Three judges, one bench, zero room for nonsense. I'm Judge Dan Menser. Joining me are Judge Rachel Juarez and Judge Yodit Towelde. And on Hotbench, we don't just hear cases, we debate. What she's asking for is for the payments that she made on his car.
But there's still payments to be made. Correct. And we deliver justice. That is the verdict of the court. Follow and listen to the Hotbench podcast on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday morning. Twenty-nine years ago, the longest manhunt in FBI history ended with the capture of Ted Kaczynski. The Unibomber. Over nearly two decades, Kaczynski's acts of domestic terror, undertaken in the name of anti-technology philosophy, took the lives of three people and injured 23 others.
The tip that ultimately led to Kaczynski's arrest came from his own brother. And this morning, Ted Koppel speaks with David Kaczynski about those difficult days and a friendship that endures as a result. These were my memories. David Kaczynski came from a caring family. You get a sense of my parents' love for their kids with all these photos.
David idolized his older brother. Ted. than imitating my older brother my role model at the time. He would spend much of the rest of his life Trying to make amends for his brother. Maybe it really is not us and them, maybe it's really just us.
The hit on Sunday morning. Spoke his Today marks the start of the new season, our 48th here at Sunday Morning. And as is our custom, all through the morning we'll look ahead to some of the most anticipated new arrivals in the realm of art and culture, including, as Tracy Smith will explain, a Broadway production that's both a reunion. and a revival. Excellent!
It's been 36 years since Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter made their mark on film. Finish a phrase, I tell you. Finish your own! Moron! That's the idea.
Let's abuse each other. And starting tonight, they'll do it on Broadway in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godo. It's an emotional and physical workout. How much does it take out of you? It's not the question.
The question is how much does it give? Two lifelong friends, another excellent adventure later on Sunday morning. Jennifer Lopez is the epitome of a Hollywood triple threat. She sings, she dances, and she acts. In her latest movie, she gets to do all three and tells Lee Cowan all about it.
In the often glamorous world of Jennifer Lopez, it's hard to imagine she wants for much. But all her life, she has wanted a musical. And now she's got one. Here comes her key. I got to sing, and I got to dance, and I got to act, and I got to be an old Hollywood movie star.
You know, that's all I wanted to do. Will Kiss of the Spider-Woman be her next kiss of success? Coming up. on Sunday morning. As the war in Gaza grinds on, we're approaching two years since it all began with the events of October 7th, 2023, when Hamas militants entered Israel, killed 1,200 people, and kidnapped hundreds of others.
Among those taken hostage was Eli Sharabi, who spent nearly 500 days in Hamas captivity. This morning he shares his ordeal with Seth Doan. Plus Mark Phillips looking back with the Zombies, the British invasion band of the 1960s. and more. It's our first Sunday morning of the new season, September 28th, 2025.
And we'll be back in a moment. We begin this morning with senior contributor Ted Coppel. talking with David Kaczynski, whose tip led to the capture of one of the most notorious domestic terrorists in American history, the Unibomber. a man who happened to be his own brother. This looks like a happy kid, doesn't it?
Yeah, in some of these early photos he's beaming. The little boy with the bird on his shoulder, that's Ted His kid brother, that's David. One of these children would end up terrorizing the nation. I even have Ted's baby shoes that mom saved.
Now my mother always dwelled on the possibility that Ted's problems had originated in early childhood when he was nine months old. He developed a kind of rash over a week in the hospital, they were only allowed to visit twice a week. My mom said that that was That was a trauma for Ted. Still, he would develop into such a smart kid. with an IQ of one hundred and sixty seven, admitted to Harvard At age 16.
And at Harvard, Ted was recruited for a psychological study. They were actually studying the effects of Emotional trauma. But they told him it was just to talk about philosophy. He was put into these conversations with what he thought was a peer. Another Guinea pig in the study, but actually, it was a graduate student who'd been coached.
to say abusive things. And he was in that study for three years. That might account for some of his antisocial behavior, but Ted Kaczynski would ultimately withdraw from society altogether. He moved to Montana. built himself a little cabin.
