Summary
Billy finds a little-known story from the 1970s.
Show notes
- The Man on page 602 on Museum of Hoaxes
- Jamie Lauren Keiles’s piece on this case
- “The Man on Page 602” song
Transcript
Adrianne: Quick note to listeners, in this episode, we refer to this show as Overstood, but we recorded it before we rebranded to Overunderstood. The name of the show is in fact Overunderstood, not Overstood. Understood? Great. Enjoy.
Billy: Hi guys.
Adrianne: Hey Billy.
Regina: Hey.
Billy: Uh, welcome to another Overstood.
Adrianne: Happy to be here.
Billy: Yeah, I guess Jon and Regina aren’t, but…
Regina: No, I’m, I’m thrilled.
John: I, no, I’m just, uh, under, under-motivated to overstand. I don’t, uh…
Regina: Honestly, I’m just drinking seltzer and I got the hiccups and so I’m trying to ride them out.
Billy: Okay, great. This is a complete train wreck so far and that’s exactly what Overstood is. It’s the version of Underunderstood that’s totally off the rails.
Regina: Mm-hmm.
Billy: So, uh, as we often do, we talk about stories that are similar to the ones we talk about on the show, but, um, are solved, so that’s what I’m gonna do first. You guys ready for this?
Adrianne: Uh-huh.
John: Yes.
Billy: All right, don’t do any Googling during this ‘cause you might spoil it.
Adrianne: Okay.
Billy: So, I have something that is very overstood. It’s an urban legend that is well documented and it seems to have been resolved. Um, but it is one of those things that’s like very generation specific. So, if there’s a boomer in your life that has, like, a really good memory, they might care deeply about this. But I think if you ask most people under the age of, I don’t know, like, 50, I think most know nothing about this. It was a very brief cultural phenomenon.
Adrianne: It’s an urban legend?
Billy: Kind of. So, it’s referred to as The Man on Page 602. Do any of you know anything about this?
Adrianne: This is not ringing a bell.
John: No.
Billy: I think th- I think the only way you might know about it is, uh, because Jamie Lauren Quilias wrote about it in 2015. I think a few of you might, uh, know Jamie.
Adrianne: Yeah.
Billy: Uh, or have read, read their work in, like, New York Times, Magazine, places like that.
Adrianne: Yep. They’re a great writer. I missed this one though.
Billy: Yeah, I actually got to do a shoot backstage at SpongeBob the Musical for a piece.
John: I was there too, yeah.
Billy: Ja- Jamie wrote for the Outline.
John: Only shoot I ever went on at the Outline.
Billy: And, and we didn’t use any of the footage.
John: Yeah, no.
Billy: Because it turns out, as Jon warned us, uh, musicals do not like you shooting footage backstage. Anyway, I don’t think I read Jamie’s piece about The Man on Page 602 when they wrote it in 2015. But, um, I was reading through a website called The Museum of Hoaxes, hoaxes.org, which is, like, one of my favorite sort of Web 1.0 websites. Um, I don’t know if any of you have spent any time on this site, but it’s like, it’s like a more curated version of Snopes.
John: Mm-hmm.
Billy: It’s put together by this guy Alex Bowes, and he’s, like, he’s a legend, you know, if you’re into this k-… If you’re into the kinda stuff we talk about on this show, Alex Bowes is the man. So, check out hoaxes.org. Check out his books. He’s actually written, uh, a bunch of books about hoaxes and, like, weird science experiments and stuff like that. I think I’m personally going to buy a bunch of his books and just start hunting through them for stuff that may be unresolved that we could look into on Underunderstood. And that’s essentially what I was doing on hoaxes.org the other day, and I came across this story and I wanted to share it, the story of The Man on Page 602, because this is one of the stories on the website that Alex was actually able to do some personal reporting on and resolve after basically decades of this being an unresolved mystery. So, this is the story of The Man on Page 602. If you had to guess, what do you think it’s about, just based on the name?
John: I’m thinking it’s a man.
Adrianne: Well, it’s a very long book.
Billy: Uh, 602 pages.
Regina: Yeah.
Adrianne: Like, uh, Infinite Jest maybe?
Regina: Or someone from a certain area code? I’m not allowed to Google, but I would’ve guessed an area code.
