A 72-year-old in a floppy hat and a cheap house dress, missing her teeth, scoring a Billboard Top 40 hit. Behind that harmless grandmother caricature was Loretta Mary Aiken, one of comedy's sharpest and most radical pioneers.

This episode unpacks how Jackie 'Moms' Mabley weaponized society's tendency to ignore older women, using her persona as a Trojan horse to deliver razor-sharp critiques of racism, sexuality, and the political establishment to mainstream audiences who thought they were just laughing at a clown.

• The brutal early losses, an exploding fire engine and a Christmas Day truck death, that orphaned her and shaped the survivor she became
• How she repossessed the name of a man who wronged her, taking 'Mabley' to build her own empire
• Becoming one of the first openly gay comedians, performing 'lesbian stand- ...