Toasters

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians Kimberly Clark (‘Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready’, The Late Late Show) and Moujan Zolfaghari (‘Mission To Zyxx’ podcast, ‘Tooning Out The News’) for a look at why toasters are secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready (Netflix) — Kimberly Clark’s special is Season 2, Episode 4!
• Kimberly Clark’s set on The Late Late Show with James Corden
• Kimberly Clark on Instagram
• ‘Mission To Zyxx’ podcast — Season 5 is out now!
• Moujan Zolfaghari on Instagram

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• Mapping Manahatta: 10 Lenape sites in New York City (6sqft)

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Why Your Toaster Will Eventually Fail You (Wirecutter)
• The 2 Best Toasters of 2022 (Wirecutter)
• Things Come Apart by Todd McLellan — breakdown of a 1970s Sunbeam toaster
• Who Killed the Great American Toaster? (The Atlantic)
• website for “Tim’s Toasters”, a business refurbishing vintage Sunbeam toasters
• Reddi-Bacon: From the makers of Reddi-Wip, instant bacon that would destroy your toaster. (Gastro Obscura)
• Toaster Bacon & 3 Other Failed Food Ideas You Couldn’t Pay Us To Try (Consumerist)
• Curator’s Choice: GE model D-12 Toaster, about 1909 (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
• What hath toast wrought? (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
• How Sliced Bread Became the ‘Greatest Thing’ (Time Magazine)
• Appliance Science: The well-done physics and chemistry of the toaster (CNET)
• The Time the U.S. Government Banned Sliced Bread (Mental Floss)
• Charts & Graphs: Rations: Available and rationed items during World War II. (Lapham’s Quarterly)
• Highest popping toaster (Guinness Book of World Records) — also this further Guinness write-up of the record
• Trendhunter.com write-up of the “Trebuchet toaster”

Picture of a General Electric toaster from 1909:

Drawing of a “toasting frame” (from before the electric toaster era):

Todd McLellan’s photo of a 1970s Sunbeam toaster, separated into individual parts: