Sunday, January 12, 2025

Flopcast 662: The Super Dictionary - And That's Terrible

If your New Year's Resolution was to strengthen your vocabulary with the help of some DC Comics superheroes, we've got you covered. Yes, we're turning back to The Super Dictionary, that bizarre book of words and definitions for the kids of 1978. Our latest batch of Super Dictionary entries features: Supergirl catching flies, Wonder Woman staggering about in a fog, Black Canary vs. a giant owl, Krypto the Super Dog gobbling like a turkey, Penguin being creepy and weird, and Atom's tiny handkerchief. We also learn a bit too much about Comet the Super Horse, and we review the most notorious entry in the whole book. Yes, it's time to discuss Luthor and his forty stolen cakes. Also: Chickens in the News! Want to stay at a massive rooster-shaped hotel in the Philippines? Yeah, we thought so.

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Flopcast 661: Memorial Show Part 2 - Hi, Bob

We're wrapping up our annual two-part memorial show, covering people we lost in the second half of 2024 from TV (Linda Lavin, John Amos, Bob Newhart), movies (Teri Garr, Shelley Duvall, James Earl Jones), music (Quincy Jones, John Mayall, Kris Kristofferson), and more. (Richard Simmons, Dr. Ruth, Famous Amos, the "You've got mail!" guy... our list has a lot of range.) The egg nog is flowing freely here at Chickentown Studios. Select a huge festive beverage for yourself and join us.

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Flopcast 660: Memorial Show Part 1 - Mojo Is Everywhere

In Part 1 of our two-part memorial show, we look back on people from pop culture (and beyond) who died in the first half of 2024. It's a long list, so it's a long show. Including: People from movies (Cindy Morgan, Carl Weathers, Louis Gossett Jr., Dabney Coleman, Donald Sutherland), comedy (Richard Lewis, Joe Flaherty, Martin Mull), television (Joyce Randolph, Kevin Brophy, David Soul), music (Melanie, Mojo Nixon, Eric Carmen), comic books (José Delbo, Ramona Fradon, Trina Robbins), and many more. (The inventor of Pop-Tarts? But of course.) Next week: Memorial Show Part 2. Meanwhile this week, we also reveal our New Year's Resolution, which you will never guess.

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Flopcast 659: Don We Now Our Gay Cardinals

Welcome to the Flopcast holiday variety spectacular, in which we sip egg nog and nothing happens. But we do pack quite a few festive subjects into this quick little show, including: Weird 1970s Christmas cartoons! (The Fourth King is an obscure one we'd never seen before. And our favorite, A Cosmic Christmas, is now available from RiffTrax!) A Joan Osborne concert! The Air Supply Christmas album! The Figgy Pudding Pages! Drive-in movie theaters! Weird singing bird decorations! And the opening of a glitter bomb Christmas card, ensuring that Chickentown Studios will be nice and sparkly all year. Okay, get out there and be merry or bright (but not both). It's time for our big holiday nap.

Sunday, December 15, 2024

Flopcast 658: Even a Miracle Needs a Mouse

Spinning out of last week's review of The Year Without a Santa Claus, this week we're looking at another classic Rankin/Bass Christmas cartoon that debuted fifty years ago: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas! It's set in the bizarre little town of Junctionville, where humans and mice coexist in a way we can't quite figure out. There we meet a humble clockmaker, a nerdy mouse, a clueless wacky mayor, an egomaniacal vindictive Santa, and a selfish materialistic populace dreaming of a huge Christmas payday, if only their giant musical clock doesn't explode. It's magnificent. We also discuss the whole voice cast, including Jennifer Grey's father, Amanda Plummer's mother, one of the Bad News Bears, Franken Berry, Twinkie the Kid, and (according to Wikipedia) an "owl-faced, portly character actor." So knock back an egg nog or six, let up a little on the wonder why, and give this podcast a try.

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Flopcast 657: It's Gonna Snow Right Here in Chickentown

The Mayor of Chickentown is here to help us celebrate the 50th anniversary of a Rankin/Bass animated classic, The Year Without a Santa Claus. It's best remembered for Snow Miser and Heat Miser, of course, but we're here to break down the whole thing. We discuss the goofy plot, the goofier characters, the actors behind those characters, the book that inspired the cartoon, the live action remake, the animated sequel, and more. And while everyone knows that Heat and Snow Miser's mother is Mother Nature, we're going to reveal who their fathers are. (This holiday season, we're trying to be more like a trashy daytime talk show, and we could use your support.)

Sunday, December 1, 2024

Flopcast 656: The Gorilla Abides

It's the holiday season, which means it's the holiday movie season, which means it's time for us to get to work. Because if you tune your TV to the Hallmark channel (or Lifetime, or Netflix, or anywhere else), you'll be assaulted by dozens of ridiculous new romantic holiday movies. A parade of big city girls will be returning to their quaint home towns to save their families' struggling mistletoe factories, and perhaps fall in love with some flannel-shirted dudes along the way. (And somehow, almost every movie stars Lacey Chabert.) So here on the Flopcast, we try to fix these movies by adding some weird random element. Can Christmas be saved by, for example, a gorilla suit? We sure think so.

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Flopcast 655: Flopsgiving Day Parade

As usual, we ring in the stupid holidays with a Letters to Cleo concert report, because our favorite 90s Boston band always comes home for Thanksgiving. (Letters to Cleo once performed on Parks and Recreation, and weirdly, just down the street from the concert, we spotted an actual citizen of Pawnee, Indiana. It was either Jerry, Garry, Larry, or Barry.) Then, as we approach the 100th anniversary of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Kevin and the Mayor look back at some of the odd performances and big freaky balloons in parades past. (The 1974 and 1984 parades included future Flopcast guests! Weird...) Anyway, have a festive holiday, and don't worry about inviting Patty, Marcie, and Franklin. They'll just show up.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Flopcast 654: Some Kind of Potato Scientist

Even as we stagger toward a horrifying future, The Flopcast is here with more silly things for you, because we're gonna get through this together. And this week we're celebrating Danny DeVito's 80th birthday (just as we celebrated his 70th birthday about a decade ago), we have a Chickens in the News story about an actual robot chicken... and then we just turn the whole show over to the robots. If you're on the correct side of history, please join us as we resist, persist, take care of each other, and keep going.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Flopcast 653: Enjoy Bread Day, You Freaks

Need a break from, you know, everything? We're just hiding behind a giant stack of Dynamite magazines, and you're welcome to join us. We've pulled out a Dynamite issue from 1980 with the hosts of That's Incredible on the cover. (Cathy Lee Crosby looks lovely, while Fran Tarkenton and John Davidson are missing some teeth... our copy may have been defaced decades ago by some kid with a Bic pen.) Inside we can read about New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain, Gary Coleman's chihuahua, a Billy Joel album that never happened, a vampire maze, Dynamite Bummers, the Dynamite Duo... and an electronic chicken game. We don't know why they kept making magazines after 1980, when it was done to perfection.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Flopcast 652: Landon of the Lost

We looked at the TV shows of 1974 (fifty years ago!) a few months back with the Mayor, but now it's Kornflake's turn. Our list again includes some of the usual suspects like Rhoda and The Rockford Files... but ultimately we can all agree that the most important show of that year was Hong Kong Phooey. We also take a quick look at some bands that debuted in 1974; some are still favorites of ours (Blondie! Squeeze!), while we're learning about others for the first time, despite some very intriguing band names. Also: We wish a Happy Birthday to Bonnie Raitt, and we welcome two new podcasts to the ESO Network: Have Coffee Will Travel and BatChums! (One of these shows features two guys discussing Batman, but we can't remember which.)