Adrianne: Well, it’s Page 602.
Regina: Oh, nevermind. I wouldn’t guess an area code then. I just thought it was The Man from Page 602.
Billy: So can you think of anything popular that maybe, like, at a certain time period every American would have in their home that has 602 pages?
Regina: The Bible.
John: Um, how long is Infinite Jest?
Adrianne: Uh, Infinite Jest is very long, but I don’t think it was that popular.
Regina: Well, the Bible, there’s just so many different pages that the page numbers are not consistent, right? Or there’s so many different versions.
Adrianne: Right. Also, you don’t really talk about the Bible in terms of pages. It has its own…
Regina: Right.
Adrianne: … system.
Regina: Right.
Adrianne: Reference system.
John: You said it’s a boomer thing.
Billy: Yeah.
Regina: Encyclopedias?
John: Yeah.
Adrianne: Is it, like, a comic thing?
Billy: Getting closer. Something that’s issued regularly.
John: I, I mean…
Billy: Sort of like a magazine, but not…
Regina: Reader’s Digest.
John: TV Guide.
Billy: It is the Sears catalog.
John: Oh.
Billy: Which was, like, you know, massive. I mean, the Sears catalog is, like, basically Amazon before Amazon.
John: It was used as toilet paper in outhouses, like, long ago.
Billy: Right, that is, yeah, that is a thing that I did read about on the Sears catalog Wikipedia page.
John: .
Billy: Um-So, yeah, this is about the Sears catalog, specifically about the 1975 Fall/Winter issue of the Sears catalog.
Regina: Was it, like, a really good-looking man on page 602, and people were like, “Who is he?”
Billy: Does, that’s actually a very close guess. Okay. So, this is- … specifically about the Sears catalog, specifically about the 1975 Fall/Winter issue of the Sears catalog that was sent out on July 1975. Specifically, about page 602, and specifically about a man on that page. Okay? So, are you with me so far?
John: No, we’re, yeah, we follow.
Regina: Yeah, yeah, we’re here.
Billy: The man on page 602.
Regina: That’s overstood.
Billy: Okay. So, I’m gonna send you a scan of that page. Here we go. Pasting this in Slack.
John: Okay.
Billy: So, what do you see on this page?
Regina: Oh, my.
John: Uh, I see two men, actually.
Regina: Yeah.
John: One is wearing boxers, one is wearing briefs, and both of them are w- both of them are wearing, like, uh, white T-shirts that are tucked into the boxers and the briefs.
Billy: It’s a great look.
John: They’re not the same guy.
Billy: No. Do you notice anything strange or unusual happening on this page? In the photos?
John: Um… is it… uh…
Billy: Okay, let me send you, I’m gonna send you a close-up of the region in question.
Regina: Hmm. Oh, his, oh, the tip is hanging out.
John: Oh, my God. No. Oh, no.
Billy: Can someone describe?
Regina: Found it.
John: Oh, it really is, uh-
Regina: Wow.
John: … Underunderstood after dark.
Billy: Could someone describe what you mean when you say that?
Regina: It-
John: I can’t, I’m sorry.
Regina: It appears as though the boxers are shorter than the length of this man’s penis. And so the tip of his penis is hanging out of the bottom of the boxers.
Billy: Right, yes. But just the tip.
John: Of the left leg.
Regina: Just the tip, yes.
John: Is this the look he was going for?
Billy: I mean, I think it’s kind of a good look. I don’t know. But also-
Regina: I’m gonna go out and say this is, uh, an example of sexism, because if this was a woman, there is no way that people wouldn’t notice that because they would be retouching the shit out of it. Um, or like, like an-
Billy: In ‘75?
Regina: … analyzing it. And the fact that nobody noticed this is just remarkable to me.
John: Here’s what’s also weird. The briefs guy has, like, no visible bulge.
Regina: Well, neither of them really do, which is what I thought. This is where-
John: Well, I mean, we know why the other one doesn’t.
Regina: That’s where I thought this was initially headed.
Billy: Okay, so here’s what it says. Here’s, uh, the beginning of the piece on the Museum of Hoaxes. It says, “The man on page 602 became a viral sensation. People took the catalog into work and showed the provocative photo to their colleagues. Copies circulated at schools. Public libraries noticed an un- an unusual rise in requests for the issue. The appeal was obvious.”