Montana can get very cold in the winter. He had in the middle a pot belly stove. and that's where he would boil his water from a nearby stream. The bathroom was any place you could dig a hole outside. I kind of modeled my cabin after his, although I didn't need the pot belly stove then.
West Texas. fifteen hundred miles apart, each brother living alone in the wild. Did the two of you ever talk about the why of it? It's not the most... common thing in the world.
for two brothers from the same family. to go off Into Nature. Mm-hmm. and live there. I think we both felt a culture where You're trying to gain material things and advance in a career was.
Sort of inauthentic, whereas nature felt like it was more open. like a place where we could really be ourselves. I'm using my language. Ted's would have been much more critical of the society in which we found ourselves.
Well, yes. The FBI says an American Airlines 727 landed safely today after a small bomb exploded in a mail pouch in the cargo hold. What Ted Kaczynski sought, what he believed a mysterious package bomb exploded in the face of United President Percy Wood. Got lost in the violence of what he did. There was blood.
all over his face. It was way back in 1978 that he began mailing small packages around the country. A powerful firebomb was found in a hallway of the University of Utah yesterday. Little bonds that were designed to explode when the packages were unwrapped. or in some cases simply picked up.
Investigators called him the Unibomber because he targeted universities and high-tech businesses. UN for university, A for airline. Last Saturday the so-called Unibomber struck again with deadly results. Three dead, twenty three injured, over almost a generation. Were you ever in touch with him during those 17 years?
Yeah, we wrote letters to each other. A lot. The last time I saw him, I spent, I think, about four or five days with Ted and had no idea that he was doing anything violent. Had a decent time. It felt like our relationship was pretty solid.
For the better part of 17 years, Ted Gaczynski lived in near total isolation. All the while, desperate for attention. While scattering explosives around the country, he'd been working on a thirty five thousand word manifesto. In 1995, he sent it to the Washington Post and The New York Times. If they didn't publish, he threatened to strike again.
The bomber calls his manifesto Industrial Society and its future, and in it he urges a revolution against what he calls the industrial system. Do you remember? What he wrote As to his motivation for using the violence? Yeah, he said it was to take revenge against society. More than that.
More than that. He says, if we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted. in order to get our message before the public. with some chance of making a lasting impression. We've had to kill people.
Management of the two newspapers struggled with the Unabomber's offer. It was, after all, simple blackmail. The FBI said today it hopes someone will see the article and recognize the author. And of course, someone did. Albeit reluctantly.
Eventually after a few weeks I got to the point. of saying I think it might be fifty-fifty that my brother wrote that manifesto. An attorney in Washington, D.C. approached the FBI on behalf of a man who had come to suspect that the Unibomber might be his own brother. The longest manhunt in FBI history was finally over.
Thanks to David Kaczynski. Attorney General Janet Reno personally approved seeking the death penalty against Theodore Kaczynski. I was just devastated. There aren't going to be any innocent victims now, but Maybe going to have to go through the rest of my life with my brother's blood on my hands? What's that going to be like?
It was David's wife who put things in perspective. Linda turned to me and said, Dave, There are other people out here suffering Terribly, and people who've lost their dearest loved ones, people who will be disabled for the rest of their lives. You're not. The biggest victim in the story And so in 1997, at Linda's suggestion, David began contacting family members of those killed and injured by his brother's bombs. to apologize.
Most did not engage, but Gary Wright did. He'd been badly injured in 1987. when Ted Kaczynski left a bomb at Wright's computer store. Gary it would have been reasonable If you heard Done what the doctor told you? and then hope that you never heard the name Kaczynski again for the rest of your life.
Probably so. Instead. What happened?
Well I had a long time to process it, and I redefined for myself what forgiveness was. We were both on healing journeys of a sort, but we were. both looking for a path forward. That would be positive, and we had so much in common. One family doesn't have to suffer forever because of the Act of One.
