Penny Men

Welcome back to The Penny Men, where universes collide, timelines contradict, and the canon is… negotiable! In this high-velocity sequel to our shared-universe deep dive, Ben, Tom, and Gregory double down on the multiversal madness, chasing the tangled vines of the Donkey Kong–Mario–Banjo–Conker extended family tree until it loops back through Captain N, Saturday morning cartoons, and possibly your breakfast cereal!

We’re talking warp pipes as dimensional portals, New Donk City as Earth-Prime-with-bigger-hats, and why Larry Bird might be the keystone holding the whole Nintendo continuity together! From Mario Party cake lore to Yoshi Island time paradoxes, from Punch-Out referee gigs to Smash Bros “toybox” rules, it’s a chaotic flowchart of what’s canon, what’s “actor rules,” and what’s just a fever dream starring Inspector Gadget!

Continuity Conundrums Covered:

• New Donk City: Real city or Mushroom Kingdom backlot?
• Baby Mario paradox: native of the Mushroom Kingdom or Brooklyn transplant?
• The Game Boy Valiant comics: two Marios or just one portable gig?
• Captain N rules vs. Smash Bros rules vs. “Mickey Mouse actor” rules
• Does DK age in Earth time or Mushroom Kingdom time — and what does that do to Cranky Kong?

Crossovers & Connections We Absolutely Didn’t Make Up:

• Crash Bandicoot + Spyro + Skylanders + Donkey Kong + Bowser
• Sonic comics → Archie → Punisher → Predator → Kiss → Ramones
• Nicktoons fighting game: Spongebob + Avatar + Ninja Turtles + CatDog + Invader Zim
• Sky-high sports web: NBA Jam + ProStars + Bird vs. Jordan + Captain N Larry Bird
• Shonen Jump all-stars punching out of their own manga into someone else’s plot

One-Liners from the Multiverse Frontlines:

• “If Mike Tyson’s in your game, that’s not Mike Tyson — that’s Mr. Dream wearing a Mike Tyson mask.”
• “Banjo’s in one jungle, DK’s in another, Mario’s in a third… and they all require different warp technology.”
• “The Mario Party cake might be canon — but only if it’s also Peach’s birthday cake from Mario 64.”
• “Wario’s an in-universe backdoor pilot, Waluigi’s just a desperate casting choice.”
• “Every timeline works differently… but they all work, somehow.”

Hour two of Audible Death Glare is where the rabbit hole meets the warp pipe — and we may never climb out!

Welcome back to The Penny Men, where universes overlap, backdoor pilots sneak in, and the facts are fuzzier than a Yoshi after a sugar rush! This week, Ben, Tom, and Gregory peel back the curtain on shared universes and backdoor pilots — those sly spin-off setups hiding inside your favorite shows, games, and cartoons!

From Happy Days launching Mork & Mindy to Donkey Kong spawning Mario, we dive into the sprawling Nintendo multiverse! Mario, DK, Banjo, Conker, Wario, Yoshi — and even Sonic crashing the party at the Olympics! Cameos, crossovers, and confused timelines abound!

Whether it’s Smash Bros-level mashups or layered actor-versus-character realities, this episode is your backstage pass to pop culture’s most tangled webs!

Top Backdoor Pilots & Spin-Offs Explored:

• Happy Days → Laverne & Shirley → Mork & Mindy
• Perfect Strangers → Family Matters
• All in the Family → The Jeffersons → Maude → Good Times
• Donkey Kong → Mario Bros. → Wario Land → Yoshi’s Island
• Diddy Kong Racing → Banjo-Kazooie → Conker’s Bad Fur Day

Notable Shared Universe Cameos & Crossovers:

• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (multiverse or neighborhood block party?)
• Super Mario Bros. Super Show meets WWF, Ghostbusters, Inspector Gadget
• Mario RPG cameo sleepover: Link & Samus snoozing awkwardly together
• Namco’s crossover webcomic shenanigans: Dig Dug, Tekken, Pac-Man all in the mix
• Capcom vs. SNK, Smash Bros., and the ultimate video game multiverse mashup

One-Liners to Drop at Your Next Game Night:

• “Mario wasn’t just jumping barrels, he was jumping into a whole new franchise!”
• “Donkey Kong gave us a backdoor pilot before backdoor pilots were cool.”
• “Smash Bros is less a crossover and more a family reunion gone wild.”
• “Sonic crashing the Mario Olympics? That’s one way to break the space-time continuum.”

