Hour 2 kicks off with Ann Cori from Eagle Forum on Missouri’s push to put real learning back in the classroom—less screen time, more pencil-and-paper work, and bringing cursive back so kids can read, write, and think. The conversation hits test scores, attention spans, and why “digital-first” schooling hasn’t delivered.
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This is Rush to Reason.
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With your host, John Rush.
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SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, we are back. Hour number two, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Ann Corey joining us now. Ann, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER 04 :
I appreciate it. Chairman of the Eagle Forum, and talk about Missouri SB 2330.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think all states should take on this cost. Because we have a situation where elementary school students don’t ever use pencil and paper. They only know a screen. They’re allegedly taught through a screen. Well, it doesn’t work. and the test scores have shown it. So this piece of legislation says that schools cannot use a screen for students more than 45 minutes in a day, and tests have to be done with pencil and paper.
SPEAKER 04 :
So in other words, we want kids to learn how to think, I guess you could say, critically think, which we’re drastically missing out on. And by the way, even though I’m a very digital person, have been for the longest time, even though I’m very digitally minded because it’s how I keep my life organized, I still am a – well, I actually, because it’s not quite the same as pen and paper, but I bought one of the remarkable tablets a while back, and I use that for all of my – note-taking and so on meaning i’m still it’s kind of a screen but it’s not it’s just an electronic pad that you’re still writing on and doing things with and it still gets your mind to be creative and there’s something about this something i don’t know if everybody knows but there’s something about ann and they’ve done studies on this that when you use you know pen to paper pencil to paper especially your mind does something different right
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, it’s stickiness in the brain. You can type and type, but it doesn’t stick in the brain. But when you actually have to form the letters on the paper, that is a way of learning. And you say that we want them to think. Well, before they can think, they have to learn how to write and they have to learn how to read. And that’s what learning cursive handwriting does.
SPEAKER 04 :
True. I saw a meme today that said something about, okay, all of you young people, write your name without ever picking up your pen from the paper. Oh, guess what? That’s cursive.
SPEAKER 09 :
And people need to have good signatures.
SPEAKER 03 :
They do.
SPEAKER 09 :
This may seem like a throwback to this is so last century, but I think what we’ve seen is that schools’ test scores have dramatically declined. The students are not proficient in reading or writing, and they’ve only known a tablet. I mean, we have some students in elementary school who have only had a tablet. And I don’t think that is a way to have true learning and really have them comprehend the reading matter and learning how to write.
SPEAKER 04 :
I agree. And I know there’s arguments that, hey, well, if they don’t know how to use the tablets, they won’t do well down the road when it comes to, you know, the business world and so on. And no, that’s not the case.
SPEAKER 09 :
John, are you worried? The bad kids not figuring out how to use a computer?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, they will figure that out. And what I will say also, I’m going to add something to that, and I know this because I’m a business owner and I watch different things along these lines, even coach businesses. I will tell you this, Ann, even though this generation, several now, have grown up in the quote-unquote computer age, age, meaning they most likely had some sort of a smartphone or a tablet or something along those lines. And I myself grew up with nothing, had to go through the entire computer era when things first came out in the 90s and so on. And I will tell you this, I am far more proficient at everything computer related than half the people or than more than… then people half my age, let me say it that way, then the majority of people half my age, because I had to learn it as I went, where these folks, Ann, they’re not proficient on the computer side of the fence either. So this whole argument of they need that to be proficient, they’re not anyways.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, and the problem is everyone’s realized that the computer shortens your attention span. All that scrolling means that you’re not actually paying attention to what’s on the page.
SPEAKER 04 :
True. True. So this bill, in the case of – and by the way, going back a moment, I’ll agree with you. I think every state should do this. I don’t think this should be limited just to Missouri. But we have to start someplace. As you know, something gets started. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
This should be a bipartisan. We all want our children educated.
SPEAKER 04 :
Agreed. And what I was going to say is when you get one state to do it, a lot of times other states will look at that, they’ll pick it up, it’ll start a movement if you would. So we need somebody to get the ball rolling.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s why we’re doing it in Missouri. We want to show me the pen and paper.
SPEAKER 04 :
How well is this going and what kind of support is it drawing?
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s actually going very well. I testified at the hearing in the House last week, and there was no testimony in opposition. Even though some people said, well, you know, one of the legislators actually said, well, won’t the teachers have to go back to training to learn how to teach cursive handwriting?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And the problem is…
SPEAKER 09 :
I think we all need a brush up on our penmanship.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I see a lot of people in their penmanship. And I fortunately have good penmanship, I think, probably because of the way, again, the era that I was raised in. And we had to practice. When I was a kid, I’m 61. We had to practice that when I was a kid. We didn’t have any choice. It was part of what we did for school.
