Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about history's most interesting dead people. In each episode, Alex and Kelly dive into the life of a famous person that you have heard of, but probably don't know much about. Our stories are about actors, entrepreneurs, politicians, musicians, inventors, explorers and more! We also cover things that used to be popular but have fallen out of favor. Things like pet rocks, drive in theaters, Jolt Cola, and many other trends of yesterday make up our "dead ends". But whether we are talking about interesting historical figures or past trends, the show is funny, light-hearted, entertaining, informative and educational. You will definitely learn something new and probably have some laughs along the way. Everyone will eventually move to Dirt Nap City, so why not go ahead and meet the neighbors?
If you love hearing stories from Dirt Nap City, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/DirtNapCityPodcast
If you have comments about the show or suggestions on who we should cover, please email us at not@dirtnapcity.com - we really appreciate you listening!
Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Captain Outrageous - How Ted Turner Went From Billboards To Media Mogul
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week on Dirt Nap City, we explore how a rebellious visionary transformed his family's struggling billboard business into a multi-billion-dollar global media empire. Widely known by the moniker "Captain Outrageous," Turner didn't just participate in the broadcasting industry; he completely shattered the mold and rewrote the fundamental rules of television.
Join us as we chart Turner’s audacious entrepreneurial journey, starting with the groundbreaking launch of the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) and the invention of the cable "superstation." From there, we unpack his most revolutionary and heavily doubted gamble: the creation of CNN (Cable News Network). Discover how legacy media insiders laughed at the concept of a 24-hour news cycle, only to watch in awe as Turner revolutionized journalism and global information distribution forever.
However, Ted Turner’s legacy extends far beyond the corporate boardroom. This episode also delves into his highly colorful public persona and diverse ventures. We discuss his strategic purchase of the Atlanta Braves, successfully marketing them into "America's Team" via his own cable networks, and his thrilling competitive sailing triumphs, which peaked with a victory in the prestigious America's Cup.
Finally, we examine his profound evolution from a brash, controversial billionaire to one of the world's leading philanthropists and environmentalists. Listen as we detail his historic, headline-making $1 billion donation to the United Nations and his massive, pioneering land conservation efforts across the American West aimed at saving the endangered bison.
Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur seeking business strategies, a media history enthusiast, or simply love a compelling, larger-than-life biography, this deep dive into Ted Turner’s life is a must-listen. Subscribe and tune in now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast streaming platform!
Drop us a quick text and we’ll reply in the next episode!
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!
Hey Alex. Hey Kelly. Welcome to another episode of Dirt Knap City. It's Thursday morning. It's Thursday morning as always. This is the show about interesting dead people. I want to talk today about somebody who is a per somebody who I've personally I guess you could say admired, uh, at least been interested in um for a long time. Always been really, really curious about this this person and um a recent addition to um our uh Dirt Nam City. Okay, okay. Um born in 1938 in Cincinnati, although you wouldn't associate him with Cincinnati or Ohio, so it's not Johnny Fever or Venus Flytrap. No Debbie Carap. Or Johnny Bench. Um yeah. Died May 6, 2026. Oh, wow. Okay. Just just happened. In Florida. But you also wouldn't associate him with Florida at all.
SPEAKER_02You know, a lot of people go to Florida because if you die there, there's less taxes. I've heard.
SPEAKER_01Well, his nickname was Captain Outrageous.
SPEAKER_02That sounds Canadian. That's a very Canadian-sounding name. I know he wasn't Canadian. But uh okay, Captain Outrageous. Um Captain Outrageous.
SPEAKER_01All right. What what was his what was his vocation? Well, he had two lifetime achievement Emmys, but he also had a World Series championship. He was Times Man of the Year in 1991, back when they were still calling it Man of the Year, I think. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02That's sort of antiquated, but I can't.
SPEAKER_01He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. He had two biographies, one called Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way. Oh gosh, I feel like I should know this. And another one called, and this is my favorite biography name, it ain't as easy as it looks. It is a biography name.
SPEAKER_02I wanna I want to say, I want to say like Reggie Jackson or uh or was it a baseball player?
SPEAKER_01Nope. Was not.
SPEAKER_02Wait, wait, you said, but you said he had a World Series? I did say that.
SPEAKER_01Was he a coach? Um was he Tommy Lasorda? No. He was mostly known as an owner.
SPEAKER_02Was he um okay, so he was oh, oh, Ted Turner? Ted Turner. Yeah, freaking Turner.