John: We’re also noticing an unusual rise.
Billy: Oh, God.
Regina: Nothing’s rising, actually.
John: This man is calm.
Billy: Yeah, I would say quite the opposite.
Regina: Yeah, very calm.
Billy: Uh, the article goes on, “The appeal was obvious. The Sears catalog was as wholesome and all-American as apple pie and the Fourth of July, and yet here, slipped into it, was a guy showing off his stuff. It was a perfect contrast of elements. Also, as one woman told a reporter, ‘It was an error,’ and that makes it funny.” “By September, the media got wind of the story, and the man on page 602 became national news. ‘Does Sears Catalog Model Display More Than Shorts?’ one headline asked. Another posed a more provocative suggestion: ‘Let’s All Turn to Page 602.’” So, this was something that was sort of a huge phenomenon. I don’t know. I don’t think I would’ve noticed it, honestly.
Regina: I would definitely not have.
John: Yeah, who noticed it?
Billy: Uh, people noticed it. I don’t know, I think it’s-
John: But like, who-
Billy: … I think it’s one of those-
John: Who was the first person to notice? ‘Cause in ‘75 there was no internet. Like, who was the first person to notice it and then like put it somewhere where a larger group of people would see it?
Regina: I mean, it was viral.
Billy: Well, it, I think that’s an important point, that there was no internet in 1975, which is why you might spend a lot of time looking at people-
John: Hmm.
Billy: … in their underwear-
Regina: Mm-hmm.
Billy: … in the Sears catalog.
John: Right.
Billy: So, I’m sure there are people who were looking at this photo very closely.
John: Maybe it was just someone who was thinking about underwear to buy and was looking at it really closely to- … decide if it would work with their-
Billy: That’s true too.
John: Trying to figure out what the print is on these, on these boxers, yeah.
Billy: They were like, “What’s the seam like?”
Regina: But then how did like, and how did it spread? Like, did that person-
John: Yeah.
Regina: … then call somebody out? You know, it’s like without the internet this is actually much harder to go viral.
Billy: Right.
John: Word of mouth.
Regina: The word of mouth, but, but like, and wouldn’t you be embarrassed to call somebody and be like, “Hey.” “Uh, you know what I noticed while I was-” “… staring at this man’s penis?”
John: “Hey, did you get your Sears catalog yesterday, Sally?”
Billy: Yeah, and it’s, it’s not-
John: “Turn to 602.”
Billy: Uh, I mean-
John: Real quick.
Billy: … I don’t know. I don’t wanna insult this man, but it’s, uh, it, the, the anatomy of it is kinda confusing, right? If you imagine where this thing probably starts at-
John: Yeah.
Billy: … and where the end of it is.
John: I mean, these are high-waisted boxers. Like, they’re really pulled up high.
Regina: Yeah, they’re very high-waisted.
Billy: Still, though-
John: Like, like, over his navel.
Billy: Still, it would have to be like-
Regina: Very, yeah.
Billy: … really long but also really thin. Right? It’s, it’s not thick-looking, but it’s-
John: It’s the ori- original Slender Man.
Billy: Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s kinda like a, it’s like-… the anatomy of, like, Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, right? That’s, like, what I, what I imagine his penis looks like. And I often-
John: And let’s be clear, you do imagine it?
Billy: I often, yes.
Adrianne: What is the print on these?
Regina: Yeah, I was trying to figure that out too.
Billy: Oh, the pattern?
Regina: They look like little sperm, by the way.
Billy: I think it’s little versions of this man- … wearing shorts with his penis hanging out. It’s very meta.
John: Hey, was the Sears catalog something you had to explicitly subscribe to or did they just, like, send it to everyone whose address they had?
Billy: Uh, that’s a good question. I don’t know. I know it was extremely popular.
John: ‘Cause that would kind of affect its virality.
Billy: I think you did have to subscribe to it. I think I did read this ‘cause I was trying to compare the, the number of people who were subscribed to it versus, like, Prime subscribers.
John: I can’t imagine soliciting catalogs to my mailbox.
Regina: If you couldn’t shop online, you could.
