Flopcast 693: Dragon Con Preview Part 1 - We're Already Exhausted
Release Date: 08/17/2025
Flopcast 697: Dragon Con Review Part 1 - Potatoes
The Flopcast
Here we go with the first of three (yikes, let's hope it's just three) episodes reviewing everything we did at Dragon Con, the ultimate gathering of geeks over Labor Day weekend in Atlanta. Including: A visit to the Center for Puppetry Arts, where we found members of Emmet Otter's Jug Band and the Riverbottom Nightmare Band! Turtles and Muscovy ducks at Piedmont Park! All our weird friends from the American Sci-Fi Classics Track! Our guided tour for new Dragon Con attendees, during which we were secretly recorded for nefarious purposes! Dangerous fake Oreos! Classic arcade games and Geek...
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Flopcast 696: SNL FlopFight Part 4 - Girlybirds
The Flopcast
It's the shocking conclusion of our second Saturday Night Live character FlopFight tournament, and Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track co-director Joe Crowe is still here providing expert commentary. Our competitors may include a pair of insecure bodybuilders, a simple caveman, a lady with a less-than-positive attitude, and perhaps even the devil himself. It all leads to a showdown with last week's winner, and we shall determine the ultimate SNL character champion. (Spoiler: It's not Massive Head Wound Harry. Probably should have been.) Email: [email protected] ...
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Flopcast 695: SNL FlopFight Part 3 - Absolutely Marvelous
The Flopcast
A few months back, to celebrate Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary, we did a whole FlopFight tournament of SNL characters. But since so many classic characters didn't get to play, we thought we'd just do it again. And since this is Dragon Con weekend, we thought we'd bring in a special guest: Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track co-director Joe Crowe! Joe will help us sort through this new field of goofy competitors, which just might include a visit to Fernando's Hideaway, a terrifying ride with a driving cat, and the man known only as... Johnny Canal. So join us and learn which SNL...
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Flopcast 694: Dragon Con Preview Part 2 - See You in Court
The Flopcast
We're just days away from Dragon Con, Atlanta's massive annual gathering of the geeks! And the full schedule of all eight zillion Dragon Con events has been released. So this week, after a quick guest update (Simon Pegg is in! Tom Wilson is out!), we're looking at our individual schedules, so you'll know how to find us or (more likely) avoid us. Including: The Dragon Con walking tours; the Geek Girls Run; the Sci-Fi Music Video Book Club; Classic Sci-Fi Court; a tournament of Muppets; panels about Severance, Peacemaker, Creature Commandos, new wave music, video game movies; and more! We'll...
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Flopcast 693: Dragon Con Preview Part 1 - We're Already Exhausted
The Flopcast
Our Dragon Con coverage officially begins, and it might never end! Dragon Con is our favorite nerd event of the year, it's almost here, and this week we're looking through the guest list. Among those tentatively scheduled to appear are stars from Back to the Future, Daredevil, Buck Rogers, Star Trek, The Magicians... and even some actual Muppet performers. Also appearing will be many fine writers, artists, musicians, scientists, and humble podcasters, including a bunch of maniacs from right here on the ESO Network. Also: The 120 Minutes dance party! The return of Sci-Fi Explosion! The debut of...
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Flopcast 692: Summer Blorgs
The Flopcast
With 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...
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Flopcast 691: Recycle Your Robots
The Flopcast
If you've just been waiting all summer long for The Flopcast's annual robot-themed Top 4 1/2 List... well, first, what's wrong with you? Go to the beach or something. But also... here it is! Our theme this year is "recycled robots." Sometimes a robot would be designed for some movie or TV show, and then later repurposed for some other movie or TV show. Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot is the prime example. Robby had a decades-long career popping up in one project after another. A few oddball robots even started making appearances in the real world, so you could meet them at nightclubs or...
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Flopcast 690: Weird Al Speedwagon
The Flopcast
We're packing all our summer concert reports into one big show! First it's Aimee Mann in New Hampshire with her regular opener (and no stranger to the nerd world) Jonathan Coulton. (As longtime Aimee fans, we're still a little grumpy about missing the recent 'Til Tuesday reunion show...) Then we have two shows from the same exhausting weekend! First up is "Weird Al" Yankovic, who brought his Bigger and Weirder Tour (with weird opening act Puddles Pity Party) to a giant casino in Connecticut. Then the very next night, there was REO Speedwagon (sort of) and Styx, with opener Don Felder of the...
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Flopcast 689: The 1989 Movie Recasting Movie Character Movie Game
The Flopcast
After ten long silly weeks, we've arrived at the end of our 1980s-themed episodes. And 1989 was a huge year at the movies, so we thought we'd play one more round of our Movie Recasting Movie Character Movie Game. That means we're pulling characters from randomly-selected 1989 movies, and then inserting them into other movies. This usually results in much weirder movies. (Speaking of weird, a certain comedy musician starred in a 1989 movie...) Who gets to play this time? Batman? Indiana Jones? A Ghostbuster? A Heather or two? Harry and/or Sally? So many possibilities. And to help us sort it all...
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Flopcast 688: The Backs of Life 8 - The Beginning of the End of 1988
The Flopcast
We're using our 1988 episode to finally wrap up our Backs of Life series, in which we review every backdoor pilot episode of classic 80s sitcom The Facts of Life. And this final two-part backdoor pilot from April 1988 is actually the end of the whole show! (Farewell, Tootie...) We start with a fleeting glimpse of the regular cast (which by this point also includes Australian moppet Pippa), but soon we're solidly in backdoor pilot territory. Eastland, the girls' old school, is in danger of closing, so Blair buys the place, and welcomes boys to enroll as well as girls. Then we see a whole new...
info_outlineOur Dragon Con coverage officially begins, and it might never end! Dragon Con is our favorite nerd event of the year, it's almost here, and this week we're looking through the guest list. Among those tentatively scheduled to appear are stars from Back to the Future, Daredevil, Buck Rogers, Star Trek, The Magicians... and even some actual Muppet performers. Also appearing will be many fine writers, artists, musicians, scientists, and humble podcasters, including a bunch of maniacs from right here on the ESO Network. Also: The 120 Minutes dance party! The return of Sci-Fi Explosion! The debut of HalloweenCon! And our weird idea for a gym teacher panel! Next week: More thrilling Dragon Con preview action! You might want to get to Atlanta and start standing in lines right now.
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