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Last Summary Update: 11-08-2026

Nothing Box
Airdate: Monday - December 10, 1962

WOR Show
Original Airing

audio

(NOTE ABOUT TIME REFERENCES: Since there are many different copies of shows out there from different sources, all time references are from the beginning of one single recorded copy, since various copies, depending on when the recordee started recording, had news at the beginning or shortened themes. The times would vary from copy to copy.)

First Spoken Line After Theme Ends

The way to do this is to sneak in quietly. . .

Show Description

[ Courtesy: Gary Hines - - ]   
  Nothing Box, Theme erased, when the ah was added, 1939 time capsule-rotted, Catholic poodles, Christmas gift list, Nothing Box, Fur seatbelts      
  

[ Courtesy: GROK Summary - - ]   
  This is another free-form Jean Shepherd broadcast, beginning with technical and musical digressions before settling into Christmas consumer absurdity and a longer, darker reading of a contemporary article about the future of humanity.

### Opening: Theme Song and Ragtime Cowboy Joe
The show starts with the accidental erasure of Shepherd's usual theme tape. He and engineer Bob scramble for a replacement, eventually playing an old recording while Shepherd works through the rarely heard full lyrics of "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" (including verses about the cowboy singing the herd to sleep). He treats the theme song itself as oddly controversial - more so, he jokes, than his more radical commentary.

### Time Capsules, Christmas Gimmicks, and the "Nothing Box"
Shepherd discusses time capsules (noting one from the 1939 New York World's Fair that had already rotted) and his own informal collection of period artifacts for future archaeologists. He then reads newspaper and catalog items as Christmas gift ideas, highlighting the excesses of affluent society:
- An IBM 709 computer album ("Music from Mathematics") that includes a machine-generated version of "Joy to the World."
- A free burial insurance policy by mail.
- A St. Roch medal to protect dogs.
- The centerpiece: the **Nothing Box** - a small metal box with randomly flashing lights, batteries, and a certificate of membership in the "National Association of Nothing Box Enthusiasts." It does absolutely nothing, costs $39.95, and is marketed as the perfect gift for the sophisticated person who has everything.
- Luxury fur-covered seat belts (ocelot $35, mink $50, chinchilla $100) from Hammacher Schlemmer.
- A transistorized automatic back-scratcher.

These are presented as signs of a society so prosperous that pure gimmicks become desirable.

### Newspapers, Significant Events, and the Huxley Symposium
Shepherd pivots to media criticism: newspapers focus on trivial events and gossip while missing deeper historical shifts. He praises the *Manchester Guardian Weekly* for covering a story almost ignored in American papers: a December 1962 symposium at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California, titled "The Prospects for Democracy 1963-1973."

He reads at length from Alistair Cooke's report on the gathering of roughly 120 philosophers, scientists, and writers (including Aldous Huxley, Justice William O. Douglas, Paul Hoffman, Harrison Brown, and Jonas Salk). Huxley's keynote painted a grim near-term outlook driven by population explosion, resource limits, the arms race, and the failure of underdeveloped nations to escape poverty and instability. Key points Shepherd emphasizes:
- World population rising from ~3 billion to 6 billion by 2000.
- Many poor countries likely moving from unrest to dictatorship (often military).
- Industrialized nations facing pressure toward totalitarian "civil defense" states.
- Technology making successful popular revolutions nearly impossible.
- Salk's comments on the permanent biological mixture of good and destructive impulses in humans, and the limited effect of peace parades against deeper drives.
- Demographer Harrison Brown's vision of a future United States as one vast continental city.
- The overall sense that political leaders were ignoring the scale of the problem in favor of short-term national and electoral concerns.      
  

Comments

• Shep explains where the "Ahh" came frome at the end of the theme

WOR ID

Time	Station ID (All times approximate)
06:54	speaking of second rate lyrics, this is WOR AM and FM New York

Commercials (All times approximate)

Time	Sponsor	Notes
22:17	Show Magazine

Music (All times approximate)

Time	Music Title	Notes
12:39	Unknown Music	Various violin pieces at various speeds

Engineers, Staff, and Guests in Booth

Time	Engineer, Staff or Guest
00:15	Bob Considine

Instruments and Special Effects Played During the Show

Instruments Played

None

Interesting Soundbites From Show:

	Time	Topic
		Theme Song

Airdate History ' - Original' date is earliest known broadcast)

This Show

		Date	Title
		December 10, 1962	Nothing Box	Original Airing

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"Imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're no longer a memory - Does it seem possible to you?
You better believe it's possible, not only possible but certainty." - Jean Shepherd - October 7, 1971