John: Uh, maybe, yeah.
Billy: Yeah.
John: My mom used to order from… I learned, I learned our home phone number because of my mom ordering, uh, stuff from catalogs on the phone.
Billy: Yeah, I mean, it was huge. And so, that’s probably why it became viral. And, and Jamie, in their piece, um, described it like this. They said, “My mom only tells me about two penises. The first belonged to a man she saw masturbating in a car as she walked home at night from a party during college. The second belonged to the man on page 602 in the 1975 Fall Winter Sears Catalog.”
Adrianne: Wow.
Billy: And-
Adrianne: Years later, we would tell- … our children about it.
Billy: It’s weird. Yeah, and, yeah, Jamie basically goes on to, like, describe how their mom was always talk… Like, this would just come up in conversation all the time. And I don’t know, this sentence really spoke to me, or these two sentences because, I don’t know, I, I, I also basically have the same experience, uh, as Jamie’s mom at this point. Uh, and so… So, maybe that’s why I thought there must be that… Maybe that’s why I thought that this must be something that everyone knows about. Um, but in Jamie’s piece, Jamie talks about how even though their mom always talked about this particular penis, that they had a hard time finding people who actually remember this phenomenon, even though it’s fairly well documented. And my parents were both born in 1960, so they were 15 when this happened.
Regina: Wait, so h-
Billy: 14 or 15.
Regina: W- when your mom called you at the beginning of this recording session, it was to tell you who to talk to about this man’s penis?
Billy: Yes, so I called them. Yes. Uh, because I assumed, yeah, as either 14 or 15 year olds at the time, I, if I was 14 or 15 and heard about this-
John: The prime age for… Yeah.
Billy: … yeah, I wouldn’t be talking about anything else. So, um- … I called up my parents, and, uh, I actually called my dad first.
Playback: Hello?
Billy: Hi, Dad.
Playback: Hey.
Billy: Hi. I have a quick question for you for a story I’m working on.
Playback: Okay.
Billy: Would you, would you mind if I record this?
Playback: No, I don’t mind. You want me-
Billy: Okay.
Playback: I’m gonna take off my watch ‘cause I’m actually taking… … a call on my phone.
Billy: Okay. All right, yeah. That would be better for sound quality.
Adrianne: Apple Dad.
Billy: Since you were a, you were a teenager in the ‘70s, correct?
Playback: Mm-hmm.
Billy: Do you have any memory of something called, or something referred to as the man on page 602?
Playback: The man on page 602? No, I’ve never heard of that.
Billy: This was… In the Sears catalog, there was-
John: Oh, no.
Billy: … basically a model on a certain page of the Sears catalog in underwear, an underwear model, and it looked as if something were hanging out the bottom of his under- … underwear. Does this spark, uh, any memories for you?
Playback: No, it doesn’t. Um…
Billy: Okay. Well, that’s what I was-
Playback: But it was interesting to know about it at the time.
Billy: Right.
Playback: ‘Cause I think everybody had a Sears catalog, so that rumor didn’t spread to, uh, rural Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
Billy: Is Mom there?
Playback: Yeah. Yeah, she’s here. I’ll ask her.
Billy: Does… Yeah, does Mom know about this?
Adrianne: Oh, no.
Playback: Uh, let’s, let’s see. Here, I’ll give you… give the phone to her and you can see if she… Or you can ask her.
Billy: Okay.
John: Hey.
Billy: Hi, Mom.
John: What’s up?
Billy: I just wanted to ask you if you had ever heard of something, this was kind of a viral story from the ‘70s, and I won- I wanted to know if you encountered it?
John: In the ‘70s. Yeah.
Billy: Do you ever, do you ever remember a thing about an underwear model, a male underwear model on page 602 of the July 1975 edition of the Sears catalog who-
John: Was wearing whitey-tighties?
Billy: Well, they’re kind of like, uh, boxer shorts, I think. Yeah, brief… Yeah, boxer shorts. But it looks as if something is hanging out of one of his pant legs. This-
John: Uh-huh.
Billy: Does-
John: It’s… That rings a bell.
Billy: Oh, really?
John: But I, I, I kind of remember there being something with, like, it being s- a, a guy with, with… I always thinking they were whitey-tighties and there was this, like, um, bulge at the bottom, but I could be wrong.