Hop on the warp pipe and join us as we map the wild, weird, and wonderfully interconnected worlds of video game and TV spin-offs!

Welcome back to the only podcast where six means chaos and “sinister” means hilarious! In Part 2 of our Sinister Six spectacular, the rosters are finally revealed — and the results are a whiplash-inducing rollercoaster through Spider-Man’s best, worst, and “wait, who?” moments!

Alliances are forged, feuds are reignited, and poor Peter Parker is about to have the worst week of his life! We’re talking Aunt May kidnappings, Bugle headline disasters, symbiote slime trails, and at least one villain whose entire plan hinges on roller skates!

Highlights from the carnage include:

• Gregory’s Murderers’ Row: A precision mix of legacy villains, deep-cut absurdities, and one character whose only power is vaguely threatening posture
• Tom’s Chaos Machine: A line-up so structurally unstable it could only work if half the team betrays the other half before lunch
• Ben’s Symbiote Salad: Too many goo monsters, not enough paper towels
• Guest Wild Cards: The return of The Wall, a mid-tier goblin nobody remembers, and an appearance by Frog-Man that even he doesn’t understand!

And because no Penny Men episode is complete without unnecessary overkill, we’ve got:

• Goblin-on-goblin violence
• Two villains competing to see who can monologue the longest
• An unexpected musical number from Hypno-Hustler
• The tragic downfall of Big Wheel (again)
• One honest-to-goodness fight over the definition of “sinister”

By the end, only one roster will be crowned the Ultimate Sinister Six — but all of them will live forever in our hearts, our nightmares, and Spider-Man’s insurance premiums!

Welcome back to the show where the lineups get legendary, the ground rules get wobbly, and the Spidey canon gets absolutely ransacked! This week, the Penny Men are assembling their own Sinister Six — six members, one original, five wild cards!

It’s a buffet of bad guys: mad scientists, evil magicians, alien symbiotes, cybernetic bird-men, professional bowlers, and a guy who is literally just a wall! We’ve got Doc Ock duking it out with Doctor Bong, Hobgoblin sharing a glider with Hobgoblin 2099, Mysterio swapping helmet-cleaning tips with Fishbowl Jr., and Kraven the Hunter getting mad he didn’t make the cut!

Expect:

• Aunt May in peril
• J. Jonah Jameson’s blood pressure spiking
• Ben Reilly’s sweaters making a comeback
• At least three different people screaming “PARKER!” at the same time!

We’re pulling in deep cuts from comics, cartoons, video games, toy shelves, and fever dreams — Hydro-Man, Shocker, Hammerhead, The Kangaroo, Big Wheel, Stegron the Dinosaur Man, and, yes, The Hypno-Hustler!

And for the completists out there, here’s just a fraction of the roster chaos:

• Goblin Overload: Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, Demogoblin, Proto-Goblin, and that guy from the 90s cartoon who might have been a goblin but no one’s sure
• Animal Kingdom Rejects: Rhino, Vulture, Scorpion, Tarantula, Puma, Grizzly, and one very lost Howard the Duck
• The “Is This Even Canon?” Crew: The Wall, Typeface, Big Wheel, Spot, White Rabbit, and a guy who just throws pies
• Too Many Symbiotes: Venom, Carnage, Toxin, Riot, Lasher, Scream, and that one from the Lego set that doesn’t have a name
• Special Guest Villains: Kangaroo, Rocket Racer, Hypno-Hustler, Frog-Man (he’s technically not a villain, but try telling him that), and The Looter

Four rosters enter, but only one walks away with the coveted title of “Most Likely to Ruin Spider-Man’s Day”! It’s chaos, it’s crossover madness, and it’s the eternal question: how many goblins is too many goblins?

Welcome to a very special installment of Nuggets of Nerddom, the sidecast of The Fantasy Draft Lineup—where dreams are drafted, fandoms collide, and no character is too obscure to get a spinoff!

