Transcript

Selects: Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

From Stuff You Should Know · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 46 min · 8,372 words · 174 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Selects: Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW", an episode of Stuff You Should Know published November 23, 2025 (46 min, about 8,372 words). It mentions 74 people, works and ideas, including Rockets, Radio City Music Hall, Rockettes, Stuff You Should Know, John Tiller.

What this episode is about

The content explores the history and enduring legacy of the Rockettes, a famous American precision dance troupe, highlighting their cultural significance and the evolution of their performances over the years. The discussion provides insights into the organization's impact on entertainment and its relevance, particularly during the holiday season.

Key takeaways

  • Surprise! Legendary Rockettes hail from St. Louis, not NYC, founded in 1925 by a market-loving choreographer.
  • Rockettes borrow British precision dance roots; Tiller Girls inspire iconic synchronized high kicks.
  • Rockettes reshape height requirements: from 5'2" max in 1920s to 5'10.5" minimum today.
  • Precision dance mesmerizes with unity; Rockettes create collective movement akin to a musical symphony.
  • Tiller Girls claim competitive edge, British accents and all, challenging Rockettes' precision dance status.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: John Tiller, precision dance, Rockets, Stuff You Should Know
  2. – 10:00: Rockets, Radio City Music Hall, John Tiller, precision dance
  3. – 15:00: Rockets, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Radio City Music Hall, Rockettes
  4. – 20:00: Radio City Music Hall, Bizzy Phillips, Bruce Willis, Castro
  5. – 25:00: Rockets, Rockettes, Carnegie Hall, Easter Extravaganza
  6. – 30:00: Rockets, Dina Lohan, Lindsay How, Madison Square Garden Company
  7. – 35:00: Rockets, Rockettes
  8. – 40:00: Linda Haberman, Rockets, objectification of women, video game
  9. – 45:00: Rockets, African-American, donkeys, Japanese
  10. – 45:44: iHeart Radio, iHeart Radio app, Stuff You Should Know, stuffodcast@iheartradio.com

Notable quotes from "Selects: Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"

  • Introducing Rockets Colon still kicking after all these years. This one came out January 1st, 2019, and it's about the Rockets and this is the time of year to talk about the Rockets. I learned a lot.
    about Rockets · at
  • Digging into the research on this to learn that the legendary Rockett of New York City and Radio City Music Hall are not from New York City.
    about Radio City Music Hall · at
  • And he was inspired by a British dance troop named the Tiller Girls.
    about John Tiller · at
  • Have 36. And they debuted in St. Louis, but then went to New York to perform Rain or Shine on Broadway. And that is where a man named SL Roxy, that was his nickname Rothell Mhm. which is an interesting name.
    about Rain or Shine · at
  • About every time somebody comes to see a movie at the Radio City Music Hall, we'll have the Rock the Rockettes perform before the movie.
    about Rockettes · at
  • The 50s were also big for the Rockets, too, because they joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1957, I think. Yeah, that was the big move.
    about Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade · at
  • In January where we go to Seattle and we go to Portland and then we end up at SF Sketchfest like we always do in mid January.
    about SF Sketchfest · at
  • And director and really kind of punch punched it up even further? her name is Linda Haberman and she took over I think in like the mid 2000s maybe 2008 and she kind of brought like this whole new not new it's not a whole new thing. She.
    about Linda Haberman · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • John Tiller — Person · 4 mentions · first at
  • Linda Haberman — Person · 4 mentions · first at
  • Josh Malcolm Clark — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. Happy New Year.
  • Bizzy Phillips — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah, I'm doing a matinea show at 1:00 on Saturday, January 19th with Bizzy Phillips as my guest.
  • Bruce Willis — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Did you know in the Michael Bay film Pearl Harbor that they comped in Bruce Willis's John Mlan character from Die Hard in one hospital scene?
  • Jim Belushi — Person · 1 mention · first at
    It. Like you said, the Fox and Radio City and apparently it was going to be turned into a parking lot and Belushi himself got onto the news desk at Saturday Night Live and was…
  • Sammy Davis Jr. — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Apparently made a huge fan out of Sammy Davis Jr. who would come see the same show like night after night when they play in Vegas or Tahoe or whatever. He was just fascinated by the.
  • Dina Lohan — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Yes. So, we were going to tell everyone about our experience as Rockett because we're Dina Lohan. So, here's the thing. If you're a rocket and you've been doing this for 10…
  • Lindsay How — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Everybody looking for her name and I'm not finding it. But I think it's Lindsay How. I'm almost positive her name is Lindsay How.
  • Jennifer Jones — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And in 1985, she joined. In 1988, the first African-American woman joined. Her name was Jennifer Jones. And the reasoning apparently it was Mark Marert who was No, it from all…
  • Ed Koch — Person · 1 mention
  • John McClane — Person · 1 mention
  • Little Chuck — Person · 1 mention
  • Russell Markert — Person · 1 mention
  • S. L. "Roxy" Rothafel — Person · 1 mention
  • Setsuko Maruhashi — Person · 1 mention
  • Taran — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • Rockets — Company · 21 mentions · first at
  • Radio City Music Hall — Company · 9 mentions · first at
  • Rockettes — Company · 7 mentions · first at
  • Stuff You Should Know — Company · 4 mentions · first at
    Hey everybody, happy Saturday. I got a select for you. This is Chuck here of the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
  • iHeart Radio — Company · 2 mentions · first at
    Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
  • St. Louis Rockets — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. they were founded in the 1920s, 1925 to be exact, in St. Louis, Missouri as the Rockets. The St.
  • Tiller Girls — Company · 1 mention · first at
    And he was inspired by a British dance troop named the Tiller Girls.
  • Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • SF Sketchfest — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • The Bell House — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Cafe Dord and I am my own guest. Flying solo. And then I have another one in Brooklyn on the 24th at the Bell House too.
  • Revolution Hall — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. So, come see us at the Moore in Seattle, Revolution Hall in Portland at the Castro in San Francisco. Y check out our individual little shows.
  • sysklive.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
    And there's plenty of information on sysklive.com.
  • Law and Order — Company · 1 mention · first at
    I have a similar story. I was watching one of the first few seasons of Law and Order on my television one day and there was the mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani.
  • Fox Theater — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Toilet, including, believe it or not, radio the great Radio City Music Hall, much like our own legendary Fox Theater in Atlanta.
  • Carnegie Hall — Company · 1 mention · first at
    I've been to Carnegie Hall, but never Radio City. it's on the list for sure. But it's interesting because they tried to their whole deal was is they wanted exclusive.
  • Super Bowl — Company · 1 mention · first at
    To Radio City either. they very famously appeared at the halftime show of the Super Bowl in 88.
  • Easter Extravaganza — Company · 1 mention · first at
    It was a huge deal, actually. And they had revived the Easter Extravaganza. They renamed it the New York Spring Spectacular the year before.
  • New York Spring Spectacular — Company · 1 mention · first at
    It was a huge deal, actually. And they had revived the Easter Extravaganza. They renamed it the New York Spring Spectacular the year before.
  • Psychology is nuts — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • Madison Square Garden Company — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Same work. Some of them are kind of promoted as like the faces of the Rockett. the company I think Madison Square Garden Company that owns Radio City Music Hall and the…
  • The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Got to do all these costume changes, but there's one in particular in between The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers and New York at Christmas that you have to be completely changed out in 78 seconds.
  • New York at Christmas — Company · 1 mention · first at
    There's one in particular in between The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers and New York at Christmas that you have to be completely changed out in 78 seconds.
  • stuffodcast@iheartradio.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Social links there. And you can send an email to Chuck, Jerry, and me at stuffpodcast@ iheartradio.com.
  • Cafe Du Nord — Company · 1 mention
  • Moore — Company · 1 mention
  • National Register of Historic Places — Company · 1 mention
  • Rockette Summer Intensive Dance Program — Company · 1 mention
  • Rockettes Christmas Spectacular — Company · 1 mention
  • Roxyettes — Company · 1 mention
  • SAR team — Company · 1 mention
  • stuffyoushouldknow.com — Company · 1 mention
  • United Service Organizations — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • iHeart Radio app — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Concepts & topics

