The Flopcast

Despite a delightful series of weather-related delays and flight cancellations, Kornflake has returned from Minnesota with a full report on MarsCon! It's one of our very favorite conventions, thanks to its Dementia Track of comedy music concerts, under the direction of our pal the great Luke Ski. Performers this year included Luke, Donita Smith, Marc with a C, StarF and Mattari 2600, brentalfloss, Power Salad, Devo Spice, Insane Ian, TV's Kyle and Lindzilla, the Library Bards, the Faithful Sidekicks, Beth Kinderman, Karl Brown, and Carrie Dahlby! Plus: Dementia Smackdown Wrestling, Geek Bellydancing, Boob Tree (it's a game), Use Your Words (also a game), and of course... Kornflake's Dementia Water Aerobics! Hop in the pool, kids; we like to leave our fellow geeks soaking wet and exhausted.

It's another movie-themed show, because Kornflake finally saw the latest Star Wars movie, just in time for actor John Boyega's birthday. (You know John. He plays Finn, the Stormtrooper with a heart of gold.) We also discuss Kornflake's January movie (for each month of 2018, she is watching a classic movie she should have seen years ago), Labyrinth! (Come on, it's Bowie and Muppets. Can't go wrong.) Then following a super-quick review of Black Panther, the rest of the show is all about Molly. We're gonna need 34 more candles, because our favorite Brat Packer, Molly Ringwald, just turned 50! So we're looking back at Molly's career, from Facts of Life (first season only, alas) through the John Hughes years and beyond, up to her present role as Archie's mom on Riverdale. And because Kevin just saw it, we spend way too much time on 1983's Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. It has Molly, and Ernie Hudson, and space chickens, so we love it. There's some TV talk as well, about One Day at a Time and Red Oaks, because we also enjoy creepy 1980s mustache dudes. Don't judge us. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Molly! Next week: MarsCon.

The Mayor of Chickentown returns with a full report from the big Los Angeles Doctor Who convention, Gallifrey One! Featuring: Doctor Who actors, writers, producers, podcasters, and puppeteers! Also featuring: Panels (the Mayor participated in several), costumers (including Yip-Yips, arguably not part of official Doctor Who canon), the Master (Doctor Who AND Lee Van Cleef versions), and our beloved Los Angeles Chicken Boy statue. Also: What's in the Bag, the ESO Network on Patreon, and National Retro Video Game Day (because if your game is more recent than ColecoVision, we're not interested).

This week we open our long-neglected Flopcast Mailbag and find a Top 4 1/2 List of video games featuring chickens! It's a nice bizarre list, and the games are mostly new to us (since we stopped paying attention to anything after the 80s). But we were inspired to break out our old Atari 2600 and fire up a classic chicken game! So if you've always dreamed of listening to us play Freeway by Activision here on the Flopcast... this is your big day. Also: We're celebrating National Mulled Wine Day... with black coffee. Stay safe, kids. Don't drink and Atari.

Join us as Kornflake prepares for MarsCon (March 2-4 in Bloomington, Minnesota)! Many friends of the Flopcast from the comedy music scene will be there too! The MarsCon Dementia Track will feature performances by the great Luke Ski, Power Salad, Insane Ian, Devo Spice, TV's Kyle and Lindzilla, the Library Bards, Marc With a C, brentalfloss (your Music Guest of Honor), and many more. And be sure to get up early and get in the pool, because yes, our own Kornflake is bringing Dementia Water Aerobics back to MarsCon. Let's see if there are any survivors this time. Also this week: Pangolins, the Pudding Pages, and perhaps a skink.

It's World Hippo Day, and we're always up for a high-stakes round of Hungry Hungry Hippos... but we're still terrified by Henrietta from the New Zoo Revue. Meanwhile in this week's Chickens in the News, a weird bird known as the Bin Chicken emerges as a contender for Australia's Bird of the Year. (We assume Olivia Newton-John masterminded this whole operation.) And we also have a "What's in the Bag?" segment featuring a fine new item from our very own ESO Network! (Hint: It's time to reinstate the Flopcast Book Club.) And Los Angeles-area Doctor Who fans, beware! Our own Mayor of Chickentown will see you this week at Gallifrey One.

