, and in child out.
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Speaker 1: So I enjoy variety, and I still I understand the
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Speaker 1: value of a great steakhouse. But boy, I want to
2:43
Speaker 1: go by our buffet is still enjoy that? What got
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Speaker 1: you into the business, Adam? Well, uh, yeah, I don't
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Speaker 1: eat like that normally. I don't think I don't be
2:52
Speaker 1: here if I. UM. I started acting when I was
2:58
Speaker 1: about nine, and I loved food and I love the language,
3:02
Speaker 1: the story of food, the shared communications through food and
3:07
Speaker 1: stuff like this. But it was always a hobby and advocation.
3:11
Speaker 1: And UM I was told like, I guess many Jews
3:14
Speaker 1: from the Northeast are told like, you're going to become
3:17
Speaker 1: a doctor. And that was the path I was on.
3:21
Speaker 1: And then UM slowly became a little disenchanted with science,
3:26
Speaker 1: fell more in love with languages. I speak French, I
3:29
Speaker 1: speak Hebrew, speak some Japanese. UM. And then UM I
3:35
Speaker 1: but began acting just on my own. I started came
3:40
Speaker 1: out of Emory University in Atlanta. I worked for the
3:42
Speaker 1: Olympics in nineties six and then Atlanta is a great
3:46
Speaker 1: town for a non union actor to start, at least
3:48
Speaker 1: it was in the mid nineties. And so food became
3:52
Speaker 1: a way to support my acting habits. So working at restaurants,
3:56
Speaker 1: working in kitchens, and UM, you end up with two
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Speaker 1: education and simultaneous in arts education in the culinary one
4:03
Speaker 1: and uh, flashing very far forward. I came out of
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Speaker 1: Yale Drama School, UM because I decided that if I
4:12
Speaker 1: got a master's from a good school. At very least
4:16
Speaker 1: I could teach in the arts at the university level
4:19
Speaker 1: and make at least a six figure income and provide
4:22
Speaker 1: for a family and so and so forth. And Mom
4:25
Speaker 1: would get the sticker for the back of her car
4:27
Speaker 1: that said Yale to get the Yale Mom coffee mug.
4:30
Speaker 1: I'm straight. So basically what ended up happening was, UM,
4:37
Speaker 1: I came out of Yale, I was blessed to be
4:39
Speaker 1: signed with the agents, started working, and again the food
4:43
Speaker 1: stuff sort of augmented and supported all the acting stuff.
4:48
Speaker 1: And UM, I read three books in very short succession.
4:52
Speaker 1: But I personally, UM, I consider to be the lynchpins
4:58
Speaker 1: of me achieving a mode of him of success. And
5:00
Speaker 1: I don't get any kind of kick back. I want
5:03
Speaker 1: to make that clear. These are just genuine books I
5:05
Speaker 1: read that helped me. I read a book called The
5:08
Speaker 1: Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and then I read The
5:11
Speaker 1: Four Agreements by Don Miguel Louise, and then I read
5:15
Speaker 1: a book called The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Loebanstein. Life
5:21
Speaker 1: Design for People. Uh, it's it's called life Design for
5:25
Speaker 1: people with too many passions to pick just one. And UM.
5:29
Speaker 1: In that book There was one particular exercise called the
5:33
Speaker 1: reverse flow chart where you sort of took your passions
5:36
Speaker 1: and your abilities and it helped you kind of ascertain
5:39
Speaker 1: what you are career, couldn't should be. And I knew
5:44
Speaker 1: I had this entertainment skill set and you know, knowledge
5:50
Speaker 1: base and work experience resume, and then I had a
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Speaker 1: culinary one, and I knew that it was the merging
5:55
Speaker 1: of the two that was the thing. And then I
5:57
Speaker 1: just launched myself at every opportunity and opportunity UH came
6:02
Speaker 1: my way, um through one of the agents that I
6:07
Speaker 1: signed with out of graduate school, and I launched myself
6:10
Speaker 1: at it like a juggernaut, Like I just was like,
6:13
Speaker 1: if this is what you want and this is the opportunity. Um.
6:17
Speaker 1: You know, I had studied international studies, so I knew
6:20
Speaker 1: travel was a thing. I had cut formal training as
6:24
Speaker 1: a sushi chef, so I knew that was a thing.