  • precision dance — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
    He did, actually. So, John Tiller is widely acknowledged as the creator of what's called precision dance, which is where you have a bunch of dancers who are really highly…
  • G-rated movies — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    So that limits their pool immediately and then they really prefer G-rated movies. they had really strict screening criteria. So that just it narrowed down their movie pool so small that they would go weeks and weeks at a.
  • objectification of women — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Whitest gleaming teeth ever you've ever seen. and that it was really kind of a just objectification of women like to like by definition. And Linda Hammerman like really kind of…
  • video game — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    To this year's show or recent year's shows. Like the whole theme is like a girl wants a video game and her mom is kind of showing her you know why that's not so great because…
  • Japanese — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Oh yeah. The first woman of color was a Japanese woman named Setsuko Marahashi.
  • African-American — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    And in 1985, she joined. In 1988, the first African-American woman joined. Her name was Jennifer Jones. And the reasoning apparently it was Mark Marert who was No, it from all I saw it had nothing to do.
  • women of color — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Didn't hold up. And I guess shortly after he died is when they started adding women of color more to the Rockets troop.
  • microphones in their heels — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    And the only other small tidbit I have is they have microphones in their heels of their shoes.
  • live nativity — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    We're going to go see the Christmas spectacular. We're going to go see the live nativity with the real camel and donkeys and the wooden toy soldier march where they fall down…
  • donkeys — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Spectacular. We're going to go see the live nativity with the real camel and donkeys and the wooden toy soldier march where they fall down like a domino in slow motion. It's…
  • search and rescue dog — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Real danger. So, my experience was a lot more enjoyable, obviously, than when people are in real need of a search and rescue dog. thanks for the great episodes, guys. Keep me…
  • 3D — Concept · 1 mention
  • Brits — Concept · 1 mention
  • camel — Concept · 1 mention
  • dog handler — Concept · 1 mention
  • homogeneity — Concept · 1 mention
  • nutritionist — Concept · 1 mention
  • union — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • Castro — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah. And of course, our big stuff you should know show is at the Castro on when is that? Thursday night.
  • suburbs — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Some of those old movie palaces after people stopped well going to movie palaces and moved out to the suburbs.
  • Upper Peninsula of Michigan — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Summarize the beginning of it because it's kind of long, but his dad lives in the upper peninsula of Michigan and is a member of the local S team. And so they were We need someone to play the victim here. And he was I'll do it.
  • Vegas — Place · 1 mention

Sponsors

Full transcript with timestamps

Hey everybody, happy Saturday. Uh, I got a select for you. This is Chuck here of the Stuff You Should Know podcast. Introducing Rockets Colon still kicking after all these years. This one came out January 1st, 2019, and it's about the Rockets and this is the time of year to talk about the Rockets. I learned a lot about this organization, organization, this dance troop, and their storied history. And I think you're going to like it. So, give it a listen and please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. Happy New Year.

You are too tall to be a Rockhead, aren't you? Just barely. Uh Jerry and I can be Rockett and you can't. No, it's true.

Which is a shame cuz you have the gams. I I do actually. I've got pretty decent legs,

you know. At least my calves are all right. What? No thighs? They're a little tree trunky for my for my tastes.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've got a bit of like a fertility idol thing going on like up toward the hips and all that. Um Yeah.

