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An odd dad and his 11 year old daughter exploring the strange and unusual in a peculiar world. Discussions will be kept PG-13. Hosted by Dean Boese and Krysta Williams.
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7 MAY 2026 · Well, in this episode we dig into our Kansas City Roots. We go to Kansas City in the 1920's where under 'Boss' Pendergast the city was a machine that kept clubs open all night and the liquor flowing. It was a town famous for being a little naive, jazz, good barbecue and something called the Kansas City Stomp. Kansas City had heard rumors of Prohibition and wanted no truck with it. It was into this world that a young man named Charlie Parker, a man who would be nicknamed 'Bird' began to play an alto sax and he would get humiliated and come back stronger. He became a good musician, and then he was in a car accident that broke his ribs and twisted his spine. He was given morphine for the pain and this would start a second addiction, the first was to music. He studied and practiced all he could in recovery and when he emerged he was a different player, he took the town by storm and he would go on to become one of the greats of Jazz and he'd become a big part of a muisc called bebop. So come listen to a local tale of Kansas City and learn how a man became a myth and musical legend in this magical, mythical and musical episode of the Family Plot Podcast Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
30 APR 2026 · This episode has so much. We cover the Jewel Box Revue, the drag show that originated in the thirties and toured through the seventies creating a space for drag, female impersonators and gender bent comics in a show that advertised itself as 25 men and 1 girl. We also cover anti-crossdressing laws, the police's informal three article rule and how newspapers at the time published the names of those arrested for cross dressing, performing drag, or even just being openly gay. We talk about how drag shows came up from French cabarets like the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergere and morphed into something different and special in America. We also discuss Club 82, the New York nightspot run by the Gallo crime family that made a safe place in New York for drag long before Pride Marches and rainbow flags. We even discuss how movies like La Cage Au Folles, The Rocky Horror Picture Show,,The Birdcage, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and To Wong Foo, Thanks for
Everything, Julie Newmar owe a lot of their DNA to these early expressions of queer joy and drag glamour. These were some of the earliest safe spaces in America and we owe them a lot. So come along on this celebration of LGBTQ history and found family! It's fun and we guarantee you will learn something! And in case you aare curious, the person bringing us back from commercial is part of an old song by gender bent comedian Rae Bourbon. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
23 APR 2026 · Here we go! Another little bit of history that really matters. In 1942, following Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 which allowed the military designated Military zones and control who lived in them in the United States. The order did not mention Japanese American citizens or concentration camps by name, but effectively that'w who was targeted and what was created in this executive order. Japanese Citizens were rounded up, sent to camps and forced to live in old horse stalls or worse before being transferred to some of the worst hellholes in the country. This is after many were blocked from citizenship or owning land. We go into the why's and howfores in this special Abolish ICE we've seen this crap before episode of the Family Plot Podcast! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
16 APR 2026 · We do a deep dive into the Brazilian Lead Masks Case, a Case that takes us back to 1966 where two dead men are found laying down wearing suits on a hill in Niteroi, they appear to have laid down, put on homemade masks made of lead and simply...died. We look into Brazil at that time, a nation only recently taken over by a brutal military regime,and where burgeoning scientific beliefs intersected with spiritual and metaphyisical ideas leaving a Fortean mystery that echose to this day. They're instructions were simple:
1) 16:30 be at the agreed place.
2) 18:30 swallow capsules,
3) After effect protect metals wait for the signal
But we have no idea what they mean or why? So come dig into this fascinating mystery in this yes-Virginia-sometimes-Histroy-is-fun episode of the Family Plot Podcast. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
9 APR 2026 · We have quite the episode for you here. This time we head back to 1942 to meet a small Jewish family, the Frank family. They are a mom a dad and two daughters living in Germany watching the country become a nightmare for Jews like themselves. Otto, the father, led them over to the Netherlands where he had business contacts. However, soon the Nazis occupied and controlled the Netherlands and the Franks were facing the same persecution they had before. So with great reluctance, they and another Jewish family went into hiding in a secret annex hidden behind a bookcase in Otto's business. Within a few months they were joined by a single dentist. For over a year they hid in the Secret Annex, staying quiet while employees did their thing, only running heat when the employees were gone and terrified at the sounds of frequent break-ins. However, it all came to an end when someone (history has no solid answers for who) reported them, the business was searched, the Annex found,and those hiding were taken away to labor resettlement camps, and from there to concentration camps where all but one were eventually killed. Otto Frank survivved and when he came into possession of his daughter's diary he published it. This is the best record we have for the atmosphere in Germany and Netherlands in 1942 and '43. So join us for a sad yet powerful tale of resistance in this abolish ICE expisode of the Family Plot Podcast! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
2 APR 2026 · In this episode we set the Elevator of History back to 1835 where we witness the ;'penny paperss' papers sold for one cent instead of six that featured stories people WANTED to read, rather than news by and for a political party. These papers brought us separate sections on news, finance, sports and featured on the scene reporting and lurid true crime details. But it was the New York Sun that launched into a six day report of what a famous mathematician, chemist and learned individual was looking at the moon through a legendary telescope and reporting the discovery of the most amazing things including: albino moon-bison, miniature zebras, one horned goats, unicorns and the fascinating bat people of the moon who dwelt in massive temples carved from giant rubies. The public was fascinated by this series of articles until the report, six days later that the telescope had caught a stray sunbeam, magnified it's intensity and set the observatory alight causing it to burn to the ground. In the days and weeks that followed it slowly came out that none of this was true, however, the Sun never printed a retraction and their readership had grown significantly despite the scandal, most new readers stayed. We discuss all this, the Blue Fugates, touch on Orson Welles War of the Worlds and discuss Terry Gilliam's the Adventures of Baron Munchausen in this it can't get weirder than this episode of the Family Plot Podcast! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
26 MAR 2026 · This episode is so full of weird tasty historical goodness you'll want a second course. Arthur talks an afternoon with Dean and a vist from his girlfriend and we discuss Toronto and Canada in the 20's and 30's and the introduction of a millionaire with no heirs and a wicked sense of humor who died on October 31st 1936 and for the next ten years set off a fertility contest that became talked about all over the world. All while Toronto desperately tried to hold onto it's Toronto the Good identity in this too much money, a will can be binding and a joke, more fun in Canada than you thought you could have episode of the Family Plot Podcast.
