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miss the latest update. The

0:57

reality TV show known as Kid Nation,

0:59

which borrows its premise from Lord of

1:01

the Flies, was canceled after only one

1:03

season. Was the series an opportunity

1:05

to discover what kids are truly

1:08

capable of or simply a

1:10

ploy for ratings? With access

1:12

to former Kid Nation contestants, their

1:15

families, and the show's creators, I'll

1:17

uncover how this cult TV show

1:19

became a lightning rod for an

1:22

ongoing debate about the ethics of

1:24

reality TV. Now

1:26

here's the first episode

1:28

of split-screen Kid Nation.

1:35

Okay, so here's the deal. We

1:37

already need a fresh meat and

1:41

we're thinking about killing

1:44

a chicken. It's the fall of 2007 and CBS,

1:47

that network where you can

1:49

watch long running

1:56

hits like How I Met Your Mother and Two and

1:58

a Half Men, they They have a

2:00

couple new shows this year. One's

2:02

a little show called Big Bang Theory,

2:04

but they're also launching a new reality

2:06

show. It's

2:09

called Kid Nation. So

2:13

picture this right. They took 40

2:15

kids, all between the ages of eight

2:17

and 15. They took

2:20

them out to the middle of the desert in New

2:22

Mexico, and the premise is that these kids, without

2:24

the assistance of any adults, were

2:27

gonna set up their own society. Being posed

2:29

as a weird and social experiment. And

2:32

as you're watching this episode, you see

2:34

these 40 kids look around this dusty,

2:37

brown, southwestern-looking mess

2:39

hall, all looking confused,

2:41

running around like, well, you know,

2:44

yelling back and forth as to whether they're gonna

2:46

have to literally kill chickens to have food to

2:48

eat. Survive off of peaches

2:50

and apples and starch. We need protein.

2:52

I want to kill chickens because it's

2:54

mean, it's cruel. It's, animals

2:57

are friends. People just don't

2:59

realize that. They

3:02

don't really know I don't know. They

3:04

don't know. I

3:06

haven't seen anything like this before,

3:08

or since, to be honest. Then,

3:12

suddenly, one boy, you can easily peck him

3:14

as one of the older ones, because he's

3:16

giving you messy hair with the beanie and

3:19

the braces, millennial teenager. His name is

3:21

Greg. He steps up and

3:23

he talks about how he was an apprentice for

3:26

a butcher. I butchered cattle, I butchered pigs,

3:28

I butchered goats, I butchered lambs, I butchered

3:30

turkey, I butchered chicken. I

3:33

got a lot of questions. Like, first of all, why

3:35

did this teenager murder old McDonald's entire

3:37

farm? But also, why

3:40

does he seem so confident? The

3:43

kids are still debating, so they put it

3:45

to a vote. You might

3:47

say the chickens have come home to roost. People

3:50

want a meat. People want a chicken. They

3:53

want a meat. So

3:56

you get the shot of this desolate, quote unquote,

3:58

town that the kids are staying in. and

4:00

it looks like every town from any Western

4:02

you've ever seen. It's that shop

4:04

right before the duel or the shootout, and in

4:06

the lower third, you get a chiron that says,

4:09

caution, the following scene may be

4:11

intense for young children. Weird

4:14

disclaimer for a reality show with

4:16

only young children in it. I

4:19

wonder if the show thought about whether it was intense

4:22

for the young children on that side of the screen.

4:24

Time to kill students. A

4:29

bunch of kids circle around a tree stump where one

4:31

of the kids is holding the body of the chicken. The

4:34

chicken's neck is stretched out over the

4:37

tree stump guillotine style. Kids

4:39

are grabbing their throats in empathy, peeking through

4:41

their fingers at what's about to happen. Greg,

4:44

he grabs an axe, and you see

4:46

the axe swing down, and one of the

4:49

little girls in this highlighter pink hoodie, she

4:51

starts screaming for more. The

5:00

camera shows this chicken still flopping around,

5:03

and the children start to back away

5:05

in horror. And Greg

5:07

just moves on to the next chicken. And

5:11

he tosses the head of the chicken aside as

5:13

another kid who's holding the

5:16

chicken's still-flapping body, smiles

5:18

the biggest grin into the camera

5:20

and says, He set up

5:22

the natural size of a life

5:24

in death. He did this, he

5:26

started his first time. Sure,

5:34

now you got shows like Yellow

5:36

Jackets or The Wilds. Two recent

5:38

shows about groups of high school

5:40

age girls who survived plane crashes

5:42

in the wilderness and descend into

5:44

madness. But this

5:47

was 2007, and this wasn't

5:49

being sold as scripted. It was supposed to

5:51

be real. family

6:00

following the lives of the Loud family.

