The Sunshine Place
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Introducing: What We Spend
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine if you could ask someone anything you wanted about their finances. On What We Spend, people from across the country and across the financial s...
S2|E8: Survivors
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
By the early 2000s, the “troubled teens” of Straight Incorporated have grown up, and they’re no longer victims, they’re survivors. Many of th...
S2|E7: KIDS
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the 1990s, and the rehab landscape has changed, but into this new environment enters a familiar opportunist. Dr. Miller Newton, the personifica...
S2|E6: Poster Child
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Princess Diana graces Straight Incorporated with her presence at the invitation of the First Lady, Nancy Reagan. Their visit puts the program in the i...
S2|E5: The Mayflower Group
20 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Straight Incorporated sets its sites on the next prime market. The suburbs of Washington, D.C., with its population of wealthy and powerful parents wh...
S2|E4: Drug Warriors
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As Straight Incorporated makes plans to expand across the country, the program’s founder recruits a powerful ally with connections to the White Hous...
S2|E3: Start Again
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Seed is heading down a dark and dangerous path, but nobody seems to realize it, except for the kids. As The Seed grows, so does the ego of its fou...
S2|E2: The Seed
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To understand Straight, we have to look back at its predecessor: The Seed. This Florida-based rehab center was founded by Art Barker, a former alcohol...
S2|E1: Intake
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Halloween of 1982, a Florida teenager named Valerie is kidnapped from her home, by her own mom. She ends up at an experimental drug rehab called St...
Introducing: The Sunshine Place, Season 2
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the 1980s, where the war on drugs rages on and America's teenagers are caught in the crossfire. Enter Straight Incorporated, a controversia...
S1|E8: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chuck Dederich's story reaches its conclusion. Whether or not Synanon does is up for debate.
S1|E7: The Holy War
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chuck is consumed by paranoia and Synanon erupts in violence.
S1|E6: Changing Partners
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After Chuck's wife Betty passes away, he quickly finds a new partner, and he instructs his followers to find new ones too, whether they want to or not...
S1|E5: The Breeders
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chuck declares that there will be no more children born in Synanon, and he goes to great lengths to make sure of it.
S1|E4: The Punk Squad
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chuck breaks one of his two rules for Synanon, no violence, beginning with his youngest followers.
S1|E3: The Trip
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Legend, ritual, religion, LSD. Chuck experiments with all of it on his followers in Synanon.
S1|E2: The Miracle on the Beach
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chuck Dederich hits rock bottom as an alcoholic in the beachside slums of Los Angeles. It's 1958, and he's got nothing but an idea, but it's one that ...
S1|E1: The Kidsnatchers
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Synanon. If you're wondering what Synanon is, then you're asking the same question as Celena and Mike, whose lives change forever the momen...
Welcome to The Sunshine Place
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Once called “the miracle on the beach,” Synanon began in the 1960s as an experimental rehab facility in Santa Monica, California with a radical cl...