Sunday, September 15, 2024

Flopcast 645: Dragon Con Recap Part 2 - Broil the Scientists

The Mayor of Chickentown joins Kevin and Kornflake as our look back at Dragon Con 2024 continues! This time we're covering Friday and Saturday, when the convention was so crowded that we could not have squished one more nerd into Atlanta. Our coverage includes: The Geek Girls Run! The ESO Network's Freaks and Geeks 25th Anniversary panel! More panels on punk rock sci-fi, Office Space, Aquaman, cicadas, and apes! Monty Python's John Cleese! Flute-playing astronaut Cady Coleman! A super-weird (as usual) round of Sci-Fi Explosion! And perhaps a naughty Star Trek puppet show too! It was all quite exhausting, and yikes, we still had two days to go. Stock up on mead and cheese (that's our Dragon Con health plan) and enjoy...

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Flopcast 644: Dragon Con Recap Part 1 - Do Not Drink It

Here we go with the first of three (yikes, hopefully no more than three) Dragon Con review episodes! This week Kevin and Kornflake go over everything that happened Wednesday and Thursday, as our giant Atlanta nerd festival was just getting started. Including: A meeting of the geeks at Logan Airport in Boston! The Dragon Con debut of our pal Blasted Bill! Our third annual meeting with the Muscovy ducks of Piedmont Park! The Dragon Con Newbie Walking Tour! A disgusting beverage! The Council of Kevins! The Sci-Fi Music Video Book Club! The 120 Minutes dance party! And lots more shenanigans and silliness with the greatest collection of nerds and weirdos ever assembled. And this is only the beginning...

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Flopcast 643: So Many Robots Out There

It's Dragon Con weekend, but we didn't forget about a weird Flopcast summer tradition: our annual robot-themed Top 4 ½ List! And we have a special guest to deliver the list: our old pal (and original Sponge Awareness Foundation member) Jim, finally making his Flopcast debut! Jim has a list of surprise robots from movies and TV; that is, robots that we didn't know were robots until the big reveal. Call them androids, call them simuloids, call them replicants, Cylons, fembots, whatever you like. But they're robots in disguise, and they're out there. By the way, the Chickaphant, an alien chicken/elephant hybrid, is also out there somewhere. Please don't leave the house.

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Flopcast 642: Dragon Con Preview Part 2 - Where the Cheese Is

Dragon Con is just days away, which means tens of thousands of nerds shall soon descend upon the unsuspecting city of Atlanta. (Actually, Atlanta knows we're coming. They're jacking up the price of giant rum drinks at this very moment...) Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown will be busy with panels, presentations, and various bizarre Dragon Con events, so this week we're sharing our schedule with you. Including: Panels on Aquaman, Batman, What If...?, and Freaks and Geeks! The Sci-Fi Music Video Book Club! The return of Sci-Fi Court! A couple of Roll-A-Panels! A not-at-all-silly script reading of a Three's Company episode! The Geek Girls Run! Apes! (So many apes...) And lots more weird stuff, of course. Find us there! We'll have shiny badge ribbons for you. And we'll file our full Dragon Con report here in a couple of weeks, assuming we're not trampled by an inflatable T-rex mob.

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Flopcast 641: Dragon Con Preview Part 1 - Duck Time

Dragon Con, our favorite gigantic nerdfest of the year, is just a couple of weeks away, and we're already exhausted. Today we're looking at Dragon Con's guest list of TV and movie stars, writers, artists, musicians, scientists, podcasters, puppeteers, and miscellaneous weirdos. Including: A trio of Lord of the Rings hobbits, a Monty Python guy, a Robot Chicken guy, a bunch of Fraggles, a bunch of Star Trek actors (including a certain bearded Commander whose birthday we're celebrating), a flute-playing astronaut, Canadian teen pop star Robin Sparkles, and more. We're also thrilled to announce the release of Dragon Tales, a collection of stories and essays all about Dragon Con. (There's even a contribution from Kevin, and believe it or not, it's completely ridiculous.) This is a super-fun book, and all the proceeds go to charity, so we hope you'll pop over to Amazon and order a copy right now. Next week: The dragon talk continues, and it just keeps getting weirder.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Flopcast 640: Ironic Summer Songs of the 90s