SPEAKER 09 :
Mm-hmm. And wasn’t that an effective way of teaching you?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. And I’m a very good, you know, I have very good penmanship to this day. In fact, some people look at my writing and they’ll be like, really? I mean, yeah, I write really well. Yeah, thank you. It’s not that hard.
SPEAKER 09 :
And our kids should be able to do it, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 09 :
Let’s not cheat them out of it.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, and I agree. And by the way, it’s making them, to your point, this is making them smarter at the end of the day. And I agree with you. We can’t get critical thinking and the other things that we need from them if they don’t know how to read and write.
SPEAKER 09 :
Correct. And learning how to read involves learning how to write and form your letters and put pencil to paper. And you know what? The other thing is, this is a savings for the schools and the education system. Because tablets are expensive, tablets break, and pen and paper is cheap. And why are we giving the tech companies all the data on our children?
SPEAKER 04 :
Great point. How do folks follow you and support you guys in this effort?
SPEAKER 09 :
EagleForum.org. We’d love to have you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Ann, thank you. It’s been great having you. Keep us up to date, and I’ll have you back on. If there’s anything else that comes up, just let me know.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much, John.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re very welcome. And it’s Ann, it’s Ann, Corey, A-N-N-E, C-O-R-I, EagleForum.org. Veteran Windows and Doors coming up next. If you want to go right to the source, save money on Windows and Doors, you can do that with Veteran Windows and Doors. And don’t forget that 72-hour ride of recension. If you maybe signed up for something already and you’re having second thoughts, that exists for you, so you can back out of that and call Dave instead. Find him at klzradio.com.
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All right, we are back. Thanks for listening. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Somebody texted and said, can I, you know, can John Rush write in cursive? Yeah, I can. I rarely do. I can read cursive, no problem. Know that side of it. My mom, you know, she passed here a year plus ago, but my mom had some of the most beautiful handwriting you probably would ever see anybody write and grew up in that era where cursive and all of that was a big deal. So, yeah, I can read. She would always write in cursive and so on. So, yeah, I can write in cursive and read cursive and all that, no problem whatsoever, and learned how to write that back when I was a kid. Now, all that being said, and I believe this is probably because of the industry that I was in, So growing up in the auto industry like I did, and I was actually – most people wouldn’t imagine this, but I actually was a service advisor and wrote service when I was 16 years of age, the summer that I was 16. And in turn, because of that – and I probably was printing more than I was writing in cursive prior to that, although a lot of the tests and things that we had to do at that time in school, you had to write in cursive. But because of – This is my take on things, and I don’t think I’m wrong. We didn’t have computers at that time. I mean, they were starting to kind of come out in the dealership world, but everything at that time – this would have been mid-’70s. Everything was still handwritten. In fact – automotive repair orders in a dealership at that time were six parts and they had actual carbon paper in between each part they weren’t the carbonless type they literally had carbon paper in them and you had to write really hard with a really good ballpoint pen to get everything to go through all the way down to the bottom we called it the hard copy that was at the very bottom of the repair order and when you were writing service taking down the the issues that somebody had with their car and translating that onto the paper, onto the repair order so the technician could actually read it. And you had a clipboard with that particular repair order there. And sometimes you’d have a repair order that was two or three pages long. And I remember at an early age being scolded for not writing clear enough and legibly enough so that the technicians or anybody else in the dealership could then read my handwriting. And so my handwriting had to get good really quickly for everybody else to read what you were writing. So since that day, I’ve had very good quote unquote penmanship at minus printing. And I’ve printed to this day. And I don’t hardly ever write in cursive because the habit of printing things and being in an industry where people had to read your handwriting legibly, meaning everybody printed, nobody wrote in cursive because everybody has a little bit harder time reading in cursive because handwriting styles can change from one person to another. And it gets a little bit hard at times to read somebody’s cursive where printing is printing. You know, it is what it is. And so for me, still to this day, I print. And anybody that knows me and knows my handwriting knows what it looks like. And, yes, I have good penmanship and I do my best. Sometimes I get in a hurry and it can get a little bit sloppy. But if I’m thinking and taking my time, it’s neat and it’s done correctly and people can read it. And, again, I – Blame is not the right word, but I’m thankful, I guess I could say, to grow up in the industry that I did because it forced me to have to do some things along those lines and have good penmanship when it was all said and done. Because had I not had that, I’m not sure how good my penmanship today would be. I mean, it would still be probably good because in school we had to do certain things, but I will tell you that my penmanship is better than most people’s. That grew up in the same era that I grew up in because given, again, what I had to do from an early age, I had to write well. You didn’t have a choice. And like all of us, if you get in a hurry, it can get a little bit sloppy. But if I’m doing what I need to do and I concentrate and so on, yes, my penmanship is great. is very good and needs to be. Again, for a lot of things I even still do to this day, it needs to be good so others can actually read it. So yeah, that’s kind of my story and where I learned how to do things. And yes, I can still read cursive very well. Can I write in cursive? If I have to, I can. Is it my preference? No. And again, I’m not against anybody that does. It’s a dying thing. But I do believe, back to our last guest, that yes, kids need to learn how. they should not only be able to write in cursive, but read in cursive as