ENCORE - Kid Nation: 'Survivor' for Children! with Kurt Braunohler, Megan Gailey & Chris Garcia

Before we dive into today's tale of catastrophe, I have to tell you about Wondery Plus.

If you're someone who craves the juicy details behind the biggest flops, Wondery Plus is exactly what you need.

Add-free episodes and early access to news stories that will take you even deeper into the world of business blunders.

Trust me, it's a game changer.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcast.

Eight-year-old Jimmy Flynn is sitting behind a barn, weeping.

I'm only eight.

I'm in a third grader, and I don't think I'm, I think I'm too young to be doing this.

He's surrounded by adults, but no one even tries to comfort him.

Instead, they just lift up their cameras and keep filming.

Because you see, Jimmy is one of 40 kids who have been cast on a new 2007 reality TV show called Kid Nation on CBS.

They've been sent to live in an old Western movie set in New Mexico for 40 days with hardly any supervision.

They're responsible for cooking their own food and for building their own functioning society.

Eight-year-old Jimmy, he didn't last a week.

The show didn't last more than one season.

But in that one season, children children slept on wooden floors with no pillows, killed animals for food, and some even left the set in an ambulance, all in the name of reality television.

She said the show producers pitched the show to her family as a kids' summer camp, when in reality, she says it was more like Lord of the Flies.

I felt sort of weird because I thought that maybe they would be adults.

So this begs the question, is this exploiting minors for the sake of entertaining the American public?

We are

on

a

single kingship.

From Wondery and At Will Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time.

I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and forever child at heart at Don't Cross a Gay Man.

So, howdy, folks, and welcome to Kid Nation.

Here to help me break down the reality TV flop, that is Kid Nation, are the hosts of the very funny Wondery podcast, I Love My Kid, but comedians Megan Gailey,

Chris Garcia, Thanks for having us, Risha.

And Kurt Browneller.

Hello.

So Kurt, could you talk a little bit about what Your Guys It's podcast is all about?

It's called I Love My Kid, but, and it's a parenting podcast with absolutely no advice.

There's no experts, no advice.

It's really just us commiserating with each other about how difficult being a parent is.

And so I think this is a way to just feel less alone.

Well, so you all have kids.

And so I wanted to tell you the tale of the TV show Kid Nation.

But to jump into this story, first let me take you back to the early aughts, a time when reality TV is taking off.

And CBS, they're in pilot season, they're piloting, and their show Survivor is a sensation.

And around this time, Hollywood executive producer Tom Foreman is also riding high after winning a 2005 Emmy for his work on the ABC reality show Extreme Makeover home edition, the tears that we all shed.

Yes, move that, Emmy.

So now CBS knows talent when they see it.

So they scoop up Foreman and sit him down to brainstorm some new ideas.

And even though it was just a few seasons into Survivor by now, Foreman's already feeling like unscripted programming is in a bit of a rut.

Like contestants are already mimicking stuff they've seen before.

So he wants what he calls a fresh casting pool.

And that's when he has his aha moment.

Kids.

Oh, God.

So, what are your initial reactions to like this innovation?

Is it genius, kids, in reality TV, or like what could go wrong?

My initial reaction is extreme home makeover.

Every single one of those houses totally got messed up.

So, he's actually an idiot and he should give his Emmy back.

And I don't know if you've ever worked with children.

They steal the spotlight.

They also need to like study and go to school.

So, they have very limited hours.

You would be better off working with like feral animals than working with children in chip business the feral animals have less rights yes

i don't know i think it's kind of crazy to let kids be honest as a parent i'm like what parent would let their kid do this but then i remember like i don't know child care is expensive and i spend like eight thousand dollars on bananas a month so i don't know it's just fine now i'm not gonna have fun get out of my face for a while you know i think there are some successes out there like the baking competitions, things like that, where they have a skill.

Yeah, but like any sort of elimination show is really like difficult for me.

Even like top chef, they're grown-ups, but I'm like, oh no, that Brazilian man.

So then to see children be told, like, your cupcakes suck.

Get out of here.

That's so harsh and sad.

And I know they do it in a nicer way, but I just think kids have like enough going on and they don't need to be like, well, I got to go to work now too.

Well, so begins this journey to cast Kid Nation, and the casting call describes the show like this: Settling in Bonanza City, New Mexico, once a thriving mining town but now deserted, these kids, ages 8 to 15 from all walks of life, will build their own new world, pioneer style.

They will confront grown-up issues while coping with the classic childhood emotions of homesickness, peer pressure, and the urge to break every rule.

So, like, how would you feel reading that show description?

Sounds like Burning Man, which I've been to four times.

And I kind of like the idea.

I'm like, get it out of their system at eight years old.

Go crazy in the desert.

And then by the time you're 20, you're ready to, you know, you learn a trade and get a real job.

It's just like, get it out of the way.

The desert.

The desert aspect of it is maybe the craziest.

It's the craziest.

Like, why can't they go to the Great Lakes?

Yeah.

Or, you know, go to like a campground.

Like, there's camps that house children.

But to be like, no, we're sending them basically to Mars.

And I got so homesick as a kid, I would like fake a stomachache at sleepovers.

I can't imagine just being in rural New Mexico.

Well, Foreman, he realizes he needs a special group of children.

So he reaches out to schools and these talented and gifted programs.

And he puts casting calls in these various cities around the country.

So each child had two minutes in front of a camera to say why they wanted to be on Kid Nation.

And there are some perks aside from just being on TV.

The kids would be given a $5,000 stipend for competing in the show.

And at the end of each episode, one contestant would receive a golden star worth $20,000.

Okay.

If you get one of these casting calls, aren't you just sending the worst kids in the school to try and get them them off your back?

Like, I'm not going to send my straight A students.

I'm going to be like, oh, yeah, this kid, he's great.

Go to New Mexico.

It's like, I'm sending the biggest F up losers that way.

But then there's some real downsides to being cast too.

If their kids are cast, parents need to sign a 22-page waiver relieving CBS of practically all liability, including in cases of, quote, serious bodily injury, illness, or death.

And quote,

So let's play a game.

So I'm going to read some lines that might have been included in this 22-page waiver, and you all have to decide whether they are a real clause or one we just made up.

Okay.

First one,

there may be injuries arising from, quote, rock avalanches, encounters with wild or domesticated animals, acts of God, end quote.

Acts of God, I think, yes, real activity.

That's for sure.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Acts of God is a classic lawyer thing.

Acts of God is classic.

I don't want to get sued.

Yeah.

Acts of God, also in all perpetuity and all media hereto ever created.

I can imagine parents reading that wrong and being like, wow, God will save them if he needs to.

In case anything goes wrong, God's got it.

Second one, parents acknowledge that their children will be, quote, armed with a variety of tools and weapons, including but not limited to, a leatherman, hunting knife, crossbow, and machete, end quote.

What?

I mean, this is so crazy.

It must be real.

God with real.

I don't know what a leatherman is.

I thought that was a gay man who only wears leather.

So, like a multi-tool.

Yeah, real.

Nope, that one was fake.

We made that one good one.

It was very specific.

Yeah.

Good job to the producers.

All right.

So third one.

Producers have the right to, quote, search the miner's person and miner's belongings, including without limitation by x-ray or similar device end quote i'm gonna say no i'm wrong i'm wrong every time

that is insane but like we consent to that every time we go to the airport so i guess yes yeah that one was in there

I'd actually rather my toddler have a weapon than be strip searched every day.

Yeah.

Fifth one, if the minor or parent violates the contract, they will, quote, be liable to CBS and shall pay to CBS as liquidated damages and not as a penalty the sum of five million dollars.

End quote.

Five million in the odds?

I don't know.

No, I'm going to say no.

That one was wow.

Like these parents don't have five million.

That's why they're putting their children on TV.

The biggest problem with this is the absolute exploitation.

All of these families probably are like, I don't know, and just sign that without reading it.

They're just like, oh, it's TV.

I'm going to put my kid on TV.

It's just like, this is insanity.

How old are your kids?

Six and three.

Okay.

So the six-year-old, would you allow them to be kid nation?

Olive would rule.

Should yeah.

Olive would become president and like rule it.

No, I would not let her, but she would be like, I'm going.

And I'd be like, you're not.

She'd be like, I'm sorry.

I figured out how to use your computer and I booked a ticket.

I fly away tomorrow.

Well, you know, this seems impossible, but they do it.