Joining us in the studio today is none other than Cousin Michal from the Polymuse Experience, and he's brought a five-minute prompt with galaxy-brain potential:👉 Name a character from any property that deserves their own solo comic!

That’s all we needed to spiral into an all-out multiversal pitch-fest! We’re talking Multiple Man noir, Mary Jane’s domestic trauma, Short Round: Legacy of the Fedora, and Steve Canyon soaring back into relevance! And just when you think we’re grounded, we go full Mojo—literally—with our dream casting for the bloated tyrant of the Mojoverse (Danny DeVito? Jim Belushi? Jared Leto method-acting into madness?)!

We cover:

• Deep-cut X-Men like Strong Guy and Longshot
• A surprising defense of Dick Tracy (1990)
• Scrappy-Doo’s backdoor pilot that never was
• Why Shipwreck deserves his own G.I. Joe trilogy
• Zorak impressions, failed Popeye movies, and the moral complexity of dating while cloned

All that plus… the forgotten weirdness of 90s cartoons, the lost art of comic strips, and a heartfelt plea for someone—anyone—to bring Spanner’s Galaxy back!

🌀 Featuring:

• 3 co-hosts
• 1 Cousin Michal
• 25+ spin-off pitches
• 0 plans to stay on-topic

Listen! Laugh! Launch your own Mojoverse!

Welcome back to the mutant mayhem! It’s Part 2 of the X-Men Fantasy Draft, where the claws are out, the powers are high, and the lineups get real weird! We’re building teams of eight X-Men and six Brotherhood baddies—and this time, the pitches are live, the rivalries are hot, and the drawings are already on the website (you’re welcome)!

This installment kicks off with Tom’s squad, a teleporting pop star, a strong guy named Strong Guy, and a wild card named Lila Cheney (who once tried to sell Earth to aliens but hey, she’s cute)! He’s got Deathbird leading the bad guys, Weapon X—but not that one, and a six-man Brotherhood no one saw coming!

Then Ben takes us into the apocalypse: an indestructible lineup of mutants who survived the fall of everything and everyone! No psychics, no weather witches, just raw mutant grit! He’s got Rogue, Magic, Multiple Man, and Random (yes, Random)—plus a Brotherhood of Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, and the oozy brilliance of Gorgeous George!

And closing us out, Greg pitches a grief-stricken Cyclops trying to lead a new team through the fallout of Jean Grey’s death! There's romantic tension, body-switching psychic drama, and a deep cut into Psylocke’s fractured history—all wrapped in a tight character-driven arc that asks: what if the X-Men actually dealt with their emotions for once?

🧬 Featuring:

• 3 mega-pitches
• 1000 X-Men
• 2.5 Wolverines
• 0 time for continuity errors

📚 Also featuring:

• A rogue’s gallery of weird villain picks
• Deep dives on cartoon betrayals and soap opera love triangles
• Who’s on Cyclops duty? (Everyone is! Always!)
• Multiple men, multiple timelines, zero telepathy

This is The X-Men Draft: Part 2!

Draw! Pitch! Mutate!

Welcome to the Danger Room, where the backstories are tangled, the powers are unpredictable, and the drafts get mutant-level messy! This week, the FDL gang suits up for the most ambitious lineup yet: an X-Men Fantasy Draft! Who makes the cut when you've got decades of uncanny, astonishing, and sometimes downright obscure mutants to choose from?

In this installment, we break down:

• The long, winding legacy of Marvel’s mutants
• Our personal X-Men origin stories (shoutout to the 90s cartoon and Pizza Hut tie-ins!)
• What made Wolverine cool before anyone knew he was Canadian
• Greg’s hot take on Squirrel Girl’s mutant status (we said what we said)

Then it’s time to assemble: each host must draft a team of 8 X-Men and 6 villains from the Brotherhood (sorry, Street Fighter not allowed this time)! Expect passionate picks, deep cuts, and one too many references to Pride of the X-Men!

🧬 Featuring:

• 3 lifelong X-Fans
• 1 overdue apology to the New Mutants
• Countless toy line memories
• 0 Sentinels… for now

This is the Fantasy Draft Lineup X-Men Special!
Snikt! Bamf! Engage!