well. our founding documents were written that way. They need to be able to read them to know exactly what the original document said, and if they can’t, then that’s a problem for us moving forward as a country. That’s my viewpoint. So, anyways. All right, changing subjects. And this is something that actually my son Richard and I were talking about last week, and I talked a little bit about this briefly last week. I don’t have a lot of time because I’m going to give Richard a little extra time to call in today to talk about the Super Bowl and all of that, but This was a post put out by Patrick DeHaan, who I don’t know. that says, what happens when you chase political dreams instead of reality? Stellantis, for all of you that don’t know, that’s Fiat, Dodge, Ram, Chrysler, they’ve only got one car, the minivan now, Jeep, and I’m trying to think of something I’m missing. There’s another brand I’m missing. Doesn’t matter. Stellantis. They have admitted to losing touch with the real world. the needs of drivers, and they revealed a $22 billion, this is Euro, $22 billion charge tied to its aggressive expansion into EVs, sending shares in the carmaker down by the most on record. Now, my son, as we were texting this back and forth last week, the comment was, they should have just asked us. By the way, my son is correct. They should have just asked us. I could have told them. You guys could have told them. We all could have told them. Bad idea. Bad move. This is not going to end well. We’ve said that about a lot of the automakers. Now, some have stuck with it and have done fairly well. Tesla, of course, has done good. They’re the originators of the EV end of things. General Motors has done fairly well with their division, although they’ve slowed down theirs and have written some off as well. Ford has all but abandoned its end of things, the truck especially. I think they’re still going to do the Mustang, and I’ve got to verify that, but Bottom line is, yeah, they’re abandoning some of what they were doing on the large truck. They still got their little truck coming out that they’re going to be full force in. But yeah, a lot of the automakers now have had to shift where they were going with EVs once this administration took over and abandoned all of the stupid subsidies that we as taxpayers were providing. The minute that you let the free market take over, things changed, which is the way it should work anyways. It shouldn’t work by us subsidizing things anyways. I get it. Some of you guys on the left, you don’t like what I’m saying. It goes back to my first hour conversation about freedom versus force because you want to force upon people what to drive versus letting them choose what they want to drive. And I know you all do it because you think you’re saving the earth. And I’ve done so many different stories, so many different hours on all of my shows doing the comparison between a gas engine, an ICE engine vehicle, and an EV that any of you that are on the left that say it’s actually saving the planet, you’re a fool. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Because no, it doesn’t. And even the comparisons that they do, talking about EVs versus ICE engine vehicles, they leave out so much on the EV side that, again, the study is so flawed it’s ridiculous. And you have to be a car person to really kind of understand what I’m talking about, although you don’t have to be much of a car person to understand it. When they just start looking at raw materials and what it takes to build an EV and they take out of the equation all of the time, effort, energy, petroleum that it takes to actually do what they’re doing to even make the batteries, nonetheless the rest of the car, yet the comparisons are flawed. Way flawed. So those of you that are on the left that are going to tell me that we’re much better off as a planet driving EVs, you don’t have a foggiest idea what you’re talking about. And by the way, you can’t prove that. Not with a good study. You can do it with the flawed studies all day long because there’s tons of people out there that tell you, oh, yeah, that’s the only way to go. And, yeah, you’re going to save the planet by doing so. No, they forget a lot of the equation. They don’t include all of the parts of what it takes to make the car, the components, and so on. And they’re basically lying. But, again, this is what people that are incentivized to keep a particular product going do because they know without that they’re dead in the water because it won’t stand on its own. And that’s the problem with EVs. Now, I’m not against EVs. I own two of them. You guys know that. I drive one daily. I’ve got a Silverado EV that I drive daily. By the way, best truck I’ve ever owned. I’ve said that numerous times on Drive Radio, and I’ll say it again. Best truck I’ve ever owned. Its maneuverability, how fast it is, four-wheel steer, how quickly I can get it in and out of parking lots. I mean, all of that combined, best truck I’ve ever owned. Range is, if I turn it all the way up, I can go 450 miles. I mean, again, best truck I’ve ever owned. Works fabulous. Now, all that being said, is it a truck for everybody? Of course not. No, it’s not. And should you have the right to buy whatever you want? Yes. If you want to buy that, go buy it. If you want to buy something else, buy it. Again, at the end of the day, I’m a conservative. I don’t care what you buy. Do whatever you want to. I enjoy driving an EV because of the performance sides of things. It’s like none other. If you’ve never driven one, you don’t know what you’re missing. It really is exhilarating. I’m not exaggerating. It’s like driving nothing you’ve ever driven before. But that’s just me, and not everybody is me, and I understand that. A lot of conservatives aren’t even me. A lot of conservatives can’t drive an EV for whatever reasons. You have to be able to park inside, have the ability to charge. On and on we go. No, not everybody has that ability. I get that. So, all right, let’s take a break. We’ll get Richard started a little bit early here as soon as we come back. Golden Eagle Financial coming up next. Speaking of finances and your future, make sure you’re dialed in, that you understand your risk, and Al can help you with that risk assessment when it comes to your finances and investments. Find Al at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 06 :
Putting reason into your afternoon drive, this is John Rush.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Richard, are you with us? Oh, that I am. All right, so Super Bowl yesterday, which a lot of people will say, I’m going to start here, oh, all the NFL’s rigged, all the outcome’s rigged, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, no, if that were true, we’d have had a much more exciting game for three quarters than what we had yesterday.
