Longtime Flopcast listeners (those poor souls) know that every 100 episodes, we celebrate V66, Boston's own music video TV channel of the mid-80s. This time, however, we have a special guest: Eric Green, director of the V66 documentary, Life on the V! And because this is episode 666, we're looking at the heavy metal and hard rock bands and videos of the V66 era. It was a time when catchy melodies and goofy visuals helped acts like Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister score huge Top 40 hits. The Kiss guys lost the makeup, Van Halen switched from Dave to Sammy, Aerosmith made their (rap-assisted) comeback, Mötley Crüe freaked everybody out, and Bon Jovi opened the floodgates for a cacophony of hair metal. Meanwhile on the local scene, V66 promoted a video filmed at a Boston-area high school by an unknown hard rock band called Extreme. And as the New England Patriots prepared for Super Bowl 1986, V66 was there with a couple of low budget quickie music videos, including the goofy metal tune "Skin the Bears." (Spoiler: The Patriots absolutely did not skin the Bears.) Also: Kevin finds V66 VJ David O'Leary at a Taylor Dayne show! Eric traces the history of Nirvana in Boston! Tom Bergeron gets in touch with the kids on Rap Around! And if you're in the Boston area, you can join us for a special screening of Life on the V at the Somerville Theatre on February 27th! Kids, it's the 40th anniversary of V66. You deserve a night out, surrounded by Junior Mint-chomping 80s nerds who know how to neutron dance.

Life on the V!

Green's Party!

And our regular links...

The Flopcast website!

The ESO Network!

The Flopcast on Facebook!

The Flopcast on Instagram!

The Flopcast on Bluesky!

The Flopcast on Mastadon!

Please rate and review The Flopcast on Apple Podcasts!

Email: [email protected]

Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promo: Earth Station Who!