Penny Men

Welcome back to The Pennymen, folks! Your hosts—Ben, Gregory, and Tom—are diving headfirst into the wonderful chaos of comics past, present, and borderline impossible! Episode Three is all about You Can’t Have These Comics!

Hold onto your capes, because we’re hitting:

• Golden Age heroes you didn’t know existed (hello, Golden Age Daredevil aka Death-Defying Devil)
• Indie oddities like Zen Intergalactic Ninja, complete with ninja aliens, eco-friendly powers, and a ’90s toy tie-in you forgot existed
• Cinematic dreams that never materialized (sorry, live-action Zen)
• Shapeshifting madness courtesy of Impossible Man, Ambush Bug’s chaotic cousin
• Quirky one-offs like Cynical Man—yes, stick figures can be epic
• Manga history 101 with the original Astro Boy, the godfather of anime robots

Expect wild tangents, obscure trivia, and plenty of “Wait, what?!” moments! From pulp heroes and obscure newspaper inserts to eco-friendly ninjas and alien pranksters, we’re spilling the comics tea in glorious treasury-sized form!

One liners you can drop mid-conversation:

• “Captain Marvel Jr. outsold Superman—try topping that at your next party!”
• “Impossible Man just turned into Steve Martin—again!”
• “Astro Boy: inspiring every stiff anime you’ve ever watched since the ’50s!”
• “Cynical Man proves you don’t need muscles or fancy art to fight crime… or stick-figure villains!”

Prepare to nerd out, laugh, and get hopelessly distracted by comics you can’t even touch!

The Penny Guys react to the cover art from episode 42!

The Penny Men react to the cover art from episode 41!

We start with Sgt. Rock, but quickly form Sgt. Rock’s Lonely Hearts Club Band!

Then we wander into:

• Conan the Barbarian
• Red Sonja (with a J, not a Y)
• Robert E. Howard timelines
• L. Sprague de Camp gap-filling
• And the Conan–Elric crossover that made Michael Moorcock’s calendar cry!

From there:

• Charlton backups
• Gravedigger with the X-scar
• Ice Cream Soldier’s first snow
• And the Easy Company roster of Wild Man, Bulldozer, Little Sure Shot, Four Eyes, and Pinky Pinkerton!

Then it’s “Can you smell what Sgt. The Rock Johnson is cooking?” before pivoting to Reign of the Supermen, the Birthing Matrix, and Bill Clinton endorsing the villain!

Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos march in with Dum Dum Dugan’s mustache, David Niven as Pinky, and Guns of Navarone trivia!

Blackhawks fight with flying sharks!

Enemy Ace gets the high ground!

Airboy flaps in!

Hop Harrigan maybe beats Superman to movie serials, and Kelly’s Heroes outfox the Nazis!

By the end, we’ve invented Crisis of Infinite Wars, crossed over G.I. Robot and Creature Commandos, and somehow landed on Herbie the Fat Fury!

From “I’m a real pirate from me boots up to me hat” to Royal Wedding’s five-week dance sequences...from prairie dog “Blue Skies” to Looney Tunes music lessons...we drifted (sailed?) straight into a wrestling detour, an X-Men soap opera roll-call, and an unsolicited Slim Jim ad rewrite!

Then it’s a hard turn into You Can’t Have These Comics:

• Generation X romance blooms
• Jubilee's vampire years
• M-Day fallout
• Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company
• Haunted tanks
• Attila-the-Hun Nazis
• Charlton war anthologies
• Creature Commandos
• And finally the Justice League on Earth-X punching Uncle Sam’s Nazi problems in the face!

It’s pirates, mutants, soldiers, and a DC Comics Crisis — all in one episode!

Bart Simpson starts it off, but then the roster explodes:

• Gex
• Bubsy
• Cool Spot
• Alex Kidd
• Adventure Island Joe
• Dragon Quest Slimes
• Creepy Crawlers
• Monsters in My Pocket
• Bayou Billy
• Lolo & Lala
• Whispy Woods
• Billy Hatcher
• Monkey Ball
• Space Channel 5
• Parappa Tha Rappa
• NiGHTS
• Imakuni?
• Pikachu vs. Poliwhirl
• Alfred E. Newman
• Addams Family oddballs
• Katamari’s Prince
• Tingle (and Dave Jr.)
• Scrooge McDuck
• American McGee’s Alice in Wonderland
• X-Men’s Nasty Boys
• WWF legends from Sting to Hacksaw Jim Duggan
• Care Bears & Gummy Bears
• Smurfs vs. Snorks
• Cartoon All-Stars
• River City Ransom
• Mighty Max
• Ewoks
• R2-D2
• SpongeBob
• Ren & Stimpy
• The Hair Bear Bunch
• Fat Albert
• Bebe’s Kids
• Cousin Skeeter
• Out of This World
• Space Cats
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force
• Sky High
• Snooki
• Rocky Rodent
• And long afternoons on Walmart demo stations!