SPEAKER 08 :
Dad, you know, the only solace I have as a Bronco fan, because we’ll get to the game, you know, part of it here in just a second, is I’m glad we weren’t a part of that. And in the sense that I know that, you know, if somebody was, oh, well, you know, you got to be there and, you know, you got to be there to be a part of it. And, you know, the Patriots, who now have lost the most Super Bowls, well, you got to get to that many Super Bowls to have that recognition. So I guess, you know, kudos there. They have made it, you know, that many times and lost that many times. And so I’ll give them that. However, there is, I don’t know if it’s worse to go and have a really boring Super Bowl that you’re a part of and you contributed to, or if it’s better to happen when we played the Seahawks back in, I think, Super Bowl XLVIII, where we got destroyed. But at least it was an exciting game, and since there were big plays and big moments and lots of different things with it, I’m just not sure. And so that’s what I have to say.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m sorry to say, but Walt’s quarterback for the New England Patriots, yeah, he was not cracked up to what they claimed he was yesterday, not even close.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, it’s funny. Him and I talked about it, and he admitted it. He said he was terrible. He was awful, right? Like there was not much that he could do right in the Patriots. And at the same time, Dad, there wasn’t much that the Seahawks could do. It was really similar to the Broncos-Patriots game, obviously, from a few weeks ago with the weather. You kind of saw the same Drake Mayne. The only reason that he ended up scoring, I think, in the end and the game was closer than what it was most of the game was because they were passing. They had to go down the field. They had to really be aggressive. And it is always fascinating to watch that, Super Bowls in general, because it’s kind of like Game 7, right, in other sports. But everything is so heightened. And literally one play can lead to it. And so everyone is so careful. Even the coaches are more careful, right? And it’s a natural human reaction.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 08 :
It is. Because you can be a little bit more willy-nilly, right, in the regular season. You can let it go. You can try a trick play. You don’t see it too often in the Super Bowl, right, where a team does that. And I think you saw it last night with two young teams, two inexperienced teams, and neither quarterback played exceptionally well. And it’s kind of what Andy and I talked about.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
on Friday a little bit. It was overall the better team, and I’m with you, though. I’m not saying the Broncos would have beaten the Seahawks, Dad, but I at least think it would have been a more exciting game because I think you would have had strength on strength. Or I guess you would have two strengths, right? I think the Broncos’ defense is better than the Patriots’. I think the Seahawks’ defense is really good, but I also think Bo Nix handles pressure and handles things that the Seahawks do well. I think Bo Nix handles those a little bit better. So, It is frustrating, and for us Broncos fans, I think it’s sort of the biggest what-if, which there’s lots of those, right? Because if you’re Rams fans, you’ve got to think the same thing. They had essentially that game in the NFC Championship game against the Seahawks was turned on a muffed punt by the Rams returner. And if that guy just lets the ball bounce and gets away from it and gives the ball back to Matt Stafford and they go down and score, then the Rams are probably Super Bowl champions. Stafford gets his second… Super Bowl trophy, same with McVay, and the rest is history. So, yeah, it was a less than entertaining game, Dad. On the field, I know we’ll kind of get to some of the other stuff here in a second.
SPEAKER 04 :
Really quick, though, going back again, Richard, all these people that will claim that the NFL is scripted, folks, please believe me when I say this. It’s not scripted, because if you’re going to script a game, Richard, you wouldn’t script it the way the one yesterday went, not even close.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, you want to script it, you know, with exciting plays, and then maybe the officials have to call it back because it’s getting too far. And it just didn’t happen. I mean, I’ll be honest. I actually missed the first part of the first quarter because we were just talking to some friends that were over for the party and doing some of that, and ultimately it wasn’t – I didn’t miss anything, you know, and that’s unfortunate. And like you say, Dad, the NFL, especially with these TV networks, and we talked about that last week of how much they’re paying – these companies are paying for ads They want a lot of TV for as long as they can, right? And we won’t get numbers like that, by the way, Dad. You won’t see, I guess maybe if NBC releases it, maybe you might see some metrics released for, you know, when viewership was its highest. And honestly, it probably was for the halftime show, much to the chagrin of a lot of media listeners and that sort of thing. it’s, it’s not going to, I don’t, and it probably will rate it as the best, you know, the, the most watched Superbowl all time, or, you know, it’s not get close just because it’s kind of the next Superbowl. But yeah, dad, if the NFL and the TV networks were scripting a game, this would be like dead last on their list because up until what the early part of the fourth quarter, fourth quarter, The kicker, the Seahawks field goal kicker was going to be the MVP. And that’s never a good recipe for a Super Bowl. You want scoring. You want exciting plays. Yes, you want it to come down to a kicker, but you want it to be like the last play of the game. You know what I mean? You don’t want it to be not until the fourth quarter if he not noticed. And so lots of different things. But ultimately, I’m glad the Broncos weren’t a part of it for a variety of reasons.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. All right. Now, let’s talk about, well, really quick, before we go any further, we’ll get into the halftime end of things. But somebody wanted to know, since today is the first official day of baseball, are you excited? I know what my answer is.
