Bad Reception: Making the Best of Bad TV

Much like our podcast, Manimal returns despite nobody really asking for it! And what better place for his return than on another bad TV show! That's right, NightMan gets assistance from the only superhero willing to show up on syndicated television!

Two legendary television disasters.

One completely unnecessary crossover.

Zero understanding of what's happening.

This week, Mike and Morgan watch the infamous NightMan/Manimal crossover episode and attempt to answer the question nobody was asking: can combining two bad TV shows somehow create a good one?

I mean... no. Obviously.

Featuring ambiguously psychic superheroes, 90s CGI animal transformations, baffling time travel, and a very confusing use of the term Daddy.

After a perfectly reasonable six-year hiatus, Mike and Morgan are back! In this special mini-episode, we catch up on where we've been, look back on some of our favorite moments from Bad Reception, try to remember how podcasting works, and prepare for a triumphant return to the world of cancelled television.

We also reveal the show we'll be covering next week, which somehow involves TWO of the worst shows we have ever watched existing in the same universe. Shockingly, combing them doesn't seem to solve either of their problems!

Note: Though we are back, we are not Dinosaurs, nor is this a story about such.

Get ready for some situations, and maybe even some comedy, as we drop the first episode in our "S(t)einfeld Stinkers" series! This time Jason Alexander goes from lovably enraged loser George Costanza to a third rate Tony Robbins named Bob Patterson. The ep we watched, "Naked Bob," deals with his serious confidence issues regarding his downtown region. That's right, there's lots of boner talk in this one! (more so even than usual!) With the biggest comedy hit of all time only a few years behind him, how did J-Xan's followup sitcom fold faster than Kramer in The Contest?? This old-school style ABC laugh-track comedy aired only 5 episodes before getting nixed. I mean, seriously, what is the deal?

Good golly, it's our two year podiversary!! We celebrate by finally having our hilarious and talented friend, comedian/actor/podcaster Nick Aragon (F*ck This Place podcast, @instaragon) on the show!! And what a treat of a show we had for him! (shout-out to Josh Hollis of Predict-o-Cast for the recommendation!!) In a world full of shows based on popular, well-established, interesting and iconic superhero characters, one show dared to be different. One show had the balls to reach into the depths of obscurity and pull out a mediocre character that literally not one person was asking for. And only one show had the audacity to make a bafflingly inept show around that character. That's right, we watched the nearly inexplicable, gut-bustingly stupid, 1997 syndicated super-flop, NightMan!! Get ready for a super-sized episode full of Morgan's uncontrollable laughter, Mike's top-notch puns, and more Neil Breen references than you can shake a laptop at! Happy two years, baddies! 

There can only be one... spinoff of a TV show... spun off from a movie... But that means there's definitely at least three... Right?? Truthfully we don't know anything about the Highlander series, and watching this brief side quest didn't help us out at all. I think it involves swords, kicking stuff, and maybe stealing diamonds? On the plus side, Morgan found The Raven so exciting that she literally lost consciousness during most of the show! There's no shortage of amusing anecdotes and tangents on this one as we try desperately to find anything interesting to say about a show so bland I can't even be bothered to finish writing this descrip

Paging Dr. Reception! It’s the return of Good Reception! We take a look at the massive hit medical drama/mystery/comedy House (or House, M.D., it was unclear what the official title was). Will this House our new home, or will we be “bringing down the House??” We had never seen even a single episode of this seminal series starring the world’s grumpiest doctor, so we decided to check out the most acclaimed episode we could find after spending about 5 seconds on google, Season 1, Episode 21: Three Stories. Plus we share our vast Football knowledge and talk about the classic film that everyone knows, Swing Kids! It’s like prescription for laughter!

Things get hairy this week as we take a silver-handled stab at the mid-season transformation of 1990's She-Wolf of London, Love and Curses! That's right, after 14 episodes, this lady-werewolf show was moved to Los Angeles, retooled and even given a new name! ...And then was cancelled after 6 episodes. Our friend, and talented actor, Lucia Towers joins us for one of the most genuinely enjoyable shows we've watched yet! This is one werewolf (show) that doesn't bite! We were over the moon for it! A real silver lining! We were howling with laughter... okay, I'm done.

If there's one thing that kids love, it's serious, high-concept science fiction, right?! Well somebody must have thought so, because the 1994 semi-hit film, turned beloved series, Stargate, got the animated treatment in 2002! But make sure your kids are all caught up with the SG universe because this baby ain't gonna hold your hand with exposition. And character back stories? Who needs em! It's got bureaucracy. It's got villains without motives. It's got people with blue hair and face tattoos! What I'm saying is, this is not a good show for children... or anyone else. Stargate: Infinity? More like Stargate: Canceled.

Merry KITTsmas everyone!! This holiday season we watched the somewhat Christmas-y episode "Silent Knght" of the 1982 classic Knight Rider! Everyone is here: Raw Hoff, Mr. Feeny, problematic terminology, Santa with a machine gun, bank robbing clowns, jumping cars, killer corn tractors, and, who could forget, the Worst Uncle Ever! It's our first time behind the wheel of the Knight Industries Two Thousand (which is apparently what KITT stands for??), did it get our engines revving our drive us off the road? You can find out really easily by just listening to this episode!