6:03

But because of an imminent writer strike

6:05

in 2007, networks were trying

6:07

to figure out formats that didn't rely on

6:09

writers or rely on actors. And

6:12

there was this pressure to be the

6:14

most outrageous, the most scandalous.

6:17

This was the genre of that decade. You

6:20

know, Survivor, America, and Idol, those

6:22

were the biggest shows on television.

6:25

In the first season finale of Survivor

6:27

got like 50 million viewers.

6:31

Maria Elena Fernandez is a

6:33

journalist. For 15 years she

6:35

covered entertainment for outlets like

6:37

The LA Times. CBS had

6:39

been the network to launch

6:41

Survivor, which really changed

6:44

everything about television.

6:46

And so they were looking for the next

6:48

big thing. CBS invited Maria and a

6:51

bunch of other journalists to a press

6:53

junket to show off their shiny new

6:55

reality show. TV critics took their seats.

6:57

The head of CBS hopped on stage.

7:00

CBS showed a four-minute trailer

7:02

of it and the

7:04

president of CBS, Nina Tassler, was really excited

7:06

about it and touting it as the next

7:09

biggest reality TV show hit. It's something you've

7:11

never seen before and you know you're gonna

7:13

fall in love with these kids and this

7:15

is gonna be the best thing ever. But

7:18

after the trailer ended, instead of rapturous applause,

7:21

a kind of stunned silence filled the room.

7:25

People were gagged. It

7:30

was an intense kind of press conference

7:33

where the TV credits were like,

7:35

what is happening? Is it fair for

7:37

these kids to be working in this

7:39

manner? Is it fair for them

7:41

to be so separated from their parents have

7:44

absolutely no contact with their parents at all

7:46

for 40 days? And you know the

7:48

argument is the parents sign

7:50

up for this. You know the parents

7:52

agree to this but do you know

7:55

what you're getting into? When

7:57

you do something like this. special

8:00

summer camp, it was kind of the responses we

8:02

were getting to those questions at the time, you

8:04

know, that kids go away to summer camp all

8:07

the time and this is in the same manner,

8:09

but it turned out to be very different than

8:11

summer camp. Then

8:13

people started to ask questions about the working

8:15

conditions. At the time New

8:17

Mexico, which is where it was filmed, did not have

8:20

a strict child labor

8:22

law. And so the production was

8:24

able to, you know, use that as a

8:26

loophole. The reports were that the

8:28

kids were on set like 14, 15

8:30

hours. It was really no limit. The

8:33

controversy builds and child advocacy groups, they

8:35

have their say. Critics start demanding that

8:37

the show gets canceled. Businesses start pulling

8:40

their ad money. And so all

8:42

of that creates more

8:44

controversy and more confusion and, you

8:46

know, was it real? Wasn't it

8:48

real? You know, that's the whole

8:50

debate about reality TV. But

8:53

you know what they say about all

8:55

press. All this attention does

8:57

is create a buzz. Kid

8:59

Nation is soon the most talked

9:01

about show of the season. The show's creator,

9:04

Tom Foreman, pours gas on the fire by

9:06

admitting that the show was

9:08

partly inspired by the dystopian novel Lord

9:10

of the Flies. CBS

9:14

goes on the defensive, denying

9:16

any and all allegations of

9:19

mistreatment. But their arguments

9:21

don't persuade New Mexico's attorney general,

9:23

who opens an investigation into whether

9:25

Kid Nation violated federal child labor

9:27

laws. The controversy peaked

9:29

after filming wrapped when the mother of one

9:31

of the children filed a complaint claiming that

9:33

her 12 year old daughter was burned in

9:36

the face when cooking a meal and

9:39

another was hospitalized after accidentally drinking

9:41

bleach. I really don't think

9:43

parents had any idea what they were getting

9:45

into. I'm

9:49

Josh Bwen. I'm an audio creative and

9:51

a lot of the work I do

9:53

focuses on the impact of pop culture,

9:56

not just as entertainment, but as a lens

9:58

that allows us to ask for more. questions

10:00

about ourselves and the world we live in.