And she actually Over the years, the two have made numerous joint appearances. like this one at a Unitarian Universalist church. in the Texas hill country. They've been over the same ground dozens of times. Living proof that compassion and friendship Can emerge from violence and tragedy.
200 pieces of shrapnel were removed from a body of about a dozen surgeries. to go through to put me back together. Tendon grafts, artery cuts, that was the physical part. The mental side, that was lots of years to deal with. Took a long time.
As for Ted Kaczynski's manifesto, It's doubtful that it would have received the attention it has without the campaign of violence he unleashed. He got that part right. We're still talking about the carnage almost fifty years later. Have you ever read it? Read it?
Yeah. What do you make of it? There is some truth to it. When you have to make the choice between technology and something else, you lose some freedoms. His essential argument was that we think technology.
gives us more control over our lives. But at a certain point, it becomes an illusion. In some ways it looks kind of prophetic. I mean as we're looking at AI. Artificial intelligence, will this sort of take away from us our ability to think through things?
Will we replace human creativity and human thought? with something inhuman. Ted Kaczynski died by suicide in prison. In 2023. he was already dying of cancer.
He never reconciled with his brother. But Gary Wright, one of his victims, has become one of David Kaczynski's Closest friends. You're an unlikely pair. I agree with that. Because I look around the world today.
And I don't find many folks across cross the courtroom and come to some reconciliation. I always try to keep a little space in the back of my head. for one guy who's saying, come on, Coppel, this is really weird. I would agree with you. I'm not going to tell you there's a script for this.
But in what was otherwise a very dark story it does offer an unexpected glimmer of hope. I think Gary has been... One of the greatest blessings of my life. It shows that friendship across differences and barriers is really possible. It helped to heal My belief in the possibility that human beings can live together in peace.
in mutual respect and in love. Three judges, one bench, zero room for nonsense. I'm Judge Dan Menser. Joining me are Judge Rachel Juarez and Judge Yodit Towelde. And on Hotbench, we don't just hear cases, we debate.
What she's asking for is for the payments that she made on his car. But there's still payments to be made. Correct. And we deliver justice. That is the verdict of the court.
Follow and listen to the Hotbench podcast on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the highlights of this new season on Broadway is a reunion of two excellent old friends, actors Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. Tracy Smith takes them back in time. Ready, Ted? Ready, Bill?
Let's go back into history. The year was 1989, and a couple of fresh-faced kids were in a film about time travel. You guys saved my life. Nothing doing, Billy the Kidders. Where are we going?
The golden age of civilization. Where? Ancient Greece, dude. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with Alex Winter as Bill and Keanu Reeves as Ted. Will you go to the prom with us in San Dimas?
We will have a most triumphant time. was kind of silly, kind of sweet, and kind of a hit. Excellent! Do you see anything coming? What?
Do you see anything coming? No! Nor I. And now the boys are back. In a production that couldn't be more different than their film roles, yet in some ways, much the same.
Oh, pardon. Carry on. No, no, after you. No, no, you first. I interrupted you.
On the contrary. Ceremonious ape. Tonight, they'll open on Broadway in Samuel Beckett's dramatic masterpiece, Waiting for Godo, one of the most influential plays ever written about friendship. Faith and the absurdity of life. Silence, I hear something.
It's the heart. Damn nation. Silence. Perhaps it is thought. Which of you smells so bad?
Yeah. He has stinking breath and I have stinking feet. I must go. It's an emotional and physical workout. How much does it take out of you?
It's not the question, the question is how much does it give? How much does it give you? And it takes a lot. Yeah. Doing the play was Keanu's idea, and Alex jumped right in.
I heard you singing. That's right. I remember. That finished me. I said to myself, he's all alone.