Well, it's cuz of all those squats. I was not expecting to talk about this about your gams.

Yeah. Oh, well, I'll talk about my legs all day long. Well, let's hear it. They're shapely.

Okay. They're uh they're not I gain all my weight between my waist and my chin.

Uhhuh. Like I I don't If you looked at my legs and my arms, you'd be like, "That guy weighs 160 pounds."

It's hilarious. And then the rest of me comes along to to bust that myth. Step aside.

Still have a nice little fanny. Sure. Everybody knows that. Sorry listeners in the UK.

Oh, yeah. That means something different over there, doesn't it? It does. It's just so dainty and nice that little little 5-year-old kids can say fanny in the United States.

That's right. It's just the the Brits who are sickos. But this isn't about our gams. This is about a dance troop. A legendary dance troop.

Yeah. About as legendary as a dance troop can possibly be are the Rockheads. I think so.

I just said that sentence like Yoda. Can you do the voice? No. No. No. Not even going to try.

Uh, but this totally surprised me digging into the research on this to to learn that the legendary Rockett of New York City and Radio City Music Hall

are not from New York City. No, they're not. Where are they from, Chuck? Did you know this?

I had no idea. No. Yeah. So, shout out to St. Louis. Yeah. Uh, they they were founded in the 1920s, 1925 to be exact, in St. Louis, Missouri as the Rockets. The the St. Louis Rockets, which I I think they were trying to be a basketball team, maybe.

St. Louis Rockets. Sure. Yeah. There was a choreographer named uh Russell uh Marert, which is uh I kept wanting to say market, but that is an R.

Yep. And he founded them, like you said, in 1925. And he was he was inspired by a British uh dance troop named the the Tiller Girls.

Mhm. Uh which was founded in the 1894 by John Tiller. And it was kind of a similar idea. He saw these tiller girls and he was like, "I want a high-kicking, glamorous uh theatrical dance troop of my own."

Yeah. So, I'm going to rip it off. He did, actually. So, John Tiller is is um widely acknowledged as the the creator of what's called precision dance, which is where you have a bunch of dancers who are really uh highly trained, really athletic, and really precise in their movements. um that can move in such unison. Yeah. That that you take a number like a number of different dancers and they basically become one

thing that's that can do things that an individual dancer can't do. That's precision dance technique. And John Tiller literally invented it with I think four 10 year old girls in the 1890s. and um he he came up with some further refinements to it like when you put your hand around the waist of the people on either side of you it kind of lends to the unity of the whole thing. Um and and uh Russell Maker Mark saw this and was like this is amazing. If I can get some American girls with longer legs to kick higher it'll knock everybody's socks off. That's a quote by the way.

Yeah. And there's a there's something to that that synchronicity of uh for me for movement and sound that just knocks me out every time. Um when I go and see a a choir, let's like a hundred people singing together

and high kicking or or or a symphony. Uh just the not only the sound but the movement when you watch a symphony. That's a big part of it for me.

Mhm. Uh, forget a coral symphony. Like I'm on the floor weeping if you take me to a coral symphony. Uh, but there's something about that precision of of all these people together that's just really like I don't know what it is about it. I mean, it's uh it's a collective voice or collective movement, but it's that precision that really just gets gets me every time.

For sure. Well, that's what the Rocketts are known for. It's their their trade is precision dance. They're as good as it gets with it. Although the Taylor girls are definitely still around. They still have Christmas specials themselves. Um and they're doing their thing for sure. So, it's it's not just an off-hand thing to say the Rockets are as good as it comes, as good as they come in in precision dance because the Teller girls would probably say, "Um, I would dispute that statement."

But they would say it with a British accent, right? I dispute that statement. Uh so they were not as tall back then. The original uh height requirements were between 52 and 56 and 1/2. And now they went we'll take your tallest answer and make them our shortest answer because I guess it's just I don't know. I'm not sure why they did that. But now it's between 56 and 510 12. And it is not because they want to exclude people or uh any or discriminate against people who are too tall or they feel too short, but it's so they can just all look it's an optical illusion. So they can all look the same height because they take that 5' 10 and 1/2 in dancer uh although they don't have to be that tall, but they take whoever their tallest dancer is,

put her right in the middle, and then just stagger it out from there. And in the end, everyone looks It's weird. Everyone looks to be the same height even though they're not.

I don't understand how this works. It's just I saw it so many different places that I'm convinced that it does work. I just don't get the the the illusion of it, how how it works. Well, I think over 4 in and 36 women,

it's just so minute of differences as you scale down that it would take, I guess, a an extraordinary human to be like that woman is an inch and a half taller than the one five people away from her,

right? You know, I gotcha. Yeah, I guess that's true. So, you're just a normal person is what I'm saying. Yeah,

you should feel good about that. I fall for that optical illusion every time. Yeah, everybody should. Um, so they started with the Missouri Rockets with just 16 women and like I said, now they have 36. And they debuted in St. Louis, but then went to New York to perform uh Rain or Shine on Broadway. And that is where a man named SL Roxy, that was his nickname uh Rothell

Mhm. which is an interesting name. That's where he saw them and said, "Hey, I got to get in on this. This is amazing."

Yeah. So, uh, Russell M. Marker took the idea from John Tiller and Roxy Rothl said, "Hey, I want in on this jam." So, I'm going to grab a few of these dancers from St. Louis and bring them over to New York City and we're going to have them start dancing there. Okay? and I know just the place for him. There's this new venue that's opening up in 1932 and they're going to call it the Radio City Music Hall and I'm going to make sure that these dancers are able to perform and we're going to call them the Roxiet. How about that? Huh? Huh?