10:04

And I want to know what

10:07

was KidNation really about? From

10:11

CBC this is split screen

10:13

KidNation. Episode 1 drops

10:16

in the desert. So

10:23

you had to turn in your

10:25

application, the 20 or

10:27

30 page application. This is Ron and

10:30

like me he also loves reality TV.

10:37

And the application had you tell obviously

10:39

that you had a family and what

10:42

their names were and their ages and

10:44

things like that. But while I'm more

10:46

than comfortable to watch from the couch

10:48

Ron actually wanted to be on reality

10:50

TV. And everyone

10:53

else was 20-something and gorgeous and I was

10:55

like you know just this average guy and

10:57

I was like well at

10:59

least I got personality I'll try that.

11:04

Most of the people around me they were

11:07

pretty but they didn't have much

11:09

substance to what they were saying. Ron

11:11

sent his application for producers to review

11:13

along with hundreds of others. Days

11:16

and weeks go by but he doesn't hear

11:18

anything. Then finally out of the blue after

11:20

months of waiting he comes home to find

11:23

a voicemail because 2006.

11:25

We get a

11:29

message on the answering machine. Hey

11:31

we saw your application and we kind of

11:33

pulled you out as a person of interest. And

11:36

that's all it said. At first I

11:38

thought it was a prank so my best friend

11:40

was always doing pranks on me so I called

11:43

him first to check and see and he's like

11:45

I don't even know what you're talking about. So

11:48

I thought that's it I'm

11:50

on the show. I

11:52

better start preparing learn how

11:54

to make a fire. Now like

11:56

I said this is 2006 and

11:58

the biggest reality show on TV that

12:01

year is Survivor. The

12:03

premise is simple. A bunch of

12:05

castaways are dropped off in a remote

12:07

location, usually like a desert island or

12:09

a jungle, and they have to

12:11

outwit and outlast each other through a series of

12:14

challenges. The last one

12:16

standing wins a major cash

12:18

prize. It's kind of

12:20

hard to remember just how big of a

12:22

cultural impact a show like Survivor had. Can

12:25

you name another show that's been on the

12:27

air for 45 seasons? Four or

12:29

five. It still leads in the ratings. So

12:33

when he calls back, Ron finds

12:35

himself on the phone with a

12:37

casting agent from CBS, the network

12:39

that makes Survivor. But

12:41

as it turns out, they wanted to talk

12:44

to him about another show altogether. I call

12:48

her back and they asked about

12:50

the girls and I was kind of shocked.

12:53

If not Ron the producers are interested

12:55

in, the casting agent tells Ron that

12:57

they're beginning to work on a brand

13:00

new show. But

13:02

with a little twist, this one's

13:04

for kids. How was the

13:06

show explained to you? She said it's

13:09

like Survivor, only

13:12

gentler, only more

13:15

like summer camp, and

13:17

then they can win special privileges like

13:19

TVs and video games and stuff

13:22

at summer camp. I'm

13:24

like, oh, that's kind of cute. Ron had

13:26

mentioned his daughters, Olivia and Mallory in

13:28

his audition tape. The casting agent

13:30

wanted to know if they would be willing to

13:32

audition. I said no, nah,

13:36

we're not interested really. And

13:38

she's like, well, you know, why don't you just give

13:40

it a try? Why don't you guys just talk about

13:42

it and see if, you know,

13:46

maybe you could do this for the experience of

13:48

it. My wife and I talked

13:50

about it. And we're like, okay,

13:53

they're never in a million years going

13:55

to pick two ordinary

13:57

girls from Indiana. I

14:00

didn't do it. It could be fun. They

14:02

won't hate it. I

14:07

think we had come home from school that day

14:09

and my dad just approaches us out of the

14:11

blue and is kind of like,

14:14

hey, the people from CBS called me back and

14:16

we were excited at first because we thought he

14:18

was gonna be on Survivor because

14:20

we had no idea how long an audition process

14:22

was. So we were like, well, you sent them

14:24

an application. So that means that's it, right? He

14:27

went to my sister and I and kind of

14:29

asked, hey, like this is a long shot. You

14:32

guys probably wouldn't get on TV, but would you

14:34

like to go audition? Like just for fun, whatever.

14:37

Growing up in Indiana, in the middle of the

14:39

country, Ron's oldest daughter, Olivia, had

14:41

the same type of teenage angst that

14:43

Kelly Clarkson sang to the bank. The

14:46

middle school existential desire to break

14:49

away from boredom, from strip malls,

14:51

from state fairs. She

14:53

saw this as an opportunity

14:55

to finally do something exciting.