6:26
Speaker 1: And I had a masters from Yell Drama, so a
6:29
Speaker 1: new performance was my thing. So I needed to find
6:31
Speaker 1: a way to fuse travel, food and performance. And when
6:35
Speaker 1: the opportunity came, you just have to come at it,
6:38
Speaker 1: no let up. You just have to put everything you
6:40
Speaker 1: have into those opportunities. And that's that's kind of what
6:44
Speaker 1: I did. Audition, so man versus food? Did you have
6:47
Speaker 1: to like eat food from him? That the rep part
6:52
Speaker 1: of the audition, believe it was. There was no five
6:56
Speaker 1: pound burrito audition. But but the first audition actually you
7:03
Speaker 1: did have to bring some food, but they wanted to
7:05
Speaker 1: see how you could describe flavor and how you made
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Speaker 1: it look when you ate um. Then there were subsequent auditions, interviews,
7:15
Speaker 1: they check your references, and then the final screen test
7:19
Speaker 1: was at CATS's Deli and it was on Balantine's Day
7:23
Speaker 1: of two thousand and eight. And uh, it was me
7:27
Speaker 1: in the final six dudes. And I had a very
7:31
Speaker 1: good mentor when I worked at Actors Theater of Louisville, Kentucky,
7:34
Speaker 1: John Jordy said, an audition is not some kind of
7:39
Speaker 1: new age experience. It's competition. It's a competition. You're there
7:43
Speaker 1: to get a job. There there to get a job,
7:45
Speaker 1: and whether or not you pay your bills in a
7:47
Speaker 1: meaningful manner for the next however long, depends upon how
7:51
Speaker 1: well you fare in this competition. So you can make
7:54
Speaker 1: nice nice with everybody else, but you're there to lock
7:56
Speaker 1: it down and get a damn job. So uh uh.
8:00
Speaker 1: I auditioned and that that final screen test, I had
8:03
Speaker 1: to eat a gigantic double Ruben cries and I'll tell
8:09
Speaker 1: you what. The sandwiches and cats as you're not cheap
8:12
Speaker 1: and I was pretty broke and so being able to
8:15
Speaker 1: get a cat's and sandwich for free, it was pretty dope.
8:18
Speaker 1: That was what Those fries, those fries, and I've been there.
8:21
Speaker 1: That's awesome place. So good. We'll be right back with
8:26
Speaker 1: more Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. Now, let's
8:32
Speaker 1: return to Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. You
8:37
Speaker 1: know the beauty of you as a as a talent,
8:40
Speaker 1: because that explains now how the Indian of the man
8:43
Speaker 1: versus food. Because you always had those little fake press
8:45
Speaker 1: conferences you had to say so and I'm gonna tell
8:48
Speaker 1: you some that that made me a fan of yours
8:50
Speaker 1: because you could you know, you have a siste humor.
8:53
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't take it for real, but it
8:55
Speaker 1: was that it was that personality to the next level.
8:58
Speaker 1: And you always had a nice, charming all and you
9:00
Speaker 1: did they they let's tell you they hired the right
9:03
Speaker 1: person because all those things when you ate. It was
9:06
Speaker 1: a journey, and when you talk to people, you look comfortable,
9:09
Speaker 1: you look like a regular guy. In the end, it
9:12
Speaker 1: was a spoof having people I could like ask you
9:14
Speaker 1: questions and things like that. So really that was the
9:17
Speaker 1: pasona that you built out and you became this connoisseur,
9:20
Speaker 1: this star of consuming food. But really you was an
9:24
Speaker 1: entertainer to me, you know, because I could see you
9:26
Speaker 1: being a game show host easily, and I'm pretty sure
9:28
Speaker 1: you've done that in your lifetime. But the thing about it,
9:32
Speaker 1: but right now, and you're in this food industry. And
9:34
Speaker 1: then so a little background on me is that when
9:37
Speaker 1: I when I heard about the show, you know, out
9:39
Speaker 1: of each the eighties, in six I was working for
9:42
Speaker 1: IBM and had my math degree. Everybody thought I was
9:45
Speaker 1: gonna stay at IBM, but I wanted to pursue a
9:47
Speaker 1: career as a stand up comedian, and so I left
9:50
Speaker 1: IBM and so shocked everybody to pursue a career and
9:53
Speaker 1: stand up comedian. Well, I was a road comedian. So
9:56
Speaker 1: when you start talking about at the eighties, I was out.
