This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from September 2019, we marked the day in 1975 that the BBC aired the first episode of “Fawlty Towers,” a landmark comedy series that was - amazingly - received about as poorly  by TV executive and the public as Basil Fawlty’s appalling attitude was received by guests at his hotel. How did it finally get its due? Plus: AC/DC songs can get the bison of Yellowstone National Park moving. For bison about to rock, we salute you?

Fawlty Towers: the classic sitcom the BBC didn’t want (Telegraph)

I'm afraid I thought this one as dire as its title (Letters of Note)

Cops Blast AC/DC to Get the Reluctant Bison Moving Out of the Road and It Works Like a Charm (TIME)

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This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from January 2021, we marked the anniversary of the premiere of one of the most memorable sitcoms in TV history, “Sanford and Son," by sharing a few facts about the show and its star, Redd Foxx. Plus: photographer Mike Mayou went out with a drone-mounted camera in  Minnesota to catch the sunset but got something even more amazing.

15 Big Facts About Sanford and Son (Mental Floss)

Photographer Flies Drone To Discover a Once-in-a-Lifetime Shot of 3 Bobcats Sitting on a Log (My Modern Met)

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This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from September 2019, we mark the 50th anniversary of the premiere of “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” Originally the show was going to be VERY different. Plus: Lake Lure, NC hosted the Dirty Dancing Festival. If you went, I hope you had the time of your life.

“Like, yeah. We’ve been teenagers forever:” The Evolution of Scooby-Doo’s “Meddling Kids” (24 Frames of Silver)

Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters

Dirty Dancing Festival

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It's National Go Fishing Day, though the fish in today’s story aren’t exactly the ones you’d expect to catch. They’re robotic fish called Charlie and Charlene, and they were developed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Plus: tomorrow is National Surfing Day, and one place you might mark the occasion is the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum in California.

Meet Catfish Charlie, the CIA’s Robotic Spy (IEEE Spectrum)

Santa Cruz Surfing Museum (Atlas Obscura)

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It's the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drough, so it's a good time to check in on the Great Green Wall, a multi-country project in and around Africa’s Sahel region to re-green areas that have turned to desert because of overuse, expanding desert and climate change. Plus: a retired couple in China's Gobi Desert have been running their own regreening project for nearly 20 years, planting tens of thousands of drought-resistant trees by themselves! 

More than 20 African countries are planting a 8,000-km-long ‘Great Green Wall’ (ZME Science)

Fighting desertification: A man's mission to make the Gobi desert green (CGTN)

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Summer in California can mean drought, so every drop of water counts. A research project there says putting solar panels over the state's many miles of water canals could save tens of billions of gallons of water a year. Plus: a museum in Rochester, New York is going to host the National Archives of Game Show History... if the price is right. 

Solar canals create renewable energy and save water at the same time (Popular Science)

Game Show History to Be Preserved With National Archives at Strong National Museum of Play (Variety)

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The man now known as “First Guide & Explorer of Mammoth Cave," had been enslaved in the 19th century and sent to explore what was becoming a hot tourist site. He set the bar for every guide who came after him. Plus: today in 1976, a baseball game at the Houston Astrodome was called off... due to weather?!?

Enslaved Tour Guide Stephen Bishop Made Mammoth Cave the Must-See Destination It Is Today (Smithsonian)

Hoffman: Astros made history with a rainout (Houston Chronicle)

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For Flag Day, we present the story of Superflag, a 505 foot long, 255 foot tall American flag that was once flown over Hoover Dam (because they don't make flagpoles that large). Plus: a Durham University study finds people can use click-based echolocation effectively in the real world after just 10 weeks of practice! 

Was the World’s Largest U.S. Flag Displayed at Hoover Dam? (Snopes)

Echolocation: People trained to hear like bats in a study that could help those with vision loss (Science Focus)

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The event has been cancelled for 2021, but this was supposed to be the time when some adventurous types headed to Switzerland to take part in a race like no other: a run up a world record staircase known as the Niesen Stairway Run. Plus: a lot of us have been doing video calls and meetings more than ever, but the technology isn't totally new. In fact, Sony made a video phone back in the late 1980s! 

Niesen flight of stairs (Niesen)

Video phone (Techmoan on YouTube)

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The National Geographic Society has recognized a fifth ocean, the Southern Ocean, on earth. How the oceans got their names - and why we don't think of them as one big ocean, which is what it is - is a long and fascinating story. Plus: a designer in South Korea has invented a "third eye" to warn people looking at their phones while walking before they collide with someone or something (or, maybe, to get them to look up more often). 

How many oceans are there? (NOAA)

Dividing the Ocean Sea by Martin W. Lewis (Geographical Review via JSTOR) 

National Geographic recognizes new, 5th ocean (WFLA)

A Wearable Robotic Third Eye That Alerts People to Look Up From Their Phones to Avoid Obstacles (Laughing Squid)

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