Flopcast 711: Everybody Knows a Turkey
The Flopcast
It's our annual holiday spectacular! And once again we're talking about old Christmas cartoons, because that's all we care about. But this time, we're looking at a couple of cartoons we've never discussed on the show before, and they're both based on classic comic strips. (They're also both on YouTube, if you want to play along.) From 1979, A Family Circus Christmas features a ghost Santa, a candy cane farm in the clouds, a busty mom, and plenty of crazy jazz flute. And from 1982, Ziggy's Gift features the scrawny tree from Charlie Brown Christmas, the Irish cop from Frosty the Snowman, a...
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Flopcast 710: Bless the Pugs and Chickens
The Flopcast
It's the stupid holidays, so 'tis the season for a Top 4 1/2 List of our favorite holiday dogs! Of course our list includes dogs from Christmas cartoons (compliments of Charlie Brown, the Grinch, the Simpsons, and more), as well as Christmas books and even a goofy Christmas song. If we missed your favorite holiday dog, let us know! Or just keep it to yourself! That works too. Also: An evening with the stars of Stand By Me (they brought along plenty of cherry flavored Pez), and a holiday show with a Carpenters tribute band in Woonsocket, Rhode Island! It's all just so festive that we can't...
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Flopcast 709: Melt My Christmas This Christmas
The Flopcast
Every year, dozens of ridiculous identical holiday movies are unleashed by Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, and the like. (They're so cookie-cutter that many of them literally involve cutting cookies.) And every year, we try to fix them by making them weirder. So we've selected a few new Christmas movies, and we're discussing their plots (featuring time travel, glassblowing, and pickleball) and casts (featuring, as always, Lacey Chabert). Then we're randomly inserting some strange new element (a camel with wings, perhaps) into each movie so it meets our strict weirdness standards. There, we just...
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Flopcast 708: Amanda Runs This Town
The Flopcast
Before we plunge into weeks of holiday silliness, here's something different for you! Five years ago, our friend Amanda decided to run at least one mile in each of the 351 towns and cities that make up Massachusetts. A month ago, she finished. And she's here to tell us all about the whole project. Including: Covered bridges, waterfalls, murder roads, World War II bunkers, Jaws filming sites, an alleged UFO encounter site, Myles Standish's legs, a chicken with a backpack, sweaty women on a bus, and much more. It all wrapped up in the geographic center of the state with dozens of friends,...
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Flopcast 707: Holiday Torso Mishaps
The Flopcast
As we creep into the holidays, once again we're looking back at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades of the past. (Debbie Gibson is scheduled to perform at this year's parade, so you should all be road-tripping to Manhattan RIGHT NOW.) We start with the 2015 parade (featuring that top-hatted honey-roasted freak, Mr. Peanut), then keep jumping back ten years at a time, all the way to the premiere of the Underdog balloon in 1965. (Underdog has been watching us from above ever since, and he is most displeased.) Along the way, we'll meet some of our favorite pop culture stars (even Alice from The Brady...
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Flopcast 706: This Girl Loves Her Air Supply
The Flopcast
When our favorite 1980s soft rock band comes to the town where we spent the 1980s, you know we'll be there. And so Kevin has a report from the sold out Air Supply concert at the Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket, Rhode Island! (We were front row center. Close enough to catch an official Air Supply guitar pick? You bet.) Also: The Mayor of Chickentown joins the Early Birds Club! Kevin accidentally runs a half marathon! And Finnish nannies sing Badfinger! Next week we'll have some holiday stuff. This week we're just being goofy. Email: info@flopcast.net
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Flopcast 705: Flopless in Seattle
The Flopcast
We're back with our full report on the city of Seattle, which turned out to be way over on the other side of the continent. (Probably should have packed a bag or something...) How many weird and silly activities could we squish into just a few days out west? Let's find out. Including: Retro-futuristic fun at the Space Needle! A robot on the monorail! Angry otters at the aquarium! A massive collection of nerd stuff at the Museum of Pop Culture! Giant trolls! A visit to Archie McPhee's Rubber Chicken Museum! A visit to filming locations from Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure! A fortune-telling...
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Flopcast 704: Dopey and Soapy
The Flopcast
It's been about a year since we killed a whole episode flipping through an issue of Dynamite, that classic magazine for kids of the 70s and 80s, so let's do it. We have an issue from 1976 (compliments of Chris from Sci Fi Explosion!) and on the cover are America's favorite toothy Mormons, Donny and Marie Osmond! Also in this issue: Fashion tips direct from Medford, Massachusetts; an Elton John pinball machine; a remarkable new gadget called the Betamax; the adventures of the Dynamite Duo and their new superhero pal, Jive Turkey; Magic Wanda in her painter's pants; a visit to Marvel Comics to...
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Flopcast 703: Wookiee Torso
The Flopcast
For our Halloween episode, we're revisiting a favorite subject: the cheapo department store Halloween costumes produced for decades by the Ben Cooper company. Kids loved slipping into their uncomfortable plastic masks and weird vinyl smocks for an evening of begging the neighbors for Twix bars. We look at superhero costumes (including some odd ones like Web Woman), Krofft costumes (you could be a Sleestak, a Bugaloo, or even Dr. Shrinker), and lots more, including the infamous Fonzie "He-e-y!" costume. Also: The classic Universal monster movies! A brilliant new monster t-shirt from cartoonist...
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Flopcast 702: Weather Bird Treasure Bird
The Flopcast
We're back from a quick visit to Albany, New York, where Kevin ran a half marathon (finishing in 309th place, probably not qualifying for the Olympics) and learned the shocking truth about Alice from The Brady Bunch. Now here in Chickentown, we're looking at an odd 1959 comic book called Weather-Bird. It stars a chicken and a goat, and the whole thing is a promotional gimmick to sell children's shoes. We love it. And we were reminded of some other weird comic book shoe ads. Several 1970s ads star a shoe-themed superhero called the AAU Shuperstar. One of his enemies is called Missile-Toe. And...
info_outlineWith a free week before we start like eight months of nonstop Dragon Con coverage, Kevin and the Mayor are trying something new: We're recording the show from outside Chickentown Studios, in the great and filthy outdoors. Hopefully this will provide a more festive summertime atmosphere, until the mosquitoes and bats and angry villagers show up. So with nothing better to do until a search party arrives, we offer a couple of new movie reviews (Superman and Fantastic Four), recommend a TV show or two, and plug Kevin's recent guest appearance on the EnterpriseSplaining podcast. And that's it! Next week, we'll have our first Dragon Con preview show. And we'll probably be back inside. It's scary out here.
Kevin was a guest on EnterpriseSplaining episode 46!
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This week's promo: Cosmic Pizza!