Yeah. Because of his nickname, right? And Mark said, "That's fine. Just make sure you pay me some money for it."

Sure. And he he did get paid and got paid until 1971. He that's it's hard to believe but he worked for the Rockets or with the Rockets uh from 1932 to or I guess even previous in St. Louis.

Yeah. 1925. Uh all the way until 1971. Yep. Really amazing. Yeah, it is pretty amazing. That's a pretty long career. Um so they they opened Radio City Music Hall. I think they were part of a 17 um group act. Uh, and that was like such a hot ticket. Something like a 100 thousand people wanted in. But there it's a 6,200 seat theater, which I think it still remains the nation's largest um indoor venue, which is really saying something because I guess it' just be like a theatrical venue because obviously

the largest indoor venue sports venues um have it beat by quite a bit, but Oh, theatrical. Okay, I got you. It has to. Yeah. It's either movie or theatrical or something, but it's the largest venue of its kind in in the United States from what I see.

Yeah. And for many years, they they I mean, they had specials every now and then, but it was sort of just a movie theater.

Yeah. And here's the thing, you could go see the movies. I think especially it started to take off in the 50s. Like before they would have premieres for movies and the Rockets would like perform at the premiere and then at some point I don't know if it was Russell Markard or or Roxy Rothell or somebody said well why just do this once? How about every time somebody comes to see a movie at the Radio City Music Hall, we'll have the Rock the Rockettes perform before the movie.

Can you imagine that? How cool that would be? It would be pretty cool. I mean like imagine seeing that and then being like okay now for the movie. That's just be it'd be a different experience for sure.

Yeah. But it was rough on the Rockets because not all the movies were successes. So they would change the Rockets show for each movie. So if a movie came along and it was just a terrible flop, this whole choreographed routine that they'd learned would be out the door in two days. And now all of a sudden they had to learn a new one quick because there was a new movie coming in to replace that one.

Oh, so they did a different routine for each film. Yes. Interesting. Yeah. And sometimes they would have to learn it in a matter of hours like around midnight before the next day's performances.

I wonder if it was tied to the film. Sometimes, I think, but not all the time. I think it was. I think it was in some cases, but I think more than anything they would change the routine just because the people coming to see a different film would want to see a different routine.

Okay, I gotcha. That makes sense. Yeah. Uh so in the 1940s, they uh were one of the first groups to sign up for uh the United Service Organization and go and perform for the troops. Uh and in the 1950s is when things really started to kind of take their toll. like they were performing sometimes up to five times a day. Uh and so they said they built a dormatory there. Uh which you know they could live in. I don't think they were required to but it really was to accommodate the fact that they were working almost around the clock rather because learning these new routines like you said and then performing up to five times a day. Really grueling stuff. It was basically the prototype for Google,

like just just making it so your employees didn't have to leave. Oh, interesting.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Just go sleep in your pod. So, the the Rockets um their fame started to grow pretty pretty quickly. Um, and they they made like a few steps, if you'll forgive the pun, um, along the way that kind of cemented them as a as much a piece of America as apple pie or baseball or mom's or what have you. So, the 50s were also big for the um, the Rockets, too, because they joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1957, I think. Yeah, that that was the big the big move.

Yeah, because they went from just a a group that you either had to go to New York or go off to war to see um to Wow, they're in my living room now. These girls are highkicking on my television and I'm just loving life.

Uh all right, so let's take a break. It's 1950s. Good times are ahead and then dark times come in the 70s because it's New York City in the 70s and everything was kind of awful then. So, we'll be back right after this.

Okay. Hey, before we get started, Chuck, I want to say we put on a pretty good stage show ourselves.

Uh, we've been known, too. And we've got some coming up. You know, plug plug. Yeah. There's no high kicking involved. There could be if people demanded it, I would be willing to do a little high kicking.

So, are we talking about some shows? Yeah, let's do that real quick. Uh, all right. So, we're we're going out west for our annual Sojourn

in January where we uh go to Seattle and we go to Portland and then we end up at SF Sketchfest like we always do in mid January.

Yeah. And I've got a uh end of the world live show on Friday at Sketchfest. And you have a movie crush on Saturday at Sketchfest right?

Yeah, I'm doing a matinea show at 1:00 uh on Saturday, January 19th with uh Bizzy Phillips as my guest.

Nice. And my show is Friday the 18th at Cafe Dord and I am my own guest. Flying solo. And then I have another one in Brooklyn on the 24th uh at the Bell House too.

Oh, I thought you already did that one. No. Uh-uh. It got postponed to January 24th.

Oh, great. Yes. So, you haven't missed it. There's still time for you to come. Fantastic.

Uh, so that is our little plug. How about that? Yeah. And of course, our our big stuff you should know show is at the uh Castro on when is that? Thursday night.

That is Thursday the uh 17th. Yeah. So, come see us at the Moore in Seattle, Revolution Hall in Portland at the Castro in San Francisco. Y

check out our individual little shows. uh are our cute little individual shows.

And there's plenty of information on sysklive.com. That's right. So now it's the 70s.

Mhm. New York is uh is is suffering, which is crazy when you look at pictures of New York City in the 70s and and early 80s even,

just hard to believe how bad things were there. Yeah, it was pretty rough. And actually, it's funny like you can thank Rudolph Giuliani for I guess cleaning up the town if you want to call it that.

Okay. Have you ever heard that? What do you thank Rudolph Giuliani for cleaning up the town?

Uh-huh. Uh, sure. Okay. Good for him. So, um, I saw him in the park one day. You did? What was he doing? Talking to a duck.

No, he was he was doing like a photo op, but I had friends in from uh from another country even, I think. And I said, "Hey guys, that's that's the mayor of New York over there." They were like, "Oh, that's nice." And I went, "It's kind of a big deal to just walk around and see the mayor of New York."

