Doomed to Fail - Ep 203: Couple Breaks in the chain! - Hands Across America

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Today, we dig into the 80s culture of celebrity charity work! From Live Aid to 'We Are the World', we started a trend where massive movements were spearheaded by celebrities. USA for Africa, the organization responsible for We Are the World & Hands Across America, stands for 'United Support of Artists for Africa' (we wouldn't have guessed that, because it makes no sense).What IS Hands Across America, you ask? It's exactly what you sound like, a human chain of people holding hands, for 15 mins, for $10 a person. It did end up raising money to fight hunger in America - it did not cover the entire country. Taylor argues that people in the pictures are standing WAY too close together - you need to be outstretched hand to outstretched hand, and they could have doubled their mileage.  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortlandthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ben, we are back, Taylor, live from our shout-outs from Dan Carlin. How are you doing today? Good. Did I tell you that we're adopting a tortoise? Yes, and I'm really excited about you. I've been telling Rachel about your tortoise for so, like, it's been like four days I've been talking about your tortoise.

my god i can't wait i can't wait to get him and i'll have you meet him he's the one that we might get is 32 years old like do you know how big he is i imagine he's pretty big what's his name i don't know that i know there's two we might get there's like the old the 32 year old male and then there's a like 16 year old female and her name is lady gaga that's pretty cute although it's a sign of the times i mean 16 yeah 16 years ago yeah you'd name your yeah so yeah so yeah so yeah So I'm super excited about that. And I will keep you posted on that. I think there's some other announcement that I wanted to tell you.

We talked about the fire, talked about the weather. I know. I hope his name is like. Thurgothadius, the fifth. Yeah. It'll be fun. Yeah. I knew him, Dan Carlin.

That's pretty cute. Cool. Hi, thank you. Bars. Welcome everyone to Doom to Fail. We bring your history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week. and I am Taylor joined by Farrth and we were talking about some

like nuclear things and I have kind of a fun thing it's easy to make fun of but it is a thing that has good intentions you did post a picture and I again Taylor doesn't we don't tell each other what our topics are ahead of time because we want to get like a live reaction to things but Taylor did post something about what she's going to be covering

and I kept guessing in my own mind and couldn't come with what it was Wait, where did I post? You posted, like, it was a, it looked like, what is, where do kids go when they're born? Like, it was like a. Oh, no, that was from Chernobyl. Oh, I thought you said, oh, you know what? You did it ahead of time then.

Yeah. I thought you meant it was going to be the next one. Okay, no, mine. Sorry. But thank you for looking at her social media. And, no, guess what happened exactly one month after Chernobyl in America? Three Mile Island. No.

May 26th, 1988 in America and all across America guess what we did. Guess what we did? Guess what five million people did? I have no idea.

They held hands. Talking hands across America. Do you remember that? I don't know this at all. This is going to be interesting. I don't know this at all. So Hands Across America is a charity event where they wanted people to hold hands for 15. minutes in a human chain all the way across America. For what purpose?

I'll tell you, to raise money for hunger in America. And so I always think about it because you've seen Beer Fest, right? Oh, yeah, of course. So in the beginning of Beer Fest, when they're getting their team together and they get landfill and they like see him at like an eating contest. And he goes, I haven't seen you guys since hands across America. And they hold hands and they go, hands across America. And, like, it's just so funny.

And, like, Juan and I say that all the time. And then also in, did you see the Us, the Jordan Peel movie? Yes. They're wearing, like, Hands Across America T-shirts. Like, memory is just, like, crazy good. Well, I also just research this. But, like, I do, we do send Hands Across America song all the time because we love Beer Fest so much. Beer Fess is an amazing movie.

It's so good. So, basically, yes, the plan was to have people hold hands from New York City to California for 15 minutes. and raise money to end hunger in America. They ended up raising $15 million, which is not at all their goal. The goal was like $50, but at least they raised $15 million. And then as you would expect, there were some breaks in the chain. Of course. Rivers and.

