Death of a Name | Reviving a Mobit
What do you think will be the top baby names of 2025? Will "Mildred" make a comeback? What’s in a name…that makes it popular to one generati...
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Society & Culture
Mobituaries with Mo Rocca
Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries. With Mobituaries he introduces listeners to the people who have long intrigued him—from the 20th century's greatest entertainer ... to the Civil Rights...
Episodes
20 of 59 episodesMarlene Dietrich Goes To War | Reviving a Mobit
We’re celebrating the birthday month of the iconic Marlene Deitrich by revisiting a special episode from the "Mobituaries" audiobook. Marlen...
Sammy Davis Jr.: Death of the Entertainer | Reviving a Mobit
This week, we’re celebrating the birthday of the legendary Sammy Davis Jr. by revisiting a special Mobit. From the age of three Sammy Davis,...
Wishbone: Death of a Working Dog | Reviving a Mobit
This week marks 8 years since the finale of the beloved series "Wishbone". In the 1990s, PBS introduced young audiences to a canine star lik...
Neanderthals: Death of a Human Species | Reviving a Mobit
Did you know November 9 is National Neanderthal Appreciation Day? Reivist this episode where Mo welcomes his friend Michael Ian Black – come...
Sitcom Deaths and Disappearances | Reviving a Mobit
In honor of the anniversary of the first-ever sitcom broadcast on a U.S. television network (fun fact: it was "Mary Kay and Johnny" back in...
Literary Frontierswoman: Laura Ingalls Wilder
This special episode comes from the audiobook edition of ROCTOGENARIANS, a brand-new collection of stories from Mo Rocca that celebrates the...
LaWanda Page: Death of a Comedy Queen
Long before her turn as the sermonizing Aunt Esther on "Sanford and Son," LaWanda Page was dazzling Black nightclub audiences - first as the...
Revisiting the Orphan Train: An American Odyssey
Between 1854 and 1929, 250,000 orphans and abandoned children were placed on East Coast city trains and sent west to live with new families....
Death of a Sports Team: Satchel Paige and Los Dragones
There’s no shortage of sports teams that change cities or names over the course of their franchise history. But what about the teams that ju...
Death of the Very Special Episode
If you were a kid watching TV in the 1980s and 1990s, you probably saw a fair number of “Very Special Episodes,” when the usual blissful bub...
Mobits Extra: How Norman Lear Changed Television
Starting in the early 1970s, Norman Lear changed the face of television, fusing comedy with social commentary. Lear died on December 5th at...
The Habsburg Jaw: Death of a Dynasty
For centuries European royals married only each other. It was believed to be the best way of consolidating power. But rampant royal inbreedi...
Death of a Nepo Baby
“Nepo Baby” is a term popularly used to describe the celebrity children of celebrity parents. But family connections affect every field of w...
JFK Impersonator Vaughn Meader: Death of a Career
November 22, 2023, marks 60 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the end of one of the era's biggest comedy acts....
Charlie McCarthy: Death of a Dummy
When Candice Bergen describes her childhood as weird and eccentric, she isn’t exaggerating. She grew up with a world-famous sibling, who met...
Things I Wish Would Die
On this podcast we’ve honored some of our past’s most outstanding and underappreciated people and things. May they live on in memory. But le...
Death of an Accent
Have you ever wondered about that old timey accent so many actors used in black and white movies? Hollywood stars like Katharine Hepburn, Be...
Jim Thorpe: Death of an All-American
When gold medalist Jim Thorpe was dubbed "the world's greatest athlete" at the 1912 Olympics, it wasn't hype. Football, baseball, lacrosse,...
Peggy Lee: Death of Cool
There were so many different Peggy Lees: The woman who defined cool in the 1950s with songs like "Fever." The songwriter of hits including t...