SPEAKER_01Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Right, right, right. 1995, of course, world champion Atlanta Braves. Yeah, played at a stadium then known uh um as Turner Field. You know, he uh hit a couple of other his other fun quotes were early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise. He had a he had a turn, he was good with the Turner phrase, wasn't he? Oh, yeah, and and um and also kind of um a great piece of advice um on success. You've got to be willing to fail was another quite great quote of his. Yeah. Um and he and another uh this is a funny quote of his too. Look, I'm a very good thinker, but sometimes I grab the wrong word. I mean, I don't type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter. I, you know, wing it. I like the fact that he throws you know in there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I you know, wing it. Yeah, yeah. So so I'll just tell you a quick story about Ted Turner. I never met him, but uh you know my friend Johnny, former former radio host. Uh yeah. So Johnny worked for CNN for many years and did meet Ted Turner a number of times, and and uh said he was pretty approachable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm I imagine he he was approachable. Um, how much do you know about Ted Turner?
SPEAKER_02I know he owns a lot of buffaloes, like like he owns a lot of ranch land, like he might be one of the largest landowners in the U.S. Right. Is that true? Yeah, uh I know he was you know Mr. CNN. Uh I know he was TNT, right? Dynamite. He was Turner, is that Turner Network something? Television. Television, yeah. Um I don't I I always get him and Rupert Murdoch mixed up, so I don't know. They were famously rivals. They they really hated each other, yeah. As they should, right? As they should. But but um, but that's about it. I I know he had some dogs too, because Johnny said he would see Ted Turner walking these dogs in um uh outside of the CNN headquarters. I think he lived at the top of it, maybe. Yeah, and wasn't he friends with Elton John? Or or Elton John was in Atlanta for a while too.
SPEAKER_01Elton John lived in Atlanta, so I'm sure they ran into the same circles. Yeah, yeah. That's it. All right, so well, um thanks everybody. Um wait, no, the speed is a little bit more. So so let's start with um, I'll go chronologically, but before I do that, wait, did he drive an ambulance?
SPEAKER_02No, he ever drive okay, never did. Let's get that out of the way.
SPEAKER_01I want to start first by talking about him as a sailor. Um that he was always interested in sailing. And I think sailing is a good place to start because that's kind of uh it explains a lot about him. That okay, that you know he when he wasn't sailing, he was kind of restless and intense and not able to relax. But sailing is where he was able to process his emotions and exert control and first prove himself too, and because sailing requires aggression and rapid decision making, making calculated risks, teamwork, uh being obsessed with like the weather, pushing yourself, that kind of thing, right?
SPEAKER_02What when you say sailing, are you speaking of literally sailing with a sailboat or are you talking about just being on the in on the water?
SPEAKER_01Like I'm talking about like racing sailboats.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. So rich man sailing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So he was actually he grew up sailing, he was always interested in that, and he was in actually in the Olympic trials in 1964. Uh, didn't make the Olympics, but do you remember back in the 70s the America's Cup used to be big? Yeah, yeah. America's Cup. That's still a thing, isn't it? I think it is. I think it is, yeah. But remember how it got really it was really big like in the 70s and 80s? Yeah, yeah. Well, he tried to win America's Cup first in 1974 and actually did win it in 1977. He was the skipper of uh uh a boat called the Courageous, and he was he was the main guy, and he won the America's Cup. Mr. Outrageous on the courageous. That's right, right. And in 1979, he was in a race called the FastNet race, and there was a big storm, and boats were capsizing, and some sailors even died, and it was just total chaos out on and he actually won that race too. So he wasn't just a guy who liked to go out on a boat, he was actually a a very accomplished um sailor, and in some some of the biggest races in the he was one of the best um sailors in the world. Uh now have you ever been on a sailboat? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, there's a lot to it. Oh, yeah. Like when you're when you're traveling. I've I've been on a couple, but not not in any sort of uh uh capacity where I was doing other things, anything other than just what I was told. Hold this rope or pull this or get out of the way.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And and just like his 1993 biography, it ain't as easy as it looks. In fact, um one time I um I can't, I don't think it was my honeymoon, but we were on a vacation one time, and I convinced my wife that I because I had been on some sailboats that I could I could do this. You rented one or something, yeah, like a like a sunfish or one of these. Yeah, yeah. And uh didn't take long before I realized I had no idea what I was doing out there and got us, got us out and couldn't get us back. So yeah, that was it's a tough, tough uh but that's nowhere near no. These guys, these are big, you know, big uh powerful um boats. Yeah, they're going fast. Yeah, they're going fast, yeah, and they're racing each other, and yeah, it's great. So I just wanted to start with the sailing because I think that kind of always that that um push-pull between being reckless but having to be under control, and I think sailing like taught him how to rein a lot of that his his inner desires in. His desires were to just be kind of out there and flamboyant and you know say what he thinks, but knowing that that wasn't always good for business. But there was uh always that struggle that you see in sailing. So uh, as you can imagine, growing up as a sailor, his dad had money, his dad was a billboard tycoon. And if you've ever ever seen a billboard, um, even these days, uh, at the bottom of that billboard, you'll always chances are you'll see the word turner at the bottom of that billboard. I don't know if you've you could next time you go see a billboard, notice it, you still see them. Um, his dad owned the Turner um billboard company.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so a media, a media conglomerate before television.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, his dad owned a bunch of billboards and um moved the family um from Ohio. They moved to to Savannah when he was nine years old, and then he went to boarding school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Okay, ultimately went to college at Brown in Rhode Island and was the on the debate team, captain of the sailing team, majored in classics, and his dad hated that idea, said it made him almost puke when he heard about that. So so this would have been in the like 1940s?