Did they say Chuck? I think they're Australian, actually. Yeah. Oh, that was my Australian impression.

Oh, that was good then. Yeah. Thank you. That's pretty That's a great story, Chuck.

Yeah, it's fine. But uh for them they didn't understand fully that the mayor of New York City is is uh it's it's quite a big deal to see him just out and about in the city.

I uh I have a similar story. I was watching um one of the first few seasons of Law and Order on my television one day and there was the mayor of New York City, Rudy Rudy Giuliani.

Interesting. But I knew it was a big a big deal. I got another story. Okay. Did you know in the Michael Bay film Pearl Harbor

that they comped in uh Bruce Willis's John Mlan character from Die Hard in one hospital scene?

How? Just digitally. That's an anacronism. I know. That doesn't make any sense. Do they really do that?

Yeah, there you can look it up. Pearl Harbor, John Mlan. And there's like screenshots of of John Mlan in his white tank top uh just briefly for a blip in the background of one of the hospital scenes in Pearl Harbor. It's so weird.

Do you know there's a nude woman in the window of one of the buildings that the rescuers fly by? Really? The Disney movie from the 60s?

Yeah. All these weird movie Easter eggs. Mhm. Just bored editors. I guess that's exactly what it is. Four juvenile editors.

All right. So, it's the 1970s in New York. None of this has happened yet that we're talking about.

The Rescuers did. The Rescuers did, but there was no Die Hard. There was no Pearl Harbor movie,

right? Except for Tora Tora, but no bad Pearl Harbor movie. Okay. Uh, no. Rudy Giuliani. He was alive.

Sure. But he was not in the mayor of New York City in the 1970s. Not as far as we know.

Who was that? That was Ed Cotch. He was the 80s, I think. Oh, was he? Maybe late 70s.

All right, we'll get that straightened out. Okay. But New York City is going down the toilet, including, believe it or not, radio the great Radio City Music Hall, much like our own legendary Fox Theater in Atlanta.

Mhm. Uh was facing shutdown and demolition potentially. Yeah. There was a rough transition from some of those old movie palaces after people stopped well going to movie palaces and moved out to the suburbs. Um, a lot of those beautiful places were left out in the cold and some of them didn't, well, a lot of them didn't make it, but some of them almost didn't make it. Like you said, the Fox and Radio City and apparently it was going to be turned into a parking lot and Belushi himself got onto the news desk at Saturday Night Live and was railing against the demise of Radio City Music Hall. And the Rockets too had said, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, this is our home.

this is an iconic place. Let us help like go raise awareness and funds to to save this place. And they did. They were successful. They got it put on the National Historic Register of Historic Places. And it has a landmark designation. Not just the building. There's,200 buildings in New York with the landmark designation, but only 110 interiors have the landmark designation. and Radio City Music Hall is one of them, which means that its interior is so amazingly beautiful that it is a protected landmark in the United States.

Yeah, I've never been in there. I haven't either. I've been to Carnegie Hall, but never Radio City. Uh it's on the list for sure. But um it's interesting because they they tried to their whole deal was is they wanted exclusive movie bookings. Like they they were they were to be the only theater in town that would be showing a particular movie. Mhm.

So that that limits their uh their pool uh immediately and then they really prefer G-rated movies. Uh they had really strict screening criteria. So that just it narrowed down their their movie pool so small

that they would go weeks and weeks at a time where nothing happened there. Yeah. So they would just shut down because again remember like the Rockheads are a dance troop that you would see before you saw a movie. So if they're not showing movies, they're not showing the Rockettes. And at this time in the 70s, the Rockets said, "Okay, we're we're our talent is being wasted here. At least let us go take the show on the road while you guys are sitting around waiting for another movie to come along." And they actually they gained that right because they're union dancers, we should say. We'll get into that a little more later, but they managed to uh get the right to take the show on the road and they really started to make a name for themselves in the 70s uh in places like Tahoe and Vegas. Sure.

Apparently made a huge fan out of Sammy Davis Jr. who would come see the same show like night after night when they when they play in Vegas or Tahoe or whatever. He was just fascinated by the Rockats.

Love that for sure. Little Sammy. Mhm. What a great guy. We should do a show on him.

Apparently, he also Oh, yeah. I'm down with that. He also surprised them on stage once by joining them on stage for a dance number, which apparently he knew because he'd seen the show so many times.

Wow. Which that's a pretty Sammy thing to do in Las Vegas. High kicking. Well, his his kicks weren't so high.

Run out on stage unbidden, uninvited. He was a little guy. He was He was the the littlest rocket. I imagine

he was, but he was, too. So, uh, they're doing their show on the road here and there. They're making ends meet. Radio City is struggling uh even though it was designated as a landmark. The 80s were not super kind

uh to Radio City either. Um they very famously appeared at the halftime show of the Super Bowl in 88.

Um they're trying to change with the times. Uh they're dancing it uh in the '9s at different places and they're always doing their Christmas deal uh throughout all this after you know they started doing that and what was that 57

32. Oh, they did the Macy's parade in 32. Oh, no. I'm sorry. I thought you meant the Christmas spectacular. Yeah, the Macy's parade was the the Thanksgiving parade was 57.

Yeah. So, they've got their their holiday stuff, their Easter specials, their Christmas specials, uh their dancing at inaugurations for George W. Bush. Um, in fact, they came under uh under fire for dancing at Trump's inauguration.

Well, the the dance troop almost was split aunderder over whether they wanted to do that or not. Yeah, it was a big deal.