And like deserts in Texas. You know, yeah. So there's this thing that happened in the 80s or there were like big celebrity philanthropy, things that people were really excited about where like every famous person wanted to be involved and some example, like before hands across America in the UK there was live aid

which was in 1984 which was like a big concert to raise money do you remember this? I do. Yeah. So in Ethiopia just like putting it all together in Ethiopia in 1983 to 85, one-fifth of the population died from starvation. They had just horrible drought. It was like the official cause is war and drought, you know, like policies that made it hard to feed people. There were, you know, 200,000 children were orphaned. Just absolutely, you know,

devastated that area. So Bob Gelderf, the, um, or Geldof, the musician in the UK put together live age and raise money. So that's what they had. that's what that was and that was like a big concert but do you know what song came out of live aid from 1984 no clue do they know it's christmas do you know that song no i hate it it's a christmas song it's a christmas song yes it's like well it's like i don't know how much christmas music you listen to in the soaking sandwich household but here from like mid-november all the way through christmas i'm listening to christmas music and there's always um this song so it's do they know it's Christmas. And basically it's like, there won't be, some of the words are like, there won't

be snow in Africa this Christmas. Do they even know that it's Christmas time? And you're like, no. What? Dumb. Definitely so is a part of Africa also. But it was like a song by a bunch of celebrities to raise money. You know what this, as you were telling me, the live aid piece of this, what I was thinking about was that one song with like Michael Jackson and like they all got. That's it. But that's not it. But that's the next one. I'm going to tell you about. just a second that's we are the world yeah we are i will say that that became for me like the focal point of when we thought that celebrities were better than we are because they would go and sing and then you have like everybody saying we are one or whatever the yes it's like

that ick the gross cringe crap from covid you're like this started that it absolutely did yeah and this is like the first time this is happening exactly exactly right So, anyway, do they know it's Christmas, I think is a ridiculous song. But it was supposed to raise money to help, you know, from Live Aid. So Live Aid also, it was in Webley Stadium, you know, big concert. And you've seen the Queen movie, right? No. But I've seen the real videos from Freddie Mercury.

Yeah, of course. So, like, the Queen was in it. So it's a whole day of concerts, but I just wanted to read the last couple people who performed. It was YouTube, dire straits. Queen David Bowie the Who Elton John, Freddie Mercury came back and then Paul McCartney, and then that's when they recorded, do they know it's

Christmas time? That's wild. At the end of Live Aid, which I did not know, that that was connected, that that's when they did that song. So they raised a bunch of money with Live Aid to help the people in Ethiopia, which was super great. And then in America, we were like, well, we can do

this too. We can have a song and raise money, and we have our own famous people. Harry Belafonte, in particular, was like, we should involve black people in this, which totally makes sense. So he was like, we need a much more diverse group of people singing a song. And so the song that they wrote is the one that you had just mentioned, we are the world, which I'm sure he is in your head right now. Yeah, unfortunately it is.

Totally. So anyway, America is like, we are going to do this too. We're going to write a song and have a bunch of celebrities sing it and have the money go to charity. So We Are the World Is written by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones What? That's an incredible group of people Jury a song. I mean, listen, like, for what it was, it was a good song. It's just like, I hate, you know what? They did a great song

because I can sing it right now in my head, and I haven't heard in like 15 years. Exactly. Exactly. It is the eighth best-selling single of all time. What's number one? Thriller? White Christmas by Bing Crosby, which I love. Also Christmas music. So they started to, they wrote the song and they got it ready. On January 28th, 1985, immediately after the American Music Awards in L.A., everyone went to the recording studio. So it was like 50 people and like tons of people were not invited because they like couldn't fit everybody in, like all of the musicians in. They worked all night until 8 a.m.

And there were 21 solos. So I feel like if you, you can picture that, I'm going to read you the people who did the solos. because it's wild. There's Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, James Ingram, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, Al Jureau, Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Logan, Steve Perry, Daryl Hall, Huey Lewis, Cindy Lopper, Kim Carnice, Bob Dylan, and Ray Charles. So like, huge megastars on that list. They raised $50 million for famine relief. yeah you can believe it which is pretty incredible there's a video I'm sure you've seen

the video music video as well that is great also like there was a chorus and you remember Dan Akroyd was in the chorus and then the chorus also includes like

all of the Jackson family members all three pointer sisters just like a whole bunch of people are in that as well Harry Belafonte's in the chorus they ended up making an album as well

they had a bunch of other songs on it and one of the other songs was by Prince Prince was he didn't attend the recording session for We Are the World because Bob Gildoff called him a creep. He was mad, so he didn't go. I mean, yeah, I get both sides.

So the album that they made won four Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, record of the year, and multiple American music and MTV Video Awards. So huge, huge success. Yeah. People loved it. So one of the guys who worked on,

We Are the World, his name is Ken Craigon. and he started a group called USA for Africa, which does not stand for the United States of America. It stands for United Support of Artists for Africa. That is kind of misleading. I don't love it. Miles is here.

He doesn't know that he's going to lose $5 because he's in my space. If you come back in the space, I'll lose $5. Okay. So he says, let's do something else. So, 1988, let's do look at the next big thing. Let's include more people. And the next big thing that's had to do is hands across America to raise money for hunger here in America. So not for Africa for America, even though it's from United Supportive Artists for Africa, whatever.