And after about a year, Foreman has his cast of, wait for it, 40 kids.

Wow.

And of the 40 children, the average age is 11.

Okay.

The oldest is 15 and the youngest is 8.

No, you cannot have an 8 and 15 year old competing against each other.

So some of the kids felt like they were definitely tight cast.

There was 12-year-old Anjay, the then-youngest person to ever compete in the National Spelling Bee, later told the AV Club, quote, I'm sure there was an element of, oh my God, we found a brown nerd.

We can put him on TV and typecast him so hard.

I mean, I had a bowl cut and transition lenses.

I know.

And then there was also an eight-year-old sensitive chubby kid named Jimmy, a wise cracking 14-year-old with light brown hair named Sophia, a 15-year-old beanie-wearing bad boy named Greg, and the eight-year-old child beauty pageant winner named Taylor.

No,

we've involved child beauty pageants already.

I'm surprised it's not all beauty pageant girls.

Their parents are like, whatever, do whatever you want.

X-ray her, give her an MRI.

Who cares?

Well, just like that, CVS is ready to go.

So they fly the kids from all around the country, and filming begins, appropriately enough, on April Fool's Day, 2007.

Wow.

So, if you were on this show back in the day, what kid would you have been?

How would they have typecast you?

Because I would have been the Broadway baby, a Twinkle Toes Misha, yeah, for sure.

I would be the little boy from Jerry Maguire who says, like, the human head weighs eight and a half pounds.

Like, that's who I would be.

Jonathan Lipnicki.

Yeah, I would be Jonathan Lipnicki.

I think I would have been like the girl from Willy Wonka that's like, I want a golden ticket.

Like, I think I would have been in like a sailor dress and would have kept being like, whatever.

My dad said he'll give me a golden star.

What about you, Chris?

Like Vern from Stand By Me.

I would have been like the chubby kid that just barfed a lot all the time.

How are you chubby if you're puking all the time?

I don't know.

Slow metabolism.

I don't know.

Trip Planner by Expedia.

You were made to outdo your vacationing, your hammocking,

and your pooling.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

Shopify's point-of-sale system helps you sell at every stage of your business.

Need a fast and secure way to take payments in person?

We've got you covered.

How about card readers you can rely on anywhere you sell?

Thanks.

Have a good one.

Yep, that too.

Want one place to manage all your online and in-person sales?

That's kind of our thing.

Wherever you sell, businesses that grow grow with Shopify.

Sign up for your $1 a month trial at shopify.com slash listen.

Shopify.com slash listen.

So that's the backstory to the show.

And before we talk about the, shall we say, critical reception, I'm going to take you on a journey through the pilot episode.

Are we ready to see Foreman's Vision become a reality?

Yes.

Yes.

So imagine you're sitting on your couch, you turn on the TV.

The host, Jonathan Karsh, speaks to the audience from Bonanza City.

It's a dusty ghost town that's also an old Western movie set.

Things like Independence Day and True Grit were filmed here.

A perfect setting for children, right?

It also happens to be where Rust was filmed.

That's the film where Elec Baldwin accidentally shot cinematographer Helena Hutchins.

This place is cursed.

So we cut from Jonathan Karsh to a wide shot of a school bus driving through the desert toward Bonanza City.

And when they cut to the inside of the school bus, you see 40 kids sitting silently staring out the window.

It's already very bleak.

Sidebar, in your podcast, you talked about like the trials and tribulations of traveling with children.

So how do you think that your kids would have done in the desert on a school bus with 39 other kids?

Also, like going into something that not only do they not know what's going to happen, but no one knows.

And no one can say, like, look, I've done this before.

It's going to be like this.

They're literally heading into the most terrifying place of their entire life.

And their parents are like, you better get a $20,000 gold star.

Yeah.

The only reference that my two and a half-year-old daughter has to a bus she's never been on a bus, Shelly knows the songs, The Wheels on the Bus and The Magic School Bus.

So this would be quite an eye-opening experience and not what she expected than just been dropped off onto basically Mars.

And also the whole like experience of being on a shoot first off, but then on a reality TV shoot is like people are concerned with the production first.

It's not like a camp where there's like someone going like, guys, we're going to have a great time.

It's literally like, all right, I need to wire you.

Stand still.

Let me wire you.