Billy: Well, yeah. I mean, that would be most whitey-tighties, I think. Especially if they’re a model. You think they would get someone to fill those things out.
John: Oh my God.
Billy: Okay. So you maybe have a vague memory, but don’t really remember it?
John: No.
Billy: Is Grandma there?
John: There… Yeah.
Billy: Could I ask her?
John: Mm-hmm. Sure. I, I gotta turn the TV off so that her hearing aid, uh, gets off the TV.
Billy: Okay.
John: Just hang on a second.
Billy: All right.
Playback: … actually wanted to ask you something.
Billy: So, I talked to my grandmother, who is 90 years old.
Regina: Your family is so much more patient than mine.
Billy: Hi, grandma. Um, I have a question for you for, uh, a st-
Playback: You know, I really can’t hear what you’re saying.
Billy: Oh, you can’t? How about now? Is that better?
Playback: Oh, you’re gonna have to scream about this guy’s dick into your grandma’s hearing aid. I don’t care.
Billy: Okay. I had a question about something from the ‘70s in the Sears catalog.
Playback: You know, I still can’t hear you.
Billy: Oh.
Playback: Would it be okay if you told Sherry and then she can tell me?
Billy: Okay.
Playback: Oh, no.
Regina: Yes.
Playback: Okay, ‘cause I just can’t h- can’t quite hear.
Billy: Okay.
Playback: All right. Go ahead. I’ll, I’ll be the relay person.
Billy: Okay. So, ask her if she got the Sears catalog in the ‘70s.
Playback: Okay. In the ‘70s, did you get the Sears catalog?
Regina: Oh, God.
Playback: Yeah. Yeah, she got a Sears catalog in the ‘70s.
Billy: Do you remember something on a certain page of the July 1975 edition? There was a, a man in underwear and it looked like something was hanging out of his underwear.
Playback: She says- She wants to know if, if you remember something about, um, th- that a lot of people were talking about in the catalog. There was a man in underwear in a catalog, and something was hanging out of his pants in- or his underwear in the picture. Do you remember there being a picture of a man that was on a certain page in the catalog? Oh my God. Yeah, let’s see here.
Billy: No memory? No memory of it?
Playback: Uh-huh. Uh- uh- uh- uh. A- any memory at all? No memory at all. You weren’t checking out the men’s underwear section and remembering anything? None of your friends were- No.
Billy: Okay. All right. Well, I’ll apologize for the- the- the crude image that I painted.
Playback: I- I have a-
Billy: Do you wanna s-
Playback: I remember there being, like- like, someone talking about the- a page in the- in the catalog.
Billy: Here, I’ll s- yeah, I can send you a link. Let’s see, you’re on Dad’s phone, right? I’ll send you a link-
Playback: 609 man?
Billy:
Playback: What- what- what’s he called?
Billy: No, not the 69 man. The- yeah, 602.
Playback: No! I didn’t say the 69. The 609.
Billy: Oh, okay. Who’s the O in the middle? Um-
Playback: Maybe I just didn’t h-
Billy: No, 602. Here, I’ll send…
Playback: Okay, hang on.
Billy: So, if you click that, it seems like-
Playback: Well, if there’s much hanging out that doesn’t look like a whole lot. Oh, is- is the guy in the boxers in? I don’t know. I’m trying to expand it on my phone, but I’m not really seeing much.
Billy: So you’re not- you’re not too impressed.
Playback: I don’t see a thing.
Billy: What? What did Grandma say?
Playback: I don’t see a thing.
Billy: Oh. Yeah, okay.
Playback: I don’t see a thing.
Billy: You don’t see-
Playback: Get it? That’s a little joke.
Billy: That’s pretty good.
Playback: That’s a good joke for a 90-year-old. That’s a good joke for a 90-year-old.
Billy: That is. That’s a pretty edgy humor, Grandma.
Playback: Yeah, she said you’re pretty edgy. Pretty edgy humor. Yeah.
Billy: Anyway, uh, the point being I don’t think anyone in my family really knew about it, um, and-
Regina: Honestly, I’ve never wished my grandmother was alive more than right now, because she would 100% remember this.
