September 17-23, 1983
This week Ken welcomes actor/comedian Christian Finnegan.
Ken and Christian discuss 80s Boston comedians, Steve Sweeney being more famous than Louie CK, The Revolutionary War area of Massachusetts, laser light shows, Ken's TV Week/Toaster Oven theory is tested yet again, dead siblings, Battlestar Galactica vs. Buck Rogers, the love of the glowing box, local Boston news casters, Mission of Burma, divorced Dad horny, the offensive nature of the spelling of Diff'rent Strokes, Orson Welles' study of upside down African trees, Love Boot, Fall Preview specials, the big reveal of the new shows, actors finding excuses to sing, Silver Spoons, Jason Bateman, Corky Pigeon, being directed by Alfonso Ribeiro, Are We There Yet?, doing the Carlton when nobody wants to see it, Cindy Williams being your mother, pretending to have sex with Jackee', incredible racists, kissing Paulina Porizkova, being threatened by Rick Ocasek, how acting is the opposite of stand up comedy, The Road Warrior, the more depressing Day After, learning about Leatherman culture, plausible gay deniability, shoved in lyrics in cinematic title songs, the golden age of Bloopers, being a good parent on paper, 80s inappropriate, Kenny Rogers, cruel childhood insults, Lionel Richie's Vanity, Poltergeist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, TV as dangerous home invader, Kevin Dillon's finest work, The Best of Everything, Hot Air Balloons over the Special Olympics. That's Incredible, Leonard Nimoy's one ear, Dirk Benedict, made for TV movies, the original three Network's deep pockets, the rise of FOX, how one shoe makes it murder, Real People, Facts of Life season premiers, Gimme a Break, Telma Hopkins, Automatically learning that a man was a woman, Mama's Family, SNL weekly sitcoms, struggling with TV Guide vocabulary, We Got it Made, literally talking people off a ledge, Cheers, being ashamed of Boston, the laziness of interchangeable writing, the two Bostons, The Duke Boys, being your own radio DJ, Ziggy Marley, Blazing Saddles, and asking TV Guide.
"Wait, you have a TV?" "No. I don't like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. You don't need a TV." Hello and welcome everybody. It is Wednesday. It is time for a brand new episode of TV guidance counselor. My guest this week is Christian Finnegan. I had an amazing time talking to Christian. This this may have the most laughs among the guests per episode that we've done yet. I had a ton of fun. I think Christian did as well unless he's really good at faking laughter. There's some fantastic information in here. A lot of quotable things for me at least. I think you'll enjoy it. So please listen to this week's episode of TV guidance counselor with my guest Christian Finnegan. "One television. Let's do it with a TV. One TV. One TV. One TV." Mr. Christian Finnegan welcome. Thank you for having me Ken. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm happy to have you on the show. It's it's rare and rare that we get some some good people coming through Boston these days. So I always try to grab people and that sounds defeatist. It is. It is. Well hopefully it continues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so I always try to grab people when they're here because it's it's rare. Well it's it's you know it's my home. Yeah and we can only have Steve Sweeney on every week for so long. How many TV shows are there about the big dig? My friggin balls. Chinese food waiter. How is balls? That's my question of Steve Sweeney's whole act. It's pretty accurate. It is hilarious to me that you know it's the same dudes when I was a little kid and I'd see like the mixed comedies don't line up. It's the same. I didn't look good for them in the sense but not a lot of the exact same. It's yeah it is. We are my mother when I was hosting a show at the Comedy Studio. It was the night after Thanksgiving and Louis C.K. came down to do like work on some stuff. My mother never comes to shows ever. Yeah. She decided to come to the show. She went and Louis K did like 45 minutes. She didn't laugh the whole time. And then also after his set he was in the back and he goes oh that woman up front. It's brutal. And so then the next day I was like mom that guy that came by was pretty famous comedian and she goes is he's famous is Steve Sweeney? And I went no. No he's never will be. No one is. No one can be. So you grew up in sort of in Western. No Northwest. Yeah two. Yes. Apple pick in country. Yes. Yes indeed. Yes indeed. Act in Massachusetts which yeah near Concord, Lexington Revolutionary War. And area that you had to have cable because reception was bad. Is that a accurate statement? Probably. I don't I know we weren't the first I had friends who had cable before we did. Like I remember cable being a thing. That wasn't entirely sure what it meant. Like what is cable mean. It is a weird thing to call it. Like it's a weird thing that we've dubbed all these extra channels by the cord that you get them from. Like nothing else is called that. Like the phones not called like wire. Yeah. That is hilarious. Yeah. But yeah I didn't know what what cable meant and I remember when music videos came out. I thought that they were like laser shows. I you know these are like shows. Yeah when people talk about music videos I thought it was just gonna be some weird shapes on the screen you stared at. Did you ever go to the the planetarium laser light show? That's probably why I based it on I remember going to Stone Mountain in Georgia and they had like the laser show on the side of the mountain. Yeah but yeah that's probably what I you know. Yeah I mean why would you think it was anything else. I