You know, it's just like, it's so much stress and terror this would be oh i feel so bad for these kids yeah i honestly can't get over the fact that the three of us sitting here have all sold pilots and we didn't get to make ours but this show got to be there

Well, notice that I said the bus is driving toward Bonanza City, not to Bonanza City, because suddenly the bus stops in the middle of nowhere and Karsh greets the kids as pioneers.

He introduces them to their four

who are just fellow kids who will make up the town council.

For now, he adds mischievously.

And then he tells the kids that they have to drag four wagons with 40 days of supplies to Bonanza City, which is several miles away.

What?

It sounds like Westworld a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All of them are struggling like crazy to pull this cart.

One kid falls down, and I'm actually going to play some sound from this scene.

What happened, man?

What happened?

What happened?

What do you think happened?

What happened is a child was being forced to do manual labor.

Well, don't worry.

He just had a leg cramp.

That's Chris.

That's Chris.

That was me.

That was me.

This is what they chose to open with.

Yeah.

Soon, the kids start arguing with each other.

One kid's optimistic take is that it can't get any worse.

But this is before they've even gotten to Bonanza City.

Cut to they finally make it.

They're exhausted.

They're hungry.

So surely someone has food ready for them, right?

Wrong.

Nope, because it turns out the kids are also in charge of making dinner.

And spoiler alert, they don't know anything about cooking.

There was one scene where a kid is stabbing at a can with a screwdriver.

They can't even figure out how to boil water to make pasta.

So it is not going well.

And you better believe that throughout Kid Nation, there were cooking accidents like this.

What's up on your face?

I got splattered in the face with oil, but a little grease won't stop me, you know?

Oh, no.

Oh, my God.

This is insane that this was put on TV.

So now, even though Karsh is the only adult that you see in this first episode, there are in fact over 200 adults there, including camera crew, producers, psychologists, student counselors doctors but

as jimmy the sensitive kid says the adults weren't really expected to help much here he is being interviewed on the popular youtube show john tron as an adult one other intervention they had they had people just walk around making sure you're hydrated because they couldn't have people passing out so okay

that'd be bad for ratings yeah they had this one assistant who was always giving me gator aid just so we're all on the same page hot oil in the face is good passing out is bad

Wow.

Outside of Gatorade,

another thing that some kids drank during the show was bleach.

No!

What?

What?

Well, they didn't do it on purpose, but there are reports that multiple children needed medical attention.

So it turns out there was bleach being stored in an unlabeled soda flavoring bottle.

That's where we all keep it, right?

Yeah, yeah, of course.

However, someone claiming to be 14-year-old contestant Murphy wrote on Reddit about the incident saying, quote, quote, they had these little bottles of flavoring to add to the soda, and the vanilla or lemon ones looked just like the containers they used for bleach.

It was a total accident, and only DK actually drank the bleach.

He puked, an ambulance quickly showed up, and he was fine in a few hours, end quote.

Yeah, a lot of Americans drank bleach by choice in 2021.

So

I missed the simpler time when we were discouraging.

All right, but we're getting ahead of ourselves or putting the cart before the kids, as the saying goes.

By the end of night one, things are rough.

And there's plucky instrumental music playing.

The kids are exhausted, hungry, freezing, and yes, a handful of them are already crying.

But hey,

surely a good night's sleep will help, right?

Let's go to bed.

You want to go to bed?

Yeah, yeah.

Goodbye, you know, you know you want it.

Let's get it.

I'm saving.

Well, it turns out they don't have any beds.

They're going to be sleeping on these mats that have basically the thickness of a sweatshirt on the floor.

Some of the kids bunch up their jackets to use as pillows since they don't have any, which is a shame because they probably needed those jackets as, I don't know, jackets.

Because in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, where they are filming, it can drop into the low 30s on a cold day in the spring.

This is loony, tunes.

This is infuriating.

This is my question at this exact moment.

I mean, like, if I was a producer on the show, certainly I would pull the plug at this point.

Or like get get like five minutes of footage of kids being like, brrr, and then give everybody blankets.

Yes.

This is also the most disgusting American idea I've ever heard.

Let's fabricate struggle and pretend we're in the Sudan, but it's freezing at night.

That is maddening.

What?

Well, we're all in the entertainment business, so you know the saying, the show must go on.

So the next morning, the kids wake up bright and early and run out of food before everyone has breakfast.

Thankfully, the host, Jonathan Karsh, is there to intervene and feed them.

Yeah.

Right?

No, he's there to introduce the rules of some twisted game.

He explains to the group of only partially fed children that on top of fetching water and cooking food, they'll also have other jobs like running stores.

But how will these jobs be decided?

Well, through competitions and challenges, of course.

And the outcomes of these challenges will determine the kids', quote, rank in the society and the jobs that they're given.

Does someone made like the town wino?

It's like you've got the lowest rank, Jimmy.

You're the town wino.

You sleep in the gutter.

I think that's the highest rank.

That's pretty nice.

Yeah.

So the council, which remember is made up of children, they try to hold an orderly meeting to organize the kids, which obviously devolves into chaos because, as it turns out, nobody knows how to wrangle a room of 40 children, especially not other children.

So, the council is there to vote on tough decisions.

For example, in one episode, they vote on whether to kill some of their chickens for meat, which they do.

One little girl is super against killing it, but then is swayed by the council.

And beanie-wearing bad boy, Greg, does the deed with a hatchet and a stump.

And all of the children are gathered around him to watch.

No, listen here.

You're gonna stretch

I can't believe we're about to do this.

All right, guys.

You ready?

Hold it, hold it.

It was flopping around, running in tukus, cloaking at me.

It was dead.

Not alive.

It's reflexes, okay?

No.

Oh, my God.

40 future vegans.

So, this scene really is as horror movie as it sounds.

A kid just chopped the head off a chicken, it still moves around after it's dead.

There is screaming, I'm imagining blood.

I mean, how many kids do you think still talk about this event in therapy?

I don't know.

This is day one stuff for Latino kids, so I don't know why anyone would need to be a therapist about this, to be honest with you.

Okay, well, every white kid is in therapy and very upset by nothing.

And there's one kid who just does this every day and doesn't eat the chicken.

He just loves it.

And speaking of animals, in another episode, some of the kids wandered off and found themselves face to face with a wild bull.

Of course.

Yeah.

Well, luckily, 10-year-old Colton charges at the bull and somehow manages to scare it away.

And the camera crew did absolutely nothing to stop it.

Whoa.

So the pilot episode keeps teasing this question.

Is eight-year-old Jimmy going to go home?

He should.

Or is he going to tough it out?

But it's the kind of through line that feels exciting in a show with adults, but kind of feels like watching a kidnapping when the person's only in third grade.

Oh, yeah.

But some of the kids are kind of nice, and we actually have a clip of another contestant trying to console Jimmy.

How about that?

Oh, I'm going to go.

I know you're really upset because you don't have your mother here to tuck you in and you really miss your dad.

And my dad.

And your dad, and I'm going to try to like substitute for them just for a little while and just make you feel a lot more comfortable here.

Just give me a chance.

Can you do that?

Yeah.

And my dad.

Is she from Boston?

Did she own the pizzeria?

What an amazing voice this child has.

That was 12-year-old Laurel trying to be mom and dad to little Jimmy.

I love her.

Later on that second day, the kids are divided up into their teams and compete for their social rank.

The first challenge is a race to see who can pump water the fastest.

But since all four teams finish the challenge in under an hour, the kids get a reward.

They do have to pick between two options.

Here's a clip.

So which reward will you choose?

Seven more outhouses for this?

A TV

that you can watch whenever you want.

Outhouses

or a television set.

So what do we think?

Outhouses or a TV?

They're choosing the TV.

They're like, well, shit on the TV.

Who cares?

All right.

Well, before I tell you the answer, let me give you a little context I've hidden up until now.

You ready for it?

Have a listen.

Was there really just one outhouse for 40 kids?

Yes.

So it was actually right outside my room.

And the funny thing was, if I woke up, there was a line of like 20 kids waiting to use the outhouse.

And I looked back, I don't know who would ever empty it.

So like it would literally just pile up.

So nobody emptied it?

I don't think so.

Cause when I, when i went in

it was kind of a tower it was a tower owah so if we missed that that's one outhouse for 40 kids and a tower of poop oh my god this is inhumane so what do we think the kids are going to pick do you think they pick the outhouses or the tv i bet they still pick the tv

i still think they pick the tv Thankfully, the kids are smarter than every adult who has worked on this show and they do choose the outhouses.