It was a huge deal, actually. And they they had revived the uh Easter Extravaganza. They renamed it the New York Spring Spectacular the year before. And they said they took a year off and I I don't think they ever went back to it because of all the controversy over 2016 and the inauguration. It was just such an unusual experience for the Rockettes. Um like they're they're just like America personified. And for there to be a huge national conversation about, you know, them performing at an inauguration, it was a big deal for the organization for sure. Especially for the dancers who are like career rockets.

Yeah, exactly. Um, should we talk a little bit about just being a rocket? I think we should, man,

because we've done it. We have. I mean, there was a brief time. Although, we've basically entered Dino Lohan territory now. Who's that?

Lindsay Lohan's mom. She very famously lied about being a rocket. Oh, really? Yeah. She said that her she has a background in show business. Um she was a rocket for a while and some journalist went and dug around and they found out that she was definitely they had no record whatsoever of her under any name, maiden or married ever being a rockat. It's always amazing to me when uh very provable or disprovable public lies are told by

people like that or like politicians who say that you know like they've fought in a war when they didn't like that's happened.

Yeah. Uh it's just I don't know why people say things like that that it's like no we kind of can go check that really easily.

Yeah. even but even without like you know the checkability of it to to just like you know lie in an interview like that to to puff yourself up I guess it's just

like I I I don't understand the psychology of it. Is it just because you don't feel like you're giving the interviewer enough of what they need or do they did they lay some sort of trick that led you into it or I don't understand it either.

Yeah. I wonder if people start to believe these lies like if you make up a story about yourself

and you just stick with it for so long. Mhm. It's weird psychology. Yes, human psychology is indeed quite weird.

Didn't you have a web show called Psychology is weird? Nuts. Psychology is nuts.

Little little shortlived video thing. Yeah. Go check that out, everyone. Oh, and we'll take a break. And we're back.

Yes. So, we were going to tell everyone about our experience as Rockett because we're Dina Lohan. So, uh, here's the thing. If you're a rocket and you've been doing this for 10 years, you're a pretty long lived rocket. Although, I think I saw um one woman who is a rocket and if I'm talking weird all of a sudden, it's because I am stalling everybody looking for her name and I'm not finding it. But I think it's Lindsay How. I'm almost positive her name is Lindsay How. I believe she has been a rocket for 14 years.

That's a long time. That's a very long time to be a rocket because as you will soon learn, being a rocket is extremely difficult and very demanding. And inside of show business and out, they're widely seen as probably some of the best professional dancers in the business and certainly some of the most disciplined professional dancers in the business as well. Um, but it's really hard to do for a really long time. And one of the main reasons why is because their work schedule is extremely grueling. But but with Lindsay um how uh she would make the same amount of money that a firstear rocket would make.

Yeah. Uh because they're all paid the same. They work the same hours. They do the same work. Some of them are kind of promoted as like the faces of the Rockett. Um the company I think Madison Square Garden Company that owns Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes are really protective of their image and um like they they aren't free to just kind of talk to the media or whatever. There's some that are kind of like you and you and you you're the Rockets. You're the face of the Rockets. But other than that, everyone does the same amount of work, same amount of hours, same amount of pay. And one of the reasons they do that is because the point of the Rockets is not to have standouts. It's not like other dance troops or other Broadway troops or anything like that. There's not meant to be stars. The Rockets are the star and they're meant to be one single unit that moves and works and lives together.

Yeah. And they're they're unionized. So, uh they make they're they make most of their money uh over the holiday season. So, they walk out after a couple of months uh with about 40 grand in their pocket, which isn't bad. um you know for a couple of months work but it is like you said super grueling. Um, if you want to become a Rockette, you're not required to, but there is uh something called the Rockat Summer Intensive Dance Program where you can go, you can enroll, you can spend 6 hours a day uh learning uh learning everything um over the course of about a week. Um all the choreography, um how to how to get in that shape, stay in that shape, how to prevent injuries, um and sort of the business of it all.

And like I said, you don't have to do that, but they do place a lot of uh rockets if you attend that uh intensive dance program.

Well, some I saw out of a thousand that have taken it, 60 have gone on to actually become rockets.

Yeah. Cuz it's very tough to become a rocket, too. Yeah. And I mean, I get the feeling that's that has less to do with the program than just how hard it is to to make that cut.

Right. Right. Exactly. So, uh, not only do you have to be fit enough to kick those famous kicks up to,200 times a day through all these shows, but uh, there's one uh there's one clothing change. You got to do all these costume changes, but there's one in particular in between uh, The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers and New York at Christmas that you have to be completely changed out in 78 seconds.

78 seconds. And these costumes are not like super easy to take off. The wooden soldier ones in particular are pretty complex. Um, so 78 seconds probably goes by extremely fast.

Yeah. And there's there's 36 Rockets total uh performing on stage, but there are 80 certified Rockettes total overall. You have a morning cast, an afternoon cast, and then you have for each of those shows, you have four uh swings or extras per. So like if someone's like, I just twisted my ankle, I can't do this.

They have four women waiting in the wings for each of those uh morning and afternoon shows.

Yeah. So the thing is though is is they're working six days a week or the Rockets are performing six days a week. If you have two casts, rather than work all work both casts six days a week, um they'll they'll alternate to give one another a day off. And they'll do that on days sometimes where there's four performances in a day, which means that if you are a rocket, there are days, and I've seen also sometimes they're backto-back days where you're where you're doing four performances in a single day. Four 90minute performances.

And that's when those 1,200 kicks that you mentioned, Chuck, comes in because some of those shows have 300 high kicks. And we're talking eye level kicks. And if you do four of them in a day, you've just kicked at eye level 1,200 times in a day. And from some of the articles I've read, that is about as much as your body can possibly take.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they they all in the interviews I saw, there was that great New York Times article where they really sort of dive into a day in the life of a rocket during the holiday season.