They're doing it here. They plan it for May 25, 1986. And they do a huge press conference to announce it in October, 1985. one of the people who was one of the big sponsors was Bill Cosby. In respect. Right. So they had 700 company sponsors. Coca-Cola McDonald's were like huge ones.

There was actually someone in 1976 who had wanted to do Hands Across America to celebrate the bicentennial, but they ended up doing just 10 miles outside of Chicago, which makes me laugh also. But that patent, the trademark on Hands Across America lapsed. and then Ken Craig and picked it up for the big hands across America. Well, good for them. So Michael Jackson was so mad that they didn't use We Are the World as the theme song for Hands Across America that he left the board of USA or Africa. Yeah, you're dealing with a lot of ego to say. Exactly.

Yeah. Actually, I didn't mention this, but when they sang, we are the world, there was a sign of the front door that said, leave your ego at the door. Yeah, I'm sure they did. Exactly that. So you were asked to donate $10 to join the chain. That's how they were raising the money. Besides the corporate sponsorships, eventually people who had not paid got to join anyway because they needed more people. So it didn't really matter.

No one was like checking your ticket, like the day of. They sold a mile for $13,200 per mile that you could like sponsor. Prince was actually the first person to buy a mile. And then people could, like, be in that mile for free, basically. So the route that they had planned was 4,125 miles from Battery Park in New York City to Long Beach, California. It went through 16 states and Washington, D.C. There's no way 5 million people could do that. No, they needed way more people.

Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. Like, it's amazing that 5,000, 5 million people did it, but that's not enough people. No. You need more. So they were, obviously, like, you can't go through every state, but there were people who were pissed. Ted Kennedy was pissed that I didn't go through New England because it went through, like, D.C. and then to, and then Pennsylvania and then, like, out that way, that he started, they did like a counter thing in Massachusetts called Hands Across Massachusetts because they were jealous, so they weren't invited. There were, obviously, it was like a huge deal to coordinate.

So volunteer community coordinators recruited people in their cities, which kind of reminds me of like the March of Dimes. And when like the women were like their community coordinator for the area to raise money for the polio vaccine, it was like you, you know, you volunteer to do it, you get all your friends to do it. And you register, you take the donations. And then again, like they let people come who didn't pay. Tons of celebrities came. There was a part of the Susquehanna River in Maryland where you can't go on. the bridge so scuba divers held hands underwater which is cute that's kind of cute yeah um president reagan was there last minute it went through the white house um that through the white house lawn

because regan had just said in the news about um hunger in america he had said quote where there is hunger you have to determine that that is probably because of a lack of knowledge on the part of the people as to what things are available so like blaming poor people for being hungry and people were pissed so he joined his across America last minute and people were mad there was a chain of people protesting across of the chain that was in in the white house long so they were like a separate chain protesting that part of the chain and reverend jesse jackson said he should not be in the line his policies created the line you know so like everyone's not the political stuff in dc some places where they didn't have a people, they had like ribbons and ropes. Some people use

like their animals. They're like the one part of it was like cows foot to foot. Leave the animals alone. Because like why are you doing this? In some places it went through like prison yards and the prisoners held hands. It went through the stadium. I really hate this. If I'm being honest, I like everything about this is making me like the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I know. It's like for a good reason, but it's like also ridiculous. And, you you, I just hope that you see. Also, you could just give the, I think back to that one Ellen video

where it was like, I'm going to ask you a bunch of trivia questions or for everyone you get right, I'll donate $1,000 to cancer research. It was like, well, can you just give them the money? Like, the money from the, all of the stuff, like went to logistics, you know, like, the money. I mean, you said $15 million. I was like, that seems like a, like, not that much

money. Right, because like, Coca-Cola give them $8 million for logistics. Like, just give $8 million to people. Yeah. But, but they wanted to, But exactly like you said, this is like the time of the really big charity thing. And we also talked about this in the polio thing, like that time when women and moms were doing March of Diamond stuff and getting people to donate to a specific charity. Like that was brand new, you know, and that was like the 1960s. So we haven't been doing this forever where you give to a specific charity before you would give to a community chest, like a monopoly.

And then a community board would decide where that money went in your neighborhood, you know. I guess, yeah. I'm looking at it through a modern lens, which is like donations are just like way of life, but maybe like back then you needed to do something like this. I don't know. Yeah. It was performative, but I think obviously on purpose. So it went more, just more fun facts. It went, it started off in, with a six-year-old girl from Brooklyn who lived in a New York City welfare hotel, which is like a place like a homeless shelter for families. And so she started it to like kind of bring. awareness to like her play and like what people were really living through. Then it went over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey down through Philadelphia. Philadelphia Eagles held hands with local Little League kids, which is cute. And then Carada Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow. She was there.

