The Flopcast

We're way overdue for another look at an old Saturday morning TV schedule, so let's see what the kids watched on CBS half a century ago while chomping on their Count Chocula. The CBS 1971 Saturday morning lineup included classics like Bugs Bunny (of course), Scooby Doo (the original version), and The Flintstones (reformatted to feature Pebbles and Bamm Bamm, and their modern stone age rock band). The Harlem Globetrotters had their own goofy cartoon, and were still a decade away from battling robots on Gilligan's Island. There were THREE separate cartoons based on Archie characters! (One had an odd connection to Dick Tracy, while another featured the singing voice of a future Charlie's Angel star.) Meanwhile, Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! starred a freaky cartoon bear wearing a belt but no pants. And there's even a weird Hair Bear/Brady Bunch connection. So we are officially delighted. (We might even have a 50-year-old lunch box from one of these shows here at Chickentown Studios...) Plus: Our second concert review of the whole stupid year, because the farewell Monkees tour may be coming to your town! Also: Happy Birthday to Lou Ferrigno. We do actually like him when he's angry.

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This week's promo: The Soul Forge Podcast!

It's one of our dumbest ideas ever: This is episode 495, so we're discussing Interstate 495, the Massachusetts highway we've spent our whole lives driving up and down like idiots. 495 starts near Rhode Island (look out!) and ends near New Hampshire (oh no!). In between are lots of weird Massachusetts towns, which bring back lots of weird Massachusetts memories. So today's silly road trip includes: fake Pilgrims, the Thermometer Man, nerds at a football stadium, the early days of The Sponge Awareness Foundation, Kevin's 1990s open mic night (hope you like Jewel covers), Rubber Chicken Comics, midnight Snapple, the quest for clam cakes, apple orchards with free booze, the upcoming Northeast Comic Con (yikes, A.L. from Meatballs will be there), Kornflake's school days, mysterious pineapple glop on the beach, and zorbing. Also: Happy Birthday to The Karate Kid himself, Ralph Macchio. If he doesn't actually start to age sometime soon, we're gonna have to sweep the other leg.

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promos: The Best Saturdays of Our Lives! Earth Station DCU! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

It's Halloween, but why not ignore the creepy neighbor kids and just enjoy our silly little show? (That sack of Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins you've been eyeballing all week? ALL YOURS.) Including: A festive round of "What's in the Bag," compliments of our friend Blasted Bill; Halloween Chickens in the News with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark; more Halloween Chickens in the News involving the secret history of candy corn; and Happy Birthday to the star of many seasonally appropriate movies, Winona Ryder. She was absolutely terrifying in Mermaids.

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promos: Double Edged Double Bill! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

We just can't stop reviewing "backdoor pilot" episodes of The Facts of Life, so here we go again. This time Blair and Jo are graduating from Eastland, and perhaps this could have led to a spinoff series set at nearby Langley College. It didn't, of course, but it's still a fun two-part episode. We meet several new girls: Alexandra could have been a new Blair-type character at Eastland, while the graduating Emily, Bonnie, and Lisa could have joined a new cast at Langley. (For Lisa, life is a series of shoe problems. She could have become the most psychologically troubled sitcom character since Jan Brady.) We also have Mrs. Garrett juggling dozens of Jello molds and hundreds of pineapples, Roy the creepy bread delivery boy, a bizarre flashback sequence, Tootie seemingly in charge of the whole graduation ceremony, and the trouble with tassels. Also: We wish a Happy Birthday to Mork & Mindy's Pam Dawber, Kevin is on Gleaming the Tube and Earth Station One, and Kornflake is hiding under a giant pile of blankets.

Kevin, Kevin, and Mike talking Wonder Woman on Gleaming the Tube!

Kevin, Mike, and Mike talking Monkees on Earth Station One!

And our regular links...

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promos: Ring of Thunder! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

Just a silly mix of subjects this week, including: The new Monster Mash cereal (we might not eat it, but we still love it), Kornflake's concert report on Lindsey Stirling (she plays the violin while hanging upside down blindfolded; what more do you want?), Daryl Hall's birthday, Clint Eastwood's chicken movie, a correction from last week (sorry, Woonsocket), and the plan for next week. (Hint: Blair and Tootie are involved.)

