Retroist 1982 World’s Fair Podcast

I never got to go to the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, but I really wanted to. My mother had been to the 1964 World’s Fair in New York and talked about how much she loved it, so when Knoxville came along we couldn’t get enough of it. We watched stories about it on television, and whenever something appeared in the newspaper, she would save it for me. We were never likely to make the trip to Tennessee, but the fair did help convince my family to visit EPCOT Center a few months after it opened. Which was amazing.

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On the show, I talk about how Knoxville managed to host a World’s Fair and some of the people who made it happen. I spend time on the Sunsphere, the international pavilions, and some of the technology people were able to try there. I also get into Jake Butcher and the strange turn his story took almost immediately after the fair closed. As usual, I pull out my local newspapers to see what was happening around the time of the Fair’s debut.

I have always liked World’s Fairs because they bring together a very specific mix of technology, tourism, architecture, and spectacle. Knoxville had all of that, along with a fairground that could be a little messy and occasionally ridiculous. More than 11 million people showed up, and the Sunsphere remains part of the city more than forty years later. I never made it there in 1982, but I am glad so much of it is still around to visit.

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• This is the 372nd episode of the Retroist Podcast and episode 23 of Season 18.

• When I first saw the Sun Sphere in person, it blew my mind. It has been so long since I had seen the news about it. It lived up to the hype. The Rubik’s Cube also did.

• The Simpsons episode is great. One of the golden eras of the show.

• Lots of retro audio in this one. I had to a cut a bunch of it out because I wanted to include so much more.

• Sadly, like so many people, I have never been to a world’s fair in my life. I don’t think I would be as obsessed with them if my mom hadn’t been to the 1964 Fair. Wish she had take photos of her time there. I have one or two photos that might be in the fair, but its not obvious.

• It must have been so exciting to live in Knoxville that summer. A daily party that everyone was invited to attend.

• I didn’t go into details about what happened financially and the court cases. I wanted to mention it, but didn’t want to linger since its a mark on the fair that wasn’t exactly the Fair’s fault.

• Amazing that this is the first time in lookin at newspapers that I didn’t want to really see any of these movies. I would watch them and I have but a rare weekend where the movies weren’t for me.

• Lame that supermarkets run Mother’s Day sales that are just groceries for sale and nothing mom-centric.

• 1982 Saturday Morning cartoons were amazing!

• I would like to cover the New Orleans Fair. I was also interested in that, but I had already been to EPCOT Center and the Olympics that year was very distracting. It was the most memorable Olympics of my chilhood.

• Bonus clippings will be over on Patreon soon for Supporters.

• Music on the show is, as always, by Peachy.

Thanks for listening to the show and I hope you have a great weekend.