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Gimmicks
By Glitterjaw Queer Podcast CollectiveTV & Film
Gimmicks episodes
- Reairing: MOONLIGHTING does Shakespeare (with Kevin Cafferty)
Moonlighting: "Atomic Shakespeare"
We're revisiting this early episode of Gimmicks from 2023 with new commentary! First, David talks about remembering -- and forgetting -- Moonlighting, while Derek rightfully credits this Gimmicks episode as finally delivering this groundbreaking series onto a streaming platform.
Then, we present the original episode where Kevin Cafferty (Best Stuff in the World, Gleaming the Tube) cometh to discuss the most famous (and expensive) episode of the classic 80s fourth-wall-breaking romcom starring Cybill Shepard and Bruce Willis -- their ambitious, cartoonish Elizabethan parody of The Taming of the Shrew done fully in iambic pentameter!
Find more from Kevin:
Best Stuff in the World Podcast | Gleaming the Tube | Kevin on Bluesky: @kevshindig
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Episode Sources:
Moonlighting: An Oral History by Scott Ryan | Variety's excerpt from the oral history
1 hr 27 min - The ALWAYS SUNNY/ABBOTT ELEMENTARY crossover (part II)
It's a sequel to a previous bonus episode! We last covered part one of the crossover between Abbott Elementary and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia that aired with Abbott, and we loved it. After many months, we've finally gotten the Always Sunny take in part two, and... well, we love it significantly less. Let's talk about why this didn't work as well as the first installment.
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
20 min - SAVED BY THE BELL is so excited and so scared
Saved by the Bell: "Jessie's Song"
Yes, this is the one where Jessie Spano gets addicted to caffeine pills and sings The Pointer Sisters! It's the textbook example of a Very Special Episode and one of the most lambasted episodes in TV history -- and it actually came from a sincere, personal place. We explore how a Saturday morning sitcom for children decided to do a drug story, why it became caffeine, and the better story about pressures to succeed in school that's buried under that singing.
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Sources:
- Zack to the Future podcast, episode 25 on “Jessie’s Song”
- I Was Saved by the Bell by Peter Engel
- SamBobrick.com
1 hr 54 min - BLACK MIRROR has a happy ending (with Merrilee O'Neil)
Black Mirror: "San Junipero"
Heaven is a place on Earth! Merrilee O'Neil (from Glitterjaw's Fear Coded) joins us for the queer joy of the bleak sci-fi anthology's first break from formula -- a big gay sapphic love story set in the 1980s (sort of) that is not, in fact, a huge downer. We get into the cultural conversation around Black Mirror (and how it led to the creation of this episode) along with complex explorations of death, the meaning of life, and why queerness elevates this sci-fi premise.
Check out Merrilee on Fear Coded: A Queer Horror Podcast
Bluesky | Instagram
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Sources:
- IndieWire interview with Charlie Brooker
- Nostalgia as Therapy in The Guardian
- EW Black Mirror season 3 preview
- Black Mirror season 3 preview on Wired
- AV Club Black Mirror season 3 preview
- The origin of “what if phones but too much” on The Toast
- Black Mirror FCBD comic
1 hr 45 min - The TGIF time warp
Bonus episode! When ABC's TGIF block tried to replicate the success of Sabrina the Teenage Witch in the late 90s, it resulted in a very high-concept time travel crossover that injected magic into the entire block! Sabrina, Boy Meets World, and the mostly forgotten Teen Angel and You Wish all get displaced into different decades thanks to Salem eating a magical time ball, and only Melissa Joan Hart's quips and charisma can save them all. We talk about this network crossover's legacy, and how even a fun concept can't save bad shows.