SPEAKER_02No, more uh late 50s. Late 50s. What is majoring what is majoring in classics even mean?
SPEAKER_01Like humanities, like learning the great uh or English, maybe you'd call it English now, but learn it like literature. Okay. Um so he later changed his major to economics, but didn't matter because he got expelled from Brown for having a girl in his room. Oh, as one will, and actually never went back and got his degree. He went back to give the commencement address at Brown in 1989, and they gave him an honorary degree. But um and said sorry, that must always feel good when you get kicked out of somewhere and then they they end up having you back as like the commencement speaker.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So in 1960, um he went, he, you know, he's not in college anymore. Uh so he went back to Georgia to become the general manager of his dad's um one of his one of the locations in Macon, Georgia. Billboard, billboard empire. Of the billboard company, yeah. And that was gonna be kind of his life. Um, but his dad committed suicide in 1963. So at 24 years old, Ted became the president and CEO of Turner Billboards and really turned that company into kind of a into kind of a global business. Wow. Did great. And and his dad was a good businessman and set him up, did uh he made a lot of smart decisions. So they were uh uh the company was not in debt at all. They had um they had um good cash reserves so he could go out and expand. Um and with this cash, Ted bought a bunch of radio stations in the late 60s and then um and then sold all the radio stations to buy a UHF station in Atlanta, uh channel 17. You remember a UHF? Oh yeah, channel 26 in Houston. The UHF on all the channels 14 and above, right? So if you ultra high frequency, right? So if you picture like an old-fashioned TV, it has two knobs, right? The first one, the top one, is um VHF, very high frequency, and that goes from two to thirteen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and there is a U. There was a U on the top knob, the letter U. You would put it on that U, and then you turn the bottom knob.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, bottom knobs from 14 to I think 69.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was something or somewhere up in the 60s.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, so he bought channel 17 in Atlanta, that was a UHF station, and he changed the call letters. Um, I don't remember what they were, but he changed it to WTCG, which stood for communer communications group, but for advertising purposes, he used that as watch this channel grow. WTCG. Watch this channel grow. This channel grow. Wow, that's a stretch. Watch this channel grow. So because back then, remember UHF stations, this was in the late 60s. Uh stations would you know a lot of great yeah, they were mostly like reruns. He showed old movies, you know, from the 40s, and he used showed cartoons and he showed classic sitcoms. And what would happen with these syndicated sitcoms back then was as new sitcoms, newer sitcoms would become available, stations would uh he would buy the older sitcoms from the stations. So he was um buying like Gilligan's Island and I Love Lucy and Star Trek and Bugs Bunny and shows like that. And um, and then 1972 he brought bought the rights to televise Atlanta Braves baseball and Atlanta Hawks basketball games.
SPEAKER_02He realized sports was gonna be a big thing on TV.
SPEAKER_01Well, he was just trying to find content, you know. Yeah, you have to program this thing, so you're you're doing it with with old things and baseball games and basketball games. Well, in 1976, the game changed because the FCC allowed WTCG to use a satellite to transmit his channel in Atlanta, his channel 17, nationwide to cable subscribers. And cables TV was just starting back then. Is this how we got WGN? That was in Chicago, right? That was the that was the same same kind of thing, though.
SPEAKER_02It was like a local station that was broadcast to other okay. I never understood how that worked.
SPEAKER_01So the Atlanta WTCG, he called it the super station, and eventually had two million subscribers to um, you know, on various cable TV. Cable TV, not very many people had cable TV back then, but if you did, the idea of not just having three or five channels anymore, but you know, maybe 50 channels, yeah, and and like you say, random, not satellite, but cable TV. It would where you know a cable company from your local area would grab um channels in from satellites. Um by that time, he he by the time he got two million subscribers, his net worth was already a hundred million dollars just by doing this.
SPEAKER_02Just from the advertising, I guess that was the main source of revenue, I would think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So in 1976, he actually bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team, and he bought them for ten million dollars. Wow. Now, ten million dollars and a million dollars down, he only had to put a million dollars down and buy the Atlanta Braves. Now, 10 million in 1976 is worth about 58 million today. Okay, the Atlanta Braves today are worth 3.3 billion dollars. Wow, so that's not inflation.
SPEAKER_02That's that's just that's just sports, professional sports.