10:00
Speaker 1: They're consuming Roy Rogers. I was there, brother, I was there,
10:04
Speaker 1: you know. So so this this is the fun journey
10:07
Speaker 1: for me, and just interviewing you was kind of like, wow,
10:10
Speaker 1: I did that. Oh yeah, I remember that. But when
10:13
Speaker 1: when I saw Roy Rogers, that really hit home for me.
10:16
Speaker 1: So just just talk about being involved in this series.
10:19
Speaker 1: You know, you got this serious about the Food That
10:21
Speaker 1: Built America. But just talk about a little about this show.
10:23
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna throwing my little comments here in there
10:25
Speaker 1: because I kind of like experienced this because I was
10:27
Speaker 1: on the road in the eighties and stuff. I love it. Yeah,
10:32
Speaker 1: Roy Rogers owned the car for sure. That's that was there.
10:37
Speaker 1: That was their domain for sure. Well, so the two
10:40
Speaker 1: shows are so fascinating because they sort of compliment each
10:43
Speaker 1: other just you do. Um and so Food That Built
10:46
Speaker 1: America it's one of the most inspiring ones for me personally.
10:50
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that because a minute or minute, um,
10:54
Speaker 1: these men and women bet on themselves, bet on themselves
10:58
Speaker 1: when the world bet against them, when common sense met
11:01
Speaker 1: against them, And I think there's a lesson in that.
11:04
Speaker 1: But also Bill Maher once said, we live in a
11:07
Speaker 1: guitar hero culture where everybody wants to play the solo,
11:10
Speaker 1: but nobody wants to learn the chords. And I think
11:13
Speaker 1: that these are people that spend time in the trenches
11:18
Speaker 1: and you don't realize how much sweat equity. You know,
11:21
Speaker 1: people hear about the success, but they don't really pay
11:24
Speaker 1: attention to what it took to get there. And I
11:29
Speaker 1: think that that's that's the coolest part. And so for
11:33
Speaker 1: me the other aspects, I love those little bits of
11:35
Speaker 1: nickel knowledge where you uh know, that little factoid about
11:41
Speaker 1: that cookie or that symbol or that company and it's
11:45
Speaker 1: something interesting. So to look at the new Wendy's logo
11:49
Speaker 1: and see the word Mom hidden in the ruffles of
11:53
Speaker 1: Wendy's shirt because they want to evoke Mom's home cooking.
11:57
Speaker 1: Or the fact that the Oreo cookie came after the
12:04
Speaker 1: Hydros and the symbol on that cookie actually comes from
12:09
Speaker 1: this medieval guild symbol. Or even the fact that whilely Amos,
12:14
Speaker 1: a famous Amos was an agent at William Morris, discovered
12:18
Speaker 1: Simon and Garf uncle and got one of the first
12:21
Speaker 1: loans to start his business from Marvin Gay. All those
12:24
Speaker 1: cool little facts, I just think you get a deeper
12:28
Speaker 1: appreciation of the culinary world around us. It's beautifully shot,
12:32
Speaker 1: and whether it's this season, whether it's beer, whether it's bread,
12:37
Speaker 1: whether it's sweets, whether it's um, casual dining. I think
12:44
Speaker 1: that there is something for everyone. There is something will
12:47
Speaker 1: connect with everyone, male entrepreneurs, female, black, white, Asian. I
12:51
Speaker 1: think that it's remarkable. The other thing that And then
12:57
Speaker 1: again for me, I was born in seventy four, so
12:59
Speaker 1: the these were my decade. And uh, you know, you
13:04
Speaker 1: remember stuff from when you're six years old, So I
13:06
Speaker 1: remember where this eighty and Reagan was in the White House.