Join us as we celebrate 300 episodes of The Flopcast! Yes, it's been 300 long weeks of giggling about stupid things for your amusement. (And yes, this has all been part of our court-ordered community service. Yikes, that judge was merciless.) So this week Kornflake has 300 other podcasts to recommend (don't worry, she moves quickly), while Kevin flips through a stack of comic books to see how Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and other heroes celebrated their 300th issues. (The short answer: With ads for Hostess Fruit Pies, Clark Bars, and Bubble Yum.) Plus: The classic version of National Whatever Day returns (just in time for World Nutella Day!); we review the top ten countries, and the top ten US states, for Flopcast listeners (alas, they're still ignoring us in North Dakota); we have a late addition to last week's memorial show list (sorry, Sister Sledge fans); and we plug our recent appearances on Earth Station One and Earth Station DCU. Okay, time to make 300 more shows. But first... Nutella.

Once again, it's time for our annual memorial show, so we're looking back on everyone we lost in 2017, from the world of pop culture and beyond. (And once again, it's our longest Flopcast ever! We just can't help it.) Our list includes familiar old favorites from TV, movies, and music (such as Adam West, June Foray, Mary Tyler Moore, Tom Petty, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Don Rickles, David Cassidy, and Rose Marie), as well as directors, voice actors, comic book creators, game show hosts, wrestlers, and maybe a guy who could play three trumpets while hopping on a pogo stick. (Yeah, it's a long list.) In 2017, we lost Gomer Pyle, Joanie from Happy Days, Oscar Goldman from The Six Million Dollar Man, Morty from Meatballs ("Hi, Mickey!"), and Benson from, uh, Benson. But we'll get through this together. We'll settle things here, in our forum. That's what Judge Wapner would have wanted.

Kevin, Kornflake, and the Mayor of Chickentown have a full report on our weekend at "New England's largest and most diverse science fiction and fantasy convention," Arisia! Including: Kevin's panels on Riverdale and Saturday morning TV (yes, Robbie Rist was mentioned, more than once), keytar-based synthrock (and a Taylor Dayne cover!) from Minusworld, a gender-swapped Star Trek show from the Post-Meridian Radio Players, a Princess Bride shadowcast from the Teseracte Players, Geek Belly Dancing, stand-up comedy (from Wes Hazard, Srilatha Rajamani, Anthony Scibelli, Emily Ruskowski, and Nick Chambers), more panels (on Wonder Woman, A Wrinkle in Time, Hitchhiker's Guide, the movies of 1982, the year in science... and a panel about panels), Guest of Honor Mikki Kendall, Yukon Cornelius, the Mayor's new chicken suit, Kornflake singing in the swimming pool, and a wardrobe malfunction. Good job, nerds of Boston. We're exhausted.

We're creeping around a convention in Boston right now (find us at Arisia!), but we saved something special for this week's show, from a whole different convention! It's a panel from the American Sci-Fi Classics track at DragonCon 2017! Join Kevin along with Scott Viguié, Anthony Taylor, and Andrew Gaska, as they discuss... Sci-Fi TV 1977! Our science fiction options were limited back in the disco era, before a certain little movie came along and Hollywood was conquered by space ships and robots. But things were interesting in 1977, and this panel covers TV shows ranging from the classic and beloved to the obscure and problematic. Including: Space 1999, Fantasy Island, The Man From Atlantis, Logan's Run, The Amazing Spider-Man, Space Academy, Quark, Lucan (does ANYBODY remember Lucan?), and lots more. Don't you wish you could leap back 41 years and watch them all over again, on a tiny TV with poor reception and no remote? Yeah, us too...