Penny Men

The Penny Men dive headfirst into the wobulous, Hanna-Barbera-fueled world of Super Friends, where cosmic legends fight injustice, censorship fights punches, and Wonder Dog somehow outranks Krypto!

The Penny Men lead you through a surprisingly dense exploration of Super Friends lore—covering the cartoons, the comics, the junior Justice League, the Super Foes, and why Batman keeps letting children wander into active crime scenes!

Along the way, the guys unpack:

• 1970s broadcast standards
• Environmental PSA villains
• Filmation leftovers
• Continuity gymnastic
• And the philosophical question: what element is Batman, really?

Expect:

• Deep DC cuts
• Hanna-Barbera trivia
• Casey Kasem voice-count math
• Aquaman villain slander
• And a passionate defense of Wendy and Marvin as the most competent people in the Hall of Justice!

Some of us are super!

Some of us are friends!

All of us are recording!

Holy draft board, Penny People! The full Penny Men ensemble assembles — Ben, Gregory, Tom, Michal, and even Kit Kat (Jar Jar emphatically not invited) — for a batarang-loaded Batman Classics Fantasy Draft!

With the Phantom Jar looming and George Lucas apparently letting himself into the studio, the boys lay out this episode’s rules… and immediately start breaking them!

Each host builds the ultimate six-hero, six-villain lineup for their dream Batman story:

• One Batman
• One civilian
• One guest hero from a Bat-related team
• A bat-vehicle (specific make, please)
• And a single villain drafted onto the hero side!

Naturally, this devolves instantly into Bronze Age deep cuts, questionable eligibility, and at least one giant chicken!

Greg kicks us off with hand-drawn hero and villain rosters (yes, actual art), featuring:

• Bruce Wayne riding Joker’s massive poultry from Detective Comics #332
• The return of the extremely obscure Getaway Genius
• And a rulebook treated more as gentle suggestion than binding contract!

It’s comics nerdery! It’s chaos! It’s philosophy! It’s The Penny Men!

Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed! Let the lineup begin!

Cousins Ben and Michael finally unite East and West in this long-awaited crossover: The Pennymen meet The Pennymen West Coast for the sacred, years-teased mission — the Batman Episode!

They trace their Bat-origins from one-inch metal figurines, McDonald’s tie-ins, and grocery-store spinner racks to the defining after-school ritual of Batman: The Animated Series! They talk back-issue archaeology, 3-for-a-buck treasure hunts, and the moment Batman quietly became the all-timer for both of them!

From there, the conversation spirals deep into the long arcs:

• Revisiting Year One, The Long Halloween, and its sorta-sequel
• The sprawling, chaotic roller coaster that is Nightfall — highs, lows, and the parts that secretly still rule
• Their mutual love for No Man’s Land, and why it still hits when you revisit it today
• Collecting the trades in high school, discovering the weirder corners, and figuring out which eras genuinely hold up!

It’s full-on Bat-nostalgia, story-arc autopsies, sibling-energy comic talk, and the exact kind of deep-cut fandom that only the Penny People can conjure!

The Batman conversation they’ve been promising for years? It finally happened — and it’s a monster!

This week on The Penny Men, we accidentally record 20 minutes of Muppet calendars, Beatles bootlegs, and obscure Marvel villains before remembering we were supposed to talk about Flash Gordon. So naturally, we kept all of it!

Cold Open Highlights (aka: Things No One Asked For But You Got Anyway):

• The Muppets calendar that reprogrammed Greg’s brain permanently
• Beatles parodies including the immortal hit “She Loves Shoes”
• Tom naming five different goblins before remembering The Beetle is named Abner Jenkins
• A brief legal discussion about asbestos
• Colonel Mustard doing crimes with a lead pipe on the “motorway”
• The Clue movie body count (incorrectly)!

Then We Actually Talk About Flash Gordon (Sort Of):

• The three classic movie serials and why only one of them kinda counts
• Buster Crabbe: buff, shiny, professional cliffhanger survivor
• The dragon puppet that is absolutely not a puppet
• The Vulture Men
• Why Dale suddenly changes actresses and no one on screen cares
• Flash Gordon serial cliffhangers vs. the infamous Misery “cockadoody car” rule
• Shout-outs to Zorro’s Fighting Legion, Daredevils of the Red Circle, and probably 12 other serials only Tom knows existed!