14:59

The kids who picked on me in middle school weren't even

15:01

cool, which is how you know you're not cool. Prior

15:04

to middle school was actually a pretty

15:07

outspoken, energetic kid and

15:09

middle school hit and it broke me. And

15:12

so I became really shy and really

15:14

unsure of myself. Olivia could not,

15:16

for the life of her, understand why these

15:18

LA casting producers would even be interested in

15:20

her. Just like her dad,

15:22

Olivia understood that her chances of actually getting

15:24

on the show were

15:27

slim to none. I was nervous about it, but

15:29

my sister very much wanted to. And so my

15:32

parents weren't gonna let her go without me

15:34

because I was older. And so

15:37

we both ended up auditioning. While

15:42

Olivia, who saw this as a chance for

15:44

adventure, was 13 at the time, her sister,

15:46

Mallory, she was only eight. Specifically

15:50

with Mallory, her being so young, did

15:52

you have any concerns about that? Yes,

15:55

I would not have let Mallory go

15:57

alone, period. I

16:01

mean, that was their goal, is to

16:03

make us feel comfortable and relaxed and

16:05

that our kids are in no

16:08

way in no danger

16:10

whatsoever because there's so many people

16:12

there and they've all been background

16:14

checked and you're, it's

16:17

just going to be summer camp. I mean, you could send your

16:19

kids to summer camp, wouldn't you? We

16:24

sent in like this giant application with

16:26

all of these questions and they knew

16:28

everything there was to know about us.

16:30

They'd even ask things about our parents so

16:32

that they kind of knew what kind of house we

16:34

were being raised in. I mean, they knew everything from

16:36

who I had a crush on to my favorite color

16:38

to who my parents voted for

16:40

in every of the elections that they had

16:42

been able to vote in. Once the

16:44

questionnaire is done, there's a series of

16:46

phone interviews, then an in-person screen test

16:48

at a local hotel. Of

16:50

course, being a middle school kid, some of

16:52

it was embarrassing. Like they were

16:55

asking me about my period in front of my

16:57

dad and I'm turning beet red because I'm, you

16:59

know, a 13 year old girl and this is

17:01

a brand new thing to me at the time

17:03

and so yeah, they knew

17:06

everything. After

17:11

almost an entire year, endless interviews

17:13

and mountains and mountains of paperwork,

17:16

Olivia and Mallory were invited to a

17:18

hotel in LA for a final round

17:21

of interviews. This

17:23

hotel is like full of kids, but it's silent

17:26

because we're not allowed to talk to any of them or tell any

17:28

of the staff why we're there. They

17:30

would ask you all kinds of things, you know,

17:34

what would you do if, X, Y, Z, things

17:37

like if somebody makes you upset or if your

17:39

friend does this behind your back or, you know,

17:41

any of these kind of things. I

17:44

mean, they tested us in every way possible.

17:46

They knew everything there was to know about

17:48

us. It's a bizarre experience and

17:50

it causes you to be incredibly self-aware because

17:53

you have to be able to answer any tiny little

17:55

question about yourself or a giant philosophical one at the

17:57

age of 13. days

18:00

of grueling auditions, medical examinations, psychological

18:02

assessments, Olivia, Mallory and their parents

18:05

are finally able to pack it

18:07

all up and go home. I

18:10

was in the shower because we were about to leave the

18:12

hotel and so I wanted to clean up before we got

18:14

on the plane and my mom

18:17

peeks her head into the bathroom and says,

18:19

you got on the show. And I'm like,

18:22

what? I

18:26

was in shock. My sister was

18:28

really excited immediately, but I was really shocked

18:32

that things had gotten this far because my

18:34

parents the whole time were being realistic and

18:36

saying, you guys probably won't get on, but

18:38

what a cool experience to get to see

18:40

the behind the scenes of a TV show.

18:43

All of a sudden, Olivia realizes

18:46

she knows next to nothing about the show that she

18:48

signed up for. We were told

18:50

that it was basically a summer camp with cameras

18:52

and that we were also pretty explicitly told that

18:54

there would be no like villains on the show,

18:56

that it was just going to be this cute

18:59

summer camp show for kids. So

19:05

Olivia and her family returned to

19:07

Indiana back to their ordinary life.

19:09

I just kept going to school, you know, I

19:12

just kept living my normal life and kind of

19:14

pretending that this thing was not going

19:16

to happen. This whole time,

19:18

the show's been wrapped in secrecy. Producers

19:21

have even given it a code name.