SPEAKER_01And then in 1977, he bought the um the NBA team, the Atlanta Hawks, for 12 million dollars. And he didn't even really care about being a sports owner, he did this for content. He bought these teams so he could use it for content, and it was better than uh it was a better business decision than just having the rights to to these games. He actually owned the teams.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you could go beyond the games then too, right? You can you can actually do ancillary content, you can do interviews, you can do uh, you know, celebrity, you know, if you have if you've got a hot player uh who's doing really well, you could take that person and put them on and you know have them doing things, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, and he was such a great marketer. Actually, when he bought the Hawks in 1977, the owner of the Hawks also owned the hockey team, the Atlanta Flames, and he said, I'll throw in the Flames for free. And Ted Turner turned him down on that. Probably a misstep. He probably should have taken that too. Yeah, yeah. So it was really smart. This this idea of so now you've got, like you said, people from all over the country able to watch this um this Atlanta UHF station. Um, and if you don't live in a major league city, uh you can watch the Atlanta Braves every day on TV. So he started calling the Braves America's team. Oh, yeah, you're expanding your fan base. So if you lived in, you know, Omaha, Nebraska, or you know, uh Boise, Idaho, or you know, Tampa, Florida, you were an Atlanta Braves fan because that was the team that you got to see every day. So they got really did become America's team. They had fans from all now, they weren't very good, they were the worst team in baseball. Um in 1970, around then, around when he uh when he bought the team, uh, you know, so I said this was channel 17. Well, they signed a free agent, one of the first that was back when free agency was just starting in baseball, and there was this guy named Andy Messersmith, and he wore number 17. And Ted Turner persuaded um, well, he had this crazy idea where for 1977 he was going to put nicknames on the back of jerseys instead of their real names. Okay, so you'd see names like Howdy and Nort and Cannon, and he asked Mongo Andy Messersmith to put the name channel where his name should have been instead of saying 17. So it'd say channel 17. Oh, that's brilliant. So Major League Baseball did not like this. They ordered him to stop doing this. They thought he was making a mockery of this great game, so it only lasted about two weeks. But you can see, um, uh, if you Google it, you can see pictures of old Anton Messersmith with uh channel 17 on his back. Nice, uh, just always advertising, right?
SPEAKER_02I guess he needed to find a player whose last name was channel, that would have been ideal, right?
unknownYeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if there's ever been a major league player with the name of Channel. In 1979, he changed the name of WTCG to WTBS. WTBS, that's TBS, Turner Broadcasting System.
SPEAKER_02System, okay.
SPEAKER_01Now actually, WTBS was actually the name of the MIT student radio station. So he had to strike a deal with them. He donated to them, he donated a new transmitter for $25,000. He gave them a new transmitter on uh condition that they give up their name. So uh WTBS um was the new Atlanta super station.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, I mentioned that the Braves were a terrible baseball team in 1977. They started, um, they were had lost 16 games in a row. They're 8 and 21. So Ted Turner fires the manager and hires himself as the manager.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01He had never played baseball, never managed baseball at any level, but he said, if I'm smart enough to buy the team, I ought to be smart enough to manage it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, he was 38 years old, and I don't mean he was like calling down from his office. He wore the uniform, he filled out the lineup card, he uh sat in the dugout, he uh went it was a game in Pittsburgh? Yeah, a game in Pittsburgh. He was talking trash to the other manager. He was it was May 11, 1977. They lost two to one, but he was really happy with himself. He brought in a pinch hitter who got a double, so he thought he really knew how to do it. But Major League Baseball came down hard on this. They told him to get out of the dugout, never do that again. Apparently, there was a rule against managers ownership. Stock in the team. So with that rule, they were able to ban him from managing the team. Um, so you know, the Braves most of that time were a laughing stock. They were they were bad in 1981. They were bad, and he fired their manager named Bobby Cox.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I've heard that.
SPEAKER_01And in the press conference, they in uh at the beginning of the season, they asked him, um, Ted, who's on your short list uh for manager? And he said, This is my favorite Ted Turner uh quote, probably. He said, Well, it would be Bobby Cox if I hadn't just fired him. We need someone like him around here. Well, the joke was on Ted Turner because he ended up hiring Bobby Cox in like 1989, and Bobby Cox ended up being the architect of the Braves dynasty once they got finally did get good and ultimately did win that World Series in 1995. It was Barbie Bobby Cox that was first the general manager and then the manager of the team. So he was right on. They did need someone like Bobby Cox, but it's just so funny to right after you fire someone to go, yeah, that's just the kind of guy we need around around here. Like him, but not him. Right, exactly. But it turned out to be to be him. Um in 1978, he gets this idea of a 24-hour news channel. Now, I think the first time anybody heard of the idea of a 24-hour news channel, it sounded ridiculous. The news was something you watched at six o'clock and it was like a half an hour. Walter Crumb kind of went on about your day. There was no point, there's not enough things happening. And how would you how would you even do that? And why would anybody watch news when it wasn't 6 p.m.? You know, just that he was such a visionary that he saw that there was a demand for that, or I guess maybe a better way to say it is he created the demand for that. Yeah. So he comes up with this idea in 1978, ran it by some people, some people in the industry, and they estimated that it would cost about 20 million dollars. You'd have to have an all-electronic newsroom and all satellites, so you could get news for all the stuff.