Bonus Tangents (Required by Law):

• Tarzan movies and Burroughs rage-quitting
• Filmation’s rotoscoped spaceships
• The underground sci-fi singing cowboy kingdom of The Phantom Empire
• Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, because why not
• “Tubi or not Tubi,” the joke that required no setup and got delivered anyway!

Come for Flash Gordon…

Stay for Abner Jenkins, the calendar Beatles, and Tom’s ongoing war with 1930s production budgets!

This week on The Penny Men, Tom, Greg, and Ben broadcast live from the newly-renamed Artist Formerly Known as Ben’s Apartment (formerly Skywalker Ranch II: Special Edition, formerly Ben’s Apartment)! The boys nod politely, kiss a baby, and immediately fall apart!

What follows is a heroic attempt to explain Flash Gordon that derails into:

• A crash course in newspaper comics
• A heated debate about whether newspapers ever truly existed
• A tour of every museum in Ohio
• A Jack Cole appreciation hour
• The Teapot Dome Scandal???
• The Pennsylvania Avenue song making an encore nobody asked for!

Meanwhile, Tom tries to outline the entire 1930s Flash Gordon plot:

• Rogue planet Mongo shows up to wreck Earth
• Zarkov pulls a gun on strangers, as scientists do
• Flash (polo player, not space guy, not yet) gets kidnapped into space
• Ming is here. He is merciless.
• Every society on Mongo hates each other AND Ming, which is honestly impressive!

By the end, you’ll learn:

• Why Flash Gordon is basically Hercule Satan in space
• Why every planet is somehow divided into Bird People, Tree People, and Fish People
• Why Star Wars quietly owes Flash Gordon about 40% of its personality
• Why comic strip fans in the 1930s were built different!

Come for the history! Stay for the derailments! Leave knowing way too much about the MSU comic archives!

Grab your cereal, kids, because we’re taking a nostalgia-powered plunge into the chaotic, colorful world of Saturday morning cartoons!

In this episode, Ben, Tom, and Gregory dissect, debate, and reminisce about the shows that defined a generation—both the hits and the weird, slightly forgotten ones!

Here's what’s on the docket!

The Big Three: Doug, Recess, Pepper Ann—who really deserved the crown?

• Doug moves to Bluffington, meets Patty Mayonnaise, Skeeter, Roger, and the Dinks!
• Recess taught life lessons disguised as playground antics!
• Pepper Ann pushed the boundaries with dry humor, awkward crushes, and a memorable time capsule finale!

Character deep dives:

• Mr. Dink, Quail Man, Bebe Bluff, and Porkchop the dog!
• Pepper Ann’s tomboy sister Moose and her badass mom!
• Mark Hamill guest-starring as himself. Alex Trebek running a recurring joke!

Cartoon Network Classics:

• Dexter’s Lab
• Johnny Bravo
• Powerpuff Girls
• Cow & Chicken
• Sheep in the Big City
• Time Squad
• Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?
• I Am Weasel
• Grim & Evil
• Ed, Ed, and Eddy
• Mike, Lu, and Og
• Courage the Cowardly Dog
• Codename: Kids Next Door
• And more!

Neo-era gems:

• Chowder
• Flapjack
• Clone High
• Megas XLR
• Squirrel Boy!

Disney Afternoon & Beyond:

• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (with Patrick Warburton)!
• Mighty Ducks, Tarzan, Teamo Supremo, L.T. Grey, and other nostalgic hits!
• Timon & Pumbaa, Hercules, and the intricate history of Mickey Mouse Works → House of Mouse!

Space and Beyond:

• Lloyd in Space: Recess… but intergalactic!
• Galaxy High School: 80s space-school hilarity with Amy Brighttower & Doyle Cleverlobe!

Magic, live-action, and teen drama:

• Sabrina the Animated Series (Emily Hart voicing a young Sabrina)!
• Even Stevens, Lizzie McGuire, Braceface, and Ginger confusion galore!

Pop culture tangents:

• References to Song of the South, Lion King SNES game rage, ProZD movie recaps, and more!

From childhood memories to deep dives into character dynamics, voice actors, and network programming strategies, this episode is a loving (and occasionally hilarious) tribute to Saturday mornings of the ’90s and early ’00s!

