Vapor Bowl Tailgate Party with Amy Westervelt
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2022
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What do robot dogs, Meadow Soprano, WeatherTech bumper protectors and Dr. Evil have in common? They were al featured in ads during Super Bowl LVI, that annual celebration of American consumerism. In what's become a War on Cars tradition, we analyze car commercials that aired during the big game and try to figure out what they say about the future of streets near you. This time, we're joined by journalist Amy Westervelt, whose podcasts cover everything from climate change to the history of propaganda and public relations. Amy helps us connect the dots between early PR efforts by oil companies, tobacco companies and the marketing techniques used by car companies today.
***This episode is sponsored by Radpower Bikes.***
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LINKS:
Learn all about Amy Westervelt and check out her podcasts Rigged, Drilled and more from the Critical Frequency podcast network.
Listen to Hot Take, Amy's podcast with Mary Annaïse Heglar.
Watch all the 2022 Super Bowl commercials. (AdAge)
Dr. Evil needs to save the world from climate change with EVs before he can take over the world. (Automotive News)
Pick up some official War on Cars merch at our store.
Follow and reveiw us on Apple Podcasts. It helps people find us!
This episode was recorded by Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio. It was edited by Ali Lemer. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Ad music: My Great Undoing by Of Men and Wolves and Micro Evolution by Howard Harper-Barnes courtesy of Epidemic Sound.
Our logo is by Dani Finkel of Crucial D.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There's some language and topics of discussion in this episode that might not be appropriate for young children. |
| 0:06.0 | So if you're in the car, you might want to wait until you're home and alone to listen to this episode. |
| 0:11.0 | And seriously, driving with children, |
| 0:13.7 | it's like one of the most dangerous things you can do, |
| 0:15.7 | so you probably shouldn't do that either. |
| 0:21.0 | Rad Power Bike Studio, Brooklyn, New York, the site of episode 81. I'm Aaron Naper Stack here with my co-hosts, Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear. |
| 0:42.0 | And welcome to the 2022 Rad Power Program. Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear. |
| 0:42.8 | And welcome to the 2022 Rad Power Bikes |
| 0:45.6 | Super Bowl Special brought to you by |
| 0:48.2 | Rad Power Bikes. |
| 0:49.8 | Doug, Sarah. |
| 0:57.0 | Like me keeping trying to keep his straight face through that. In case you didn't catch that, we are sponsored by Rad Power Banks. |
| 1:00.0 | Guys, that was basically the verbatim opening by Al Michaels of the Super Bowl. |
| 1:05.0 | And you do a fantastic job. |
| 1:06.0 | You actually sounded like you were auditioning to host American Ninja Warrior. |
| 1:11.0 | I just replaced crypto.com with rad power bikes over there. Well done. So here we are |
| 1:18.0 | back once again for our annual dissection of Super Bowl car ads and it is truly one of my favorite episodes. |
| 1:25.6 | This is our third time doing this as a matter of fact. It's a lot of fun. |
| 1:28.4 | So the Super Bowl is the biggest day of the year for car ads and that makes a great opportunity for us here at the |
| 1:34.3 | war on cars to sort of gather intelligence you know if we want to figure out how to |
| 1:38.2 | make it so that there are fewer cars in American cities it's really useful to see how the automobile industry convinces |
| 1:44.3 | Americans to make it so that there are more cars in American cities. The |
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