19:23

And I believe the code name for it was

19:25

the Manhattan Project. The

19:30

Manhattan Project. Cool.

19:33

You know, the same name given to

19:35

the U.S. military secret plan to develop

19:37

the world's first atomic bomb. If

19:40

I were sending my child into this thing,

19:42

I wouldn't exactly feel reassured. I

19:44

remember thinking, hmm, this sounds a little

19:46

weird. I don't know.

19:48

It's horrible when you think about it.

19:54

I find it interesting that even early on when

19:56

they're making the code name for the show, they

19:58

know this show is going to. cause

20:00

ripples. They know that this

20:02

show is going to be

20:05

controversial. There was also a 22-page

20:07

contract that the parents had to sign.

20:10

I've managed to get my hands on a copy

20:12

and let's just say it's pretty comprehensive. Paragraph

20:15

3 says that the children won't be

20:17

unable to contact any family or any

20:19

friends from their home life during the

20:21

period of filming. According

20:23

to paragraph 6, if a child should

20:25

be seriously harmed or killed during the

20:28

production, the parents will not only release

20:30

CBS from its obligations but the producers

20:32

as well. Another

20:35

clause holds parents and their children

20:37

solely responsible for quote any

20:40

emotional distress, illness, sexually

20:42

transmitted diseases, HIV,

20:44

and pregnancy. The

20:46

children were paid a mere $5,000 stipend

20:49

for the entire experience. And how

20:56

did they get away with being

20:58

so stingy? By claiming

21:00

that the kids weren't working for CBS, they

21:03

actually were just participants at a summer camp,

21:05

which in their view meant that they weren't

21:07

actually subject to federal labor laws. And

21:10

the penalty for violating this confidentiality

21:12

agreement? $5 million. If

21:18

you're wondering about the legality of all this, don't

21:20

worry, me too. When you

21:22

saw the contract absolving CBS with

21:24

any liability, what were your concerns?

21:27

The whole thing. Obviously, CBS has a

21:29

lot more money than I do. And you know

21:31

their lawyers have written that in such a way

21:33

that it definitely

21:36

causes pause because you think,

21:38

hmm. But honestly, we didn't

21:40

think that they were gonna get

21:42

on the show. In

21:45

early April, Olivia and Mallory dropped out

21:47

of school and flew with their parents

21:49

to a New Mexico hotel. And

21:52

that night before filming started, the crew came by

21:54

their room to check through their luggage. We

21:57

were allowed to take a certain number of outfits. certain

22:00

things. The thing that killed me as

22:02

a 13 year old girl was that I was

22:04

not allowed to have anything

22:06

to deal with my period. I was not allowed to have

22:08

that. I would have to go to crew

22:10

members in order to get that if

22:13

I needed it, which was very

22:16

embarrassing. The next day

22:18

the kids got up, they had breakfast, and

22:20

then they were like, okay, say goodbye to your

22:22

parents. Like you're not going to talk to them

22:25

for 40 days. And so Mallory, who is eight

22:27

at the time, is like,

22:29

okay, I love you guys. Bye, we're going to

22:31

have so much fun. And I was

22:34

crying my eyes out like they

22:36

were dying or something. Within

22:46

a couple of seconds, there were

22:48

a number of armed security with

22:51

great big airport machine guns. An

22:54

autism patient daring escape from NHS

22:57

psychiatric care pits her against some

22:59

of the most powerful institutions in

23:01

the state. From

23:04

the multi award winning Sky News story cast

23:06

team, in partnership with the

23:08

Independent, follow Patient 11 wherever

23:11

you get your podcasts. The

23:29

people were coming through the aisles with cameras

23:32

and basically saying, okay, start talking to each other.

23:34

Like start introducing yourselves to each other because

23:36

we had not been allowed to talk to any of

23:38

these kids that we'd seen in two hotels. Without

23:41

much fanfare, the producers scurry

23:43

around busily fixing tiny microphones to

23:46

the collars of 36 children

23:49

as they take their seats aboard

23:51

a battered yellow school bus. It

23:54

seemed like the cameras were already rolling. Olivia

23:58

Mallory, they take their seat near the middle of

24:00

the bus, a producer puts a camera

24:02

and a mic in their face and just starts

24:04

reeling off questions. What do you

24:06

think about where we're going or how do

24:09

you feel right now? Do you miss your

24:11

parents? You know, all these kind of questions.