He thinks I'm gone forever, and he sings. Kianu, what's it like to have this guy next to you on stage? Oh my gosh, I feel blessed, lucky, a lot of gratitude. inspiring uh It's wonderful to just get to kind of look across from you and be in the scene and just go, wow. Do you still do that, really?
Of course. It's Keanu's first time on Broadway, but Alex Winter began his career here. In 1979, he played opposite Sandy Duncan and Peter Pan, and before that, he was one of the kids in The King and I with the great Yule Brenner.
So you started when you were Five, six, yeah. I started doing theater. My parents are modern dancers and um. And I enjoyed it, so I was a song and dance kid originally. Then I ended up on Broadway by the time I was about 12, 13.
Be excellent to each other. When Bill and Ted came out, Winter was an instant movie star. But he wasn't in love with the emotional toll that acting brought.
So after a few years, he walked away. I remember saying to my acting agent in 1992, 93, the height of my career, I love you guys, but I'm going to stop. And yeah, it took a little bit of courage, but it saved me psychologically. Yeah, what do you think would have happened if you kept down that? I think that I think I would have crashed on some level somehow, you know?
I think I just needed to stop. Don't wait. He went on to make acclaimed documentaries like this one about Frank Zappa and raised a family in Southern California.
Now I absolutely adore it. I love it here. FBI! I got him. I got him!
Keanu Reeves chased rogue surfers. Dodged a few bullets. and became a full-fledged action hero. He also co-founded Arch Motorcycles, a company that turns out high-end, custom-built bikes.
Okay, and so then Act One, this is like the original. He gave us a whirlwind tour of his LA Area workshop not long ago, and he was the whirlwind. Which way should we go? Let's go this way. We'll go in the sunshine.
Oh, yeah, so that's the design. This is some of the super secret. That's a kind of photo of our racing. Is this super secret? What we're looking at now?
Yeah, it's okay, though. For him, motorcycles are more an obsession than a business. How fast have you gone on one? On a motorcycle, I've flirted with like 140, 150. But that's not very fast in terms of motorcycles.
Um what they can do, but At 61, it seems Keanu Reeves is still very much willing to take a few risks.
Okay, maybe I'm going too far here, but is there any similarity between riding motorcycles and doing live theater in the feeling it gives to you? One feels like death, and one you can actually die on. Yeah. Fair enough. There's a presentness.
I think in both. I think they both ask for a presentness. That is heightened. And Um concentrated. Who am I to tell my private nightmares to if I can't tell them to you?
Let them remain private. You know I can't bear that. There are times when I wonder if it wouldn't be better for us to part. You wouldn't go far. Waiting for Gato can be an exhilarating ride.
In Keanu Reeves' and Alex Winters' version, the 70-year-old play seems newly relevant. And timeless. as a true friendship. Look at me. Will you look at me?
Alex, when you look at Keanu's career, what do you most admire? I think for me, honestly, I mean, he's gonna be miserable, so just bear with me. No, that's yeah.
However, I am gonna say it.
So for me, I'm going to be kind. What? What I admire most, I think, is the And I think it's one of the reasons we're still friends: his ability to be the same. person. Through All of this stuff that we go through in the industry.
Now, Keanu, I'm going to put you on the spot. Actor, producer, director, writer, and You know. Will. Will. I think we both have that.
You know, your will of like, okay, I want to do this thing. And and your excellence. No pun intended. Yeah. We enjoy each other's company.
Yes. That is true. A little more than a week from now, a grim anniversary. October 7th marks two years since Hamas militants entered Israel, killed 1,200 people, and took more than 250 others hostage. In coming weeks, we'll be reporting on what's ensued since in Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 65,000.
But this morning Seth Doan returns to that fateful October day to share one man's struggle for survival. you know, fifty meters underground. you actually understand the meaning in life. He was a Hamas hostage for 491 days. That is not.
your academic um degrees. and not your profession. You miss. Your family and friends will just. wish for another minute with them.
Held captive deep in tunnels under Gaza, Eli Sharabi also imagined this moment. This is your house here? Yes. Yes. His first time back home.
