- [Alison] Canada had made gay marriage legal,
so Thea and Edie go to Toronto
and they get married in front of six buddies,
they exchange rings, and Edie and Thea are like,
whoa, this feels different.
To truly be married, like, there's a tangible difference.
This is not bullshit.
- That's very
sweet. - [Alison] It's so sweet.
- To be like, to flaunt the laws.
- Yeah.
(beep) those laws.
(intense music)
(graphic booming)
- Hello.
Today we're going to talk about Carl Sagan.
And (belching), I had to let it out.
And Ann Druyan.
(light music)
In 1977, the outer planets were in precise alignment,
and the guys at NASA were like,
"We could send up two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2,
that could swing around each planet to collect data,
and conduct research, and to take pictures,
and to possibly, no, for suredley,
be flung into deep space."
"Let's (beep) some (beep) up."
So NASA comes to Carl Sagan,
who's a famous astronomer, astrophysicist,
and they're like, "Hey, man, would you like to lead a team
that creates the message, a mixtape for all of humanity,
that we cast into the cosmic ocean."
Mother (beep) Carl Sagan is like, "Abso (beep) lutely."
Let's put together a kickass team.
He hires Ann Druyan to be the creative director.
She's a journalist, she's a writer, she's amazing.
So they talked about how to like, send the message,
and an 8-track tape came up at one point, but Carl was like,
this thing is gonna get (beep) up in your Cadillac.
What's it gonna do at 35,000 miles an hour
for a billion years in deep space?
So these guys at NASA are looking at each other,
and they were like, "We could do this on a record,
a copper record plated it in gold.
We'll plate this thing in gold."
Assholes, what do we care?
We're the United States government. (laughing)
We're NASA. (laughing)
So Annie and Carl sat around his kitchen table
for hours on end going over
what should be included on "The Golden Record."
They talked about all that was best about humanity,
what was beautiful, was poetic.
They looked at each other and said,
"Let's include whale sounds.
Let's include thunder.
Let's include pictures of drinking, and licking,
and swallowing, and biting, and eating."
This is where the music should, should swell under me.
(intense music)
And Annie is looking at Carl thinking,
"This will outlive ourselves
maybe by a billion years." (giggling)
Is outlive a word?
- Mm-hmm.
- They began working on a record.
They recorded a child's voice that's like,
"Greetings from the children of planet Earth."
They recorded a baby that was like, (crying),
a kiss, like, (kissing), um, birds.
(birds chirping)
(gasping) Has that been on this whole time?
- [Derek] Mm-mm.
- Guess I haven't looked since we started filming.
Okay, where are we?
Sorry.
(Derek laughing)
Carl was like, "Oh, we have to represent
different eras of humanity."
So Ann found a 2,500-year-old piece
of ancient Chinese music, and she was like,
"Oh my gosh," (belching) "That's some old ass music.
I have to let Carl know.
This is the greatest ever."
And she calls him, doesn't get him, leaves a message.
"Hey, it's Annie.
I got it, it's called 'Flowing Stream.'
It's an ancient piece of Chinese music.
Most exciting thing so far that we needed.
Yes, it might sound like what plays under your massage
or whatever, but it's important,
and we needed it, and you're not here.
And it would be really cool if you were here or whatever.
This is Annie.
Might've already said that.
Goodbye."
Carl calls her back and says,
"I wish you had left me this message,
a message, 10 years ago."
And she was like, "What are you talking about?"
He was like, "I guess you and me."
And she was like, "For keeps?"
And he was like, "Yeah."
And then they hung up the phone and she was like, "Jesus.
What is going on right now?"
And the phone rings again.
And he was like, "What's going on?"
And she was like, "I think we just got engaged."
And he was like, "I think that's 100% cool with me."
(Holly coughing)
Wrong pipe. (belching)
Sorry 'bout that.
And they got engaged over the phone,
having never shared a kiss, a romantic moment, nothing.