SPEAKER_02You gotta get stuff in quickly.
SPEAKER_01So he had uh he had another TV station in Charlotte, so he sold that station for $20 million. At the time it was the largest sale ever for a local TV station, and actually funded um this 24-hour news channel, put the headquarters in Atlanta, as you mentioned, um, because it was non-union. So if you tried to do this in New York or LA, it would have cost way more than 20 million. But by using non-union um you know, all those all those jobs, you can imagine those um technical jobs or union jobs. Um and then he he he just had this idea that they were gonna be on forever. Wait, what year was this? 78? Uh they it actually signed on in 1980. Okay. He had the idea in 1978. He said, We won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on and we'll cover the end of the world live, and that will be our last event. We'll play the national anthem only one time on the first of June, 1980. And then when the end of the world comes, we'll play Nearer My God to Thee before we sign off. And he actually had a military band, he made he made a video of a military band playing that song, Nearer My God to Thee. So and um, and sometimes he would play that for reporters, and he was really like he really said, like, we're gonna play this. This is the last thing we're ever gonna play.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he was serious.
SPEAKER_01In the database, the video was tagged as hold for release until the end of the world confirmed.
SPEAKER_02I'll have to ask Johnny, I'll have to ask Johnny to verify that because he had access to all their footage.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, the Hollywood reporter said there's no one in American, there's no one in American history who's done more to change how the world gets his news for better or for worse than Ted Turner. And I think that's pretty, pretty accurate, right? I mean, all the bad stuff about cable news and 24-hour news, and certainly are bad things about feeding that beast, right? Yeah. And but all the good parts about instant, instant having I mean, even right down to like you know, social media now, you know, is how we get our news is so instantaneous. Just the idea of instant news um being beyond the morning and evening newspaper.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, it was a routine or a uh it was a precedent that had been set years and years, centuries before, right, with newspapers and traditional media. And so uh, you know, CNN became traditional media, but it was it was different at that time because uh, you know, nobody I I kind of remember hearing about it and thinking that's weird, you know, and and like like uh my parents for some reason we never had cable TV, they refused to pay for it, so I only got to watch cable, you know, MTV or CNN or whatever at other people's houses. So HBO.
SPEAKER_01So I I you were watching Friday night videos.
SPEAKER_02I was watching UHF. I was watching UHF, uh pretty much, you know, Brady Bunch and and uh That's Incredible mentioned earlier. Uh but yeah, it it was it was CNN always seemed uh a little highfalutin, you know, if you will. It was kind of like uh and it also I think back then people who watch the news to me, at least as a kid, I thought were more intellectual. Now I think of like you know, just old people with their jaws hanging down, going, uh, I got you know, I got CNN or Fox News or whatever they're watching, you know, just brainless. Brainless. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, he tried to buy CBS in 1981, but uh couldn't, the deal fell through. But in 1986, he bought MGM United Artists for $1.1 billion, and then sold back the studio part of MGM. That wasn't the part he was really interested in, but he kept the library. So this was all MGM films prior to 1986. That was 2,200 films, and then he would syndicate those films back to TV stations all over the country. And the one of the most controversial things he did with these movies in the mid-80s was he um bought the technology and tried to colorize black and white films. Do you remember this? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do remember that. His idea was that younger people weren't gonna watch any of these old classics, but maybe if we made them color, made them like new again, like The Wizard of Oz. No, he never was in color, yeah. Sorry, sorry in color, like it's a wonderful light.
SPEAKER_02It's a one okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, so did you ever see a colorized movie?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it looked creepy.
SPEAKER_01It it it didn't look quite right. And a lot of backlash, like it really didn't please anybody because the younger people still weren't interested in watching old movies, and then the older people who thought of these as classics were, you know, this was a real affront. Like it was like defacing them, right? Yeah, in fact, this is why the American Academy of uh the AAFI, the um uh film institute, um instituted that whole national reserving films for like um posterity, right? Um, and I don't think you can colorize these films anymore. I think that was but that was a experiment that did not work. Occasionally you can still see colorized versions of some of these things, but they're largely out of print. Nobody wants to see them anymore, right?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01In 1988, he bought Jim Crockett Promotions, which was a wrestling company, and renamed it WCW, and it was the main competitor of WWF. And he went and he got Hulk Hogan and he got Randy Macho Man Savage, and he started this thing on TBS called Monday Nitro, and then later TNT uh called Monday Nitro uh to compete with uh WWF. Actually ended up selling it back to WWF in um 2001, and that was another one of his rivals. You mentioned Rupert Murdoch. Vince McMahon was a big rival of his.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01In 1999, Vince McMahon said, All say about Ted is he's a son of a bitch. Other than that, he's probably not a bad guy, but I don't like him at all. Is that a backhanded company? Is that a sandwich uh insult? I don't know. I didn't see not a bad guy, I don't like him at all.