Good for these kids.

So we finally get to the end of the episode and we finally get to find out whether eight-year-old Jimmy, who we heard crying earlier, will decide to stay or leave the show.

And turns out he is wiser than his years because he gets the hell out of there.

Goddamn me.

This pilot episode airs in September of 2007.

CBS is hoping for a survivor repeat.

They want a hit, but what they get are drum roll please,

lawsuits.

Yes.

They get lawsuits.

Yes.

I'm so happy.

This is the first time I've been happy about lawsuits.

The twist is that they can only be represented by children.

On Boxing Day 2018, 20-year-old Joy Morgan was last seen at her church, Israel United in Christ, or IUIC.

I just went on my Snapchat and I just see her face plastered everywhere.

This is The Missing Sister, the true story of a woman betrayed by those she trusted most.

IUIC is my family and like the best family that I've ever had.

But IUIC isn't like most churches.

This is a devilish cult.

You know when you get that feeling where you just, I don't want to be here.

I want to get out.

It's like that feeling of, like, I want to go hang out.

I'm Charlie Brent Coast Cuff, and after years of investigating Joy's case, I need to know what really happened to Joy.

Binge all episodes of The Missing Sister exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

Start your free trial of Wondery Plus on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or in the Wondery app.

So, Foreman and his CBS colleagues are super excited about their new show.

They're pretty sure it's going to be a hit when it airs in September.

But before we talk about its critical reception, we got to talk about the buzz before the show even airs.

And the buzz is not good.

As early as the announcement of the show, there are concerns about alleged child abuse, which was discussed on shows like Star Jones.

Here is one of her guests weighing in.

A girl drank bleach, someone else got grease splattered on her face.

Where were those adults trying to stop that hat from happening?

No one notified any hospital, nobody notified any child protective services.

Clearly, they're not willing to intervene because money trumps responsibility when it comes to television.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

Money trumps responsibility on television.

And so are the parents bringing the lawsuits, the ACLU, like child protective services.

Who are the lawsuits coming from?

Definitely one of those lawsuits was from the parents of the girl who got burned in the face with oil.

Makes sense.

It makes you wonder, like, how did they get away with this?

And the way they did that was producer Foreman and CBS.

It seems like they think they've beaten the system because they filmed in New Mexico, because New Mexico had much more lax rules than California and New York about child labor on film sets.

In fact, a law limiting kids to eight to nine hours a day on sets was signed during the Kid Nation shoot, but the law only went went into effect the summer after filming ended.

Wow.

Nine hours is a lot.

Still a lot, right?

So it was like loosey-goosey.

But technically, Foreman and CBS say they're fine.

And hey, the kids weren't technically employed by CBS anyway, so it's all moot.

They also did state that a labor department inspector visited the set on the show unannounced during the production, but a spokesman for the state labor department said that the inspector was not allowed on the site and left without inspecting anything.

So how do we feel about Foreman?

Because he seems like a little Disney villain to me.

I want the kids to beat him up like 40 on one.

So the reviews are in.

The show consists of 13 episodes.

And now I want to play a game where you all try to guess whether this is a real review or a fake review.

First one.

The Boston Globe.

Quote, there is just something grotesque and creepy about seeing children being deployed on reality TV, a genre that we all know thrives on conflict, tears, humiliation, and exhibitionism, end quote.

True.

Real.

True.

Yep.

All right.

The Detroit Free Press.

Quote, Would the creators of Kid Nation please go to their room for a timeout and come up with something more original?

End quote.

Fake.

Could be fake.

It's kind of a kooky newspaper to use.

Yeah, I just think Detroit would be like, you idiots.

So I'm going to say fake.

No, that one was real.

All right.

BuzzFeed.

Quote, honestly, I was on the fence until the bleach part, and then I was all in.

Fake, fake.

That one's fake.

All right.

And one last one, ad age.

Quote, heavy on tears, light on ads.

That's real.

All we do is talk about ads.

Well, overall, a lot of critics, they couldn't quite shake the ick factor of watching these poor kids.

All that being said, the ratings were all right.

The show averaged about 8 million viewers, which is half of the viewership of Foreman's Extreme Home Makeover, but still in the ballpark of shows that have a decent chance of getting renewed.