- [Derek] Mm.
- I just started to get choked up. (clearing throat)
And after their declaration of love, she gets an idea.
Annie goes to Bellevue Hospital, gets all hooked up,
and she meditates for an hour on her love for Carl.
And they recorded her brainwaves,
and all of her thoughts were compressed
into a minute of an audio file
that was included in "The Golden Record."
It sounds like fireworks, like (imitating fireworks).
Like that.
- [Derek] Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
So in 1977, "The Golden Record" was launched into space,
containing what we consider our very best everything.
Carl and Annie went on to create the "Cosmos" series for PBS
when they were together for almost 20 years
before Carl died.
And to this day, Annie will be like,
whenever I feel sad or depressed,
I think, and still they move.
I mean, that's crazy.
Those spacecraft carrying
all of our best science art dreamings,
and the thoughts of a woman who had just fallen in love.
(uplifting music)
- It's a beautiful story, isn't it?
- [Holly] (sniffling) Yeah.
(graphic booming)
- Hello, I'm Drew Droege. (laughing)
Hello, I'm Drew Droege,
and today we are discussing "Dog Day Afternoon,"
the real story.
- Ruff ruff.
- Ruff ruff. (laughing)
(upbeat music)
It's 1971, and there's this guy named John Wojtowicz.
He's a man about town.
He's like, I'm the (beep).
He's at the Feast of San Janeiro in Little Italy,
and he meets this person named Elizabeth.
And they're like, "Hey."
"Hey."
"Wow."
And they're like, "Hey,
we're at the Feast of San Janeiro in Little Italy.
Let's have cannoli, and ziti, and let's live life."
So John and Elizabeth are in love with each other.
But Elizabeth says, "I'm actually a trans woman."
And John is like, "I'm cool with that.
That's wonderful, that makes sense."
So they got married
in an unofficial ceremony in The Village.
They're like, "I'm in love with you."
"Oh my god, I'm in love with you."
And Elizabeth is like, "I need sexual re-"
She's like, "I need sexual reassignment surgery.
This cost $3,000."
And John says, "We don't have $3,000."
In 2019, this drink cost $3,000.
- Yeah, let's drink it.
- Cheers.
So Elizabeth slips into a deep depression
and she goes into a mental hospital.
And she's removed from John, and he misses her, and he says,
"I want my wife, I want the love of my life.
I'm gonna give her a sexual reassignment surgery.
I'm gonna get that money for her.
I'm gonna rob a bank.
I'm robbing a bank." (laughing)
So John recruits Salvador Naturale and Robert Westenberg.
And then they go see "The Godfather,"
and "The Godfather"
obviously was starring Al Pacino and John Cazale.
"The Godfather" got them going.
They're like, let's let's be criminals like the Corleones.
They realized like, we're gonna need some guns.
So they get the guns together.
The first bank they go to is on the Lower East Side.
(intense music)
They get to the bank, they drop a shotgun,
it goes off. (imitating shotgun)
They're like, "Guys, everything's fine.
We just dropped a shotgun, it blew up.
We're people, let's just be people.
But we gotta go to another bank."
The next one's in Queens.
They get out of the car,
they immediately run into their mom's best friend
who's like, "Salvatore, what's going on?
How are you?"
John, nice to see you.
What are you two boys doing together?"
And then they were thinking,
"Oh my god, it's our mother's best friend.
We gotta get outta here. (beep)
That's from 'Grease.'"
(Drew laughing)
They finally get to the Chase Manhattan in Brooklyn,
but Robert Westenberg sees a cop car outside
and gets spooked, and he leaves.
So it's just John and Sal that go into the bank.
(funky music)
And they go in.
John yells, "Freeze.
This is a hold up.
I'm not alone."
They pass the teller a note that says,
put all your money in a bag
or we're gonna start shooting people.
This is an offer you can't refuse.
And John's like, "It's from The Godfather.