13:11
Speaker 1: Let me slap because I want to get off that
13:12
Speaker 1: the show The Food that Built America that that was
13:16
Speaker 1: because you know, because of the fact that you know,
13:19
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a fan of like those ripley believe it
13:22
Speaker 1: in the nots and this is kind of like that,
13:24
Speaker 1: but for food, you know, because you don't believe that
13:27
Speaker 1: this actually happened this way, Like he was talking about uh,
13:29
Speaker 1: famous aimers, and like several years ago he had contacted
13:32
Speaker 1: these people, contacted me about doing a documentary and and
13:35
Speaker 1: so like I said, the whole Marvin Ya, he told
13:38
Speaker 1: me that whole story and the fact that you know,
13:41
Speaker 1: his cookies don't look like cookies, they like really like
13:45
Speaker 1: like a quarter of a cookie. And he said that
13:47
Speaker 1: was right like a little you know, it's like, you know,
13:50
Speaker 1: if you the way we consume cookies nowadays, he almost
13:54
Speaker 1: looked like chips. And the fact that he was able
13:56
Speaker 1: to pull that off. He was talking about going from
13:58
Speaker 1: car to car. The whole back story read like you say,
14:00
Speaker 1: it is really compelling because you go as an entrepreneur,
14:05
Speaker 1: there was before social media, before the internet. These are
14:08
Speaker 1: just people sometimes going from you know, store to store
14:12
Speaker 1: or person to person to to get their word out.
14:15
Speaker 1: And then the brand just took off of all those stories.
14:19
Speaker 1: Because there's a lot it's the third season. What's the
14:22
Speaker 1: most compelling is that the individual or is the product
14:25
Speaker 1: that they have to come up question? I think it's
14:28
Speaker 1: the effort of the individual. I think you have to
14:31
Speaker 1: have a product that you believe in that goes without saying.
14:35
Speaker 1: And I'm very impressed by when you look at everyone
14:39
Speaker 1: from Campbell's soup to the lady that founded Pepage Farm,
14:43
Speaker 1: there was an uncompromising level of standards that, um, both
14:48
Speaker 1: inspires me, it makes me feel a little bit of
14:50
Speaker 1: corners sometimes I'll be honest with you, but um, I
14:55
Speaker 1: think that every single it's like what's that old line
15:00
Speaker 1: from the old old song they all after Christopher Columbus.
15:03
Speaker 1: But I feel that this is very much the case.
15:06
Speaker 1: So I feel that it's the individual. I feel that um,
15:10
Speaker 1: hard work and determinational loan or omnipotent as it seems.
15:14
Speaker 1: And and I'll say, you know, because that's the thing. Right.
15:17
Speaker 1: While he amos had an original cookie, a good cookie,
15:20
Speaker 1: a great personality, but by his own admission a businessman,
15:25
Speaker 1: he was none. And he's scaled up, uh, devoid of
15:29
Speaker 1: a business plan to match that scale. Decisions were made,
15:33
Speaker 1: fiscal decisions were made, um that were ill advised, you know,
15:37
Speaker 1: to be in a difficult location at a walking ball
15:40
Speaker 1: in Arizona with no air conditioning, Like it's just poor forethought.
15:45
Speaker 1: And you know, you have an entrepreneur. And let's also
15:49
Speaker 1: be honest, an African American entrepreneur in the eighties who
15:54
Speaker 1: who sadly can now no longer even use his own
15:58
Speaker 1: face and name on a hot he created with his
16:01
Speaker 1: aunt as a child. And that's profoundly tragic. But uh,
16:05
Speaker 1: there's a playwright named Stephen Diets and he wrote an
16:09
Speaker 1: essay called an audience Manifesto, and he said, if the
16:12
Speaker 1: artist trips, we know to jump. If the artist hits
16:15
Speaker 1: their head. We know two duck. And I think that
16:18
Speaker 1: that's where Wally Amos is worth his weight in gold,
16:22
Speaker 1: is that he is such a warm, wonderful Zen's type
16:27
Speaker 1: of individual that despite the slings and arrows. I mean,
16:31
Speaker 1: my god, who would think Whally Amos could go on
16:33
Speaker 1: Shark Tank and not get a deal and that happened.
16:36
Speaker 1: And yet um, he's very forthcoming because you know he
16:41
Speaker 1: got that deal with I believe it was Bloomingdale's and
16:45
Speaker 1: he was in all these stores and didn't have a
16:47
Speaker 1: production fills. He couldn't scale to meet the demand. And
16:51
Speaker 1: then the flip side, you know, we juxtaposed this in
16:54
Speaker 1: food that built America is Debbie Field. And we could
16:58
Speaker 1: also acknowledge that the eighties and I say this as
17:01
Speaker 1: you know, the son of a very strong stepmom and
17:04
Speaker 1: mom who hit their head on that glass ceiling several times.