SPEAKER 08 :
Is that the case? Is it the first official? I guess because it’s after the Super Bowl? Yeah, basically. No, and again, I know there’s a lot of baseball purists, especially your listeners, and, you know, I pray for you. because it’s just lots of things. I know lots of kids love it, right? And it’s still a big thing in that sense. But baseball, we’ve talked about it many times, Dad.
SPEAKER 03 :
Boring.
SPEAKER 08 :
Baseball has a long, long way to go. They’ve got to speed things up. They’ve got to change things. They’ve got to make it more exciting. I actually have a prediction, Dad, and we haven’t had a chance to talk about this. We’ve talked a little bit about the fact that after this season, it’s really likely that Major League Baseball will enter into a lockout. And the owners will lock out the players. And there’s a lot of reasons for that. Mainly because a lot of owners, Dick Monfort for one, doesn’t like that teams like the Dodgers can, basically they have unlimited money because the Dodgers TV deal pays them like $400 million a year or something like that. Just their local TV deal, right? Not anything national based. And that’s not counting any ticket revenue or anything like that. And I could be off. I just know it’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars that Dodgers get paid for their local TV rights every year. And what a lot of the other owners run, unless you’re like the top 10 owners in baseball, is they want a salary cap. And… players to their credit which i understand why they don’t want of course they don’t right because because they get if they don’t want the sport to die they need to be looking down the future at future players as well because unless they want it to die they need one i will not disagree with you but my prediction is you know we talked about the savannah bananas right and how successful they’ve been with their marketing well they’re already amping up and ramping up and you know they’re obviously they’re coming back to coors field this year and If that lockout in 2027 goes for any extended period of time, and the last lockout I believe went into like, I want to say like May, May or June, the Savannah Bananas will take over baseball at that point in time. And so Major League Baseball on both sides better be very careful. Because there is an appetite for baseball in this country. Because there’s something to be said about a summer night at the ball field, watching it, what it means, everything that it entails. But, you know, the fattest pigs get led to the slaughter, right? And they get led to the slaughter first. And a lot of people have predicted that with the NFL, which, again, we’ll finish talking about here in a second. With Major League Baseball, they better be careful or that’s going to happen to them in the matter of less than a year.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Richard, I can’t disagree with anything you said. So those of you that are big baseball fans, great. But your sport has major problems right now that it needs to get taken care of, or your sport is in jeopardy of really losing viewers and attendees and so on. And I’m not wrong on what I’m saying.
SPEAKER 08 :
You are correct in that. You’re not wrong. And so I’m hoping they get it figured out. But the hope is pretty small because I think that negotiations are going to get pretty contentious. And we’ll see where that leads.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, let’s talk about the halftime show. I did that originally opening up. I don’t know whether you heard me talk about things or not. And, you know, I rated, you know, both of the shows earlier on in the three o’clock hour. Reality is and I’m one of those where it’s like, you know, watch whichever one you want. I don’t think either one were super spectacular. I did say the set for Bad Bunny was was really cool. I’ll give him credit for that. I didn’t like the fact that it was all in Spanish because I didn’t understand a single thing that was being said. Maybe that was done on purpose. Really, at the end of the day, I don’t care. I’m one, Richard, where I really don’t care much about the halftime performance period because most of them are fairly lame. So at the end of the day, you know, with the exception of Kid Rock’s last song on TPUSA, I didn’t think it was anything super exciting. So at the end of the day, frankly, neither one of them were anything to write home about.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, they weren’t. And honestly, I’m kind of tired of both sides. And even some conservatives are like, well, but TPSA was a smashing success and it’s still there. It didn’t steal any viewers. No offense, folks. Like the amount of viewers that it quote unquote stole is pretty small. I think they’re already reporting 125 or 130 million.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think it was like five or six million. Now, I will say that even the after view of TPSA, I think they’re up to like 15 or 16 million. So they’ve I mean, to their credit, they’ve done fairly well along those lines. But I did my own criticisms in the three o’clock hours to what I think they need to change and do better.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I’m with you. And that’s honestly kind of what our group said. We were really looking forward to it. We were underwhelmed by it, to say the least. And I think that they could have – here’s the deal, Dad. I’ll just say it. If you are any sort of an aspiring singer and you go counter to the NFL’s show – Do you think they’re ever going to offer it to you? Now, granted, they generally don’t go country for an offering, and I have my thoughts on that, which we’ll get to in a second. But they generally don’t go country. But either way, if you have any aspirations, but you counter the NFL, you’re probably never going to do it, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
They’re not in front of you listening. Let me tell you this. If I was running the NFL, here’s my answer, and I’m sorry. I love country. I’m a country fan, have been the majority of my life. They’re never going country because the amount of people and the demographic of people that you’re going after, and if you’re looking for more of a worldwide audience, which the NFL is, and by the way, should be, because that’s their goal is to continue to expand the product. If you’re looking at doing that, no, you’re not doing country.