Wow. Look at that. Two years later. The shrubbery has grown up around it, but there's no concealing the pain here. I remember they grabbed me from here.
His wife Leanne and their daughters 16-year-old Noyep and 13-year-old Yahel were still inside. As Hamas terrorists overran their kibbutz Beri, killing 101 of its residents. Time has seemingly stopped in this community just three miles from Gaza. This place used to help so much to Palestinian civilians send them money. and take some of them from the border to hospitals in Israel.
Those memories are hard to reconcile with his last moments here. I understood they are kidnapped me. I understood Arabic. My last second in the house, I just turned my head to my daughters and said, I'll come back. It's a nightmare he details in hostage, a gripping account of his ordeal.
Five terrorists Enter with weapons drawn. We are in our pyjamas. They come with uniforms. Balaklavas. Uh Kalashnikov's They found us.
Can you believe you're writing about? your own life. I will never forget the feels. In my daughter's eyes. the fear.
Uh just was horrible. In that horrible chaos of the day, when 250 others were taken hostage, He was ultimately brought into a home and tied up. After 52 days, they moved us to the tunnels, the first mosque we've seen. We got in, they opened the door on the floor and we've seen the ladder and they asked us to climb down, something like thirty meters. It looked like the perfect grave.
It looked like what? A perfect grave for me. In the tunnels under Gaza, Eli Sharabi was held with various hostages, including American Hirsch Goldberg-Poland. who was later murdered by Hamas at age 24. Goldberg Poland often repeated a quote which stuck with Sharabi.
He who has a why to live can bear any how. You're looking for any source. that give you hope, that give you strength. His captors told him his wife and daughters were alive, seen at protests campaigning for his release. It was the why he needed to cope.
with that torture in the tunnels. They beat us one time, they broke my ribs. and I couldn't breathe properly for two or three months. and my friend needed to help me to stand to go to the bathroom. They undressed us every two weeks.
and look for things uh that me maybe we are going to attack them with them. What did that do to you? It's very humiliating moments for you, and especially when you're chained to your friends leg by leg. And you need to go to the bathroom with him. You have to go together?
Yeah, you have to go together. It's very, very humiliating moment. There's no running water, so you use um bottles. You can see the worms everywhere. Worms.
Worms. Rats, cockroaches. We were in Kibbutz Beri in mid-September as Israel stepped up its ground offensive in Gaza. hearing explosions. Yes.
It's not nice, these explosions. Especially when you think it's another forty-eight hostages remain there. Two years. It's offered for both sides. May I ask maybe a hard question?
There are going to be people who watch this and say you're giving this space to this man to share his story. What about the 60,000 plus people in Gazu have been killed. First of all, they need to remember who started October 7. If someone can explain to me how you fight against a terror organization that hiding behind its own population without people to get hurt, innocent people, I don't know how to do it. He worries especially about another captive he left behind, 24-year-old Alon Ohel.
Sharabi became a father figure to him in their year plus together. And when Shirabi found out he was going to be freed, Ohel was not on the list. hundreds of times and you believe it's going to be the happiest moment ever. And because of Alon, this moment became very complicated. He had small panic attack.
start to cry, shaking, so we took water. wash his face, hugging him. It wasn't easy. This is our mission now. To bring them all home?
Sharabi has been fighting to get the remaining living hostages out. Along with the bodies of those like his brother, Yossi, who was killed in captivity. The best brother you can ask for. His emotions are often close to the surface. but kept in check, even describing the unimaginable, being shackled.
We were chained with iron chain on our legs 24-7. Every step you make, it's not more than three inches. It was a week. before the release. When they took it off and our legs started to fly all over the place, we couldn't control them because we didn't know how to walk.
When he was released, he'd lost 66 pounds. The handover was terrifying, he says. but he could endure anything just to hug his wife and daughters again. Then he heard this from the social worker greeting him in Israel. When you hear that, what do you think?