Vintage mascot roundup! Yeehaw!

🎮 The Penny Men dive headfirst into the world of video game mascots — the good, the bad, and the bizarre!

From Mario vs. Sonic to Cool Spot’s un-cola climb, from Arrow the Acrobat and Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel to Mr. Nutz (yes, really), we’re talking every character who was supposed to be "the next big thing!"

Along the way:

• Bubsy asks “what could possibly go wrong?”
• Clay Fighter’s Bad Mr. Frosty cools the room
• Uniracers gets sued by Pixar’s lamp
• Garfield eats lasagna instead of having a good movie
• Echo the Dolphin and the Lost Vikings swim into the mix
• Capcom can’t decide between Mega Man and Ryu

Who’s the true mascot: Scorpion or Sub-Zero? Rabbids or Rayman? Mario or Waluigi?

Plus:

• Hulk Hogan déjà vu
• John Cena in Fast & Furious
• And the eternal question — who has the best hair in video games?

Step into the Penny Men’s time machine and prepare to wander the sacred aisles of VHS heaven! Mammoth Video, Video to Go, Blockbuster, Family Video — the smell of popcorn, the hum of fluorescent lights, pinball machines chiming in the corner, and that glorious click when you popped a tape into the VCR!

We’re talking:

• $100 Disney “classics” locked in glass cases
• Goosebumps spines glowing slime-green
• Nickelodeon tapes blazing neon orange
• Punky Brewster pink
• And that one mystery black clamshell you weren’t supposed to rent!

This is the thrill of discovery, the agony of rewinding, the joy of walking out with Mega Man X, Thumb Wars, or Hot Lead and Cold Feet starring Don Knotts!

We reminisce about:

• Leonard Maltin’s movie guides
• Tim Conway’s alarm-clock guns
• The Banana Splits haunting your dreams
• Infomercials you couldn’t unsee,
• And those random demo SNES stations that made you forget what you came in for!

It’s aisles of dusty treasures, foreign films with no subtitles, forgotten Saturday morning cartoon tapes, and the mystery of “what happens next?” in that movie you never got to finish!

From obscure gems to childhood staples, from rewinding fines to accidental obsessions, Ben, Greg, and Tom relive the chaos, the smell, the sounds, and the pure magic of video stores — before streaming murdered the art of accidental discovery and replaced it with “Recommended for You” purgatory!

Grab your quarters, dodge the gumball machine, and let’s rent something weird!

OH YEAH! It's time to smash through some walls, drink questionable childhood beverages, and ponder the eternal question: Is the Kool-Aid Man the pitcher… or the liquid inside?

In this flavor-packed installment, the Penny Men spiral into a nostalgia-fueled deep dive on the one, the only, the sugar-fueled juggernaut of destruction—The Kool-Aid Man! Was he ever in the WWE? Did he have a rogues' gallery? Can he hug with those glass arms? And most importantly, does he fix the drywall after crashing into your living room?

We’re talking:

• Kool-Aid lore and lost comic book canon (spoiler: Marvel made it)
• Color-coded powers and the metaphysics of pitcher-based sentience
• The mascot multiverse: Hawaiian Punch guy, Slimer, the Tang orangutan, and even the Dunkaroos kangaroo
• Deep cuts from Shining Time Station, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and that weird recycling PSA juice box

Plus:

• A brief Atari game renaissance
• A powdered-sugar contraband scandal
• And a wild revelation about Elsie the Cow's romantic entanglement with Elmer’s Glue

This episode’s got everything: nostalgia, nonsense, and neon-colored sugar water!

Featuring:

• 3 hosts, 2 mascots, 1 existential crisis
• Zero walls left standing
• And one last “OH YEAH!” for the road

Grab your Squeeze-It, dodge the Capri Sun terminator, and press play!

This one’s Kool-Aid certified!

This week on The Penny Men: we bounce from PBS dogs to MTV lawsuits in record time!

Highlights include:

• Wishbone’s literary deep cuts
• Ovid
• Gilgamesh
• And the world’s oldest joke!
• A karaoke gauntlet:
• Hungry Like the Wolf
• Rio
• And When Doves Cry!
• Prince’s glyph era and the Warner Bros. contract escape hatch
• Band-name drama:
• John Fogerty sued for sounding like John Fogerty
• Green Jellö vs. Kraft
• Jefferson Starship’s legal turbulence
• And Johnny Cougar finding his Mellencamp again!
• The Pink Panther movie maze (with bonus Phantom detour)
• Monty Python sketches that may be older than time itself

It’s basically a pop culture pinball machine where every bumper is another lawsuit, song lyric, or dog in a costume!