So a ton of people, a ton of famous people were there. During the 15 minutes, they like sang We Are the World. They sang America the Beautiful. Tony Danzo was there. Mickey Mouse and C-3PO held hands in Disneyland. It's so funny. Lionel Richie, Little Richard, Frank Sinatra, Yoko, oh, no.

You can see pictures of her holding hands with people. And, yeah, it just kind of went. And it didn't do what it was supposed to do. But it was just like a fun, weird activity. There was a famous picture of nuns holding hands with Helvey. angels in um and the in gallop in mexico 2000 navajo um were a part of it which is cool because there was a powwow that weekend um like five people got married during hands across america somehow they're all divorced um there there were some baptisms one bar mitzpa i'm sure

there were a bunch of engagements and stuff um and so another thing that happened kind of afterwards is like this is the 80s also like I don't know how you're collecting the money but a lot of people who did it and said they were going to donate just never sent their money in yeah of course you know so that was another way yeah exactly so you know there were 20 they raised 24.5 million dollars but then 9.5 of that money went to costs even though they got corporate sponsorships in the end 15 million dollars got to charity they estimated that like about 8 million of prom. money never got there because people again like you said they just never never did it um they used the money distributed it to really quickly like by 1987 they had distributed the money to 1600 local organizations in all 50 states so they didn't leave any states out of like distributing the money and giving it to like local food shelters and things like that which is great and so yeah they raise money but you know it's a funny example of like being super ambitious and being like you You could never do that.

No one's holding hands over the... The scuba divers were kind of impressive. But overall, like, yeah, it's weird. Like, I'm reflecting back by, like, childhood. I'm like, yeah, like, that does feel like the moment when, like, people started being like, oh, my God, these celebrities are like angels. They're going to save us from ourselves. It's like they're just worse versions of us.

They're like not any better. They're worse. They could just quietly give away all their money. I know. Wow. wow but whatever i mean yeah yeah the whole the whole the singing during covid thing i was like it was like that was a one time and i was like finally people understand why i have the sentiment towards like celebrities being like we can heal everything and it's like no you're just

yeah just give me very many your jobs were like what people would do when they couldn't have normal jobs in the 1800s like yeah like you were like it was like a shame you were yeah you definitely talked about this where like women actors were like the same level as like sex workers in society yeah yeah yeah I know yeah I know and you talked about you know to go back some of our other episodes as well we did the one on the cult of celebrity that you did and like that definitely it's like why are you doing this yeah like I'm not like actively boycotting things like the academy awards it's more so like why is this interesting like why do we like sit here and like we're like we're gonna have to get bank I don't know maybe it's just like it's culture

I'm stepping outside of culture I guess I guess. I mean, I am stalking my new best friend Dan Carlin on Blue Sky. That's different though. That's different. I don't know. I feel like that's different. Maybe I'm wrong. No, I hope. I mean, I think it I think is, I mean.

But also, if Dan Carlin told me to like do something or what he believed in, it's like who gives a shit? Like you're not like God. Like you can't, you're not infallible. Like, you can also have stupid ideas. Like, totally. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, that's it. Hands across America.

Oh, God. I can visualize it, you know, because it's all pixelated and granulated. You can see, like, the blacks aren't really that black. And, like, it's like kind of like. It's so 80s. Yeah, it's so 80s. Yeah, it's so 80s. Oh, my God.

This shirt is actually great. This, the shirt they're wearing in us is like, the United States is like in the middle of there's a bunch of hands, you know, people holding hands. It's just really funny. like i i i i like is even like even the look in the faces of the people that are doing this like we're doing something and it's like no you're not i know and like i feel like i don't know so in some cases i'm always like you know

for charity things like oh we could just do i can just give you the money you know you don't have to do the thing like sometimes the kids will have um things like a fundraising drive at school right and then it's like oh if you raise like two hundred dollars to get this shitty toy and you know it goes through this website and then i'm sure us taking a percentage off of it i'm like when i just give school 50 bucks you know and like save everybody the problem the time i can give them cash so yeah it's i'm the same picture of people in on the beach in california and they're not in a straight line and i'm like that's also part of the problem yeah it's as the crow flies across america there's no time for anything else

imagine the responsibility you would feel if you were a child and you let go of something's hand yeah you'd ruin it this is your fault and then i think the end of us all of like the weird creatures are holding hands like hands across america because it's like there's a hands across america t-shirt yeah there's all these like non-profits where like more than 50% of donations go to paying salaries of staff and logistics. Totally. That's, I mean, it's so, it's hard. It's so hard because you need people to work there.

