“In the beginning, God created Bill Fraclas and Barry Berman, but he didn’t create Bill X. Carlson,” says Barry Berman ’72 in this History Corner interview. Carlson, instead of being a divine creation, was the work of Berman and Fraclas who, during a time when student government was considerably unpopular, decided to invent the perfect political candidate as a prank. To their surprise, Bill X. Carlson not only caught on with their fellow students, but went on to win the student body presidential election by a landslide in 1972, prompting a complete overhaul of undergraduate government at UConn.

In this interview Berman – by coincidence, the uncle of UConn 360 podcaster Julie Bartucca ’10 – details how UConn’s most famous non-existent student came to be.

Listen to the podcast (from episode 3):

For full episodes of the UConn 360 podcast, visit uconn.edu/uconn360-podcast.