Expect wild tangents, obscure trivia, and the occasional debate about which show was really the best!

Welcome to the Ultimate Donkey Kong Fan Cast… sorta! This week, we’ve traded barrels for backpacks and explored the magical, chaotic, totally legitimate world of Disney’s One Saturday Morning!

Join Ben, Greg, and Tom as they take you on a nostalgia-fueled ride through:

• How much stuff can an elephant crush? (Spoiler: a lot!)
• Mrs. Munger’s Class – the original animated yearbook chaos!
• Centerville – same photos, more backgrounds, catchphrases on repeat!
• Manny the Uncanny & Mr. Lighter-than-Air – live-action educational adventures!
• Tube Dwellers → Monkey Boys – slapstick in a television, literally!
• Timon & Pumbaa explain science (sort of!)
• Robin Williams as Genie teaching history – “Great minds think to themselves!”

Main shows:

• Doug
• Recess
• Pepper Ann

Saturday mornings were a five-hour workout for your eyeballs, where kids in black-and-white photos said unfunny things that were somehow hilarious!

Warning: Listening may cause sudden urges to yell “Grace!” or animate your own yearbook!

It’s the 100th episode spectacular!

Ben, Gregory, Tom, and West Coast cousin Michael gather at last — the four heads of the Penny Men Mount Rushmore — for a centennial celebration of nonsense, nostalgia, and nerdom! The guys attempt to recall anything they’ve ever said across 99 episodes, but mostly end up reading lists, assigning points that don’t matter, and starting a 100-question quiz they’ll never finish!

Topics include:

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the invention of “guy with two personalities” literature!
• Arabian Nights, murder wives, and genies!
• Outlaws of the Marsh, Chinese super-monks, and proto-anime Vegetas!
• Batman: Nightfall, Punisher crossovers, and the golden era of too-many Batmen!
• Secret Identity by Alex Segura, TMNT’s 150-issue odyssey, and literary homework piles!
• The eternal question: Is Bane Thomas Wayne’s son?

It’s chaos, it’s scholarship, it’s friendship — it’s 100 episodes of penny-sized philosophy culminating in one enormous mess of celebration!

Tag it under: #TMNT #Batman #Comics #Literature #PodcastMilestone #ThePennyMen #Episode100

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve done it 98 times—and we’re doing it one more time!

The Penny People are back in the galaxy far, far away for The Clone Wars, the animated fever dream where every Jedi gets a haircut and every clone gets feelings!

Ben, Gregory, and Tom take the long way ‘round hyperspace, stopping to ponder the big question: what is Star Wars, anyway?

Along the way, we meet:

• Compassionate clones
• Celebrity Jedi
• And the tragic tale of General Stanky—hero of the 14th Quadrant!

There’s:

• Tax disputes
• Baby Hutts
• And a crash course on the West End Games RPG!

The boys debate:

• Why Clone Wars feels like M*A*S*H*
• How Anakin got a Padawan before he got a clue
• And whether Jar Jar deserves redemption (Spoiler: he does not)!

Featuring:

• Dissertations on the politics of midi-chlorians
• Tom’s theory that clone troopers are just unionized stormtroopers
• Greg’s impression of every droid ever built
• And a surprise tangent on samurai films, AI generals, and space bureaucracy!

It’s lightsabers, philosophy, and bad impressions—your classic Penny Men mix!

This is Episode 99: The Clone Wars – The Rise of General Stanky!

The Penny Men are still trapped in Ben's apartment — or possibly Skywalker Ranch 2: Special Edition — and discover George Lucas has been hiding a Wookie jar, a Red Tails podcast, and several unproduced sequels to Strange Magic!

Meanwhile, Ben, Tom, and Gregory try to remember the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe from memory, covering:

• Cindel Tawani’s journalism career
• Luke’s secret ooze girlfriend
• And Cade Skywalker’s death stick problem!

Along the way, the boys accidentally pitch:

• A live-action Jetsons movie
• A Street Fighter reboot starring Jack Black
• And the new Penny Men format: “Draw From the Phantom Jar”!

Featuring guest appearances by George Lucas, Admiral Sushi Bar, and Yuck Yuck Binks!