These are – intentionally – the least attractive photos of Fishbein we could find. At this point we would like to create the impression that he is a deranged maniac with an inexplicable personal vendetta against our hero Brinkley.

We created this graphic to make it look like the FRC and AMA are literally “two sides of one coin.” That’s manipulative and oversimplied. They are separate agencies whose interests sometimes align (as they did in this case). However, claiming that anyone who is against you is part of one giant conspiracy of powerful interests in a very common tactic of the quack, so we’re doing it here and it’s something continue to do as we continue to build this story from Brinkley’s perspective.

The American Medical Association indeed asked the FRC to investigate Brinkley – as did many others, including fans who were simply annoyed that his broadcast was “jumping signals” to override other stations whose programming they enjoyed. We’re leaving that out here for what should be obvious reasons in the context of this scene.

Basically true, but to call it “Fishbein’s campaign” is somewhat of a distortion. Yes, Fishbein worked hard to take Brinkley down starting in 1928, but he was hardly the sole mastermind we kind of make him out to be. Many others had an interest in “attacking” Brinkley, notably the “Kansas City Star.” The “Star” ran many negative stories about Brinkley beginning in 1930, either because they wanted to educate the public about what a fraud he was or because their own radio station, WDAF, was nowhere near as successful as Brinkley’s KFKB, or perhaps it was a combination of both motives. Newspaper columnist William Allen White wrote many anti-Brinkley editorials in the Emporia Gazette, describing his supporters as a “great seething moronic underworld” that could be taught to read and write, but not to think.

And that’s only a couple of examples of the many persons and institutions that came after Brinkley over his long career.

Regardless, for the sake of simplicity and to create a tighter narrative with a clearer hero/villain structure, we will continue to imply throughout the film that all the bad things that happen to Brinkley come largely because of a personal vendetta undertaken by Fishbein, a powerful and connected person.

This is a Gandhi quote, except according to Wikiquote, there is no record of Gandhi saying this. A close variant of the quotation first appears in a 1918 US trade union address by Nicholas Klein. Wikiquote also reports that a very similar quote is often attributed to Arther Schopenhauer in the format, “Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self- evident.” However, there is no record of Schopenhauer saying that either.

This probably isn’t really what this looked like, and also why would Fishbein be there? But we have by this point in the film fully committed to using as many “enemies conspiring” conspiracy theory clichés as possible.

Back to the “enemies conspiring” imagery: same cliché, same rationale as earlier (see note 137). Attorney General Smith is a real person. But he didn’t have an eyepatch; he didn’t look anything like this.

Again, no reason why Fishbein would be there: same cliché, same rationale as earlier (see note 137).

Interesting story: Smith really did leave his post as Attorney General to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Kansas a few months after this incident. However, we don’t know if his “promotion” had anything to do with the story we’re telling. Probably not? Maybe? We don’t know, so we feel this is a fairly manipulative insinuation.

The Federal Radio Commission had its hands full during this time dealing with Brinkley and his legions of border radio imitators. They received hundreds of letters of complaint about XERA and its ilk. They wouldn’t have needed a complaint from Fishbein specifically to take action, although some sources suggest that it was once again the relentless pestering of Fishbein that forced the FRC to take action.

Brock for example said of this period: “All the while, Morris Fishbein was watching, metaphorically at least, through binoculars” (166). Mainly though we wrote this scene because in earlier versions of the film, audiences had forgotten who Fishbein was when he re-enters the story for real in the third act.

Oh also we made up the name Doris.