The Flopcast

Hang onto your milk money, because we're celebrating National School Lunch Week with a Kornflake Cafeteria Quiz. (Would she eat a Tater Tot? We're still not sure...) Then it's time to dive into another issue of Dynamite, the magazine for weird kids of the 70s and 80s. And we're looking at a Dynamite from 1978 that was provided by our pal Chris from Sci-Fi Explosion! Alfred E. Neuman is on the cover, because the lead story is about the 25th anniversary of MAD magazine. (And yes, someone baked a nightmare-inducing Alfred E. Neuman birthday cake.) Also in this issue: The Dynamite Duo (you know, legendary superheroes Dawnstar and Nightglider), bizarre ways to ruin your bicycle, International Pickle Week, the zombie kites of Nantucket, Count Morbida's puzzle pages, Magic Wanda's awful magic tricks, advice for witches, Dynamite Bummers, and a horse. Enjoy.

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This week's promo: Monkeeing Around!

With our Dragon Con coverage finally out of the way (more or less), it's time to focus on what really matters: National Microwave Oven Day. Get ready to party, kids. We also have concert reviews on a couple of music legends: Bruce Springsteen (who never made a music video with dancing turkeys) and Peter Gabriel (who totally did). Plus: Yetis, ALF lunch boxes, and Chickens in the News! Did ancient chicken ancestors lay eggs or not? Let's find out. And then let's see if Peter can work this into his next video.

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This week's promo: Con Guy!

Okay, let's wrap up our coverage of Dragon Con 2023! (Because come on, if this recap goes on much longer, we'll have to include Dragon Con 2024...) Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown (reporting from Maine in the middle of a hurricane) are here to run through every crazy thing that happened over the last two days of the convention. Including: Bionic fun with Lindsay Wagner and Lee Majors, the Battle of the Mad Scientists, the Battle of the Fictional Bands, Christmas Con (with Robot Santa and horrifying holiday Spam), an ALF script reading (with Chris from Sci-Fi Explosion as ALF!), a Wonder Woman script reading (with Kevin as Steve Trevor, the Mayor as Etta Candy, and Joe in a gorilla suit!), panels on Stargirl and Titans with the American Sci-Fi and Fantasy Media Track, more hot Manimal talk with the American Sci-Fi Classics Track, and the upcoming Dragon Con-themed benefit book Dragon Tales! (Kevin wrote a chapter for this book. And it's quite silly, believe it or not.) Plus: Our favorite costumes, including a bizarre giant rubber chicken, a Weird Al group with tiny accordions, an eerily accurate Wilford Brimley, our friend Martha as Booster Gold, a million Mrs. Ropers, and a billion Barbies. We are officially exhausted. See you next year, nerds.

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promo: Earth Station DCU!

Our Dragon Con recap continues, and this time we're just covering Saturday. While everyone else in Atlanta was out on the street for the big Dragon Con parade, Kevin was hiding in the American Sci-Fi Classics Track room for the ESO Network's celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Super Friends. (Were any Wonder Twin powers activated? Perhaps...) The Mayor of Chickentown (our resident Barbie expert) was busy too with an American Sci-Fi/Fantasy Media Track panel about the Barbie movie! (There were approximately 63,000 Barbies at Dragon Con this year, and they were approximately everywhere.) Also: Kevins vs. Michaels, hobbits in the Con Suite, charity screenings of Krull (with the lights on) and Pee Wee's Big Adventure (with the lights off), and Kevin and the Mayor onstage together at Dragon Con for the very first time! (Also, speaking of Mr. Herman, we even ran into our favorite Pee Wee cosplayer, the amazing Remy Dee.) And yikes, there are still two more days of Dragon Con left to cover! This has to end at some point. Next week, hopefully.

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This week's promo: The Watch-A-Thon of Rassilon!

We have apparently survived Dragon Con 2023, and it's gonna take THREE episodes to review everything that happened at our favorite annual gathering of 70,000 nerds and/or geeks. This week we're just covering Wednesday through Friday, including: The amazing costumes of Brandon the Shapeshifter, the muscovy ducks of Piedmont Park, the Dragon Con Newbie Walking Tours, Kate from Strange Animals Podcast, Chris from Sci-Fi Explosion, Kevin from Gleaming the Tube, a tribute to MTV 120 Minutes, the Geek Girls Run, the legendary Marty Krofft (and HR Pufnstuf!), a Twilight Zone "Eye of the Beholder" deep dive with the American Sci Fi Classics Track, weird music video fun with the Jonzun Crew, and much more. We'll try to make you feel as dizzy and confused as if you were really there. Plus: Wherever we go, whatever we do, we will be right here waiting for Kornflake's National Whatever Day. Next week: Dragon Con review continues. And it's a safe bet that things will just keep getting weirder.

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This week's promo: The Soul Forge Podcast!