There's no 8 million viewed show now.

No Yellowstone, and that's it.

IMDb gives it a 7 out of 10, which is pretty solid.

Yeah.

And Foreman and CBS are feeling pretty good about this.

I mean, what's a little bit of grease burns and trauma when you have ratings like that?

So they even start holding casting sessions for season two.

Season two.

So do we think we're going to get a season two?

What do we think?

No.

No.

Well, this is called a big flop.

So surprise, Kid Nation does not get a season two.

Probably because the network isn't sure they could find a state whose laws wouldn't prevent them from doing the show.

Season two, Siberia, the tundra.

So even though Kid Nation didn't renew, what did continue on were some long-lasting effects on some of the kids for being on the show.

Poor Jimmy went home after four days.

Months later, when an episode aired, he was bullied by kids in his school who saw him on the show.

No.

Like, it's like Jimmy's the hero, actually.

He's the smartest one.

All right, but it wasn't all bad.

So here on the big flop, we'd like to talk about some silver linings.

So to be clear, decades after the show, most of the kids are doing just fine.

So, let's do a little where are they now for some of the kids that we've mentioned.

Spelling Bee winner Anj went to work at Microsoft.

Beanie bad boy Greg works as a mechanic.

Okay.

Wisecracker Sophia went to Fordham School of Law.

Pageant Queen Taylor became an occupational therapist.

Okay.

And Little Jimmy went from crying alone behind a barn to medical school.

Great.

Yay.

What a glow up.

The host, Jonathan Karsh, has gone on to do a lot of executive producing on TV shows, including Police Women of Broward County, Catfish the TV show, and The Hunt for the Trump tapes.

Okay, so high quality TV.

Yeah, some high-quality TV.

Executive producer Tom Foreman is still producing a ton of television shows, including The Great Food Truck Race.

All right.

Continues his legacy.

So you would think that after all of the issues surrounding Kid Nation, that he would stay away from doing anything like the show again.

But in 2017, he told Variety, every couple of years, I pick up the phone and lob in a call to CBS to see if we should do it again.

That's so crazy.

He's sick.

What a sick person.

Another silver lining.

After the show, it does seem like New Mexico did close up some of those child labor loopholes.

That's maybe a benefit for the world in general.

And during Kid Nation, the kids are shown to have some good takeaways from being on the show.

At one point, the kids were introduced to some Native Americans who lived nearby, which albeit a little cringy for the producers to do, the kids did seem to gain some newfound cultural appreciation.

So here's a clip.

In life, it's very easy to be mean.

It's very easy to be selfish.

But it's very hard to live well.

It's the longer road.

It's the rougher road.

But in the end, you feel better about yourself.

What goes wrong, Comjura?

Right.

The chief told us to go beyond our boundaries.

And I was thinking that we could do that with the gold star.

It wasn't enough to exploit children.

You have to exploit the Navajo Nation and the Kid Nation.

Yeah, I'm cringy for those producers to do.

Yeah.

We took what we've learned from our native brethren, and now we're applying it to getting a $20,000 gold star taken away from one of the other children in town.

Oh, America.

Well, now that you know all about Kid Nation, would you consider this show to be a flop, not a flop, or a mega flop?

Mega flop.

Mega flop.

Mega flop and a side sauce of pure evil.

Yes.

Inhumane.

Yeah.

Inhumane.

Well, thank you to our wonderful guests, Megan Gailey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brownuller.

And thanks to you for listening to the big flop.

Come back next week to find out what happens when a country megastar goes emo.

It's the story of Garth Brooks's ill-fated alter ego, Chris Gaines, with guests Dusty Slay and Sarah Tiana.

You know, like the old saying, if it ruins your career, double down.

The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At Will Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown.

Produced and edited by Levi Sharp.

Written by Marina Templesman.

Engineered by Zach Rapone.

Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin, Will Mulnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media.

Developed by Christina Friel.

Legal support provided by Carolyn Levin of Miller-Korzynik Summers-Rayman.

Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rutter.

Senior producer is Lizzie Bassett.

Senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher.

Managing producer is Ricky Wiebe, and executive producers are Morgan Jones and Marsha Louie for Wondery.

We are

on

a single kingship.

We are

on a single

If you like the big flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com/slash survey.