17:07
Speaker 1: Is straight up like for women as entrepreneurs in the eighties,
17:13
Speaker 1: it was not a warm, welcoming time. And Debbie Field,
17:17
Speaker 1: I think, if I'm not mistaken, she had something like
17:20
Speaker 1: a twenty one percent interest rate on her first loan
17:23
Speaker 1: and she said it was the best money she could
17:25
Speaker 1: ever get because it was the only money she Her
17:28
Speaker 1: husband leveraged his house, but Debbie Field kept it small
17:33
Speaker 1: till it was a proven concept. She actually walked the
17:37
Speaker 1: streets of Paolo Alto. She wasn't selling as much as
17:40
Speaker 1: she felt she could. And you know what I said
17:43
Speaker 1: about betting on yourself. Someone made a really harsh comment
17:46
Speaker 1: to her at a dinner party, saying how she had
17:49
Speaker 1: this stupid pipe dreams. She was a beautiful woman, still is,
17:52
Speaker 1: but a beautiful woman, and so they thought she was
17:54
Speaker 1: just this pretty housewife. And she locked up the shop,
17:58
Speaker 1: took samples on a tray, pounded the pavement, built the
18:02
Speaker 1: ground swell, built the demand, and her husband was At
18:05
Speaker 1: the time of the eighties, they called it an economic futurist.
18:08
Speaker 1: What we call today is I t He realized that
18:14
Speaker 1: she could exert quality control, maintained proprietary UM recipes, UM track,
18:22
Speaker 1: you know, losses and gains and whatever through a computer,
18:27
Speaker 1: and it changed the game. And I feel that's why
18:30
Speaker 1: I talk about the individual. They both had great cookies.
18:33
Speaker 1: One of them had a better business plan. Absolutely in
18:36
Speaker 1: Subway had great Both have decent sandwiches. Subway you scientific
18:41
Speaker 1: method and blew them off the bat. Absolutely We'll be
18:43
Speaker 1: right back with more money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. Now,
18:50
Speaker 1: let's return to Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald.
18:55
Speaker 1: You know the fun part about the eighties show, you know,
18:59
Speaker 1: because was on the road out there doing my thing,
19:01
Speaker 1: and even when I go in the airport, you know,
19:04
Speaker 1: I said, Annie end, you know, I will stop and
19:06
Speaker 1: give me that lemonade. That's what I do. I get,
19:08
Speaker 1: I get a plane one and give me a lemonade.
19:11
Speaker 1: And brother, I am happy. I'm walking down. I'll take
19:15
Speaker 1: it on the plane. I don't care. From the first class.
19:17
Speaker 1: I got my Auntie Auntie ms into that, and I'm
19:19
Speaker 1: excited the same thing with Center Bons and when they
19:21
Speaker 1: came out with the minis, but we all started with
19:23
Speaker 1: the Center Bonds and then the Mr T s. It
19:26
Speaker 1: was just it was just a flood of just stuff
19:28
Speaker 1: coming to me. Go oh YEA forgot about that Mr
19:30
Speaker 1: T And then and then and then they said, just
19:34
Speaker 1: package about the bubble gum that you too at one time.