I said to her, just bring Milian and my daughters. My wife and my kids. Yes. She said, Well, Your mother and your sister will tell you. Leanne, Noia, and Yahel.
were among the 1,200 people killed on October 7, 2023.
Next to their graves is a place for his brother Yoshi. It was life. It needs to be strong for them. I don't have the privilege. to break I'm really grateful for my uh Second chance.
What do you think about when you're trying to sleep? Nyan. and my daughter's. the life I missed, but I'm very positive. the life I'm going to rebuild.
How can you be so positive after Losing so much. I love life. I love life. I'm very proud. That's um that meaningful for other people.
It's the most moving feeling that you can feel. That people care about you. People say to me, you know, we lose simple things and we think Our war did finish and you lost your brother, your wife and your daughters, and you're smiling today. How That's possible. And what do you say to that?
But can't do anything, anything. that bring back Leanne. No, yeah, yeah. Yoshi.
So the best thing I can do for the memories. It's to be optimistic and to be strong and to rebuild my life. The one and only J-Lo, Jennifer Lopez, is headed back to the Silver Screen to appear in a new movie musical with a performance already getting awards buzz. She's in conversation with Lee Cowan. Jeez, you do it right.
Talk about a corner office. It's a little corner office. I just the first thing you notice about Jennifer Lopez's perch over West Hollywood. You'd be like, ooh, and I'm like, hi. Is the old Hollywood part of it?
Just me and Barbara, because she's my idol. Barbara Streisand, Biddy Davis, the Rat Pack. They all bedazzle the walls. I feel like this is me a little bit, but it's not me. It's Sophie Lorraine and with the crew there.
And this is what my life is. It's me by a camera doing this every day. I don't care what you say, it doesn't matter, okay? I love him, and that's it. What did you say?
I said, I'll I love him. Lopez is a movie mainstay. She's made at least one film almost every year for the past three decades. You think you can double-talk your way out of this? Throw me off your scent?
But I smell it. And I smell like sweetbread plums and grilled cheese sandwiches. What? Some were memorable. We gotta start thinking like these Wall Street guys.
You see what they did to this country? Others. weren't. It's turkey time. Huh?
Golden Globes and Oscars, they've both eluded her. But this year, just might be different. Kendall. You're late. Enter Kiss of the Spider-Woman, an old-fashioned musical.
What shall I wear tonight? Haven't a clue. I just thought to myself, this is what I've been waiting for my whole life. I grew up on musicals. My mom loved musicals, and so I saw every musical you could think of.
She was a fanatic. Life can be bright enough. If you can fight in America. How many times do you think you saw a West Side story?
So many. It wasn't like, oh, I've seen it about five times. No, I've seen it hundreds of times, I feel like.
So much. No surprise, one of her idols is Rita Morena. The other? And if you find that, you'll end in jail. The late Cheetah Rivera, who starred in Kiss of the Spider Woman on Broadway.
the same Tony winning shoes that Lopez is now trying to fill. Did you feel that? Um I kind of let it go and understood that I had to make it my own. It came, though, at a tough time in her personal life. Ben Affleck, her now ex-husband, is one of the film's executive producers.
It was a really tough time. every moment on set and every moment I was doing this role, I was so happy. And then it was like back home I was not great. And it was just like, oh you know, how do I reconcile this? Their divorce was settled the same month Kiss of the Spider-Woman premiered at Sundance.
It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because it changed me. Yeah. It didn't change me. It helped me grow in a way that I needed to grow.
The bright music is a purposeful contrast to the film's darker tale. Nobody claims it was the greatest movie ever made. Too ambitious for its own good. Too many Flavors in the stew. It's an escape for two cellmates in an Argentinian prison.
Melina, a queer window dresser, and Valentin. A proud Marxist revolutionary. I'm sorry to break the news, but nobody sings in real life.
Well, maybe they should.