SPEAKER_02I didn't realize he was that um invested in wrestling. Yeah, WCW. Do you remember WCW? I really don't. Do you remember Monday Nitro? You know, again, was it a cable thing? We didn't have cable, yeah. See, yeah, I don't I only got to watch the WWF and the Houston Mid-South on UHF on so by the time this happened in 1988, you'd probably moved on. Yeah, I wasn't watching eighty eight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, in 1988, he also started the TNT network that you mentioned. And yeah, you know the first show they ever showed on that? Um when we were in college, I remember this being a big deal that they were they were no, what was the first show? Gone with the wind. It was the first thing they ever showed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that that that seems right. In 1991, he bought our friends Hanna Barbera, bought the studio. He bought too much crossover, yeah. And in 1992, formed the Cartoon Network um to play a lot of these Hannah Barbera shows. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um Hey, I've got all this IP, I need to play it somewhere.
SPEAKER_01I it was all about content, it was all about just finding finding niche programming, I mean niche channels, and then create creating channels that were niche, and then create uh buying content for those channels in 1994. Um Turner Classic Movies TCM um came out. You've heard of that one, yeah, yep. Have you ever heard of the Goodwill Games?
SPEAKER_02I have. I've heard that, I've heard that name. I don't know much about it.
SPEAKER_01So you recall in 1980 the Olympics were in Moscow and the US boycotted those games because of their invasion of Afghanistan. Okay, and then in retaliation in 1984, the Olympics were in Los Angeles, and the Soviet Union boycotted those to get back at us for 1980. Yeah, so during this time, from you know, there was no Olympics from night that where both the US and the Soviets, the two powers in sports and in the world, were there were no Olympics that they both competed in from 1976 to 1988. So seeing that and seeing and and the Olympic movement was actually in real trouble. Um, that this was the height of the Cold War. I mean, this is like Rocky IV time, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I will break you.
SPEAKER_01Um Ted Turner says, Well, the Olympics might be going away, um, that's not good. I believe in the Olympic ideal. I'll make my own Olympics again. He has the platforms for content, right? I'll just make my own Olympics. And in 1986, basically came up with his own Olympics called the Goodwill Games in Moscow. And this was back when you know nobody broadcast from Moscow. And I remember he had like Larry King was the host of the you know, the studio host of the Goodwill Games, and there were 3,000 athletes from 79 countries, most importantly, the US and the Soviet Union were there. They were competing against each other 18 different sports, tons of stars, uh all the all the top um all the top athletes were there. Um, it didn't do well financially, lost tens of millions of dollars, but he didn't do it for money, did it because, well, you could say one, he saw an opening, but also he believed in this idea that look, as long as these countries are competing in sports, they're not he was very afraid of nuclear war.
SPEAKER_02That became something he was really that song and do and do the sign-off.
SPEAKER_01That's right. So they had the Goodwill Games in 1986 in Moscow, 1990 in Seattle, 1994 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Now, by then, now Russia now is Russia is Russia.
SPEAKER_02Right, Soviet Union.
SPEAKER_01The Cold War is kind of melting a little bit. 1998, New York City, 2000, they did a winter Goodwill Games in Lake Placid, and actually a 2001 was the last Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia. The only one that wasn't in either the US or Russia, and by that time it had kind of run its course, but it also you might say it's it it did what it was supposed to do, it right it it it it participated, it was part of that engine that ended the Cold War, right? Or brought the two sides back together.
SPEAKER_02So people could still donate their their things from a garage sale to the Goodwill games. That's right.
SPEAKER_01You mentioned him being a uh landowner, yeah, being one of the largest private landowners in America. At one point, he owned two million acres of land. Wow. That's about the size of it's a little bigger than Delaware. It's about the size of Puerto Rico. It's like owning five Houstons put together. Now that wasn't 12 million contiguous, right? Right. Just in different places Montana, New Mexico, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Kansas. Um, his largest one ranch, single ranch was the Vermejo Ranch in New Mexico. It was a half a million acres. It's larger than a lot of national parks. And he had one of the largest, you mentioned um Buffalo. We call them bison, Kelly. Bison, yeah. Um, he uh had one of the largest private bison herds in the world. He had 50,000 bison at one point.
SPEAKER_02And and he he had restaurants, he had a he had a steakhouse, I think.
SPEAKER_01Ted's Montana Grill.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're still around.
SPEAKER_01There's 38 locations today. Have you eaten anyone? No, there aren't any around here.
SPEAKER_02I I don't know where I was uh traveling on a work trip one time, and I had the bison at Ted Montana, Ted's Montana Grill, and it was good.