Billy: Oh, yeah? Why do you think that?
Regina: One, because she got every catalog in existence. And two, because she absolutely stared at the men’s underwear section.
Playback: How do you know that?
Billy: Nice.
Regina: ‘Cause my grandmother was her freak.
Billy: Yeah, well, I think that may have been the case with, uh, Jamie’s mom. But, uh- … they- they said they had a hard time finding other people who had the memory, but they did eventually find 12 people, I think, who remembered it. Um, but, uh, whether people remember it or not, it was definitely, at the very least, an underground cult phenomenon. Um, there was even a song written about it, actually. I’ll play a little bit of the song.
Playback: Look and see. You’ll agree. He’s got personality. Hey, have you heard the latest story that’s bringing on the smiles? It has caused some blushing laughter and some anger for a while. For those who shop by mail for all their family clothes. In the fall and winter catalog, more than fashion is exposed.
Regina: Wow.
Playback: In the fall and winter catalog on page 602, I see this advertisement that makes me come unglued. The picture’s got me out of sorts ‘cause I don’t understand. Are they advertising boxer shorts or are they trying to sell the man? I don’t know.
Billy: Anyway, you get the idea. It goes on.
Playback: I said- Wow. Wow.
Billy: Um, so this is a big thing, and basically, Sears had to address it, so this is what hoaxes.org says about, uh, the period of time when this came out. “Ernest Arms, the PR director for Sears, told reporters, ‘It’s a printing flaw.’”
Regina: What?
Billy: “These spots just happen.”
Playback: Uh-
Billy: “It’s- it’s just that- it’s just that it was in an unfortunate spot.” Judy Aycock-
Playback: Sorry, did you say Judy Aycock?
Billy: Yeah. Yeah, Judy Aycock, another PR rep, elaborated, “The subject in question is actually a flaw.”… which happened by water, grease, or dirt being on the plate. It didn’t pick up ink. The same artwork was used in the Spring General Catalog, and no one suggested it should be in Playgirl instead of the mail order catalog.
John: No, that was the Spring Genital… No…
Billy: Oh, right.
John: … Catalog. Yeah.
Billy: Aycock offered more… Sorry. It’s really her name. Aycock offered some more information. The company had printed 15 million copies of the catalog, and yes, they all contained the blemish. However, she denied the rumor that Sears was facing unprecedented demand for the catalog. There were no plans for the company to print more copies, nor were there… Nor were they re-plating page 602. The opposite rumor, she noted, was equally untrue. The company was not considering a recall of the catalog. In fact, they had not received any complaints from customers, nor was anyone suing them on account of the picture. As for the model’s identity, Sears refused to release his name, saying that he was entitled to privacy. And to this day, his identity remains a secret.
John: Whoa.
Billy: He’s probably in his 70s now, if he’s still alive. A side note, although the rumor that the company experienced unprecedented demand for the catalog may have been untrue, it is true that many people sought to obtain copies of the catalog, anticipating it would become a collector’s item. And copies of it today do command higher prices than other issues. If you want to purchase a copy on eBay, you may have to spend as much as $100 to get one. So, yeah. So, basically, at the time, Sears denied everything. They denied rumors that people were upset. Uh, but they also denied rumors that people were excited by this and buying things up.
Adrianne: The only person who would know for sure is the model. Right?
Billy: Right. Yeah.
Adrianne: The photographer-
Billy: Um-
Adrianne: … obviously didn’t notice.
Regina: Do you think the model would know for sure?
Adrianne: Hmm, yeah, I think so. Maybe not for sure, but would have a better idea than anyone else.
Regina: Yeah, they would know if it was, like, definitely not possible-
Adrianne: Right.
Regina: … For example.
Adrianne: If they had, you know… If they had tucked it up.
Regina: Right.
John: Or, like, double, double underwear.
Regina: Or, or the, the sizing doesn’t line up.
Billy: Well, so actually, my dude Alex at the Museum of Hoaxes-
Regina: Oh, god.
Billy: … Came up with another way to solve this.
Adrianne: Oh?