SPEAKER 08 :
You are correct. Now, I will say that my dream for next year would be a Morgan Wall and Post Malone combo because that’s just a selfish thing in my sense. But like you say, in terms of moving in, I would try to get Taylor Swift, but she doesn’t need to. Right. The whole point of a lot of these artists is it helps boost that you’ll kick off their world tours and do some things that way that, you know, maybe, you know, they again, not that they’re under.
SPEAKER 04 :
It does one or two things. Either it can revive somebody like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg or it can kick off, like you’re saying, one of the two.
SPEAKER 08 :
Exactly. And so as far as the shows go themselves, some people were saying the Bad Bunny show was the best ever, and I was like, I wouldn’t go that far.
SPEAKER 04 :
Snoop Dogg outperformed Bad Bunny like 10 to 1.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, yes, and that’s where you were. And like you say, again, I will say that I think a lot of people probably felt the way that you did, which is I don’t really care either way. You get into the lyrics of Bad Bunny’s song, and it’s not my favorite. Well, let’s be honest, folks. You get into the lyrics of some of Kid Rock’s. Older songs, not saying the one that you finished, the Cody Johnson song there, but you get some of those lyrics and they’re not the greatest things either. Let’s judge everyone equally. At the end of the day, Dad, I was underwhelmed by both of them. Like you say, the halftime show, we have to realize what it’s for, which is it’s not really for us. And it’s really for bringing fans in that maybe wouldn’t tune it in. And honestly, in the case of Bad Bunny Dad, they probably got it because I guarantee you the rest of North America, Latin America, and even part of South America probably was tuning in because, okay, this was actually legitimately a Super Bowl they could understand. A halftime show that they didn’t have to translate.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. I agree.
SPEAKER 08 :
I agree.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that’s one thing that our side – and again, I criticized this during the 3 o’clock hour. And I’m one where – and again, I talked about several different posts and things that I’ve read even from good friends on Facebook. And they’re right. The division – that is coming from this is just insane. It’s stupid. Both sides need to realize that, okay, you want that? Great. You can have that. You want the other? Great. You can have that. But neither side needs to criticize the other for what they want. If that’s what you want, we as conservatives especially, if that’s what you want, then fine by me. Do your own thing. Who cares?
SPEAKER 08 :
You are 100 percent correct. And sometimes we as conservatives, Dad, have to look in the mirror and say, you know what, if you didn’t want to watch it, that’s OK.
SPEAKER 04 :
Turn it off.
SPEAKER 08 :
I will say this. There was the report, which I think got a lot of people to turn it off. And so whoever started it, whichever conservative touche of Bad Bunny was going to be an address. He never was.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, actually, truthfully, and I’ll give him credit where credit’s due here, truthfully, the way he was dressed was probably one of the nicer singing outfits that somebody like that has worn in quite some time. Didn’t take any of his clothes off, didn’t take his shirt off like a lot of the other knuckleheads did. I mean, all in all, very classy dresser. I’ll give him credit there. What?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and even a lot of the dancers, Dad, I mean, in terms of today’s what’s considered risque, you know, everyone was. I mean, yes, where there’s some, you know, suggestive movements and some other things, yes, but that’s sort of pop culture today. By the way, whoever Ricky Martin has got as his guy… You know, he needs to start passing along. That dude did not look 54.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know. I know. I know. I agree. I told my wife that this morning. I mean, the guy looks really, really well for his age. Lady Gaga looked good. She did a great job as well. I mean, all in all, was it as bad as our side made it out to be? Now, again, I will say this. Did the NFL let a lot of that play out, knowing that it wasn’t going to be that bad and we’re not going to correct anybody, we’re not going to try to attract anybody? Will let the controversy in and of itself… bring more people in to actually watch it. And by the way, I don’t think they’re wrong in doing that. And frankly, we get sucked into that sometimes, Richard.