Mhm. And they all kind of are are like there's no way to prepare your body for this. Like

we are in the best shape that a dancer can be in and it just destroys us to the point where like one of them said that just taking their stockings off at the end the night is laborious. And you know, with their commute, depending on where they come from, some of them are are awake and either commuting or or rehearsing or performing 20 hours in a day.

Mhm. Just grueling, grueling stuff. But across the board, they also all say that it's the the only job that they want. It is a great sorority and sisterhood and an honor to be one of these over the years 3,000 uh women who have made that cut. right?

You know, never like, "Well, it's really not worth it in the end." Yeah. No, the the I mean, at least the ones who are allowed to speak to the media certainly have a lot of positive things to say about being a rocket and like how familial it is and how you're just hanging out with your best friends and um it is a great gig for a dancer, especially as one of these articles pointed out, if you're a dancer who doesn't sing.

Yeah, that's a rare thing to get that kind of a gig. I think it's one of the few uh for jazz and tap dancers where singing's not involved.

But also not just like a a a good gig, a good paying gig, too. Like 40 grand for a couple of months of um performances. A lot of the Rockettes um they don't live in New York. They'll come live in New York during the the the season when they need to rehearse and then do the Christmas spectacular and then they go home. So they might live in New York from September to um the end of December. Uh, and then they go back home and wherever home is, 40 grand probably goes a lot further than it does in New York, unless they live in San Francisco, in which case it's probably it goes even faster. But, um, it's a really good paying gig. They also have benefits because their union and their contract workers, they um, have year round benefits.

Yeah, that's great. And 40 grand. So, they can go work as Pilates instructors, as nutritionists, as all the other stuff that they do during the year normally. and then they come back and they they're a Rockat. But what something I thought was pretty cool was even if you're say a 10th year Rocket um you get invited back like once you're a Rocket you're in as a Rockette but you still have to audition in April like everybody else.

Yeah. So, you audition in April and if you make the cut, um, you start to go get in shape and then rehearsals, I think, start in September. And rehearsals are six hours, six days a week for basically the six weeks leading up to the performances, which run from mid November till I saw December 31st. I also saw tickets available for a January 1 show. So, I don't know if they extended it or not.

Yeah. And it's it's funny like 40 grand sounds like a lot of money over a couple of months and it is. But when you break it down per show, it it breaks down to about 135 bucks a show.

Yeah. Which all of a sudden it doesn't seem uh like great money. No, but that's what you make as a standard cast member for a Broadway union dancer.

Yeah. Or actor or variety performer, I think, is the union they're they're part of. So, no, it doesn't seem like much, but that's another reason why the Rocket gig is so good. You get overtime on those days when you do a third and a fourth show. You're getting overtime pay. Um, and there's multiple shows in in on multiple days. So, you can I mean, if another actor at a different gig working the same days over the same period would not make that amount of money, that 40 grand, because they wouldn't have any overtime. They wouldn't have that many shows. Yeah. And I don't think anyone like dreams of going to Broadway to become rich and wealthy. Like part of the allure of Broadway is you're with the best of the best. And you can say I danced or I sang or I acted on Broadway

with Brian Cranston. I saw him on Broadway. Yeah. I saw Michael McKon on Broadway.

Oh yeah. In Accomplice. The audience was the accomplice. That was the big twist.

Oh well, you just ruined that one. Was it good? It was great. It was one of the greatest stage performances I've ever seen. I saw Lenny

live on stage. Derek St. Hubbins. Yeah. This is before I knew him as anything but Lenny. I was like eight.

Oh, so this is a while ago. Mhm. Um Cranston is in something new on Broadway now, I think, too.

It's in network, right? Oh, man. I want to see that. Sure. I bet that's good. I saw that it was described as, get this, Chuck, get ready for this.

Oh boy. Electrifying. Really? I kid you. A Broadway show described as electrifying.

His performance was electrifying. I don't think I've ever heard that word used for the theater.

I know. Um, so another thing though about the Rockets, even though they do make most of their money over those couple of months and then they have the rest of the year to um in a lot of cases be like a dance instructor or something like that or a fitness instructor. Um they increasingly are working more and more uh more and more months out of the year whether it's um as ambassadors for the Rockets or doing like video things for YouTube. Um they are increasingly called on to do other other things.

Yeah. A lot they so I what is the woman who came along as the lead choreographer and director and really kind of punch punched it up even further? Uh her name is Linda Haberman and she took over I think in like the mid 2000s uh maybe 2008 and she kind of brought like this whole new not new it's not a whole new thing. She just kind of she made it a little more pro- feminist, a little more like you go girl kind of vibe to the Rockett than they had before.

They were seen in, you know, rehearsing in the rehearsal gear rather than like full costume. And it it was just kind of like um the the intent I get was to make them more

people, human beings. Yes. Because one of the great criticisms of the Rockett is that they're nothing but like teeth and legs, just a bunch of women. Yeah.

Out there kicking like forming one large uber woman who can kick her legs amazingly high and has like the the whitest gleaming teeth ever you've ever seen. Um and that that it was really kind of a just objectification of women like to like by definition. And uh Linda Hammerman like really kind of took that and tried to unravel it quite a bit. And she also took the show so we should talk a little bit about the show. It's a to depending on who you are, it's either like just beloved traditional Americana, kitschy, um, offensively sexist, who knows? But I think the first two are kind of the predominant views of it. It's kitschy and sweet or it's it's, you know, endearing Americana. Um, and Linda Haberman kind of took that and tried to punch it up into the 21st century a little more. And there's like way more visual effects than there were before.

