Stranger Danger

American Hysteria

W!ZARD Studios

Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2018

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode explores the evolution of American's bogeyman, the Stranger, and reveals how rare these types of kidnappings really are. Through looking at the sensational child snatching crimes that have shaped our culture from the 1800s to the 1980s, and how we have responded to them in the media, in books, with PSAs and made-for-TV movies, host Chelsey Weber-Smith explains the problem with Stranger Danger and what this moral panic might be covering up. American Hysteria is written and produced by Chelsey Weber-Smith Produced and edited by Rod Rodriguez Show art by Roache (xroache.com](xroache.com) Thanks for Jake Weholt for the interview Thanks to Corinne Manning for advising Check out Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America by Paula Fass for further reading Become a Patron for extra episodes, interviews, and videos monthly! Follow American Hysteria on social media: Twitter: @AmerHysteria Instagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this season we'll be exploring the moral panics, urban legends, and conspiracy theories
0:14.5	that shape our psychology and culture and why we end up believing them.
0:18.6	I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Smith, and this is American hysteria.
0:23.5	Hi, I lost my little dog.
0:27.7	Can you help me find him?
0:29.4	My mom's been hurt, she's in the hospital, she's set me to come and get you.
0:32.3	What's the secret code word?
0:33.9	I don't know the code word.
0:35.5	I'm a professional photographer.
0:37.5	Come on, hop in the car, I'll take your picture.
0:40.5	Do you tell anybody about our little secret?
0:45.1	I'll kill your dog.
0:49.1	Stranger danger.
0:50.9	A simple, perfect rhyme that holds inside it, a terror commons almost all parents and children
0:56.1	in this country, especially those in the extra safe American suburbs.
1:01.4	We were taught about evil strangers in school, saw the faces of missing little boys and
1:05.6	girls on milk cartons, in newspapers, on TV.
1:09.6	McGruff the crime dog glumly announced shocking statistics of missing children during commercials
1:14.4	between cartoons, and Teddy Rucksman sang his eerie song about keeping children safe.
1:20.5	But the stranger danger we know today was hardly the beginning.
1:25.2	Of course, the fear of kidnapping lives in our very DNA, a fear that has been with us since
1:29.2	the beginning of time.
	...

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