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promos: Earth Station One! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

Our friend Kevin Cafferty is back for a Top 4 1/2 List dedicated to our favorite weird city: Woonsocket, Rhode Island! Both Kevin and Kevin (lot of Kevins on the show this week) spent way too much time in Woonsocket back in the 80s, and remember it all too well. Our conversation includes: Fine Woonsocket dining (weiners and coffee milk, fish and chips, egg rolls and jazz), movies at the Stadium Theatre and Cinemas 1-2-3 (and 4), thrift shopping at the flea market and Joe's Moldy Oldies, Pac-Man at Pizza Hut, Donkey Kong Junior at Social Donut, crazy Rhode Island cable TV shows, the majesty of Autumnfest, and lots more northern Rhode Island weirdness. (When you've had enough, you can slip right over the border to Massachusetts. It's pretty weird there too.)

Check out Kevin Cafferty's podcasts: Gleaming the Tube! Let's Get Chatty About David and Maddie!

And our regular links...

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promos: Thunder Talk! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

The subject of today's Top 4 1/2 List is, uh, whistling. We're still not sure why. But it's a fun list, including a classic TV theme song, a Bangles song, a bizarre Boston clown, a Muppet, a Guardian of the Galaxy, and lots more whistling weirdness. (We somehow missed the Frosty the Snowman traffic cop who swallows his whistle. Oops.) And we assure you, this show contains no actual whistling, so you may proceed with confidence. Your dog won't freak out. Also: National Drink Beer Day is this week! So go ahead and wet your whistle. Or your whistlepig. Your choice.

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Email: [email protected]

Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promos: NerdBliss! Pop Culture Cosmos! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

Our ten-part celebration of the 80s concludes, just as the 80s did, with 1989. Top 40 radio was ruled by Milli Vanilli, the New Kids, and hair metal. It was a problem. But at least we had telepathic Australian dolphins, thanks to Kornflake's favorite short-lived TV show, Dolphin Cove. Kornflake also has a list of celebrities who showed up for 1989's Circus of the Stars. (Was the cast of Growing Pains mauled by a tiger? Hey, we can dream...) And we're celebrating the 50th birthday of Alfonso Ribeiro, star of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Silver Spoons, and goofy breakdancing ads. Also: Chickens in the News brings us all the way to a New Zealand preschool, where the safety of the children has been entrusted to a clueless hen. We approve.

Kevin's defense of Legends of the Superheroes in Classic Sci-Fi Court!

And our regular links...

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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 promos: The Watch-A-Thon of Rassilon! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown are back from Atlanta with a full report on DragonCon, where they joined all the masked and vaccinated nerds for a long silly Labor Day weekend. They had a busy schedule of panels, presentations, and events, and our discussion includes: The Suicide Squad, Smallville, Doctor Who, Pennyworth, DragonCon mead, Saturday Morning Live Roll-a-Panel, Classic Sci-Fi Court, burrito detectors, Fargo, John Scalzi, Louis Gossett Jr., Howard the Duck ribbons, The Geek Girls Run, A Discovery of Witches, The Justice Society of America, the Battle of the Fictional Bands, pizza pie with Kate from Strange Animals Podcast, Kevin's Digital Media panel mishap, and a million Loki variants everywhere you look. But the highlight for us was spending time onstage and offstage with Land of the Lost's original Will and Holly, Wesley Eure and Kathleen Coleman. (And an actual Sleestak too!) Hopefully the world will be less horrifying in time for DragonCon 2022, but meanwhile the geeks figured out how to make it work. Also this week: Happy Birthday to Amy Poehler, and the only part of 1988 that Kornflake remembers is Kylie Minogue.

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Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation!

This week's promos: Earth Station Trek! But First, Let's Talk Nerdy! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!

Our ten-part celebration of the 80s brings us back to 1987 this week. For most of us, 1987 means Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise... and that's all. But the year had even more to offer, if you poke around enough. So first we take a quick look at the Billboard chart from this week in 1987, and find more questions than answers: Did Diane Warren write every hit song in the 1980s, or just most of them? Who had better hair, Richard Marx or the guy from Europe? And can most of society's ills be blamed on Starship? Then we examine the TV shows that debuted in 1987, and it's quite a list. Some long-running shows got started, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, Full House, and Married... with Children. (The entire Fox Network started this year, actually, including those crude early Simpsons shorts...) Then there's the short-lived weird stuff: Max Headroom, My Two Dads, Beauty and the Beast, The Charmings, Out of This World (this is the one with the alien girl, not the robot girl), Roomies (Burt Young and Corey Haim, together at last), The Highwayman (Flash Gordon as a futuristic trucker), She's the Sheriff (Suzanne Somers as... you know), and lots more. Next week we'll be back from Atlanta to report on every crazy thing that happened at DragonCon. Meanwhile, enjoy 1987. Say hi to Debbie and Tiffany for us.

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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 promos: Blurred Nerds! Doctor Geek's vaccination PSA!