Billy: So, he goes on. He says, “Sears’ explanation didn’t satisfy everyone. After all, it really did look like there was something peeking out of the guy’s shorts. The object was so perfectly placed. Could it have been a printing error? True, the object is rather far down his leg. He would have to be remarkably well-endowed, but still, it’s possible. The PR reps for Sears had noticed that the exact same photo of the model, minus the, quote, ‘blemish’, end quote, had appeared in the previous issue of the Sears catalog, the Spring/Summer 1975 issue. They offered this as proof that the object in question had to be a printing error and not stray anatomy. As far as we know, here at the Museum of Hoaxes,” he says, “No one has ever checked the previous issue from Spring/Summer to confirm that no genitalia is visible.”
John: Ugh.
Billy: Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope, writing in 1997, said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that Sears denied his request, quote, “To visit the Sears archive and inspect this earlier catalog.” So when we,” we being the Museum of Hoaxes, “noticed a copy of the 1975 Spring/Summer catalog for sale on eBay for $5, we decided to spend the money and buy it. In the interest of the advancement of human knowledge, of course.” And so… I’m gonna send you guys the picture. Do you all have any final guesses before I send this?
Regina: No.
Adrianne: It seems like a bad idea for the PR person to say… Make that claim if they couldn’t… It can so easily be checked-
John: Yeah.
Regina: Yeah.
Adrianne: … If everybody’s got this catalog sitting around.
Billy: All right. Well, here’s the image.
John: Uh, there’s just, like, a dark splotch.
Regina: But now we can Photoshop.
John: Well, no, not, not Photoshop it, or just, like, edit it optically.
Regina: That’s what I’m saying. This could so easily be Photoshopped. Also, there’s still-
Billy: Or it was originally printed darker, and so the printing, uh, machine just filled that in as black, but then it was exposed more in the second version, and maybe you saw a little-
John: Do they still have this thing?
Billy: … Little bit.
John: ‘Cause this is, like, a really bad scan.
Billy: Well, may- yeah, maybe we should ask them. So, he concludes the article, “And so we can now confirm, with our apologies to any who are still holding out hope that the guy really did expose himself in the 1975 catalog, that Sears was correct. The earlier version of the photo shows nothing peeking out of the model’s shorts. The blemish/printing smudge/stray genitalia is not there.”
John: Uh…
Billy: And so they kind of conclusively end this as, “Mystery solved. No penis.”
Regina: Okay, but here’s the thing. If you zoom in, like, r- like, if you open this on your phone and you zoom in really, really closely-
Billy: Mm-hmm.
Regina: … To that spot-
Billy: As my mother did.
Regina: There… Yes, there is, like, a… The section where the tip was-
Billy: Mm-hmm.
Regina: … Is darker than the section around it.
Billy: Yep.
Regina: Like-
Billy: Yep.
Regina: … It, it, it was removed.
Billy: … and they forgot to remove it from the version that came out-
John: Yes.
Billy: … after it?
Adrianne: Yeah, haven’t you ever, like, fixed a video and then gone back and you make another version, you forget the one thing and then you ma- you miss it?
Billy: That’s true.
Adrianne: It happens all the time.
John: Also, look at the ad itself. It’s a different ad. Like, there’s another pair of shorts-
Adrianne: Right.
John: … overlapping that guy’s leg with a number six on it that isn’t there in the earlier one. So like-
Adrianne: Yeah, like a different person did this one.
John: Yeah, like they modified, like they, they went back to the original photo and did this.
Adrianne: Right.
John: This is not-
Adrianne: Right.
John: … conclusive.
Adrianne: Yeah, that’s what I mean.
Billy: Hmm. Well, yeah, I had started to look into this before. I think I had actually found the model even though they said, um, he was anonymous. I, oh, I think this was in the comments of the hoaxes.org thing. Let me scroll through. Uh, okay, yes. This person, Jon Casey, uh, this is September 28th 2015, says, “The model’s name is Gary Bimson-
John: Hmm.
Billy: … and he was a popular catalog model at the time. He died in 2013.”
John: Took it to the, took it to the grave.
Billy: So, he might be the only one that really knows for sure. But maybe he has ser- some surviving relatives or something.
Adrianne: Oh my God, is this the same Gary Bimson? I’m sorry, let me-
Billy: Oh, you Googled him?
Adrianne: Oh, sorry……………………..
Billy: No, you’re allowed to Google him at this point.