It's our favorite movie."
John and Sal, they're about to leave
when a bunch of cop cars pull up.
(sirens blaring)
John was like, "You know what?
We're gonna leave-
we're gonna keep everybody in this bank hostage."
Boom.
This leads to a 14-hour hostage standoff.
They're fumbling, bumbling.
The tellers are just freaking out.
They're not hardened criminals,
they don't really know what they're doing.
Elizabeth asks John to stand down.
Ultimately, Sal was killed, and they arrest John.
(solemn music)
So if you've seen the movie, this is where it ends.
But there's more to this story.
So John goes to prison, and he's like,
"Ugh, I went through all this,
and still, my wife can't get what she needs."
But a year later,
Hollywood producers come into his jail cell.
He's like, "Who the (beep) are you guys?
What's going on here?"
And they're like, "We are Hollywood producers.
We have a Hollywood movie we would like to make about you.
We're gonna give you 75-
$7500 and a 1% profit share for your story."
And he's like, "It's enough money
for Elizabeth's sex change,
and that's the whole reason I got into this."
- [Derek] Aw.
- I feel wasted.
(Derek chuckling)
Anyway, in 1975, Sidney Lumet directs "Dog Day Afternoon"
It makes $46,000,000.
It gets six Oscar nominations
and wins for Best Original Screenplay.
And it stars Al Pacino and John Cazale.
- [Derek] Wow.
- In prison, he gets the nickname, The Dog.
- Ruff.
(Drew and Derek laughing)
- Elizabeth visits him once a month.
Elizabeth gets her sex change.
She was like, "Honey, I love you, and thank you."
John is in prison for six years.
John gets out of prison,
and he eventually sees "Dog Day Afternoon,"
and he's like, "Holy shit, this is Al Pacino playing me,
and John Cazale is playing Sal.
These are the people that I watched in "The Godfather"
playing me in the movie.
How crazy is that?"
So John and Elizabeth eventually separate after a while,
but they remain friends.
It's ultimately a story about an individual
who sacrificed everything that he was to help someone else.
- I love you, Drew.
- Love you too, Derek.
(glasses clinking)
- Yeah.
(Drew speaking foreign language)
Is that "Dog Day Afternoon" in Spanish?
(Drew laughing)
I love you.
- I love you too, Derek.
(graphic booming)
- Hello. (laughing)
My name's Alison Rich.
Today we're gonna be talking about Edie Windsor
and the end of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act.
- Cheers, come on.
Cheers. - I feel like
I could puke tonight. (laughing)
- You know what?
Let's do it.
- Tonight's the night to puke.
- Yeah, let's just get it all out of us.
- [Alison] So, the year is 1950.
The place is the United States of A.
At this point in history,
it's not even legal to dance closely
to a person of the same sex.
So Edie Windsor was a young lesbian.
She's like, "Ooh, I gotta keep my personal life private,
'cause this is the past, and the past is close-minded."
So then-
(laughing) I'm talking about gay stuff.
(Kirby laughing)
So then Edie is in Greenwich Village,
and she notices a beautiful, leggy brunette.
She goes, "Hey."
(Alison laughing)
"Are you, can I dance with you?"
The woman goes, "Hello, my name is Thea Spyer, and yes."
- [Kirby] That's a great name.
- We've got Edie Winsdor and Thea Spyer.
Two like, cool lesbian names.
- Yeah.
- You know?
And then Edie goes, "Is your dance card full?"
Which is an old-timey way of being like, "You single?"
And she goes, "It is now."
Meaning, "I'm ready to bump clam."
(Alison and Kirby laughing)
Is that, I don't know if that's offensive.
- The clam don't they, they have pearls in them?
- Yes.
- Pussy pearls.
So then they date, and they fall in love.
But then, on June 28th, 1969,
she encounters the Stonewall riot,
where gay people were being out and proud
about who they were amid this police raid
at the Stonewall Inn.
