This week CFX switches gears to evaluate the pop culture impact of the world’s most innovative maker of toilets, the Japanese company, Toto LTD.  Just kidding! We are of course talking about the band Toto. Started in the late ‘70s by a bunch of San Fernando Valley high school friends who also happened to be some of the most accomplished studio musicians in the world, Toto would peak in 1982, creating one of the biggest selling albums of that year in Toto IV, and, arguably, one of the most popular songs of all time in “Africa”. They won every Grammy in sight and then played a huge part in the recording of THE biggest selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The members of Toto would split their time between the band and continued session work for just about every major artist in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s and beyond. That said, we’re not going to focus on the session work other than in passing. No, this week CFX puts the entire discography of Toto under the Evaluato-scope and we decide whether it has and will continue to “rise like Olympus above the Serengeti” or “become frightened by this thing” they’ve become. We decide that, and along the way we also learn…

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This week CFX covers one of the most popular OLD movies ever, Grease. This classic 1970s/1950s musical about a bunch of high school SENIORS, with its mix of fun musical frivolity and MATURE subject matter, seems to have AGED well....or has it? We do the usual..going into the whole 1970s/1950s nostalgia that birthed the original stage show and eventually, thanks to the growing popularity of actor John Travolta, led to the blockbuster film and soundtrack, a worldwide phenomenon. We also do a walkthrough of the entire film, adding in bits of trivia along the way, and, as you might imagine a few jokes at the expense of the cast, who, let’s face it, are the OLDEST HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS EVER. We also talk about the social issues that Grease so obviously does and does not address and whether any of that matters. And, as usual, along the way, we learn…

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This week CFX takes you back to a simpler time, a time when bionically enhanced astronauts and former tennis pros saved the world from Bigfoot, aliens, Russian death probes and evil "robuts"—all while wearing fashion tracksuits and the finest fashions that the Sears Roebuck catalog had to offer. And doing it all in beautiful slow motion! That’s right, this week we are covering the very popular and successful mid-1970s show The Six Million Dollar Man and also a bit of its just as successful spinoff, The Bionic Woman.  Not only were these shows at the top of the Nielsen charts, but they were also the first shows to really get merchandising right. Partnering with Kenner toys they released a series of action figures that were not only the best selling toys of their day but also influenced all of the merchandising that came after, most notably Star Wars (though whether that’s a good thing is debatable). But as popular and influential as the show was at the time, how does it hold up now? Will the show’s reputation continue to grow bigger, stronger, faster or is it just barely alive? We find out and, as usual, along the way, we learn:

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Well, we know where we’re going and we know where we have been. It may seem like we were on a road to nowhere with Talking Heads Part 1 since it’s been a while, but the future is certain because here we are with Part 2. We start things off with a bang, with 1980’s Remain in Light and then cover the Talking Heads’ most commercially successful years including their landmark concert film, Stop Making Sense. Then we cover their detour into commercial, American-influenced pop on albums such as LIttle Creatures and True Stories and end with their adventurous final album, Naked. We continue our evaluation from part 1 and things get a little contentious as we disagree (slightly) on what truly was the band’s artistic peak and, as usual, along the way, we learn…

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This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco. This ain’t no foolin’ around. This is CFX. Episode 56: Talking Heads and we get so “lovey dovey” that “we ain’t got time for that now”. That’s right,  we had to split this into two parts. In this first part, we go into our personal histories, the zeitgeist that created Talking Heads and a detailed history of the band. We also cover the bands’ 1970s albums, Talking Heads ‘77, More Songs about Buildings and Food, and Fear of Music. We take you on a journey from the galleries of the Rhode Island School of Design to the rat-infested industrial lofts of the boweries and the early days of CBGBs to the exotic Compass Point Studios in Nassau where the band started their collaboration with Brian Eno that would culminate in…well, that’s in Part 2. But as usual, we decide if this music and the band as a whole stand the test of time or whether “they are talking a lot” “but not saying anything”, and, along the way, we learn…

Check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/culturalfutures/) for links and additional content related to this and other episodes as well as clues to upcoming shows or write to us at [email protected]

All audio clips are used under the "Fair Use" Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act in 1976; Allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

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Alright, internet! How y’all doing out there? You wanted the best and you got the best…stage banter that is. That’s right, this week we take a look at the best and worst stage banter in history for the first (and maybe only… we’ll see…) time. There’s no Grammy award for best stage banter and we attempt to rectify this grave oversight as a quasi-awards show that I guess you can call THE BANTIES! We start way back in the past and cover all the way to the present day. We cover the most skilled practitioners, the true giants of this often overlooked art form. And we cover those who might want to skip the talk and just get on with the damned song. And, as usual, along the way, we learn…

Check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/culturalfutures/) for links and additional content related to this and other episodes as well as clues to upcoming shows or write to us at [email protected]