(Slight correction, Dean at one point claims the original Forever Knight was set in New York and filmed in Toronto. What was the blueprint for Forever Knight, starring Rick Springfield was actually called Nick Knight and was set in LA but was still filmed in Toronto.) Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
19 MAR 2026 · What a show! WWe dive deep into the life of Shirley Temple Black, from her young life as a precocious little girl with a smile, to her mother's enrolling her in the Meglin Kiddies Dance School at the age of three, to her subsequent discovery a few months later, hiding behind the piano when Educational Pictures director Charles Lamont came to the school looking for talent. She at first joined the Baby Burlesks, a somewhat uncomfortable series in which toddlers, clad in costumes above the waist and diapers below recreated onscreen moments from more famous pictures...this led to many unclomfortable moments among viewers. But her performance in Stand Up and Cheer! impressed the directors at Fox who signed her to a simple contract and proceeded to make movies like The Littlest Rebel, Curly Top, Dimples, amd The Littlest Princess where she played an adorable moppet with an unforgettable smile who became the single most bankable star of the 1930's. Not one performer in that era made as much as this singing and tap-dancing little starlet. When she aged out of that kind of role both Fox and MGM tried to repackage heer and she made a handful of films that ranged from watchable to deeply forgettable. MGM released her from her contract and she married her first husband, who was unable to handle the pressure of BEING her husband leading to his drinking and their divorce. Eventually she would marry Charles Alden Black who would be her husband till his death in 2004. She would also become a politician and candidate for congress, a stateswoman and a diplomat during the 70's and 80;s. She would move from this role to a quite life at home, only turning up occasionally in interviews or to collect an honor, though when she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and eventually got a mastectomy she was very public with her diagnosis, treatment and an advocacy for testing early and frequently, Otherwise she lived a quiet life until she would eventually pass away in the early 2010's. She would be mourned on morning news programs across the country and we dive deep into her amazing life in this Women's History Month special episode. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
12 MAR 2026 · In this episode , we look into the life of Emma aka Grandma Gatewood. Born in rural Ohio at the tail end of the 19th Century, she was the 7th of 15 children raised in a one room cabin, sleeping four to a bed, her only moments of peace were walks from her family home. At 19, she met PC
Gatewood, an Elementary school teacher who also treated her with unkindness and violence. Her only escape was to get away, talking walks to escape the violence. She had 11 children with Gatewood until she was divorced from him. Then she raised them as best she could working any job she could get to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. By the time she was in her sixties, she had a goal...to walk the length of the Appalachian Trail. She did so and so much more in this it's never too late keep going episode of the Family P;ot Podcast!! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
Transcribed
5 MAR 2026 · In this episode, we set the Elevator of History to the Kentucky portion of the Appalachians where we check out the Packhorse Librarians. Women, funded by the WPA, who brought books into the hoots and hollers of Kentucky, providing reading and kinship in rural communities who otherwise would have no access to books. They traveled on mules and horses carrying books in saddlebags and pillowcases to needy communities and while they only lasted a short time, they helped change rural Kentucky and make it part of the modern world and helped raise the rate of illiteracy from 31 percent to just 5 percent in the 1940s. We cover the history, notable packhorse librarians and do our best to honor the history of these 'book women'. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-plot--4670465/support.
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An odd dad and his 11 year old daughter exploring the strange and unusual in a peculiar world. Discussions will be kept PG-13. Hosted by Dean Boese and Krysta Williams.
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| Author | Family Plot Podcast |
| Organization | Family Plot Podcast |
| Categories | True Crime , History |
| Website | www.spreaker.com |
| familyplotpodcast@gmail.com |
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