June 23, 2006
Named after an infamously stupid episode of Happy Days, “jumping the shark” describes the moment when the inspiration dries up and it all starts to go downhill. Kurt called some of our listeners to ask about the filmmakers, musicians, and artists who let them down big time.
Axl Rose, the songwriter and singer behind Guns’n’Roses, has been working on a new album far longer than many bands have existed. Holed up in a mansion in Los Angeles, he’s still trying to top his hugest hit, 1989’s “Sweet Child o’Mine.” How do great expectations turn into no expectations? Jennifer Ordonez has the story, co-produced by Queena Kim of KPCC in Pasadena.
Austin Pendleton is a well-known character actor who became a playwright. He’s written a play about Orson Welles, whose amazing early triumph with Citizen Kane (Welles was 26) turned into a career of embarrassing failures and unfinished projects. In Orson’s Shadow, based on real events, a theater critic tries to restart Welles’ career by getting him a new job - directing a newfangled piece of absurdist theater called Rhinoceros. Pendleton joins Kurt in the studio to talk about Orson’s Shadow.
Kurt Andersen and Elliott discuss the indignities Orson Welles faced late in life, and talk about other failures, great and small.
Did you ever wonder who decides the color of your shampoo bottle? As part of our on-going series about creativity and science, Lu Olkowski talks with a polymer chemist who creates pigment formulas for plastics at the Engelhard Corporation.
Special Guest
Chris Elliott got his break on David Letterman’s show, playing an assortment of creepy losers like “the guy under the stairs.” In the ‘90s his TV series Get a Life, and his film, Cabin Boy, were considered huge bombs, but both went on to become cult favorites. Elliott’s recent novel, The Shroud of the Thwacker, is a historical time-traveling murder mystery, written with absolutely no research.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and
DK Eyewitness Travel. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