SPEAKER 08 :
We take the bait, Dad. You are 100% correct. And we as a party have to get better at that because we do take the bait in a lot of things, not only in culture. And don’t confuse this, right, Dad? Some people are going to say, well, you’re taking in about the men and women’s sports thing. It’s like, no, I don’t think that that’s taking the bait. I think that’s a legitimate thing that we need to see. That’s different. But like you say, other times we worry about, and you’ve always said, you even said it as a dad, right? And I say it to my kids, you know, I was giving Andy a hard time last week about, you know, saying the same thing that you did. Sometimes we worry about things that don’t matter, right? And it stems from our human nature. Again, I have the conversation with my kids all of the time. You worry about you, right? You focus on you, do your job, and the rest will take care of itself. And your last thing I’ll say is this is we probably should do a better job. And then it probably wouldn’t have turned into sort of what it was. And honestly, kind of making a big difference. Big to do about nothing, but, you know.
SPEAKER 04 :
On the same token, if you want to do another alternative halftime show and there’s an organization that wants to do that and they can benefit from doing so and so on, then you know what? Again, it’s a free country. Knock your socks off. My point is, and I said this in the 3 o’clock hour, is both sides need to back up a moment. Take a take a view, you know, take that 10,000 foot view versus the right in front of you view and say, OK, what am I really complaining about here at the end of the day? And ultimately, if you don’t like either one of them, you’re welcome to turn the TV off. It’s a free country.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you hit the nail on the head. And by the way, I will say this, you know, for that as bad as Bad Bunny made it sound and all of the other things, the only. It can do is because we are the greatest country in the world. And, you know, there’s a lot of concerns. Well, you know, they have another country that would let, you know, another language be used as their main. It’s like at the end of the day that it’s a free country. The NFL can do what they want to write, you know, within limits as far as certain words that can be used on national broadcast. And so it’s outside of that. Again, honestly, Dad, there’s more important things in the world to worry about, and we kind of got a little bit sidetracked with this one.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. My son Richard joining us. And okay, Richard, we didn’t talk about commercials. Even you and I off air didn’t talk about anything. So let’s talk about what our favorite ones were. I have two that I think really hit it out of the park and did a really great job. And some of the commercials were extremely, extremely lame. And you’re even questioning why did you pay $230,000 a second for that lame ad. But Dunkin’ Donuts with their Friends Reunite was absolutely hilarious. Absolutely. As well as Budweiser and the Clydesdale Colt and the Eagle. Yeah, that one knocked it out of the park.
SPEAKER 08 :
I was going to say that actually we had to kind of turn down for the, like you said, for the first one you mentioned. The Budweiser one was good. My favorite was probably the Coinbase. No, that was different.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, that was different.
SPEAKER 08 :
And it was different in a lot of reasons. And then obviously it was, Well, honestly, for my wife and a lot of people we had over, it was kind of perfect for that demographic, but it was simple, right? And I believe it was Coinbase a few years ago that kind of got into, or not got, but they did the viral one where it was just the QR code. Right. Remember that?
SPEAKER 10 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Going across the screen. And so, whoever is in their marketing department, touche, because they have done.
SPEAKER 03 :
Agree. Agree.
SPEAKER 08 :
Simple and simplistic. But it was funny because we had all the boys, a bunch of nine-year-old boys that were sitting there reading off literally the words because it was just words coming across the screen for the Bad Street Boys song. And you had no idea what it was for. And it got all of us piqued in interest. And then Coinbase comes across and you’re like, wow. That is what you want in an ad. I don’t think there was a time. I guess maybe I missed them. Was there too many controversial options?
SPEAKER 04 :
I didn’t see too many controversial ads. I just saw some ads that were just it was more of head scratchers. Like, really? Why? Why did you run that ad?
SPEAKER 08 :
Exactly. I am totally with you. And like you say, there was just a few things, in my opinion, that I don’t know where they were going with it. And honestly, nothing kind of topped my head. But maybe that’s a good thing, right? It kind of jumped off the page or jumped off the screen, I should say, last night about it being… And by the way, really quick, the one that was the weirdest ad was the nerds ad with the new candy they’ve got out.
SPEAKER 04 :
I was like, that is just disgusting.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you’re not – folks, if you didn’t know, he’s not a candy guy.
SPEAKER 04 :
That whole ad was just like, yeah, that’s just disgusting. No thanks.
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s always – well, and I did send you this before, and we’ll talk about it here for just a brief second. Automotive ads. Right. And I know that car companies – I kind of sent it to you before where there’s – I didn’t notice one, and maybe I missed it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Toyota, because they’re a partner, but that’s it. Actually, Cadillac had a Formula One team ad was all.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, but theirs wasn’t for any car here. No, no. And I think the thing I sent you was the American brand. We’re not looking to, you know, the American carbon. Because I think there was a Honda one. Or maybe that was for something else that I saw. Either way, it was, which was interesting. And I know why, you know, they say the industry is down. But like you say, Toyota is a partner in kind of doing it. And I don’t know. They used to be some of the best ads. And maybe that’s just kind of the state of the industry in a lot of cases. But obviously there were some AI ads. I know that there was kind of some shots thrown there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Lots of movie ads, by the way, which was interesting, I thought.