So she goes home and she's like,
"Thea, there's a big riot at Stonewall about gay rights.
Maybe this is the moment that we should come out
and tell the world who we really are."
So she's like, "Mm, I don't know, that's really risky.
Maybe not."
So Edie and Thea are like,
"You know what, we're not revolutionaries."
"We're just two ladies, we're in love and like to dance."
"And we're gonna be private about it."
And they do that for the next 30 years.
- That's a long time.
- And the thing that they really bonded over was dancing.
In any situation,
their bodies could always connect through dance.
And it's about 2007 now,
and Thea was in a wheelchair with MS.
Thea was like, "I wanna get married."
By this time, Canada had made gay marriage legal.
So Thea and Edie go to Toronto,
and they get married in front of six buddies,
they exchange rings, and Edie and Thea are like,
whoa, this feels different.
To truly be married, like, there's a tangible difference.
This is not bullshit.
- That's very
sweet. - [Alison] It's so sweet.
- To be like, to flaunt the laws.
- Yeah.
(beep) those laws.
So in 2009, Thea dies, and Edie is there in the hospital
and she's like, "You know what?
I had a good life.
We had a beautiful love.
What more could I ask for?"
And then knock, knock, knock.
The US government says,
"Hey, so your friend Thea left you a bunch of property,
money, assets, and we don't recognize that
'cause you're two ladies, it's not like you were married.
So we're gonna tax you
on the order of half a million dollars.
And Edie goes, "Bitch, you know we were married,
and this is discrimi (beep) nation.
I'm gonna call a bunch of lawyers,
I'm gonna call a bunch of gay rights activists."
So then she says, "Excuse me,
I was in a relationship with this woman for forever.
We got married in Toronto, this is legit.
They're not recognizing their marriage.
So they're trying to tax the shit outta me."
And the lawyers and activists are like,
"Yeah, that's DOMA, you know?
Since 1996, this law was enacted
that says on a federal level,
a marriage is between a man and a woman.
And it's just indefeatable.
Undefeatable?
In?
You can't do it."
But then Edie calls Roberta "Robbie" Kaplan.
- Is her name Roberta "Robbie" Kaplan?
- Her fun name is Robbie.
- [Kirby] Oh.
- Her name is Roberta Kaplan.
And this woman goes, "You know what?
I'll take you on.
You are what marriage is about.
You two were married for decades,
through sickness and in health.
You're a sweet old woman.
You're the perfect example of what gay marriage can be."
So Roberta and Edie sue the federal government,
and it goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
And Edie goes before them and says,
"If my love isn't real, no (beep) love is real.
We were together for so long.
Our love deserves to be recognized."
- Wow.
(Alison laughing)
(Alison spitting)
- (laughing) It's actually very classy.
(Alison and Kirby laughing)
So on June 26th, 2013,
Edie and her supporters gather around a computer.
Pops up on the screen,
DOMA's unconstitutional, five to four.
And everyone's like, (cheering).
What if I cheer too hard?
"I'm gonna pee my pants."
So she goes back to Stonewall and Greenwich Village.
And crowds were gathered, and they went, "Edie, Edie, Edie."
And Edie thought to herself, "Wow.
Years ago when I walked past here
during the Stonewall riots, me and Thea thought,
'We're not revolutionaries.'
But here we are years later, and we are the revolutionaries.
We're the face of what gay marriage can be."
And Edie dances one last dance
in the name of the love of her life, Thea.
- [Kirby] To Thea.
- To Thea.
- And Edie.
- [Kirby] Whoa.
- It's beautiful.
- That's amazing.
- Thanks to this one brave woman
and her belief in the equality of her love,
gay marriage became legal.
- Do you think in memory of them,
that you and I should dance?
- We should dance so close.
Well, can I give you a quick peck?
(Alison and Kirby laughing)
One-
- [Alison And Kirby] Two, three.
(kissing) Aww.
(intense music)