Kornflake returns to wrap up the summer song project we started last week! This time we're covering the 1990s, and selecting the songs we most associate with each summer. So we'll probably cover some Mariah, some Paula, and perhaps a Barenaked Lady or two. Along the way, our 90s memories include Kornflake on the radio requesting a Seal song, and Kevin in a church basement insisting that life is not a highway. Kids, it was a weird decade full of weird summers. We're entering the Smash Mouth era. Cover yourselves.

Sunday, August 4, 2024

Flopcast 639: Cruel Summer Songs of the 80s

As the Hit Parade podcast recently taught us, each year Billboard declares an official "Song of the Summer" based on chart performance. We're taking a more subjective approach, and choosing which songs we most associate with each summer of the 1980s. Of course you'll find some Go-Go's and some Kenny Loggins on our list (come on, it's us), but perhaps we'll surprise you with a choice or two. And which songs would you pick? What reminds you of the summer of 1984, as you biked through the heat to the arcade in search of Donkey Kong Junior? (Is it Huey Lewis? It's probably Huey Lewis.) Let us know! And prepare for next week, when we'll take on the summer songs of the 1990s. It'll be intense.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Flopcast 638: Safe Travels, You Weirdo

For the first time in four years, Kevin and Kornflake are together at Chickentown Studios! (Kevin brought the coffee, and Kornflake brought the doughnuts, so come on, it's a party.) Kornflake is passing through Chickentown on her summer vacation, so we have a quick vacation road trip quiz! Do we learn anything? Not really. Except that you probably don't want to stay in a yurt. Also: We wish a Happy Birthday to everyone named Greta, and we play a bird-themed round of What's in the Bag! Next week, we'll be recording from separate locations as usual. Our lawyers insisted.

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Flopcast 637: Drummers With Hats

Our five-part New Wave Game was just preparation for this week. Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown have a full report on the latest (and longest) retro 80s new wave concert to come to town. The eight (EIGHT!) acts were: The Plimsouls, Tommy Tutone, Bow Wow Wow, Wang Chung, Men Without Hats, Modern English, Thompson Twins, and Thomas Dolby! So we melted with you, we wanted candy, we were blinded with science, we got Jenny's phone number, and we may have even Wang Chunged. But let's keep that our little secret.

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Flopcast 636: Talk to the Juice Box

Based on the advice of our lawyers, your Flopcast hosts rarely meet up in person these days. But it did just happen, because we both showed up at an odd little event called the Hops and Humorous Arts (or HAHA) Festival. This was an evening of short comedy films, and one of the filmmakers was an old friend from the world of funny music: Tom Rockwell, aka Devo Spice! So we got to hang out with Tom, see a bunch of weird little movies, drink a bunch of weird little beverages, and try (but mostly fail) to play some classic arcade games. Also this week: We wish a Happy Birthday to rock legend Dion, and play a quick round of our silly Ranking the 80s game.

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Flopcast 635: The New Wave Game Part 5 - Hush, Hush

Time to wrap up our New Wave Game and see if anyone survives! We're down to the final three volumes of the CD series Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80s, and either Kevin or Kornflake could still win. (But come on, our money is on Kornflake...) And we've reached the mid-80s, when there was no shortage of new wave hits in the Top 40. So we're talking about acts like Wang Chung, Thompson Twins, Katrina and the Waves, Animotion, Tears for Fears, Bananarama, and Men at Work. It seemed like nothing was off limits on the pop charts. A musical about chess? Sure. Vietnam-era news clips set to a dance beat? Absolutely. The Dream Academy had a hit that sounded like nothing else. Arcadia had a hit that sounded exactly like Duran Duran, and with good reason. There's even a trio of New England-area new wave bands represented here. (We all know 'Til Tuesday, but do you remember Miracle Legion? How about Rubber Rodeo?) So enjoy one last round of new wave madness, and then we can relax. Just like Frankie said.