The radio show Studio 360 is ending later this month after 20 years on the air. WNYC co-produced the weekly show, which aimed to explain the world through arts and culture, from 2000 to 2017. Over the course of two decades, it has been awarded two Peabody Awards and received critical acclaim.
Studio 360 co-creator and host Kurt Andersen spoke with WNYC's Richard Hake. To listen to the full conversation, click Listen.
Richard Hake [HOST]: Kurt, it's pleasure.
Kurt Andersen [GUEST]: Happy to be here and back here.
Richard Hake [HOST]: So Studio 360 was kind of revolutionary for the time, right? I mean, there were in depth interviews with established artists, performances for up and coming musicians, and produce narrative pieces. What do you want to accomplish back in 2000?
Kurt Andersen [GUEST]: Well, we wanted to do something that wasn't being done really, which was a National Arts and Culture magazine show, that would be both cover, pop culture in every aspect, but also high culture, literature, classical music, all of it, thinking that you know, culture is a big tableau, and it wasn't really being all treated as a piece. And so we wanted to do that. We wanted, as you say, to have interviews and produce pieces to have it be serious and funny to have it be about brand new emerging stuff and old stuff. And I feel pretty satisfied that we did that. And it was also of course, you know, 20 years ago, we didn't know the word podcast, podcasts didn't exist. And so we were, you know, I'm hesitant to say the only game in town, but one of the very, very, very few games in town doing what we were doing and kind of invented the genre. And I couldn't be more pleased. It has been a gas. There are many, many things I'm proud of including the American icons series, but I think we served a great role for you know, 20 years.
Richard Hake [HOST]: And you've done thousands of interviews at this point. Any any highlights? Who are some of your most memorable guests?
Kurt Andersen [GUEST]: One of my heroes had always been as a writer, Susan Sontag. And so early on 2003, we're going to go to war with Iraq. Let's do a themed show about war and how it's depicted in art and culture. And who better to talk to then my heroine, Susan Sontag, who by the way as a political figure, and as a person who lived in Sarajevo, during its siege, and so forth, has has gone various ways about peace, war, use of force to enter the great artists and a critic and everything else. So she came on. And we had a fantastic talk, one of it exceeded all of my dreamiest expectations, and I was terrified because she's daunting, was it daunting person. And one of the I remember one of the things we talked about was the depiction of war and scenes of war and photography and otherwise and she was really, as ever accused on that subject.
Susan Sontag: I think people do feel turned off for or indifferent to images of horror and war and suffering that they see and that they feel indignant about. I think it's comes not because they're gay, but because they feel impotent or powerless. And I think that's perfectly understand the reaction
Kurt Andersen: So in a sense, your change of heart about the power of images to portray war and atrocity. It represents kind of a dis disillusioning, or re-illusion.
Susan Sontag: Well, that's a very clever way of putting it.
Kurt Andersen [GUEST]: I got Susan Sontag to compliment me so the whole show was worth it.
Richard Hake [HOST]: I also remember one show you asked one of the most acclaimed directors in the world, that you both have a guilty pleasure. You share an affinity for something online.
Kurt Andersen [guest]: Yeah, I was talking to the director Werner Herzog about directing and about a movie he'd put out. And he's a great figure. But he also has a great sense of humor about himself and just has surprising interests. And so yeah, I asked him about something that he told me afterward. Nobody's ever asked me this. This is a first so I guess. Let's play that for a while.
Kurt Anderson: I've wanted to ask you about a surprising thing we have in common, which is a fondness for internet cat videos.
Werner Herzog: Yes. I agree. Sometimes when I come home and I'm tired, and I don't know how to order my thoughts, I switch on crazy cat videos and immediately I'm rejuvenated.
Richard Hake [HOST]: That is amazing.
Kurt Andersen [GUEST]: It was and it went on. And he went on to celebrate cat videos this, you know, great serious director of of the age.
Richard Hake [host]: And another real standout from Studio 360 is the American Icons series. What was the mission of that? And do you have a favorite one?
Kurt Andersen [guest]: Yeah, the mission of that was really to, instead of the weekly show where we were proud of what we do and the interviews I did, and the stories we produced, but American icons, we got this big grant series of big grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to to really do deep dive documentaries about works of American culture and art. Novels, movies, TV shows, Disney theme parks, all kinds of stuff. Did 16 hour long ones and 40 odd watch segments and it's a great library of stuff and really, I mean, you know, many, many, many, many person hours involved in doing them. They're, they're great works. In fact, the penultimate one we did was a two hour one about 2001: A Space Odyssey, great Stanley Kubrick movie from 50 years ago. And one of the people I got to talk about that was Tom Hanks, because I knew I'd read, you know, he made Apollo 13. I knew he was a fan of the space program. I knew he was a fan of 2001, and and asked him if he'd come on and man did he come on and was fabulous in many ways as part of that, that program about 2001.
Kurt Andersen: So you're, you're guarding yourself from how basically from HAL.
Tom Hanks: Well I view them all as some version of HAL and you know, what you don't want is Alexa to say to you at some point, "just a moment. Just a moment. I've detected a fault in the deep fryer that is currently making french fries from dinner." You don't want to have Alexa do that to you
Kurt Andersen: I can't do that Tom.
Tom Hanks: That's right. Open the garage door. Please, Alexa.
Richard Hake [HOST]: Alright—for all the grieving Studio 360 fans out there who will need to fill a void, where else can we turn for for coverage like this?
Kurt Andersen [GUEST]: Well, thank goodness in the digital age, of course, all, you know, 1000 shows will be available at Studio 360.org. So there's that. And certainly not every grieving listener has heard every episode. So there's that. I mean, there's tons and one of the reasons I felt like, eh, no, it's fine to end this now is that there is such a flourishing garden of all kinds of shows, taking bits and pieces and sometimes larger views of the whole culture as we tried to do. So like everybody can find whatever they need to find in this robust audio world today. I think they can find what they want.
Richard Hake [HOST]: And what's next for you?
Kurt Andersen [GUEST]: I just literally last week finished a book that will be published in August so there's that. I'll keep writing books, have a little more time to write books, and working on TV show project, you know, I've always done too many things and juggled too many things, and this is just one less ball of the four or five I've been juggling so I'm just keep doing everything else I'm doing.
Richard Hake [host]: All right, celebrating 20 years. Studio 360 will have a new episode this evening at eight on WNYC 93.9 FM, the final show will air at the end of the month. Kurt Andersen, thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you.
WNYC transcripts are created on a rush deadline and the text may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record is the audio record.