Coffee With Jeff Jeff Kelley

Thank you all that have listened to Coffee with Jeff over the years. My new podcast is called Celluloid Days. It is similar to CWJ but will focus on films and filmmaking. I hope you will join me. Again, I want to thank everyone who listened to this show over the eight years I've been doing it. It was a lot of fun!

A machine was created in the early 1960s, that for a few coins, could create a toy right before a child’s eyes. They were coin-operated machines that would mold out of plastic, things like little dinosaurs, dolphins, alligators, NASA’s Space Lab, a space capsule, and even presidential busts. It was called Mold-A-Rama, created by a man who originally wanted nothing more than a replacement for a Christmas decoration. On this show, I have the story of the Mold-a-Rama, as well as vending machines and pinball.

There once was a man who was part of a secret government experiment that involved mind-altering drugs. He wrote two classic novels before he was thirty. But of all the things he did, he said the thing he was most proud of was a bus. He took a group of friends across the country and back. They were known as the Merry Pranksters, and they went on a quest to freak out American and introduce it to LSD, Today I have the story of the amazing Ken Kesey.

Two stories in today’s episode. My main story is the brutal murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed in New York City on her way home from work. It is a murder remembered 60 years later because of a factually incorrect newspaper article.

The second story is of the 1974 attempted kidnapping of Princess Ann outside Buckingham Palace by a man named Ian Ball.

There once was a man who, in the early 19th century, spent the last 19 years of his life living in a cave-like a hermit, only contacting other humans when it was only necessary. The man had given up on the world due to personal tragedy. It was a strange, almost too weird to be true story tale. An unmarried woman convicted of murdering her own children and the brother who fought to prove her innocence. This is the story of The Pennsylvania Hermit!

There once was a talented 4-year-old that became a star in the movies. He could sing and act and looked cute as a button. But as he grew into adulthood, he has issues with relationships, authorities, and drugs. The story is about Scotty Becket, who started on the Our Gang shorts and went onto play a character named Winky before….