SPEAKER_01I actually do enjoy bison a lot, um just around here. But he um he thought that he really believed in bison and being like ecologically superior to cattle. He thought they were better because they're native, unlike cattle, where who aren't native to North America, they came from Europe. Um, bison or buffalo are native to North America, and so they handle the extreme weather better than cattle do. They require less shelter than cattle, they can handle snow better than cattle. They're much cooler looking. They're very cool, they resist disease, especially the disease that's like you know, the pestilence that's comes from the North America. Mad cow overall, they just kind of need less humans, fewer humans to survive than cattle do. Cattle are kind of needy, they need humans and and bison don't. Gotta be milked and not to mention the um the meat is leaner and healthier. Yeah. So he did he he did promote these just like CNN, just like the Goodwill games, just like the Braves. You know, you create something, and then you know, you you need a platform so that you could say that the bison was the was the content for the mechanic Ted's Montana Grill or vice versa.
SPEAKER_02Right now, and and and interesting that he sourced, you know, the the the restaurant was built because he had a source for it, so he could source it all himself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they say like 90% of the the meat from uh for those restaurants is from one of those his ranches. Yeah, that would make sense. I was just looking at the menu um yesterday. Um do you ever heard of Captain Planet?
SPEAKER_02Captain, yeah, was it a was it a ecological cartoon show or something? Exactly.
SPEAKER_01In 1990, you know, he was big on on the ecology and and want wanting, and he thought that the best chance that this planet would have is to start kids young teaching them about this.
SPEAKER_02And he had Smokey the Bear for what Smokey was for Forest, Captain Planet was for Europe.
SPEAKER_01He had whole channels that he could promote this stuff. So in 1990, he came up with this cartoon called Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Um, it was five teenagers from all over the world, and they had magical rings, each representing earth, wind, fire, water, and heart. And then when things looked dire for them, they would combine the rings together and sub summon Captain Planet. Can you picture this guy? Yeah, yeah. Blue skin and green hair and kind of a mullet. It was meant to teach kids about recycling and conservation and pollution and environmental responsibility. And a lot of people say that it probably wasn't the sole cause, but you know, millennials who were, you know, kids in 1990 um are famously kind of um more environmentally conscious than our generation, or certainly. Um that Captain Planet was one of those things that it made environmentalism seem normal to these millennial kids. Yeah. And I mean, all we got was like give a hoot, don't pollute. Right, right. Um, maybe don't get a big Texas and no and Smokey Bear. There were bad guys in this cartoon, had really cool names, though. Like um, here's some this sounds like some of those Dickens names that we came up with. Here's some of the bad guys. Hoggish Greedley. You like that Hoggish?
SPEAKER_02It also sounds like something from Harry Potter. Luton Plunder, Luton Plunder, that's like do we cheat him and how?
SPEAKER_01Verminous scum S-K-U-M-M.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01And then before the actual video game that made this name famous, Captain Planet had a villain named Duke Nukem. Really? Yeah, okay, yeah. And he had really famous people to do voice acting on these cartoons, too, like Whoopi Goldberg and LeVar Burton, Martin Sheen, Jeff Goldblum, Meg Ryan, and Sting.
SPEAKER_02I was never, I was never a uh Sting must have been one of the bad guys. You think he was loot and plunder? I think you need an English venomous scum like a verminous scum. Verminous scum, also known as Sting. I I was never I never watched this cartoon. I guess it was well, you know.
SPEAKER_01It came out when you were 20.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, yeah. Uh, but it sounds like it would be worth checking out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't I don't I mean, I think it was popular. I and it wasn't just on Cartoon Network, but it was on his other stations, and then they syndicated it also to like Fox stations, so even people without cable could watch it. Right. But apparently, people of the millennial generation would know Captain Planet. Yeah, we were a little older by then. Um, now you know he was married three times. Can you name any of his wives? Uh were they famous? One of them was real famous.
SPEAKER_02No, I can't.
