George Bailey Was Never Born

iHeartPodcasts

George Bailey Was Never Born, a one-of-a-kind podcast experience, takes a definitive look at It’s a Wonderful Life, one of the most popular movies of all time, the story of Americans’ decades-long love affair with this cultural institution and how it may offer a light down the path we walk today, all 10 episodes available Nov 21, 2023. Created by Kurt Engfehr, the editor-producer of Oscar- and Palme d’Or-winning documentaries, and Ray Nowosielski, 2022 NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast, the series is a co-production of iHeartMedia and Double Asterisk, in association with True Stories.  Narrated by a familiar angel, he takes listeners back and forth between the part of the multiverse where the events of Wonderful Life really happened and our own, one where George Bailey was never born! SaveGeorgeBailey.com

  1. EPISODE 1

    Part 01: The People's Movie (1974 to '92)

    A fan love letter to It's a Wonderful Life, this episode dives deeply into the period over the 1970s and ‘80s when the movie played around the clock on local TV and Americans fell in love with it, asking why writer Philip Van Doren Stern’s sliding-doors butterfly-effect concept of each person’s value and impact on all others acquired such currency with Americans of that place and time.  What resurrected Wonderful Life after nearly three decades?  We become the first to tell the tale of how the combination of a whoops by Rashida Jones’ grandfather and a decade-long NYC viewing party launched this movie from obscurity to American icon.  We look at the endless string of TV episodes and movies inspired by Wonderful Life and talk with the writers of one of the very first, a 1979 Robin Williams starring sitcom’s “Wonderful Mork” episode, to understand the deep universal appeal of considering what the world would be like without you.  Finally, we come to 1989, peak year for “take-offs” on this movie, many decidedly dark.  Why?  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 5m

  2. EPISODE 2

    Part 02: You Are Now in Bedford Falls

    A deep dive into the Wonderful Life Festival in western New York's Seneca Falls, a town that makes a powerful case that it is “the real Bedford Falls.”  Annually every December, one of the last surviving people associated with the production of It's a Wonderful Life, Karolyn “Zuzu” Grimes, travels there to join thousands of fans.  What about this nearly 80 year old movie keeps it so beloved?  And what motivates Karolyn?  We’ll learn the surprisingly pertinent answers, the story of how a Hollywood child actress turned rural everywoman – who never saw the movie until a fateful knock on her door at age 40 changed the direction of her life – found a second home and forever changed one small town.  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    48 min

  3. EPISODE 3

    Part 03: Henry F Potter, American AntiHero

    Going in search of the reason why “up-side down” takes on It's a Wonderful Life have eclipsed traditional ones in recent years, this episode quickly becomes a history lesson about the U.S. government’s attack on the movie’s writers, and an examination of the state of heroes and villains today.  What does this phenomenon tell us about the nature of how our culture has changed?  We’ll look at the first to gain widespread attention, a Salon co-founder’s 9/11 era defense of Pottersville – the runaway capitalist reality where George Bailey was never born – and then the most popular, a New York Times reporter’s 2008 financial crisis tinged effort to prove George would have been prosecuted and his leadership ultimately ruined Bedford Falls.  Then, we go way back, to the surprising first critics of the movie, J. Edgar Hoover and Ayn Rand.  And we learn Jimmy Stewart’s daughter's take on what real heroism means, with implications for MAGA.  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 12m

  4. EPISODE 4

    Part 04: The Corporations' Movie (1993 to 2023)

    How was it that It's a Wonderful Life went from a local TV free-for-all to only airing during the holidays on NBC for most of the past three decades?  In search of the answer, the podcast unearths a never-before-told story that up-ends many of the broadly-held assumptions and reveals much about the Potter-dominated state of modern media.  Generally, once a piece of art falls into the public domain, it stays there forever.  Not so with Wonderful Life, now claimed by Paramount Global and long the exclusive television domain of Comcast’s NBC Universal.  What happened in 1993 to take “the People’s movie" back?  What does it tell us about the effects of a broader corporate trend towards consolidation and monopoly that was the dominant strategy of iconic villain Henry F. Potter?  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 7m

  5. EPISODE 5

    Part 05: Pottersville

    If western New York's Seneca Falls is the “real Bedford Falls,” then what can that town tell us about what happened to the people of that place in It's a Wonderful Life?  We come to know real corollaries of the beloved characters from that movie today, learning about their hopes and struggles, and discovering much about the state of small-town America.  Seneca Falls is filled with citizens who might remind you of characters from your favorite holiday movie.  We come to know a major employer and the mayor, high school buddies in the vein of George Bailey and Sam Wainwright who have playfully fought over how best to navigate the future of the post-industrial town.  A Bert-like cop, a Violet Bick-like hairdresser and a Nick-like bartender take us up-close inside locals’ experiences.  A journalist who returns with his mother to her hometown comes away sure he’s missed a big story about the American small-town.  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 1m