24:14

One of the things we weren't allowed to have was watches, so

24:17

we actually never knew what time it was. And

24:19

so I have no idea how long they drove us

24:22

around on that bus, but they drove us around on

24:24

the bus for quite a while. As

24:27

the bus rolls along the barren New Mexico

24:29

desert and the crew are tripping over backpacks

24:31

left in the aisle, one of

24:33

the producers asks a boy with long

24:35

hair what he'll miss most about home.

24:43

The boy's name is Jimmy and like Mallory,

24:45

he's only eight years old. Eventually

24:48

the bus stops by a wooden shack.

24:51

It looks like it's in the middle

24:53

of nowhere. There's

24:55

nothing here. There are

24:57

40 of us. There's one building. This

25:00

is what we're going to do. And

25:02

they let us kind

25:05

of panic for a

25:07

minute. Like we kept asking the producers

25:09

and the adults, hey, is this

25:11

where we're going to be? Like what's going

25:13

on here? And they would not answer our questions.

25:15

They just kept telling us, stop talking us, talk

25:17

to each other. A man

25:25

with spiky black hair wearing a plaid

25:27

shirt and jeans arrives on the scene.

25:31

He introduces himself as Kid Nation

25:33

host Jonathan Karsh. Before

25:35

Kid Nation, Karsh had been a

25:37

reality producer for Extreme Makeover Home

25:39

Edition. He would later go

25:41

on to develop MTV's Catfish, a

25:44

reality show where people catch people pretending

25:46

to be other people online. Jonathan

25:49

tells the kids that they're going to be spending the next 40

25:52

days in an abandoned ghost town just a couple

25:54

miles down the road. I

25:57

was relieved in that moment because I thought, okay,

26:00

This isn't really where we're going to stay. We're going to go down

26:02

the road a little bit and they'll be somewhere

26:04

real for us to stay. The

26:06

kids start gathering their belongings, but

26:08

they're interrupted by loud whirling sounds

26:10

and dust flying everywhere. Olivia looks

26:12

up and she sees a helicopter

26:15

approaching. When the helicopter landed and

26:17

these kids came out, he was telling

26:19

us this is going to be the town council. And

26:23

we all thought, oh, perfect. They

26:25

probably told them what we're supposed

26:27

to be doing. The

26:29

producers picked four kids to be the leaders.

26:31

They're known as the town council and it's

26:34

made up of 12 year old spelling bee

26:36

champion Anjay, 11 year old

26:38

Boy Scout Mike, 10 year old beauty

26:40

pageant queen Taylor and 12 year old

26:42

theater kid Laurel. And

26:44

then when we started talking to them at first, we

26:46

realized they had no idea what was going on either.

26:54

After meeting the town council, Jonathan tells

26:56

the kids to load up their belongings

26:59

onto rickety wooden wagons. They're going

27:02

to have to hike to their final destination. The

27:05

wagons came out and we're

27:07

in the middle of the desert. I just sat there and

27:09

thought what nightmare have we gotten

27:12

into? The journey is

27:14

several miles long and on

27:17

screen it looks totally chaotic.

27:20

I don't know if you remember that game

27:22

organ trail from the 90s, but it looks

27:24

like a real life version of that. They

27:27

look like they tried to afford the river and

27:29

their oxen diet. The kids have

27:31

to catch up with a herd of wild goats

27:33

that are escaping from pens and the wagon

27:35

with all their supplies rolls over and the kids

27:38

start figuring. One of them, 14

27:40

year old DK suffers a muscle

27:42

spasm and falls to the ground clutching

27:44

his ankle. Exhausted

27:47

but excited, the pioneers

27:50

finally arrive at their destination.

27:53

When we first got to Bonanza City,

27:55

I really thought that there was going to

27:57

be someone there to tell us. what

28:00

we were supposed to be doing, and

28:03

nobody did. This

28:13

abandoned ghost town where the kids are gonna

28:15

build their new world, it's 13

28:17

miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's

28:21

called Bonanza City. It

28:24

was once a gold rush town established in

28:26

1880, but the population plummeted from 2000 to

28:28

200 within just a few years, and

28:32

it was completely abandoned by the early 1900s. This

28:36

probably explains why Kid Nation adopts this

28:38

frontier framing for its young participants for

28:41

most of the show the kids are

28:43

referred to as pioneers. But

28:45

Bonanza also has this long history as

28:47

a filming location. It's been Hollywood's go-to

28:49

since the 1950s with more than 130

28:51

films and TV shows, including

28:57

classic westerns like Butch Cassidy and

28:59

The Sundance Kid, Easy

29:01

Rider, and Lonesome Dove. Tragically,

29:05

Bonanza was also the setting of a

29:07

real-life shooting in 2021 when

29:10

actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop

29:12

gun that killed rising cinematographer Helena

29:14

Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza.