Watchlist:
Sabrina the Teenage Witch: "Inna Gadda Sabrina"
Boy Meets World: "No Guts, No Cory"
You Wish: "Genie Without a Cause"
Teen Angel: "One Dog Night"
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Sources:
NY Times
Poobala.com
56 min - FRASIER does a fake clip show
Frasier: "Crock Tales"
Just before the series finale, Frasier Crane breaks a clay crock in his kitchen and reflects on the last 11 years of his sitcom... flashing back to clips we've never seen! We're talking about the iconic Cheers spin-off and the character Kelsey Grammer played for 20 consecutive years, and the unique way this episode celebrates a decade of character development and different kinds of farcical stories. And of course, we talk about all the terrible wigs and how infuriatingly confusing that crock prop is (it was filled with spreadable cheese?!)
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Sources:
Mahoney obituary in Washington Post
Lisa Kudrow on the SmartLess podcast, talking about her casting on Frasier
Peri Gilpin on the Still Here Hollywood podcast
Interview with Gilpin in Ability Magazine
Frasier DVD Extras
1 hr 46 min - R.I.P. Netflix interactive specials
Bonus episode! We're pouring one out for the "choose your own adventure" style Netflix specials that were recently wiped from the platform, including popular specials Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend. We get into the origins and mechanics of this unique fusion of movies and games, and why it's tragic to see them disappear so quickly after their creation.
Look for our Black Mirror episode on "San Junipero" on June 25!
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
52 min - STAR TREK: TNG makes first contact (with Chris Farnell)
Star Trek: The Next Generation: "First Contact"
We come in peace! Author Chris Farnell (Star Trek: Lower Decks Crew Handbook, Fermi's Progress) gets beamed up with us to talk about this perspective flip on the usual Star Trek formula -- a story that positions our Enterprise crew as mysterious space invaders to a planet that has never met aliens. We get into the flaws of the Federation’s first contact procedures and how this story is just “a day at the office” for them, and how the episode quickly builds a familiar alien culture we can sympathize with. No, this isn't about the movie of the same name, but yes...it's that Bebe Neuwirth scene!
Find all of Chris’s great work at chrisfarnell.com
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Sources:
- Chris’s Den of Geek Article: “Why Has Sci-Fi TV Stopped Imagining Our Future?”
- Memory Alpha
1 hr 32 min - MYTHIC QUEST's re-edited series finale
Bonus episode! Mythic Quest concluded its fourth season last month, and then was swiftly cancelled... but in a weird and unprecedented twist, its ending was re-edited and altered to, allegedly, function better as a series finale AFTER most people watched its original version, itself now erased from AppleTV completely. It's odd, and we talk about what makes this whole situation both unique and kind of troubling, and whether or not the new "ending" is better or worse.
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
36 min - DAYS OF OUR LIVES gets possessed by the Devil (with Chels Eichholz)
Days of Our Lives: The Marlena Possession Arc
We're levitating as we cover the 90s storyline that introduced the supernatural into soap operas and changed daytime TV forever! Chels from The Q Division and And a Rewatch Podcast helps us prep our exorcisms as we get into the history of this extremely long-running soap, and how the O.J. Simpson trial led to the literal Devil possessing Deidre Hall's popular character Marlena Evans. We talk huge nuts, wedding crashers and plane crashes, deep voice filters and practical effects, the obvious parallels to The Exorcist, and how soap operas are the foundation for most of the television we love.
Find Chels:
The Q Division | And a Rewatch Podcast | Bluesky | Instagram
A proud part of The Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective
Tip us on Ko-Fi | Gimmicks Website
Email: [email protected] | Bluesky | Instagram
Theme song: "Disco Tears" by Raven | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Sources:
- Liquid Soap clip complication on YouTube
- Writeup from Fortress of Solitude
- Interview with Producer Ken Corday
- CBR writeup
- The Devil on the Days of Our Lives Wiki
- Hyatt, Wesley (1997). The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television.
1 hr 57 min
About Gimmicks
From the publisher's feed
A podcast about the high-concept, experimental, structure-breaking gimmick episodes of TV! From musicals, to noirs, to bottle episodes and more -- we look at any television episode that breaks from its own formula in some way.
Derek B. Gayle and David Arnold (and occasionally guests!) dig into a different episode of a different show across the entire TV landscape every other Monday!
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