Like, I don't people work at nonprofits, and we've talked about this where, like, you know, they expect to get paid less than you would if you worked in the private sector. That totally makes sense. But also people need to live, you know? So, like, there's things. And there's also ones like the Susan G. Coleman,

the pink for breast cancer, they're fucking awful. They give, like, 1% to actual breast cancer research. it's all like it's all performative you know well it's partially performative i bet because so much money is wasted in like the logistical aspect of running these programs of like i don't know i don't work in that industry so i don't really know but like yeah yeah it's interesting i don't really answer i was i'm halfway through reading abundance that you had recommended by as recline and it's good and there's a couple of things that i find super interesting like the the wealthier city the more homeless as they have because housing is more expensive, you know, and like, that makes

sense. And, like, the, how we lost, like, one thing that he said that I keep thinking about it is, like, the boarding house we lost. So there's no, it's hard to, like, there's no place to live where you can, like, rent a room and then there's a kitchen in the middle and you share it with a bunch of other people, you know, like, that's, that used to be a thing that people did. And that was, like, a great step up to, like, a dollhold, like a dorm before grown-ups. And, like, that feels like, could solve a lot of problems one thing that just i just started hearing about was like why there's such a rise and you don't see that i mean where you're living you wouldn't see this but like in austin and l.a like in other parts like highly populated parts of the country

there's this like in not to overuse the word abundance there's an abundance of new construction of luxury condos and the logic i'm hearing online to be fair but it's like they do that because if it's like somewhat associated with like luxury or like whatever, then they don't have to offer Section 8 housing. And so subsidized housing can't be a part of that. And so you're actually causing more of a reduction in affordable housing in those wealthier areas because they're deliberately trying to take that away.

Right. And like I get that it's because they want to make money, but also then like people can't afford anything. It is a bummer. What do you think of the book? It's good. It's super interesting. They're talking about that.

And then just a lot about, I know you always mentioned, like, these regulations, especially in California, like, the high-speed rail stuff is really, really just wild. You know, all the money isn't put into it and how, like, other countries have, like, very successfully done it for decades. And we can't do it. Really, child. We'll see. I'll see where it lands. I'm abundance built.

Yeah. Yeah. it's good sweet well that was that was fun you brought back so many memories of like my childhood yeah it was yeah it was very interesting

I remember like you made me reminded me of like when Pizza Hut bought the moon or something or Pepsi bought like a station there was we were nuts in the early 90s like we were such a crazy country like yeah

and I also like wonder like it's so funny and interesting that like they had to do these announcements like at the Super Bowl because when do you get every how do you get everybody's attention you know like things like that i think are so interesting like create internet getting how do we even how did we know anything yeah yeah you just have to know you just don't know you'd like have a friend who did it and or whatever but it seems i think it would have been i think it would

been fun i guess i would if i would do it if they were like hands across the josh foot tree i would hold everybody's hand looking at the pictures of people that did it i would not want to hang out with them so i would probably would not do it but i would donate i would donate i do call a check on delivery COD and I would give them a check and that would be a contribution Oh here's the That's what I'm saying too Like you can just do that

You don't actually like do this stuff There's a gift of them holding hands And beer fest and going hands across America Oh, I've watched beer fest tonight I've been watching Tocombe FD more God I love them You know what the later stuff they did The island Fear Island or whatever

Yeah That was stupid It was like really just It's hitter miss The most recent one is like Quasimoto And it's terrible I didn't even try to watch that Don't even

It's so bad And we saw them live one time And it was also terrible But then like some stuff is great Dude Super Troopers and Beer Fest Those two are like They should be the National Archives Super Troopers too I think is better than one

I don't think I even saw Super Troopers It's so good I've seen it more I think it's great Yeah Obviously Amazing We are broken lizard fans here

Of course we are Cool well thank you That was fun to think about I have one that Morgan has been bugging me to do that I want to do and I'm hopefully going to do that next week but I'm waiting for a book from the library of course

because that's my goal my life is just waiting for books from Libby and but yeah thank you everyone for listening if you were part of hands across America I want to know what it was like did your mom make you do it you know let me know doomed to fell pod at gmail.com

and anywhere you've social media doomed to fail pod especially blue sky where Dan Carlin and I are having a very robust relationship. Robust conversation. He has answered me twice, and I keep telling him he was awesome. And he's like, thank you. So it's been great.

Very cool. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing. I'll go ahead and cut it up there.