SPEAKER 08 :
Lots of movies, which is big marketing budgets. Actually, you’re saying one of my favorites, we kind of talked about it. I actually love the Pepsi ad with the polar bears.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, the Pepsi where they stole the polar bear? Yeah, that was a pretty good one. I was like, okay, Pepsi, good job, touche.
SPEAKER 08 :
And, yeah, Pepsi put it in there, and then they obviously put the couple that was at the Coldplay concert, and they kind of put everything together that way and tied everything in, right? You know, cheating, and it all worked really well, and it was funny, and it was a classic. I didn’t know that was, I guess you could do that. There’s probably no, I guess I thought maybe Coke had a trademark on the pole.
SPEAKER 04 :
I thought they did as well. Maybe it ran out.
SPEAKER 08 :
Again, you never know. But yeah, ultimately, Dad, I was pretty pleased with it. That part of it was entertaining. But again, at the same time, though, these ads and these advertisers do bank on a good game because those ads that are in between the third and the fourth quarter, And if the game is really good, right before the two-minute warning or the two-minute warning one, those are usually higher-priced ads, right? Because when we talk about the Super Bowl ads going for $8 million, remember that that’s average. So some of those are less. But in cases in those high traffic or high viewership times, those are actually more expensive, right? $10 million, $11 million potentially because you want to be in that prime spot, right, when the most eyeballs – are on the screen. And again, in a game like last night and NBC doesn’t care because they have, well, they have the money no matter what, right? They can’t predict what the game is going to be, but you got to think some of those advertisers that were in those high traffic spots are, A little bit regarding, but again, I don’t know, it’s probably all par for the course because I don’t know if you can factor that in, you know?
SPEAKER 04 :
I did just read that it’s likely that you might see a lawsuit from Coke to Pepsi, which, by the way, might actually boost. Coke should probably be careful because that might actually boost Pepsi’s, you know, what’s that old saying, you know, their, you know, Bad press, good press, it’s still press. Might be careful in what they do there because at the end of the day, it might not bode well for Coke. But yeah, technically, Pepsi probably infringed upon something that Coke has quote-unquote rights to.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, Mike, you say sometimes the best thing is you don’t sort of – it’s like that pest, right? Or like that pesky little brother. Like you don’t necessarily acknowledge what they’re doing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
For fear of what may happen. My wife actually just said another fun one was when they were having all of the tight ends on there, and it was for prostate cancer screening. Oh, yeah. I thought that one was really well done.
SPEAKER 03 :
I agree.
SPEAKER 08 :
It was funny because it was tight ends, and then they kind of zoomed into a few of the the butts and then they and they kind of released them because you know they they weren’t clenched funny and creative the weirdest ad i think of the whole day maybe i’m wrong but the to me the weirdest ad was the pringles ad where she makes the pringles look like a dude and just creepy that wasn’t my favorite either i’m with you it was it was sabrina carpenter and i wasn’t I guess I kind of wasn’t the point. I don’t know. It was one of those where we talked about on you last week, when you use those celebrities, those ads are even more expensive than you traditionally think of.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Just because of you’re using a celebrity. And so I don’t know, but then again, we’re talking about it. So maybe that was their goal, right? You know, maybe make it so weird that,
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, we talked about it, so I guess they accomplished that one. I think the other thing that I was just talking about with friends yesterday during the game is if you look at some of the ads, like the apartment finder ads and so on, shows you the amount of profit they have to spend over more than one time on an ad, $230,000 a second.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, it makes you wonder sometimes in some of these cases, or not makes you wonder, it just peels the curtain back. Now, in some cases, some of these smaller brands are, you know, taking this with the idea that this is going to, you know, catapult us into that next sector, right? Into that next segment.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
And that’s kind of what they’re taking. But in other cases, you’re like, I guess I didn’t realize that there was that much profit in apartments and rents and things like that.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s exactly right. All right. With that, Richard, I’ll let you go. Thanks. That was good. That was fun.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, absolutely. Sounds good.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, have a great night. Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning coming up next. Folks, again, you can make an appointment online at Cub Creek’s website. You find that by going to klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 06 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
And again, we may do a little bit of this tomorrow with Andy and favorite ads and so on. It just depends on what else we have going on tomorrow. So no guarantees on that. But some of you really enjoy the ads. Some don’t really care. I watched some. Didn’t watch others, to be honest with you. So I didn’t see every single ad. I’ll have to go back in and look at each ad individually. I’ve just mentioned the ones that I actually did happen to see during the game. All right. One more full hour coming your way. Again, we appreciate you all listening. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 16 :
I’m a rich guy.