19:36
Speaker 1: All the sweet goes away. It was just it was
19:39
Speaker 1: just a fun stuff. But the point that really got
19:41
Speaker 1: to me that when I was doing a background on
19:43
Speaker 1: this was the fact that I didn't know that the
19:46
Speaker 1: McDonald's flies were prepared a different way and then and
19:51
Speaker 1: then they changed the syrup on the coat. Talk about
19:53
Speaker 1: that type of information that you're getting out of that
19:56
Speaker 1: show that right, there's a lot of hot moments in
19:58
Speaker 1: that or oh I didn't know absolutely absolutely so yes,
20:02
Speaker 1: So moving to the other show out of meets the eighties,
20:04
Speaker 1: we look at this incredibly dynamic, energetic, wild wildly innovative
20:10
Speaker 1: decade through the prism of food, right, and like you said,
20:13
Speaker 1: we will basically go to the origin story for these
20:18
Speaker 1: brands that came out in the eighties and became national
20:20
Speaker 1: and global icons like Cinnabon and Anti Ann's, you know,
20:24
Speaker 1: and and so on and so forth. Um, and then
20:28
Speaker 1: look at things that appeared in the eighties and maybe
20:31
Speaker 1: disappear so un those breakfast right, exactly exactly right. And obviously,
20:38
Speaker 1: because you know, you're incredibly you know, brilliant man with
20:41
Speaker 1: the head for numbers, you understand that. Um, you know,
20:45
Speaker 1: when Reagan switched to supply side economics, economics floods the
20:49
Speaker 1: economy with money until the recessions in the nineties, and uh,
20:52
Speaker 1: and then everyone wears flannel and gets tribal tattoos. But
20:55
Speaker 1: until then it was big shoulder pads, big hair jay ones,
21:01
Speaker 1: you know, Bo Jackson Cross traders. Right in the eighties
21:06
Speaker 1: was unlike today. You didn't necessarily have to have nutritional
21:10
Speaker 1: info on your food. You did not have to have
21:14
Speaker 1: calories at fast food restaurants. There was no real concentration
21:19
Speaker 1: unless it was medically ordained or religiously specified. I think
21:22
Speaker 1: you needed to be vegan, vegetarian, paleo, keto, whole thirty
21:28
Speaker 1: five to you know all these other atkins not a thing.
21:33
Speaker 1: A diet culture emerged in the eighties, but it was fat,
21:36
Speaker 1: fat fat. It was Jane Fonda's work out, the grapefruit
21:39
Speaker 1: diet in the Beverly Hills. Because I was a Jane Fonda,
21:43
Speaker 1: I had to. I had. I had the VHS taps
21:45
Speaker 1: and the beata my step my stepmom, and I was
21:48
Speaker 1: a little chovy kid my stepmom. No leg warmers though,
21:51
Speaker 1: because you know that's child abuse. But I was just
21:54
Speaker 1: gonna tell you because I was, I had to leg
21:57
Speaker 1: warmers because I was, I was an instructor. Adam you
22:01
Speaker 1: talk to in the world here, I love you probably
22:04
Speaker 1: look good at that. I would look I want I
22:07
Speaker 1: want to look like a little decorated hippo. And then
22:11
Speaker 1: then the other thing is if you were called there
22:13
Speaker 1: was that show for broadcast TV, Richard Simmons had Healthy Eating.
22:19
Speaker 1: There was a guy Captain Kangaroo and other shows called
22:22
Speaker 1: Slim Goodbody who would wear a suit where you could
22:25
Speaker 1: see organs stuff. And so there was this this effort
22:30
Speaker 1: because by the eighties people were watching roughly eight hours
22:34
Speaker 1: of television. Today, Um, you had a whole generation of
22:37
Speaker 1: latch key kids. As two parent families, two parent working
22:40
Speaker 1: families became the norm. Women had room in the workplace
22:44
Speaker 1: that they never did before. Um, there was a one
22:47
Speaker 1: third increase of white collar workers. You had parents gone.
22:51
Speaker 1: Plus you had the invention of the microwave, which allows
22:54
Speaker 1: children the ability to cook, parents to prepare meals incredibly quickly,
22:59
Speaker 1: gives company is a new avenue for revenue, allows a
23:03
Speaker 1: whole other market for leftovers and home delivery because it
23:07
Speaker 1: doesn't take a whole production to reheat something or remake
23:11
Speaker 1: something or reconstitute something. And um, you know, and then
23:16
Speaker 1: with all the fluctuating economic stuff, there was a new pivot.
23:20
Speaker 1: So bringing it to what you said about Coca Cola
23:23
Speaker 1: and McDonald's French fries. So and well, this is so
23:27
Speaker 1: cool because we went to this food lab called Mats
23:31
Speaker 1: and Labs in northern California, just south of San Francisco,
23:34
Speaker 1: and it's just's relatively close to San Jose and it's
23:39
Speaker 1: um just spectacular and quite frankly. I mean, these guys
23:44
Speaker 1: have developed everything from like the frappuccino, some of the
23:48
Speaker 1: nut milks you've seen. But it's a food lab. These
23:50
Speaker 1: are two food scientists. And what happened was in the
23:52
Speaker 1: eighties there was a millionaire who had had a heart
23:55
Speaker 1: attack and his doctors cautioned him about fast food. He
23:58
Speaker 1: spent his money on this crusade to health if I
24:03
Speaker 1: fast food And one of the things they talked about
24:06
Speaker 1: was how McDonald's would fry their french fries and beef tallow,
24:10
Speaker 1: which is solidified beef fat. And it's still done in England.
