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Sunday, February 28, 2021

8 From the 80s - Underappreciated Sitcoms

 


Each installment Mike will look back to the decade of decadence and provide a list of eight things – from movies to music to memorable moments and everything in-between.  Keep in mind, this isn’t a TOP 8 list and any numerical notations are included to merely designate one item from another. Because, frankly, how can you rate one thing over another when it comes from a decade as totally tubular as the 80s?

While it could be argued that the seventies had a better class of sitcoms, the eighties were no slouch in the “filmed before a live studio audience” department either.  From The Cosby Show, to Cheers, Diff’rent Strokes and Family Ties, there were numerous sitcoms that ran for a number of years and had millions of viewers.  But for every Growing Pains, there was a Charles in Charge. But not every “bad” sitcom was bad, some just never caught on.  Here are eight of them.


8. Head of the Class (ABC, 1986-1991)
This Howard Hesseman vehicle is one of the two more well-known of these eight.  In it, Hesseman played Charlie Moore, a substitute teacher who oversaw the kids in the school’s Individualized Honors Program (IHP).  The kids covered a wide spectrum of high school archetypes and a lot of what was “learned” was that people aren’t all that different from one another.



Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Bands That Deserved Better, Part 1

 
Five Hard Rock Acts of the Seventies
By Joseph W. Perry

For every Kiss, Cheap Trick, Rush, or AC/DC that the 1970s gave us, there were dozens of bands signed to major labels that had equally good or sometimes better material, yet those acts didn’t find wide recognition. In this article, I will recommend four (technically, five, if you look closely) 1970s hard rock groups that should have been huge and one that did become quite successful, but only after a name change. If you like wailing guitars, power chords, and thunderous bottom in your rock, I hope you find some new discoveries or remember some old favorites as you read on.

Saturday, February 20, 2021

We're Still Here!

Things have been a bit of a mess the past couple of weeks.
As you might know, Joseph lives and teaches in South Korea, while Mike lives on the East Coast of the United States - that's something like a 13 hour time difference! As if it wasn't trouble enough to arrange a time to record, Joseph has been without Internet access for the past couple of weeks while the dormitory he lives in is being renovated.  Meanwhile, Mike has been dealing with work, working on Fist of Justice related stuff, and dealing with what seems to be a half foot of snow every week.
Suffice it to say there hasn't been a time to record episode #99 yet and for that we apologize.
We WILL have a new episode soon, we promise.  Until then, we're going to crack the whip on Bingo the helper monkey and ensure that we at least have some fresh content here on the site for you.


 

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

FTV - More!

Here's another partial episode of the long-lost FTV syndicated comedy-parody-sketch show.

This one is a bit unfortunate because it cuts off right in the middle of the skit with Dokken.  But still you can get a feel for what this show was (and what it was wasn't too good).



Monday, February 8, 2021

FTV

Back in 1985 there was a short lived, syndicated TV show called "FTV".  To some, memories of this may invoke feelings of the "Mandela Effect" - the distinct memory of something that didn't really exist.  However, in this case those memories are real and Joseph and Mike have briefly talked about it on the show.  Though details of this MTV parody, sketch-comedy show are scarce (for now!), some clips have been unearthed.  The quality ranges from practically unwatchable to "this is a VHS-rip, right?", but it's all there is.

Hopefully one day this stuff will be unearthed in a more watchable format, but for now - dig on this:



Sunday, February 7, 2021

Green Onion Chex?!?

In the latest episode (#98 - "I Wanna Rock"), during the talk about breakfast cereal mascots, Joseph mentioned the green onion flavored Chex that they have in South Korea and then proceeded to terrify Mike by sending him a picture of the box.

Here is that box:
Be afraid. Be very afraid.


Thursday, February 4, 2021

"I Wanna Rock"

Episode #98

The Bangles, Stephanie Mills, John Paragon, and... Don Felder? What do these people have in common? The answer may amaze you! Cap'n Crunch, Trix, Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, and... Green Onion Chex?!? What do these things have in common? The answer may surprise you! AC/DC, Kansas, Bruce Springsteen, Sparks, and... Danny Elfman? What do they have in common? The answer may astound you! What's New, Mt. Retromore, and the main topic for this episode will make everything crystal clear. Join Joseph and Mike as they paddle down the stream of consciousness on their way to episode #100!





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