29:18

The place is laid out like the

29:20

letter X, with four unpaved streets

29:23

lined with wooden buildings. On

29:25

one side you have the bunkhouses, on the

29:27

other side is a half-sheltered kitchen, and a

29:29

small chapel where the town council would hold

29:31

their meetings. All the adults

29:33

kind of looked at us and went silent, because

29:36

they just wanted to get our initial

29:38

reactions on film. They had intentionally

29:40

kind of trashed the town a little bit, put

29:43

random things all over the place, so we had to clean

29:45

it up a little bit. When

29:47

we figured out that there was not going to

29:49

be any sort of beds, that we were basically

29:52

going to have to spread our sweeping bags out

29:54

on the floor, we were all

29:56

pretty surprised. Honestly, a lot of us

29:58

were still scared and worried about what was going on. going to

30:00

happen because none

30:03

of us had really been told the full truth about what

30:05

the experience was going to be like. It's

30:07

not just that the bunks are bad. To

30:10

use the bathroom, the 40

30:12

of them have to share one

30:14

wooden shack with a wooden seat

30:18

over a hole in the ground. There

30:21

was a line for the outhouse and people like

30:25

dying to get in and that was all

30:27

we had. While some of the kids

30:29

settle into their bunks, others are trying to figure out

30:31

the food situation. And it doesn't

30:33

take long for an argument to erupt in the

30:35

kitchen as the kids struggle to

30:38

make mac and cheese. They don't know that

30:40

you have to wait for the water to

30:42

boil first before you put the noodles in

30:44

because they're kids. We didn't

30:46

have cheese. We didn't have refrigeration so we didn't have

30:48

cheese. And we only had a wood

30:51

burning stove. So it

30:53

took a very, very long time to cook anything. To

30:56

make matters worse, there's not even

30:59

running water. If they

31:01

want water, they have to fill up their

31:03

buckets from a single water pump on the

31:05

outskirts of town and carry it all the

31:07

way back. The first day was

31:09

horrible. And honestly, when you look at the

31:11

show, if you

31:14

pay attention to the

31:16

beginning footage, what you see at

31:18

the start is a lot of footage of Jonathan. A

31:20

lot more footage than any of the rest of the show. Because

31:25

we were super cold and miserable that first day.

31:27

I remember that first night, sleeping

31:30

a little bit but really mostly

31:32

just trying to keep warm and stop

31:35

crying. And then on top of

31:37

it, not long after we got into the high desert, a

31:39

lot of us got altitude sickness. And

31:42

so we had one outhouse and almost all of

31:44

us had diarrhea. And

31:48

so I remember that first night just being

31:50

miserable. It's not really that

31:52

easy to function when you're kind of worried about

31:54

your basic survival. You know? Distress.

32:00

and the physical demands of those first

32:02

couple days proved too much for some

32:04

of the pioneers. It doesn't

32:06

take long for Jimmy, the youngest kid

32:08

in the entire town, the bushy

32:10

hair boy who worried on the bus

32:12

to Bonanza that he might die out

32:14

there to start talking about feeling homesick.

32:17

There's a scene in the first episode where the

32:19

kids realize that Jimmy's gone missing in a remote

32:21

area of the town. When they find

32:24

him, he's being comforted by one of the

32:26

older kids named Laurel. Remember, she came into

32:28

town in the helicopter and is part of

32:30

the town council. The hilarious unspoken

32:32

part about that scene is that he was running

32:34

away from producers who were making him cry, and

32:37

that's why Laurel needed to go and comfort him. So

32:40

yes, he was a little kid who was scared of what

32:42

was going on, absolutely, but he

32:44

was constantly reminded of that and stirred

32:46

up by his

32:49

producers. At

32:51

the end of the first episode, host Jonathan Karsh

32:53

addresses the pioneers at a town hall meeting. He

32:56

asks if anyone wants to go home. You

33:00

see one small hand go up. Jimmy,

33:03

why do you want to go home? I'm

33:05

really homesick. I

33:09

don't like the owner. I

33:12

think he's more mature than a lot of other kids. Yeah,

33:14

I'm gonna find him home. He's

33:17

scary. Do you

33:19

want to leave this entire experience

33:22

and go back home? Yeah. In

33:26

fairness to Jimmy, he might be onto something. He

33:28

might be just the most self-aware

33:31

eight-year-old I've ever seen.