24:15
Speaker 1: If you've ever had a roast dinner anywhere at a
24:17
Speaker 1: pub or at a restaurant in England, Uh, they use
24:21
Speaker 1: duck fat um every gastro pub and their mama that
24:25
Speaker 1: serves Brussels sprouts, said Patte or whatever they do a
24:29
Speaker 1: duck fat fry. So frying in suet or tallow is very,
24:33
Speaker 1: very common, but it's way more saturated fat. Remember, if
24:37
Speaker 1: any animal product has cholesterol, any plant product doesn't. So
24:42
Speaker 1: you could eat a pound of vegan cheese, you may have,
24:46
Speaker 1: you know, taken in quite a bit of fat, but
24:48
Speaker 1: you will have taken in no cholesterol. And basically he
24:53
Speaker 1: started this crusade. And strangely enough, all the restaurants, both
24:57
Speaker 1: McDonald's Burger King pivoted on the same day away from
25:01
Speaker 1: beef tallo and began frying in a beef flavored vegetable oil. Um.
25:08
Speaker 1: The other thing is, as you mentioned Coca Cola. Now,
25:12
Speaker 1: being a former Atlanta boy myself and having gone to Emery,
25:16
Speaker 1: my father may rest in peace with my pop right here. Uh,
25:20
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. Um I was down to I was
25:24
Speaker 1: deciding between three schools. I was deciding between University Chicago, Washington,
25:29
Speaker 1: University St. Louis, actually four schools, Union College and Schenectady
25:35
Speaker 1: and Emery and I UM. I it was pretty gung
25:41
Speaker 1: ho about Emery because by then I knew that if
25:44
Speaker 1: I were there in nine six, I was at least
25:47
Speaker 1: going to be there for the Olympics. And I'm an
25:48
Speaker 1: Olympics junkie, and as it turned out, in nine six,
25:52
Speaker 1: I had a Super Bowl, a World Series, and an Olympics. Deltas, Xerox,
25:57
Speaker 1: and Coke all had headquarters there, so I thought it
26:01
Speaker 1: increased the likelihood of employment opportunities very least internship opportunities,
26:05
Speaker 1: because those companies are big enough that if I decided marketing,
26:09
Speaker 1: they all have a big marketing. I decided pr they
26:12
Speaker 1: all had a big pr wing. Anyway, without getting too
26:15
Speaker 1: far up my own butt hole and that stuff, you know,
26:18
Speaker 1: so my pop may rest in piece. I remember Emery
26:21
Speaker 1: and this proud What a great school. Oh my gosh,
26:24
Speaker 1: if he wants to be a doctor, he could Emory
26:26
Speaker 1: University Hospital system is brilliant. They doing these things and
26:29
Speaker 1: so and so forth. And then my pop calls me.
26:31
Speaker 1: It's like we need to talk. I said why, He said,
26:33
Speaker 1: why do they call it coke? You? I was like,
26:37
Speaker 1: that's nothing to do with scar phase, dad, CoA like
26:42
Speaker 1: my dorm is called dobbs. Like this dog can't wonder
26:45
Speaker 1: if like, nothing nothing to do with cocaine, I promised
26:49
Speaker 1: you at all. Like ever, I'm like seven up with that, dad.
26:52
Speaker 1: I've never had it, never will, like no, no, and uh,
26:57
Speaker 1: but that's so uh as anyone in Atlanta knows, there's
27:01
Speaker 1: ever gone to the world of coca cola. Um, it's
27:04
Speaker 1: a recipe. The actual recipe for coca cola dates back
27:08
Speaker 1: to a Civil War veteran named Do Pemberton Um. And
27:13
Speaker 1: much like all the great sodas were right there were
27:15
Speaker 1: medicine topics like dr pepper and pepsi gets its name
27:19
Speaker 1: because they thought it cured pepsis or just pepsia and um.