mean yeah I used to watch Friday night videos before we had cable. Yeah I needed to for sure. Because what a weird thing that they're like most people don't have cable so we're gonna show a smaller version of a thing you can get on cable on our regular network be like we're gonna show 10 minutes of madmen for people on ABC on Friday nights at 10. Just because they can't get it. These poor people. Why not? Why not? So you picked a TV guide from the week of September 17th 1983 it was kind of a tough choice for you. There was a little bit you know I was not a TV guide reader. So you didn't get it at all? No. Did you get the TV week out of the newspaper? I believe we did that. Did you have a toaster oven? No. Oh okay. Why? I have a weird theory and it's like 99 to 100, 99 to 1. Everyone that got the TV week also had a toaster oven. I don't know what the correlation was. Yeah I don't understand. I think it was people that splurged for the luxury of the TV guide had to cut costs on their toasting. So they only had a two slicer. I think that's why. That's a very you know I don't know if Malcolm Gladwell can I think that's a whole book for him there or freakin Alex and I could really do well. So you got the TV week not a TV guide person because yeah you were like how to how does this work? Yes. No I mean I mean you know we watched a lot of TV. But you were flippers. Just flippers. Yeah well not even I don't even think we had a flipper we you know we had to physically do. You were dialed to your channel and then I remember for a long time the dial had broken so we had a pair of pliers. Oh you're the pliers. Yeah you had to turn the thing with the pliers. It was like a stolen car. Yeah. Just out of the screwdriver. Yeah. The pliers is a classic. I can't imagine anyone really understanding how prevalent the pliers and coat hanger and we have a coat hanger antenna for sure for sure. It'd be funny if some kid now just had like an iPhone with pliers sticking out of it that they had to use to do everything. It was like a computer monitor. Yeah. There we go there. So you have a couple of siblings right? I did. You did? Yes. I yes. I I had a couple brothers both of whom passed away. This is fun stuff. It is. My sister passed away as well. Hey all right. Yeah. But yeah I grew up and I had a brother that was two years older than me and a younger brother who was eight years younger. So did you have to have like heated negotiations about what you're gonna watch or did your older brother really like here's what we're watching. I think for a while my at this age you know this early I would have been 10 in 83 I think probably my older brother I know there were a lot of things that I had zero interest in watching that just always seemed to be on and so I assume that my brother like battles are black. Yeah and I love the new battles are black. Right. But the old one was and is terrible. I kind of appreciate the old one now but yeah I my cousin used to sleep over a lot and was incredibly spoiled. So he used older than me and we had to watch I remember he had a watch battle star galacti when he slept over and I was really pissed out. Yeah. I was more Buckriders guy. Yeah Buckriders more for like little kids. Right you got to you got to the opolis. Aaron Gray. You get the dude who looks like a bird. Yeah exactly. It's way more fun. What's his name? I can't remember the bird guy's name. I always got him confused with the bird guy and Barbara Rilla. I never seen Barbara Barbara Rilla. Barbara Rilla is pretty fun. If you liked Buckriders you'll probably like Barbara Rilla. My wife and I when we go to LA we try to stay at the Bonaventure hotel mostly because it was prominently featured in Buckriders as a hotel of the future. Which is pretty fun. Yeah battle star galacti was not my favorite. So but to that point it's something that people who are younger than us probably don't have to experience where if someone else was like this is what we're watching you would just kind of be like okay you'd have to watch it. Yeah no you're right. I mean DVR one of the just boons of DVR is that none of your TV time has to be wasted TV time. Right you can always be watching something that you actually want to watch. I mean not only just because there's so many more channels and whatnot but because you know you can DVR things whereas you know when I was younger there was just periods of time where I'm going to watch TV. Yes whatever comes out of that box. Just a kill time. I am going to stare at it right rather than experience the love of my parents or anything like that. Yeah it's the love of the glowing box that I often experience. Or if you were like there's something I really want to watch at 8 something I want to watch at 10 something I hate at 9 I'll have to watch that thing at 9 because otherwise I can't just get up for now. Yeah I got a bit I go out and walk around the block or read a book. That's crazy talk. Absolutely crazy talk. So let's jump right in let's go Saturday night 8 o'clock and this actually is a Boston edition TV guide so this would have been the exact line-ups that you would have been exposed to at this time. And after the end of this I probably you know tune in for Joyce Cole Haywick in Bob Lobel. Yes and off the channel 4. I used to work at channel 4 when I was in college and all those people were still there. We really often had to pick up things Bob Lobel left places. It was an intern and they were like you go down to this happened to be a bar. Really? Jack it? That happened quite a bit. Yeah that's funny. My dad was obsessed with Joyce Cole Haywick and they think she's really hot and thought she was really hot. You know what I think