All audio clips are used under the "Fair Use" Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act in 1976; Allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

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Are you there Judy? It’s us, CFX, and this week we are here to ask you, when will we grow? Haha, all kidding aside. That’s right, we are covering the great Judy Blume, an author who has influenced several generations with her frank, honest and realistic books for kids and young adults. We go into her history, highlighting a few of the books that are both her most notable and also most controversial. Of course, we talk about Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, Blume’s breakthrough and most famous book and we also touch on the recent film adaptation. We cover the followup to that book, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, Blume’s one stab at dealing with teenage boys. We talk about Blubber, probably one of the darkest books not only on childhood but on human nature. And, how could we do an episode on Blume without covering her most banned book, Forever…, possibly the first book to depict first time sex from a female perspective? We also talk about how Blume is not only a writer but an anti-censorship champion and how she went above and beyond to correspond with thousands of kids who looked up to her for guidance. In this episode, we really go out of our way to tackle Blume’s work with a mature and academic approach or… then again, MAYBE WE DON’T. As you’ve come to expect, while we respect these books, we also have a lot of fun with them, and along the way, we learn…

Note: Apologies for the shitty sound as we had a microphone technical failure at the CFX studios :( 

Check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/culturalfutures/) for links and additional content related to this and other episodes as well as clues to upcoming shows or write to us at [email protected]

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Dearly beloved CFX fans, we are gathered here today to evaluate this thing called Purple Rain. Will it stand the test of time forever or just a mighty long time…well, we’re here to tell U. That’s right, we evaluate the film, the music and the artist (thankfully known as Prince which is good because I don’t know how to print that damned symbol…). What about the movie? Should U “dig” the picture or “smash” it? Is the music “sheer perfection” or is there “something wrong with the machinery”? Is Prince a genius, a “Messiah”, something “that we’ll never comprehend”? We go all the way back to the beginning, from Prince’s troubled childhood in Minneapolis, to his slow rise in crossover popularity that eventually led to his commercial (and probably artistic peak) in the 1984 film and album Purple Rain. We also discuss the aftermath of his career and discuss whether Prince was a musical genius or just really talented. Let us guide U and, hopefully, along the way, U will also learn…

• Who “Darling Nikki” is and what inspired Prince to name his lead actress Apollonia

Check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/culturalfutures/) for links and additional content related to this and other episodes as well as clues to upcoming shows or write to us at [email protected]

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When we first came up with the concept of the show, namely leveraging our pop cultural expertise to put cultural artifacts under the CFX microscope to see if they will stand the test of time, the short lived early ‘80s sitcom, Bosom Buddies, was one of the first shows we both thought of covering. Well, in episode 52, we do just that. We dig into not only the production history of the show, the before and after careers of all cast members, including the conspicuously successful Tom Hanks, but also the rich tradition of cross dressing as a plot point both in comedy and drama, going all the way back to Shakespeare and beyond. See, it's all perfectly normal....

Is this show an underappreciated classic full of edgy satire or just another hackneyed sitcom full of tired plots and well-worn comedy tropes? We answer this question by analyzing every single episode of the show and then “speak our minds” to decide if this short lived show deserved “a second chance” or if we should tell the show’s creators and actors to “keep it yourself”! And, as usual, along the way, we learn…

• Who is the one major cast member who didn’t appear on The Love Boat

Check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/culturalfutures/) for links and additional content related to this and other episodes as well as clues to upcoming shows or write to us at [email protected]

All audio clips are used under the "Fair Use" Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act in 1976; Allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

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This week CFX covers Warren Zevon, an artist that the general public, if they’ve heard of him at all, usually think of as a one hit wonder and associate him with one that song, “Werewolves of London”. As great as that song may be, CFX, as you’ve come to expect, digs deeper to discover the real Warren Zevon, the oftentimes frustratingly brilliant and brilliantly frustrating songwriter and musician’s musician who went from childhood classical prodigy to ‘60s flame out to the peak of popularity and critical acclaim in the late ‘70s, all to have it go up in flames in one of the most alcohol soaked, debauched and drugged out careers the world has ever seen (and the world has seen a lot of them)! In the end, he “stood in the fire” (to quote him) only to be defeated by cancer. But he didn’t even let that stop him, keeping his sardonic sense of humor and incomparable wit and insight intact until the end. But what can CFX say about the prospects of an artist who most people haven’t heard of? Will his work stand the test of time? We go into his unbelievable story and evaluate the highs and lows of his long career, and, as usual, we learn…

• How many times it’s possible to fail rehab

Check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/culturalfutures/) for links and additional content related to this and other episodes as well as clues to upcoming shows or write to us at [email protected]

All audio clips are used under the "Fair Use" Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act in 1976; Allowance is made for "Fair Use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

All rights and credit go directly to its rightful owners. No copyright infringement intended.