Um there's like a 3D component I think to this year's show or recent year's shows. Like the whole the whole theme is like a girl wants a video game and her mom is kind of showing her um you know why that's not so great because it's a violent video game. There's um there's a lot of kind of updating that's that the Rockets have undergone in the last few years and that was largely from what I understand Linda Haberman's doing. I think she was the one that uh digitally inserted John Mlan from Die Hard.

She was. He swoops in in the the New York Folly section. No, I'm glad they updated things because this was a prime case of like a beloved American tradition that uh could use some refreshing and and you can highlight them as humans and individuals and still you can have both, you know, and you can still have that desired effect of uniformity and precision that they're known for, you know.

Right. Exactly. But they don't have to be just like faceless and nameless, you know.

No. And I read a few like feminist critiques of the Rockettes and they seem to have been

kind of outdated. Like I really feel like Linda Haberman did a good job at like take Yeah. She she kind of took those those critiques and and changed them in a lot of ways.

That's great. Um, one of the other criticisms is that it wasn't until 1985 that the Rockheads had their first woman of color as a member of the their cast of their troop.

Oh yeah. The first woman of color was a Japanese woman named Setsuko Marahashi. And in 1985, she joined. In 1988, um the first African-American woman joined. Her name was Jennifer Jones. And the reasoning apparently it was Mark Marert who was like, "No, it from all I saw it had nothing to do with racism. It was the idea that it was going to disrupt the visual unity,

right, of the dance line if there were um you know differing skin colors in this dance line. And apparently he was so um nutso about it like you would get in trouble if you had a suntan like that's how that's how he wanted everything to be homogeneous and in unison. Well, regardless, in the 21st century, in the late 20th century, that that sentiment didn't hold up. And I guess shortly after he died is when they started um adding women of color more to the Rockets troop.

Yeah. And then they saw people of color in that same dance line and they went, "Oh, it's still awesome." And synchronized and looks great.

Exactly. And from his grave, he went, "No." He started rolling around in it. Oh goodness.

So, you haven't seen a Rocket's Christmas spectacular, huh? You mean live in person?

Yeah, I have not. I have not either. Are we going to go now? I think we should. I want to know if any ruckets listen to this show.

Yeah, that would make me super super happy. It would for me as well. Uh, and the only other small tidbit I have is they have microphones in their heels of their shoes.

I saw that too. They used to they used to play recordings of their um tapping, right?

Oh, I don't know. That that does not surprise me. Yeah. And then they figured out how to do the actual like broadcast the actual tapping. So, we're going to go one day, Chuck. We're going to go see the Christmas spectacular. We're going to go see the live nativity with the real camel and donkeys and the wooden toy soldier um march where they fall down like a domino in slow motion. It's pretty amazing stuff. Uh and if you want to know more about the Rockets, then go to Radio City Music Hall and find them there. How about that?

That sounds great. Uh well, since I said that, then it's time for listener mail.

Uh I'm calling this I was a search and rescue um victim volunteer. So this guy, his dad, I'm going to summarize the beginning of it um because it's kind of long, but his dad lives in uh the upper peninsula of Michigan and is a member of the local uh S team. And so they were like, "We need someone to play the victim here." And he was like, "I'll do it. this guy's son. So, here's what happened. He set off into the heavily wooded area and did he said, "I did everything I could to think of to try and fool the dog and the handler. I ran in circles, went back over my own trail.

I threw off my hat. I even found some garbage and rolled around in it to mask my scent."

Wow. Uh once I had done everything I could think of to try and fool the dog and handler uh that would be tracking me, I found a nice comfy spot up uh in a bush on a hill where I could just watch the dog and the handler try and track me. I thought I'd done a pretty good job, but once I called the handler and let him know I was in position, it was all over very quickly. Uh I sat back and everyone was shocked to watch the dog basically retrace my trail step by step. uh every move I made, all those circles, uh finding my hat even that I had thrown off, even getting into that pile of garbage that I'd rolled around in. I love that this dog is just basically making a fool of poor Ryan up there in the mountains.

So, he said, "Needless to say, the dog found me in short order. I gave him lots of praise uh for the great job he had done. Thankfully, I was never in any real danger. So, my experience uh was a lot more enjoyable, obviously, than when people are in uh real need of a search and rescue dog. Uh thanks for the great episodes, guys. Keep me company on overnight shifts uh and make it all go by quicker. So, if you read this on the show, can I get a shout out to my girlfriend, Taran? She would be thrilled to hear her name get called out on the show.

I think that just happened. Yep. Uh so, that is from Ryan. Uh, I like the the gusto that Ryan put into trying to fool this dog

rolling a garbage. And I equally love that this dog was like whatever. So, thank you, Ryan. Thank you, Taran, for listening.

And thank you to the SAR dog. Sure, Scruffy. If you want to get in touch with us, you can go to our website stuffyounow.com. You can find all of our social links there. And you can send an email to Chuck, Jerry, and me at stuffpodcast@ iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Selects: Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant (Host), Josh Clark (Host), Jerry (surname not stated) (Guest), Ryan (listener; surname not stated) (Guest), Taran (listener; surname not stated) (Guest).

What is "Selects: Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW" about?

The content explores the history and enduring legacy of the Rockettes, a famous American precision dance troupe, highlighting their cultural significance and the evolution of their performances over the years. The discussion provides insights into the organization's impact on entertainment and its relevance, particularly during the holiday season.

What is mentioned in this Stuff You Should Know episode?

74 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Rockets, Radio City Music Hall, Rockettes, Stuff You Should Know, John Tiller, Linda Haberman. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Selects: Rockettes: Still Kicking After All These Years | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

The episode runs 46 min; the transcript is about 8,372 words in 174 timestamped sections.

More from Stuff You Should Know

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated December 14, 2025.