Welcome to Nuggets of Nerddom, the new side-series where animation runs deep, memories run wild, and no mouse ears are allowed! In this bonus bite from the Fantasy Draft Lineup, we’re joined by The Cuz himself—Michal from Polymuse—to crack open a deceptively simple prompt:
What are your top three non-Disney animated films?
(Easy, right? Wrong!)

From Don Bluth bangers to forgotten VHS fever dreams, we tumble down a nostalgia spiral of space whales, cigar-chomping aliens, and penguins that actually surf! Shrek is debated! Space Jam is defended! Hoodwinked steals the show! And yes, Transformers: The Movie is revered like the legendary masterpiece it is!

This episode includes:

• 3 hosts
• 1 Cuz
• 0 Disney movies (Pixar counts!)
• 47 honorable mentions
• A shocking lack of Watership Down trauma until the final act

Come for the lists, stay for the chaos, and don’t forget: Fantastic Planet is not Forbidden Planet, and you should be watching Flight of Dragons!
It’s all happening on the only podcast brave enough to say, “No thank you, Donkey,” and ride a Beta-tape into battle!

🎙️ Featuring:

• Debates over whether Cool World is legal
• Praise for Rankin-Bass deep cuts
• Rage against Polar Express
• Murky and Lurky slander

Listen! Rank! Argue!🎨🧠🍟

Back into the ring we go! It’s Round 2 of the greatest Street Fighter fantasy draft in podcast history—and this time, the punches hit harder, the characters get weirder, and the fandom jar overflows with psychic predictions and off-the-wall picks!

Last episode, we laid down the rules: pick eight fighters and one boss from anywhere in the sprawling Street Fighter multiverse! This time, each Penny Man unveils his official lineup, complete with deep lore dives, secret rivalries, wild redesigns, and a little bit of Final Fight flavor!

In this tag-team extravaganza, you'll hear:

• Ben’s dream game, starring Akuma, Poison, Sean, and a mysterious triple-fake-out boss twist you won’t see coming!
• Tom’s well-balanced roster, mixing Ryu, Rose, Rashid, and Skullomania—plus the rise of Juri Han as your next great villain!
• Gregory’s pure chaos squad, led by Dan, powered by Rufus, flanked by Ibuki, and somehow including Blade from Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game!

Oh, and did we mention all three hosts accidentally picked Q?
We didn’t plan it! We just get each other!

👊 Featuring:

• 3 dramatically different lineups
• 9 predictions from the phantom jar
• 1 Ken turned Kevin turned scientist
• 0 respect for canonical continuity

Also in this episode:

• The power of Poison’s hype game
• Rufus vs. America
• Q vs. everyone
• Street Fighter 2010 vs. your childhood memories
• And the big question: Can Dan Hibiki carry a fighting game on his own? Gregory says yes! The others… don’t say no!

Step into the shadows, cue up your character theme, and prepare for pixel-perfect mayhem!

🎮 Round 2! Fight!

Welcome to The Penny Men’s underground tournament of fists, fireballs, and fierce opinions! This week, the boys go toe-to-toe with Street Fighter, the legendary Capcom franchise that sparked an arcade revolution—and at least three cartoon adaptations nobody asked for!

In this roundhouse-kicking installment, Ben, Gregory, and Tom each draft their dream Street Fighter roster—eight fighters and one boss from any corner of the sprawling, spin-kicking franchise! From alpha prequels to 3D face-smashers, rival schools to final fights, even those weird EX games? They’re all fair game!

Expect:

• Deep dives into arcade lore, from the pizza parlor machines of their childhood to PlayStation manuals advertising “the game of the movie of the game”!
• A recap of Street Fighter’s wild history: multiple timelines, character redesigns, comic cameos, and more Ryu than your brain can handle!
• A solemn tribute to Street Fighter 2010, the bizarre space-fighting NES game that turned Ken Masters into a grieving scientist with laser arms!

But that’s not all!

🥋 Featuring:

• 24 roster picks
• 3 artistically-rendered team lineups
• 1 phantom jar of predictions
• 0 appearances by Dan (probably)

Street Fighter fatigue? Never heard of it!

Too young to remember arcades? Doesn’t matter!

Think M. Bison is secretly a plagiarist? You’re not alone!

Choose your fighter—then hit play!

🎮👊💥

Quarters not required!