SPEAKER_01So in 19, from 1960 to 64, when he was still working on billboards and he was driven and very volatile and dealing with his dad's death, he was married to a woman named Judy Nye. Judy Nye. And then from 1965 to 1988, during his whole TBS, CNN, building wealth, being kind of difficult to live with, building an empire, from 1965 to 1988, he was married to a woman named Jane Smith. Jane Smith, okay, and then from 1991 to 2000, he was married to a woman who was equally larger than life for him, and equally uh well, also very wealthy, and they just clicked. They just had a good relationship. Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda. That's right. That's right. Okay, yes. So they were married for 10 years. Um, she got like a hundred million dollars in their divorce, but it wasn't a bitter divorce. In fact, she had beautiful things to say about him when he um when he died. She said he swept into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate, and I've never been the same. He needed me. No one had ever let me know they needed me, and this wasn't your average human being that needed me. This was the creator of CNN and Turner Classic Movies who had won the America's Cup as the world's greatest sailor. So he had her heart, man. Yeah, yeah. That's a glowing review. His charitable donations were really um next level and more of today's type. You know, back then, charitable donations were like Like hospitals and universities and museums.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He was interested in things like nuclear disarmament and the environment and global health and conservation. He donated a billion dollars to the United Nations. Wow. It was, I think, the largest donation ever given to anybody, any entity. He was at a dinner and one time with a bunch of rich people, and they were all complaining about the UN and how and he was noticing they weren't doing anything or contributing anything to these things that they were complaining about the UN. So and he went the next day and he now there was no mechanism to give a billion dollars to the UN. And that would have to be a really giant check. It was a third of his wealth, too. Like it was this was not a you know a small donation, but he thought that the United Nations, he really believed in them. He thought that that was humanity's best chance at eliminating war, poverty, dealing with climate change, and and especially nuclear issue that he was really, really scared of all the time. He wasn't like a private, like a Rockefeller. Like remember, we talked about Rockefeller, but he also wasn't like he played the hunches more than guys like Jeff Bezos, who's more into data, right? He's actually probably more similar to Elon Musk than any of those guys. And actually probably more more similar to like a William Randolph Hearst, you know, from the media guy. Um he had overlap with you know, he was now when I say overlap, I mean he was like these guys, all rolled into one. Walt Disney, these guys that we've talked about in the past. Walt Disney, P. T. Barnum, Henry Ford, Rockefeller, Merv Griffin, Ray Kroc, Colonel Sanders, Howard Hughes, Carl Sagan, and Jim Henson. All rolled into one.
SPEAKER_02Let's add Andre the Giant for his wrestling for wrestling.
SPEAKER_01In terms of guys he's met that we've talked about, he's he met Muhammad Ali. You know, he was Muhammad Ali famously lit the torch or lit the uh cauldron at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_01He was a big Carl Sagan guy. He put Carl Sagan on CNN every chance he could get. Um, talk about the climate. Um, he had uh ran in the same circles as Merv Griffin uh in the entertainment circles. He was uh he put Carl Howard Cosell on TV sometimes. Um and of course he owned Hannah Barbera. Yeah, he didn't own the guys, he owned their company, right? Right. But and I think Hannah Barbera created um I think they created the uh Captain Planet.
SPEAKER_02Oh, they actually did the illustration or the creative part.
SPEAKER_01It was his idea, but they think they made it. Yeah, Captain Planet. Wow. Now, as far as like Adult Swim, I don't think that's at all in his brand at all. I think he was like um I don't think he, but I think by the time Adult Swim came around, I think he didn't wasn't involved or didn't own the the company as much, you know. That whole I don't think he was a cynic at all, and I think Adult Swim is all about very cynical. Yeah, I think I think the only similarities he would have is that let's let's put something weird on TV.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you know how Adult Swim actually started? Was from uh Space Ghosts Coast to Coast. Yes, that like was the bridge between Cartoon Network and Adult Swim.
SPEAKER_02I loved Space Ghost Coast to Coast. I don't know how much of that you've watched, but it is a little bit, yeah. It is it is hilarious, it was hilarious.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if it holds up, but that whole kind of Gen X cynicism, I don't think he was really down with with a lot of that. And it's just like I I know that true TV is like part of that Turner uh umbrella now. I don't think he would be about that at all, other than just the idea that you know there was a channel for you know, the idea of like having niche channels. But you know, I think he thought you should do things better with TV than that. Um or uh or nostalgia. I mean, let's you know, let's face it, he made his money by Gilligan's Island reruns. I mean, let's not make it too well.
SPEAKER_02That kind of goes back to the your your quote you you said at the beginning. I think it was Lead Follower Get Out of the Way, right?
SPEAKER_01That was the name of his first biography, yeah. Yeah, and Lead Follower Get Out of the Way.
SPEAKER_02And and and cynicism is none of those things, right? Cynicism isn't leading, it's really just complaining, you know, to some degree.
SPEAKER_01Uh that was the guys that uh that spurned them to to donate to the UN, right? Yeah, just a bunch of rich guys complaining. It's like, well, you know what? Do something.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. I'm gonna lead. I'm gonna lead. And hopefully they'll follow.
SPEAKER_01I like that lead, follow, or get out of the way. It's like do just do something. Yeah, yeah, and you might as well say get out of my way.
SPEAKER_02Yep, and if you're gonna follow, then then you can you can contribute, but you know, just getting out of the way, at least you're not slowing things down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01It ain't as easy as it looks as a great title for a biography, though. And I I think it's cool that only one person can have that. It it would be a great title for a podcast, too. Because this isn't easy. You could think of so many people whose autobiography should be called It Ain't As Easy as It Looks, right? Yeah, yeah. But he was the one that came up with that. Yeah, he was creative and and uh and cooked a mean steak. Yeah, yeah. So pour one out for uh for Teddy.
SPEAKER_02Along with uh your bison, enjoy it responsibly, and uh go Captain Planet.
SPEAKER_00Are your powers combined? I am Captain Planet.