33:34

How did you feel when you saw one of the kids

33:36

leaving? When Jimmy left, I think

33:38

a lot of us, by that point, hilariously

33:41

enough, even though it was so early on,

33:43

we had all kind of bonded over this

33:45

shared, wild experience

33:47

that we were doing that we felt

33:49

betrayed by him leaving. We

33:51

thought, you've betrayed

33:53

the whole group. We were all kind of mad

33:55

at him for leaving. I can

33:57

look back on that moment and say, yeah,

33:59

Jimmy. That's fair. You did not want to do

34:01

that. That is totally fair. After

34:04

Jimmy leaves, Olivia's biggest worry

34:07

becomes Mallory. I was

34:09

in survival mode. I really

34:12

felt like I was out in open waters and that I had

34:14

to be strong for

34:16

my sister because she was the

34:18

youngest one there. Jimmy's

34:22

abrupt departure is the first big test

34:24

on Kid Nation, but it's only one

34:26

of many wild moments on this roller

34:28

coaster ride that these kids have just

34:31

embarked on. We viewed

34:33

making it through almost as like

34:36

our our thing that we were doing together.

34:38

We were on this mission together. We were

34:40

going to prove to the world that we

34:42

could make a better society than adults could.

34:44

And that mission would be

34:46

filled with many hard decisions like whether

34:48

the kids should choose a television or

34:51

an additional outhouse because the 40 of

34:53

them have been sharing one. I've been

34:57

fascinated with this show since the first time I

34:59

saw it in 2007. I

35:01

loved the premise. What

35:03

would society look like if it was created

35:06

by kids? Kids that haven't had their hearts

35:08

broken or trust in people destroyed?

35:11

Kids who weren't afraid to be idealistic

35:13

because the world hadn't stolen that from

35:15

them yet. Over

35:17

the next five episodes, I

35:20

want to understand what they were thinking placing 40

35:22

kids in a makeshift

35:24

desert town to fend for themselves. Was

35:27

this a genuine opportunity to discover what kids

35:29

are capable of? Or was

35:31

it simply reality television once again

35:33

chasing shock value and high ratings?

35:37

I want to know what Kid Nation can teach us about

35:39

where we were as a culture in 2007 to

35:42

see what's changed and what

35:45

hasn't. Coming

35:47

up on split screen, Kid Nation.

35:50

The kids compete over social class

35:53

and huge cash prizes. The

35:56

very next day I think I tried to stage

35:58

a coup like take a vote and overthrow the the whole

36:00

system. There's beef over religion. I

36:02

didn't realize how divisive religion was in

36:05

America until about that point in my

36:07

life. And producers are

36:09

accused of blurring the line

36:11

between entertainment and exploitation. It

36:13

was really hurtful that these people were getting

36:15

in between our friendships. It

36:18

was incredibly hard to be 13 and to

36:20

feel like nobody in the world believed me

36:23

when I said this is not really how

36:25

this happened. Do you think the

36:28

show could get made today? No. That's

36:37

this season on Split Screen. Split

36:43

Screen Kid Nation was hosted by

36:46

me, Josh Gwynn. It was

36:48

written by myself and Aron Keller who was

36:50

a series producer. For Vespucci,

36:52

the managing producer is Thomas Curry.

36:54

The story editor is Matt Willis.

36:56

The series was sound designed and

36:59

edited by Alice Boyd. Executive

37:01

producers are Jonny Galvin and Daniel

37:03

Turk. For CBC, the

37:05

senior producers are Kate Evans and Willow

37:07

Smith. Anna Ashtee

37:09

is our coordinating producer. The executive

37:12

producers are Chris Oak and Cecil

37:14

Fernandez. Tonya Springer is the

37:16

senior manager for CBC Podcasts and Arif

37:18

Noorani is the director. Episodes

37:21

are recorded at Arcade 160 Studios

37:23

in Atlanta, Georgia. Our sound engineer

37:25

is Jimmy Dustin. Split

37:27

Screen is a Vespucci production for

37:30

CBC. That

37:35

was the first episode of Split Screen

37:37

Kid Nation. You can listen to more

37:39

episodes right now everywhere you get your

37:42

podcasts. For

37:44

more CBC podcasts, go

37:46

to cbc.ca/ podcasts.