'The West Wing' Premieres (1999) w/ Hrishikesh Hirway
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s September 22nd. This day in 1999, Aaron Sorkin’s podcast “The West Wing” premiered on NBC.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by fellow Radiotopian Hrishikesh Hirway to talk about the political influence and legacy of the show.
Check out The West Wing Weekly and all of Hrishi’s podcasts on his website!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:06.7 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:08.6 | This day, September 22nd, 1999, the West Wing debuted on NBC. |
| 0:17.0 | The show about the White House staff and the President and all the behind the scenes things |
| 0:21.1 | that happened in a presidential administration, it was a fiction |
| 0:24.0 | show, but the West Wing was wildly influential on a whole generation's view of what politics |
| 0:29.2 | is and what politics should be, not to mention hugely influential as a TV show. |
| 0:34.5 | So let's talk about the West Wing in that political context, given what our show is. |
| 0:39.2 | Who better to join us than our fellow radiotopian Rishikash Hereway, host of many shows including Song Exploder, |
| 0:45.7 | and of course the West Wing Weekly, the King of TV rewatch shows which he hosted for many years |
| 0:51.5 | along with Josh Molina who starred in the series |
| 0:54.2 | Ritchie thanks for doing this thanks for having me do you know on that night that the |
| 1:00.2 | West Wing premiered what it was up against. No, what was it up against? |
| 1:04.0 | Nothing that interesting, but like Big Brother and a show called Oh, Grow Up on ABC, which got |
| 1:12.0 | cancelled like a week later, and Roswell on the WB. |
| 1:16.5 | I'm taking a Star Check Voyager was on UPN, so there you go. |
| 1:20.4 | It was, it found its little niche. I definitely didn't watch it the day that it |
| 1:25.1 | aired yeah yeah let's see if either of our other guests did here as always Nicole |
| 1:30.5 | hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. |
| 1:33.3 | Hello Jody and the answer is yes I did. The day wow you were there day one. |
| 1:38.8 | Hey there and the answer is no I did not., I will tell you why I was there on day one. |
| 1:46.0 | First of all, this is tailor-made for everything that I love in sort of like a cultural product. |
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