  6. EPISODE 6

    Part 06: The George Bailey Generation

    The much-admired George Bailey was not a stand-out but an almost perfect representative of his Greatest Generation, as historians argue in this episode that spotlights the relationship of parents and children and the yin and yang of eras, seeking a culprit to who upside-down’d America from the ethos of It's a Wonderful Life.  Those of George’s generation, born between 1901 and ‘27, and called the Greatest, begrudgingly set aside their more selfish ambitions to ultimately become the most progressive in history, leaving their children a far better world.  How did their parents’ generation, like George’s father, inspire them?  And how, by contrast, did the generation of George’s daughter Zuzu – the Baby Boomers – come to reverse it all?  And a new generation shows signs of being Bailey-like.  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 3m

  7. EPISODE 7

    Part 07: Bailey Park Returns, a.k.a A Couple of Decent Rooms & a Bath

    George Bailey’s do still exist today, as we witness with Seneca Falls’ community banker Menzo Case, following his efforts to create much-needed affordable housing via his own Bailey Park.  Ordinary Americans “do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community,” George famously chastises Henry F. Potter, suggesting they ought to be able to do so “in a couple of decent rooms and a bath.”  How did working people come to be priced out of owning their own homes in modern small towns?  The Potters are revealed, and they are us:  “NIMBYs.”  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    49 min

  8. EPISODE 8

    Part 08: The Creators' Movie (1938 to '73)

    Probably the episode most fans came to this podcast seeking.  After spotlights of so many influential fans' interpretations across the series, here we ask:  what did the creators of It's a Wonderful Life actually intend, and for what did they stand?  With their next of kin, we come to know them intimately, unearthing the stories of how a literal dream inside a Brooklyn apartment during the Depression by an antifascist slavery-abolition historian was added to by a playwright who hated his money-obsessed father, given definition by exceptionally kind and in-love husband and wife screenwriters and brought to the screen by a visionary who had helped define the meaning of World War II for the nation, along with the truly heroic American actor Jimmy Stewart.  Why did the movie initially fail?  And what impact did that have on the dreams of its utopian director?  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    47 min

  9. EPISODE 9

    Part 09: Mary Hatch, Hero (For Our Times)

    The most controversial moment in It's a Wonderful Life for modern fans is the fate of George Bailey’s spouse Mary in the part of the multiverse in which he had never been born.  An examination of Mary as the true hero of Bedford Falls leads to the stories of Donna Reed as unappreciated feminist, femme punk Zuzu’s Petals' Laurie Lindeen's “woman behind the man” relationship with the Replacements’ frontman and the most impactful effect of this holiday classic, the short story writer’s daughter’s success in using banking to bring more than 100 million out of poverty.  Through conversations with influential women, from Washington Post’s gender columnist to a popular Vox television critic, from Seneca Falls’ Women’s Rights National Historic Park to our own “George Bailey” theme song writer and performer, a debate over Mary heats up – with ramifications for fixing our culture!  SaveGeorgeBailey.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    57 min

  10. EPISODE 10

    Part 10: Happy Ending

    Going meta, the last episode spotlights how this podcast came about, how co-creator Ray Nowosielski and partner Ruth Vaca were drawn into the world of It's a Wonderful Life and how the making of it proved one of the most existential years in their lives.  Listeners meet the Groundhog Day writer and the celebrities of the annual Asner Center charitable table read of Wonderful Life, a search for the perfect sequel commences and a real George Bailey is lost, in this touching conclusion.  SaveGeorgeBailey.com   Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/DoubleAsterisk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 16m
See All Season 1 (10)

Trailer

4.3
out of 5
31 Ratings

About

George Bailey Was Never Born, a one-of-a-kind podcast experience, takes a definitive look at It’s a Wonderful Life, one of the most popular movies of all time, the story of Americans’ decades-long love affair with this cultural institution and how it may offer a light down the path we walk today, all 10 episodes available Nov 21, 2023. Created by Kurt Engfehr, the editor-producer of Oscar- and Palme d’Or-winning documentaries, and Ray Nowosielski, 2022 NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast, the series is a co-production of iHeartMedia and Double Asterisk, in association with True Stories.  Narrated by a familiar angel, he takes listeners back and forth between the part of the multiverse where the events of Wonderful Life really happened and our own, one where George Bailey was never born! SaveGeorgeBailey.com

Information

  • Channel
    iHeartPodcasts
  • Creator
    iHeartPodcasts
  • Episodes
    13
  • Seasons
    1
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    2026 iHeartMedia, Inc. © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from iHeartMedia
  • Show Website
    George Bailey Was Never Born
  • Provider
    iHeartMedia + Entertainment, Inc

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