Adrianne: No, no, no.
Billy: Did you, are you looking at the Google images results?
Adrianne: N- I did look at some Google image results, and I feel like his endowment is consistent with being able to poke out of this underwear in this ad. However, what I was gonna say was this, uh, UPI story from 1983, “A male model whose career plummeted when he fell 75 feet into a waterfall during a modeling session has been-”
Billy: What?
Adrianne: “… awarded more than $890,000 in damages by a state supreme court jury.”
Billy: Oh, wow.
John: Oh, no.
Adrianne: Gary Bimson, 36, of Stamford, Connecticut.
Billy: Oh, wow.
Adrianne: Do you think it was the Niagara Falls waterfall?
John: When I searched him it came up with a, a more explicit set of images.
Billy: Yes.
Adrianne: Yeah, yeah, if you search… So my default search is DuckDuckGo which I guess is less prudish-
Billy: Oh, really?
Adrianne: … than Google. The first result is from Adonis Male.
Billy: Oh, wait. Oh, hold on, let me check out DuckDuckGo.
Adrianne: Or you could just search Adonis Male Gary Bimson.
Billy: Nah, I wanna, I want the-
John: The full experience?
Adrianne: You want the organic traffic.
Billy: Wait, Adonis… These results are not as good, though. Wait, hold on. This is a… Wait, this looks like a different person.
Adrianne: I think he’s just older.
Billy: What?
John: I’m not seeing this either.
Billy: Wait. See, I don’t know, it’s not, uh, it’s not Jack Skeleton enough.
John: Sexy hunk. Th- this URL is so good, 1970-sexy-dash-hunk-/Gary Bimson color.
Adrianne: I mean, he’s wearing overalls and he has like a nine-pack.
John: This is like, uh, we want you to believe he’s a f- uh, a firefighter but he’s not.
Billy: Wait, the image you linked, Regina, doesn’t work for me.
John: You gotta click it.
Billy: Is someone blocking… Uh, oh, there we go. I thought someone was blocking porn on my network for a second. Uh…
John: A thing that Katelyn installed.
Billy: Yeah. No.
Adrianne: I mean, you are right in front of the window of your household.
Billy: Yeah. Yeah, I mean this guy’s a hunk. There’s no denying it.
John: Mystery solved. Total hunk.
Billy: Um, yeah.
Adrianne: The panel is unanimous.
Billy: I don’t know. So maybe there is a little bit of an unresolved mystery here. Uh, maybe-
Adrianne: I’ve… No.
Billy: You don’t think so? You think it-
Adrianne: Well, I just, I feel like it’s very tempting to hang on to this one. You just want it to be true.
John: I just want to see a better quality scan.
Billy: Right, yeah. It is very possible there was, like, a whole generation of, of people who this was like the first adult male penis they saw. And then, yeah, if it turns out it was all just a mirage, you know, that’s devastating-
John: A mirage.
Billy: … in my opinion. Okay. So yeah, that’s that.
Adrianne: Well, that was fun.
Billy: So are we acting like this is the end of the episode?
Adrianne: Uh, now? Am I cutting?
John: Uh, that’s all for now. Thanks for listening to Understood.
Adrianne: Subscribe to our Patreon which you are already subscribed to or you wouldn’t be listening to this.
John: We’ve done so good.
Billy: Uh…
Adrianne: You’re welcome.
John: You’re welcome.
Billy: You’re paying for this.
Adrianne: I’m so sorry that you paid for this.
Billy: You’re paying for this in every sense of the phrase. All right, we’re stopping?
John: Yeah.
Adrianne: Do I stop recording? Okay.
Billy: Uh, I’m trying to… How do I collapse this penis?
Adrianne: Wow.
Billy: Oh, I got it.
John: If I had a nickel…
Adrianne: I don’t know.
John: I’m gonna cut.
Billy: All right, cut. Don’t worry.
Adrianne: Yeah, I stopped.
Billy: Bye.
Playback: In the fall and winter catalogue or the Wish Book so it’s called. In my mind there’s no question. Of what I’d like most of all. I’d send them all my money. If it would make a wish come true. I just wish I was that man on page 602. Yeah. I just wish I was that man on page 602. Doo-doo-doo-doo.