Now shut up and listen. Going to a movie in their mind. There go the lights. The curtain opens. It's in glorious technicolor.
helped ease their drudgery and dissolve their differences. I don't make fun. I wasn't. Laluna's so tremendous in this scene. I'm a woman, she says.
I live only for art. And love And beauty. But here's the thing. She's only pretending not to care. It is a love letter in a way to the Latin community and to the queer community, this movie, because in a time like this, those communities are being demonized and marginalized.
Inclusion and acceptance have always been themes in our music. Performing at the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Miami. What are the twins? Jimmy. If you wanna make your life, whom she had with her third husband, Mark Anthony.
Sang with her proudly. about the challenges of identity. cultural and otherwise. Singing that with my child there. and them screaming that back to me.
Cause I'm gonna live my life. Life. That was like Most of all. Yeah. I'm sorry.
Oh, I didn't know it was gonna catch me like that. It was one of the best moments of my life. being so joyful and happy and being exactly who they were. The kind of global platform that she has now was unimaginable. Back when, against her parents' wishes, she dropped out of college and ran away from her home in the Bronx, chasing the city lights of Manhattan.
My dance studio was like right over there on that corner. With no place to stay, she slept on a bench at the Phil Black Dance Studio on Broadway. I crashed there for a while. Yeah. You know, when you're young, you can do stuff like that.
You know, it's like you don't know what's going to happen with your life. You're not inconvenience. No, you're like, whatever. Great. I can sleep here.
I'll sleep here. Just around the corner is the century-old Ambassador Theater, where Chicago is now playing. As a kid, seeing a live Broadway show was a rare privilege. But the experience stuck. I remember sitting in an audience watching a live show one time, and I was with a friend, and I said, When you see that, don't you want to be up there doing that?
And they were like, no. And I was like, oh, it's just me? In between her auditions, Lopez was selling programs for Phantom of the Opera out in front of the Majestic Theater. And they were like, sell the programs. Sell the programs.
I was like, really using my best tactics. What were your tactics? My tactics were like, I'd swing it up in the air and like, you know, kind of try to be charming and funny. How'd that work out? Good.
So Hand Come on, girls, Tima at the time. It was a winding road that finally got Jennifer Lopez to her own musical. Oh, will you kiss me? It might just be that going back in time to old Hollywood. I doubt it.
We were simple people. is what pushes her Hollywood career. Forward. The hard times are the lessons and you have to understand that. You have to understand that.
And once you do, everything just becomes a little bit lighter and you can really really fly. Does it feel like you're flying now? Yes, it does. It does. And I still feel like I want to fly higher.
I want to see more. I want to do more things. This episode is brought to you by FXX and Hulu. An all-new season of Futurama is back, blending heartfelt moments with razor-sharp humor while accidentally saving the day. The Planet Express screw is back, defying gravity, And common sense.
From the creator of The Simpsons comes 10 new episodes where the romance is hotter, the threats are bigger, and the action hits harder. Don't miss the all-new season of Futurama, watching Mondays on FXX or streaming on Hulu. Please don't bother Trying to find hope, she got there.
Well, let me tell her about the way she looked, the way she acted. During Pop Music's British invasion of the 60s, a slew of English bands hoped to follow in the Beatles' footsteps. The zombies never quite realized that dream, but some of their songs are classics. With Mark Phillips, we take note. Yeah, okay, anytime you like.
Mm-hmm. Remember when radio DJs used to say a hit song was number one with a bullet? What's your name? Who's your daddy?
Well this was the slowest bullet in rock history. Rod Argent and Colin Bluntstone are in their 80s now. Too sure. Show you what you need. Me too.
In their teens, they were members of the Zombies, part of the 1960s British pop invasion that began with the Beatles. Except that for the zombies, success took a lot longer to catch up with them. We were friends really right from the very start. Yeah, it just clicked. Yeah.
It really did. And we're still friends. And we're still friends. Yep, still friends. What are the odds on that?
