#128 Magic (Part 1)
Oh What A Time...
Pop! Pop!
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2025
⏱️ ? minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we’re talking about the great illusionists and conjurors of our times. We’ve got the man that pretty much invented the genre Jean-Eugene Robert, we’ve got the much-loved icon of British children’s TV Sooty and we’ve got the main man himself, Harry Houdini.
Plus, is trying to work out who won the dad’s race via mobile phone footage basically the same as trying to work out who killed JFK from a single camera shot? The answer is yes. But you can email us anyway: hello@ohwhatatime.com
If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?
Up for grabs is:
- two bonus episodes every month!
- ad-free listening
- episodes a week ahead of everyone else
- And much more
Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com
You can also follow us on:
X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod
And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod
Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?
Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).
Chris, Elis and Tom x
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What a Time early and ad-free. |
| 0:04.9 | Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:20.0 | Hello and welcome to Oh What a Time, the history podcast that asks before camera phones, smartphones and the ability to capture video. |
| 0:30.1 | How did we remember anything? |
| 0:32.6 | Not just how did we remember anything. |
| 0:35.0 | How did we glory in things that we were proud of? |
| 0:40.0 | Yeah. You know, children's assemblies, for instance, or in my case, I don't know, I'm just |
| 0:45.6 | plucking an example out of the air. I don't know where this has come from. Maybe me yesterday |
| 0:50.6 | winning the dad's race at my son's sports day. You know, maybe that. Because it is captured on video. And yeah, I can get hold of the video, hauntingly quickly, actually, because I've got access to it on my phone. And yeah, it is in my favourites. And yeah, I do look at it all the time. How did we survive before camera phones? Before we get onto that, you know, that deeper question, what is the angle like on the finish line and how confident can we be in it being an actual victory? Is it up for doubt in any way? Well, Tom, on that point, I've got something very undignified to share. I ran in the dad's race at the sports day and I've come over the finish line. I came back to my wife and I was like look that's not too bad is it second that's kind of like you don't really want to win I'm quite pleased at second she was like you were fifth what you're talking about I said I clearly finished second she got the recording out she's on the finish line the angle is very difficult to tell what's happened here. And it had such an undignified. It was an argument. I'll be honest. It was just an argument about whether I finished second or not. Looking at the angles, trying to work out where I was in like, whether I was seconded with 10 meters to go. And then as the camera swings around, trying to track where I finish. |
| 2:01.2 | Yeah. |
| 2:01.5 | She uploaded it into chat GPT, |
| 2:03.4 | which unhelpfully said I was like sixth. |
| 2:05.5 | Yeah. |
| 2:05.9 | Do you know what? |
| 2:07.0 | It's like trying to work out the sort of the identity of the gunman |
| 2:11.6 | with JFK's assassination. |
| 2:14.1 | You're looking at angles. |
| 2:16.4 | Yeah. |
| 2:16.9 | You're doing the maths. |
| 2:20.0 | Where are the shadows falling? |
| 2:21.6 | Is it possible? |
| 2:22.8 | In my experience, partners don't care enough. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pop! Pop!, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Pop! Pop! and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.