27:25
Speaker 1: So coca cola had always been sweet with sugar with
27:30
Speaker 1: sucros um. What happened was and this is what's so
27:34
Speaker 1: cool about doing a show about the eighties and the eighties,
27:37
Speaker 1: between sugar prices, rising hurricanes decimating huge swaths of the
27:43
Speaker 1: sugar crops in Caribbean and so and so forth, even
27:47
Speaker 1: limiting beet sugars that we had at home. Robert Gizutta,
27:51
Speaker 1: who is a chemist, pivots to high fructost corn syrup,
27:54
Speaker 1: realizes he could achieve the same bricks b r i
27:59
Speaker 1: X sweetness le hole, but spend a fraction of what
28:04
Speaker 1: sucros costs. So make a cola that tastes the same,
28:07
Speaker 1: just the sweet for a fraction of the price. Shareholders
28:11
Speaker 1: saw profits like they've never seen. Goy's wedding, gets made
28:14
Speaker 1: CEO of the business school at every named after the dude,
28:18
Speaker 1: and uh where I took financial accounting and man, let
28:22
Speaker 1: me tell you, I was so bad at that. But
28:27
Speaker 1: so that's what Coca Cola did. And that was, um,
28:31
Speaker 1: the first pivot, and then we began to see, uh,
28:34
Speaker 1: the the rise of the artificial sweetener incorporated in this series,
28:40
Speaker 1: in the storytelling and things like that, you know, some
28:42
Speaker 1: Adam and sinking to Adam Richmond here, Adam. The amazing
28:46
Speaker 1: thing about it you can you can produce these shows
28:49
Speaker 1: and is who is telling the story. You are a
28:53
Speaker 1: great storyteller, my friends. I want to make sure you
28:55
Speaker 1: get that out of this interview. Uh, you just engage
28:59
Speaker 1: you man, and I I feel fortunately this is like
29:02
Speaker 1: you know, I I ain't if you're a lot of people.
29:04
Speaker 1: And my wife was here, she tell you, yeah, he
29:08
Speaker 1: watches him. That's that's you know, because in the fact
29:12
Speaker 1: I enjoy you and uh, you're doing something I can
29:15
Speaker 1: never do, but it's entertainment and you do it from
29:17
Speaker 1: an entertainment perspective, and and really interviewing you on the
29:20
Speaker 1: show today. That allows me to understand you a lot more.
29:23
Speaker 1: Not saying I was confused by you, but you know
29:25
Speaker 1: your background, your intellect, you know your worldliness. It all
29:28
Speaker 1: shows across on the screen and it comes across as effortless.
29:31
Speaker 1: And so because of that, that comes from the person
29:33
Speaker 1: who's comfortable with himself, has been around and done the
29:36
Speaker 1: things that are fun for him. And my big take
29:38
Speaker 1: away is, you know when I look at people in life,
29:41
Speaker 1: and I tell people all the time, do what makes
29:42
Speaker 1: you happy? And and and like I said, I left
29:47
Speaker 1: a math degree or IBM career and wanted to tell jokes.
29:50
Speaker 1: And I've been rolling down that direction all my life.
29:53
Speaker 1: And you have two shows on television now. You can't
29:56
Speaker 1: go wrong with that. Adam each Stades. I got my
29:58
Speaker 1: little box. I got it in my cap. You know
30:01
Speaker 1: I got my I will tell you what I'm I got.
30:04
Speaker 1: I got two Emmis, I got three N Double A
30:06
Speaker 1: C Image Awards, and I got this right next to them. Okay,
30:09
Speaker 1: that's how much I think of your brother. The only
30:11
Speaker 1: thing I'm missing, the only thing I'm missing, Adam, is
30:13
Speaker 1: your autograph. So I'm hoping one day you come through Atlanta,
30:17
Speaker 1: I find out and it's gonna be a six ft
30:20
Speaker 1: black man in the suit back there holding this box. Adam, Adam.
30:23
Speaker 1: I need your signature, brother, I need your signature. Listen,
30:26
Speaker 1: you got that, no problem, man. I would just for
30:29
Speaker 1: the base of it, at me what I would do
30:32
Speaker 1: the screw of the name. Play That's Coming band is
30:36
Speaker 1: a lifetime goodness brother. On the History chapter every Sunday,
30:41
Speaker 1: Adam each eighties and The Food That Built America hosted
30:44
Speaker 1: by my man Adam Richmond. Thank you, Adam,