Share
![cover art for Karaoke: The History](https://res.cloudinary.com/pippa/image/fetch/h_750,w_750,f_auto/https://assets.pippa.io/shows/621cc5a140c0770013581ceb/1647353366383-f2f1db1c89f28176b418dca0906055fd.jpeg)
Patented: History of Inventions
Karaoke: The History
When you think about it, the Karaoke machine is a simple invention. Basically two existing inventions, the tape deck and the microphone, were stuck together, add some lyrics on a screen and BOOM, you have Karaoke.
Anyone could have thought of it. And indeed Karaoke machines were independently invented five times in a row between 1967 and 1972…
But the funny thing is that ALL FIVE times are in Japan.
Why was Japan so desperate to invent the Karaoke machine in the late sixties? Who was the first? And what was the first ever Karaoke song?
Matt Alt, the Author of Pure Invention, How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World is joining Patented today to tell the story of one of Japan’s most iconic inventions; Karaoke.
Edited by Alex Carlon, Produced by Freddy Chick & Alex Carlon. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.
Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, James Holland, Mary Beard and more.
Get 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe
You can take part in our listener survey here.
More episodes
View all episodes
158. Things vs. Humans: the spiteful behaviour of inanimate objects
30:26||Ep. 158If you can never connect to a printer, if furniture jumps out to stub your toe, if when you do the dishes the water jumps out the sink to soak you - then you are victim of the inanimate malice of things.The belief that all things are essentially out to get us us has a name - Resistentialism. This is a theory created by columnist Paul Jennings. On one level it's clearly a joke, on another level though he was convinced of its truth. Dallas, a man who has spent a lifetime celebrating tech, agrees.Paul's daughter joined Dallas to help explain her father's theory about the spiteful behaviour of inanimate objects. Les choses sont contre nous.Produced by Charlotte Long and Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte LongGet 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe157. First Ever Submarine
39:38||Ep. 157400 years ago on the River Thames a mad genius showed off the world's first submarine. A crowd of thousands including King James watched as Cornelis Drebbel disappeared beneath the murky water, only reemerging after three whole hours had passed.The same genius also came up with perpetual motion machines, self-regulating ovens, chemical air conditioning for Westminster Cathedral, and a project to provide central heating for all of London by building a perpetual fire on a hill outside the city, transporting the flames in pipes to people's houses.Elon Musk eat your heart out.Dallas's guest today is the amazing Vera Keller, historian of technology and author of a new book "The Interlopers: Early Stuart Projects and the Undisciplining of Knowledge"Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte LongGet 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe156. Inventing Fire: the First Spark of Humanity
36:38||Ep. 156Fire is the unsung hero of human evolution. We could not have turned into the big-brained, deep-thinking animals we are on raw food alone. The moment two million years ago that our forebears first started using fire to cook, was the spark that started everything off.That's according to today's guest - Richard Wrangham one of the world's leading anthropologists and author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us HumanEdited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Alex Carlon & Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte LongGet 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe155. Rise and Fall of High Heels
47:32||Ep. 155For most of their history, High Heels were resolutely masculine. The most manly of manly footwear. How did they turn into burning icons of femininity? And now that the heyday of women's high heels is over, what lies ahead for them?Dallas's guest today is Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum.Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Alex Carlon, Senior Producer is Charlotte LongGet 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribeYou can take part in our listener survey here.154. Sunglasses
30:15||Ep. 154What do all incredibly cool people have in common? They wear Sunglasses. Whether you're Miles Davis or Audrey Hepburn, James Dean or Bob Dylan, your sunglasses are never far away.Who invented sunglasses and who made them so cool? Was there a moment when sunglasses went from being just an instrument for protecting your eyes to becoming an iconic symbol of high fashion?Vanessa Brown, author of Cool Shades: The History and Meaning of Sunglasses knows everything about sunglasses and she joins Dallas to answer all your burning questions about sunglasses.Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Alex Carlon, Senior Producer is Charlotte LongGet 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribeYou can take part in our listener survey here.153. Deep-Sea Submersibles & the Titan Disaster
35:38||Ep. 153The Titan submersible implosion was a tragic example of marine exploration going wrong. Today Dallas speaks to one of the world's leading marine archaeologists about Titan and the history of deep-sea submersibles leading up to it. Why and how did we begin exploring the ocean depths? What drives us on? And what lessons should be learned from Titan?Edited by Tomos Delargy, Produced by Alex Carlon, Senior Producer Charlotte LongGet 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribeYou can take part in our listener survey here.152. Patriarchy
47:40||Ep. 152Why are men in charge? Who invented Patriarchy?Was it chest-thumping primate ancestors? Was it spear-wielding hunter gatherers? Was it at dawn of agriculture and the creation of property? Or was it something more subtle?These are the questions that Angela Saini has set out to answer in her new book The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule. She and Dallas talk through the mother of all origin stories.Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte LongGet 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribeYou can take part in our listener survey here.151. Donald Hebb: Brainwashing in the Cold War
31:25||Ep. 151In 1950, a new word ‘brainwashing’ entered the English language. From the paranoia of the Cold War a new type of Evil Scientist had emerged — the Mind Controller. But was there any truth to the fear?In the 1950s the CIA went to an eminent psychology Donald Hebb and asked him to investigate the possibility. His idea was to test what happened to the brain when it is starved of everything that anchors it to reality. Of anything to see, to listen to, to touch or smell.With nothing to hold onto, will the mind drift loose? Could it be reprogrammed?Dallas's guest today is Charlie Williams, a researcher at Queen Mary University in London who explores the history of brainwashing in the Cold War.Produced by Alex Carlon and Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, James Holland, Mary Beard and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribeYou can take part in our listener survey here.150. Medieval Swords
35:36||Ep. 150No invention conjures up the 'Old World' as much as the Sword. It's an utterly iconic object that whisks us back to knights in shining armour. But what were Medieval swords really like? Who owned them? And what did they mean at the time?Today we're bringing you an episode from another History Hit podcast we thought you'd love - Gone Medieval hosted by Matt Lewis and Eleanor Janega.This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob Weinberg.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, James Holland, Mary Beard and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code PATENTED. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribeYou can take part in our listener survey here.