Yeah. Of the five original zombies, four survive. Argent, Bluntstone, Hugh Grundy, and Chris White. The fifth member, Paul Atkinson, died in 2004. I'm walking too fast I think.
They first got the band together at a youth club in their hometown just north of London. Where a local artist has now finally put up a mural of them. Fantastic.
So you were where? Middle bottom. But boy, was it a bumpy road to rock and roll immortality. The very first thing I wrote was boom, boom, boom, boom.
Well, no one told me about her the way she lied.
Well no one told me about her how many people cried They released a song called She's Not There of unrequited adolescent love. Is there any other kind? It was the making of them. Please don't bother trying to Find her, she's not there. And welcome to another session of Jukebox.
She's not there, made it onto a British Is It a Hit or a Miss TV show, where one of the panelists loved it. And uh I think it'll be okay. That panelist was George Harrison of the Beatles. It didn't hurt. It was a hit, She's Not There was a hit and it went on to be number one in Cashbox and about number three in Billboard in America.
It was on the nine o'clock news and they said the zombies have become the first group after the Beatles to have a number one record with a self-written composition. The song that you wrote, right? Only have to be.
Well no one told me goodbye. She's not there wasn't just a hit. It was their ticket to ride. Oh. They went to America and hit the road with the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars.
This was a dream come true for us. Chuck Jackson, Benny King, the Shangri-Lars, Matthew LeBelles. We were terrified because here we were taking a lot of their influence and there we were on stage with these fabulous artists going, Can we do this? Can we even play with them? You feel you were being impostors bringing American style rhythm and blues music back to America with English accents.
With English accents, right? Yeah, we thought exactly that. But they saw us as doing something really quite different. We realise now that we did really have something quite original. We really did have our own stamp.
But there was a problem. Money. There wasn't any. We were 19 years old. We were very naive.
and we didn't realise what our options were.
So I'm afraid that touring revenue was poor. And sometimes, sometimes non-existent. not only that, they felt their music had stagnated and suffered. They decided to produce their own album in their own way. Oh my goodness, my goodness me.
When would you have first come here? Oh, in in 1967. They went to the mother's ship of British rock. Those were the days. The famous Abbey Road studios in London.
You do get this really emotional feeling walking into Adelaide. Yes, because I mean there's so much history in these walls. Yeah. The session produced what became their signature album. Odyssey and Oracle.
Now considered one of rock and roll's greats, But not them. Then it sank without a trace. There was no real interest in it. fairly clear. fairly quickly that the industry pretty much ignored it really.
The zombies thought it was all over and broke up. Bluntstone took a job in insurance. Grundy sold cars. White and Argent wrote songs for other people. including this one for Argent's new bed.
Hold your head up. But Odyssey and Oracle wouldn't die. More than a year later, one of the tracks started to get some play. Of the season. When love runs high Famously there was one DJ in Boise, Idaho who kept playing timers this season.
It spread to other radio stations. It took months for it to be a hit, but again it went to number one in Cashbox. To show you every Finally, more than fifty years after their hits. The zombies made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And now a remastered version of Odyssey and Oracle has been released.
And now it gets name-checked as a major influence in so many people's careers. It's considered a top 50 iconic rock album in the world. And here we are, is it nearly 70 years later? It's a very strange story. To me.
But a story with a happy ending. For the zombies, their season has finally come. SAA Of the season for love Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Three judges, one bench, zero room for nonsense.
I'm Judge Dan Menser. Joining me are Judge Rachel Juarez and Judge Yodit Towelde. And on Hotbench, we don't just hear cases, we debate. What she's asking for is for the payments that she made on his car. But there's still payments to be made.
Correct. And we deliver justice. That is the verdict of the court. Follow and listen to the Hotbench podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Tulsa is my home now.
Academy Award nominee Sylvester Stallone stars in the Paramount Plus original series, Tulsa King. His distillery is a very interesting business. And we got a dough PNN. From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Landman. What are you saying?
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