It's Dragon Con week! Alas, Kornflake cannot join us at Dragon Con, but let's just pretend that she can! Kevin has prepared a hypothetical weekend of silly events for Kornflake, based on the actual Dragon Con schedule. Including: robot battles, coloring books and coffee, burlesque, the old Krofft theme park, a tea party for puppets, and more. Plus: It's National Star Trek Day! (Hey, maybe we can just beam Kornflake to Atlanta.) Next week: Our actual review of Dragon Con. Assuming there are any survivors.

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promo: Earth Station One!

It's time for Dragon Con, so round up all your local weirdos and stick them on a bus to Atlanta! Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown will be there, and we're sharing our whole schedule with you. Come see the Mayor talk about Rocky Horror, Schmigadoon, and Barbie! (Did you know our Mayor is a Barbie expert? There's a lot going on here. It's not just chickens.) Meanwhile Kevin's nonstop schedule of silliness (with the American Sci-Fi Classics track and the American Sci-Fi and Fantasy Media track) includes panels and presentations on The Super Friends, The Twilight Zone, Krull, Titans, Stargirl, Wonder Woman, fictional bands, weird music videos, and much more. (Join us Friday morning for the Geek Girls Run! Don't you want to stomp around in the Atlanta heat? What's wrong with you?) We also take a quick look at the Dragon Con guest list, and we're most excited that the legendary Marty Krofft will be there! You know we'll be looking for Marty. We have 8,000 questions about Lidsville alone.

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Please rate and review The Flopcast on Apple Podcasts!

Email: [email protected]

Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promo: DragonCon Report!

As we frantically prepare for Dragon Con 2023, we're wrapping up our 10-episode look back at the 1980s with a visit to Dragon Con 1989! We weren't actually there (probably too busy watching Batman for the nineteenth time), but we did scrape up some information about the third ever installment of Atlanta's legendary nerdfest. It was held on a different weekend back then (in October instead of Labor Day), at a different location (the Omni Hotel at CNN Center, dangerously close to the former location of The World of Sid and Marty Krofft), and with far fewer humans in attendance. (There were 2400 people at Dragon Con 1989. This year there will be 2400 people at Dragon Con just waiting for an elevator.) But there were still some impressive guests from literature, horror, and gaming. We even found a list of movies and videos that were shown in 1989. (Star Trek: The Next Generation bloopers! Kornflake could have taken a very weird Brent Break.) So it might be too late to attend the 1989 version, but Dragon Con is coming around again very soon. See you there. Also: Kornflake's final pair of 1980s TV commercials! If you think computers don't care about chewing gum, get ready for a shock.

Links:

Our final 80s commercials: Teach your computer how to chew gum!

Then teach Leno how to chomp on Doritos!

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Please rate and review The Flopcast on Apple Podcasts!

Email: [email protected]

Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promo: Epsilon Three!

The vacationing Kornflake is flopped on a hammock somewhere, but the Mayor of Chickentown is here to celebrate the year 1988. After a quick look at some of the year's least popular movies (Kevin and the Mayor each saw just one of them), we turn to music. Specifically we're looking at the 1988 concert schedule at Great Woods, a beloved outdoor venue that dominated southern New England's summer concert landscape back in the day. The 1988 lineup at Great Woods featured classic rock (here comes Jethro Tull with that crazy flute), hair metal (Def Leppard, Europe, and a blindingly white combo show with Whitesnake and Great White), new wave (we should not have missed Depeche Mode with OMD), and Top 40 (George Michael, Huey Lewis, and more). Guns 'n' Roses opened for Aerosmith. Roy Orbison opened for the Beach Boys. Santana and Herbie Hancock were part of something called "Jazz Explosion," which sounds absolutely terrifying. And Kevin went to Great Woods for the very first time that summer, to see an Australian band that found massive success in the 80s. (And we don't mean Air Supply, or Men at Work, or Midnight Oil. Keep guessing.) Also: Last week we forgot to mention a certain giant robot from 1987. We apologize to giant robots everywhere.

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promo: Earth Station Who!

Go away, soft weak humans! It's time for our annual robot-themed Top 4 1/2 List! And it's also time for our 1987-themed show! So once again we've turned to our pal Chris from Sci-Fi Explosion, because we knew Chris could come up with a magnificent list of 1987 robots. And yikes, he sure did. We have some all-time favorites (a certain Star Trek android debuted that year), some lesser known oddities (yes yes yes, robot french fries), and a poignant tribute to a fallen hero whose faithful robot always knew the secret word. Plus: Greg Hawkes and Eddie Japan are keeping the music of The Cars alive, Kornflake is hunting for bargains, Kevin and Chris are preparing silly things for DragonCon, and Tom Bosley is battling demon plastic wrap.

You need Sci Fi Explosion and Chris has it!

You need plastic wrap and Bosley has it!

And our regular links...

The Flopcast website!

The ESO Network!

The Flopcast on Facebook!

The Flopcast on Instagram!

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: Cosmic Pizza!