74: Family Feud: Dear Abby vs. Ann Landers (Part 1)

An Old Timey Podcast

True Crime, History, Comedy

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2025

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For decades, Dear Abby and Ann Landers were the undisputed queens of advice columns. They had millions of loyal readers. They were celebrated public figures. Their columns stood out for being sassy, sharp, and at times, shockingly progressive. But, behind the scenes, the twin sisters had a contentious, competitive relationship.

In this episode, we set the scene for the women they would one day become.

Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from:
The book “Dear Ann, Deary Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren” by Jan Pottker and Bob Speziale
“Twin lovelorn advisers torn asunder by success,” by Paul O’Neil for Life Magazine
The book, “The Best of Ann Landers: Her Favorite Letters of All Time,” by Ann Landers
The book, “The Best of Dear Abby,” by Abigail Van Buren
“Pauline Phillips, better known as ‘Dear Abby,’ dies at 94,” Washington Post
“Ann Landers, advice giver to the millions, is dead at 83,” by Margalit Fox for the New York Times
“The rivalry of Dear Abby and Ann Landers,” by Melissa Baron for BookRiot.com
“Landers’ death renews family feud,” South Florida Sun Sentinel
“Pauline Phillips, longtime Dear Abby advice dies at 94,” by Michael Martinez for CNN
“Columnists/ daughters carry on the feud,” by Beverly Beyette for the Los Angeles Times
“Competition between Iowa sisters who penned Dear Abby, Ann Landers fueled advice columns,” Des Moines Register

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso.
0:07.8	And I'm Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about Anne Landers and Dear Abby.
0:14.4	A lighthearted topic, Kristen?
0:16.7	Yes, but it's hardcore drama and you're not prepared for it. I guarantee it. You think, oh, these are old fuddy dutty women, you know, blah, blah, blah. No. This is wild. First of all, Anne Landers and Dear Abby rock. They are very cool. I won't have any slander against them, but also these ladies knew how to do drama. okay? And they did it with each other.
0:38.0	Well, I only just learned that they were sisters.
0:41.9	Twin sisters.
0:42.8	Twin sisters.
0:44.0	Yeah.
0:45.0	You learned because I'm obsessed with them.
0:48.2	And now this is a whole series, folks.
0:51.0	Buckle up.
0:52.1	Oh, God, I hope other people are as enthused about this as i am when you
0:56.5	mention it in an earlier episode people were very fired up about it they're like we would listen to
1:02.5	that in a heartbeat so which makes me wonder were we all weird little nerds growing up just
1:08.5	flipping straight to dear abbey or anne landers i'm not choosing sides did you
1:14.3	read it did you it's like you don't even know your audience listen norm sometimes it's hard to know
1:20.3	is this something that i am just uniquely obsessed with and it's kind of dumb or is it an international
1:26.6	phenomenon i'm going to it an international phenomenon?
1:30.0	I'm going to go with international phenomenon.
1:30.7	Okay.
1:34.8	Folks, I have some sad news.
1:35.3	Oh.
	...

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