my dad was too I think that she was big with the dads. Yeah like 80s dads you know she had that kind of over-made-up shoulder pad. Perfect look for them. Yeah she was the entertainment reporter here in Boston. Yeah she was you know it was really weird. I don't know if you remember the old Boston pump fan mission of Burma. Yeah I know I didn't know them. They were huge alt-rock. I mean they're influenced like REM and all these bands. They're huge here. Their last show was kind of a big deal locally and they were like a noisy weird punk rock band and one of Joyce Cole Haywick's first assignments was covering that show. When I worked at channel 4 I got a tape of it. I'm like this is just bizarre. Oh wow yeah that's like the "Diet of Shore" episode with thinkie pop. Yes yes. It's so great. It's very very weird. My dad when I worked at Channel 4 I was like you ever see that Joyce Cole Haywick? I'm like yes I do. Yeah my dad when my parents got divorced my dad had a real weird thing for Jane Polly. Really? Yeah that makes sense. And I don't even think I was old enough to really know what like being horny meant or whatever but you just kind of be like yeah really like Jane Polly. Is there a worse kind of horny than divorce dad horny? No dad is the creepiest of all horny's. We were eating dinner last night and there was like a divorce dad with like his teenage son and we were eavesdropping on them as we do and he said this phrase pornography is my national pastime. I just can't get enough of it. Two is like 19 year old son and I was like why first of all I would share that with anybody. Yeah. Second of all your son doesn't want to hear that. That's what they say now instead of Jane Polly. Poor kid. Poor kid. So after you definitely want. DP Asian. It's my national. First of all I'm a nationality. I want you to know that I'm a sovereign nation as a person. I've declared myself a sovereign nation. Second of all my natural pastime. The nation of me. Nation of your dad here is pornography. So yeah 11 o'clock news you watch and that you're watching Liz Walker. Yeah these people but before that yes eight o'clock would you go with? I went uh diff apostrophe rent strokes which you couldn't do. I don't think you could put an Abonic style title. You know it's funny because you just saying that now it just now occurred to me that that's what that is meant to imply. Yeah. Yeah you're right. It's kind of weird. They don't know how to say it the right way. How can we infer the people that this show has black people from the title alone. Can we make it black sounding? So that people will go different. Because that's not even a word. It'd be one thing if it was a word you know if it was like called like ask me a question. Yeah something that people identified. Yeah I don't think I've ever heard anyone say different. Different. Yeah. Because that's because it's just different. We all say that. Everyone says different. No one says indifferent. I imagine there were like iterations of the show where they tried to do that to strokes. Like they were like it'll be called different strokes. Because that's three ohs strokes. It's a bunch of white girls. How do black people say strokes? It'd be funny if some like old white executives had like almost like a police lineup to try to get the title and like please read the line. It was just these guys being like different strokes and they're like now now black enough. It's not black enough. We can't do it. So this was a I mean 83 the show is huge. Oh yeah. It's been in the air for I think four years by this time. And I think everyone probably knows the plot but a rich old white man buys two black kids. This is essentially the plot of the show. For better or worse that's essentially the plot of the show. And TV Yond is a very weird thing that I've noticed whenever they write synopses of different strokes. They never refer to Mr. Drummond by his first name or as Mr. They always just call him Drummond. Drummond. They didn't do it for any other show. Only different strokes. So this one is Arnold and Drummond become temporary roommates to allow Willis privacy to study for college entrance exams. Sun's a little boring. It sounds a little boring. Yeah maybe I you know I would have watched it again. Yes it's on it's on. There are two things that I would have been torn between though aside from different strokes. Now normally on a regular Saturday night I'm going different strokes. There's no question. Yeah I didn't look at the synopses. I just looked at the grid. Fair enough. That's what most people would do. Yeah you'd go and that was that was the gamble you made. Different strokes was on. Do I want to be surprised by? So there was a show on PBS called Secrets of the African Bao Bao which I don't think is an abonic occasion of any. No. And this is Orson Wells narrates this study of Africa's quote upside down tree. The Bao Bao included a female red-billed horn bill seals herself with mud inside the hollow trunk to hatch her young and the chirping of another bird leads men to be hives. See now the here's the general question about the podcast. I was kind of picking shows as I would have picked them. Yes yeah okay because yeah now I would absolutely go for that because that's insane. Yes I would get really baked and then I would watch that. And Orson Wells narrating it also. The other weird thing is I think if someone's going to watch Secrets of the African Bao Bao they don't need a synopsis. Like they're not like all right yeah red-billed horn bill. And if there was guys finding a beehive I'd watch it but no. And then the other thing is the love boot love boot. I'm Canadian all of a sudden. Yeah. The love boat fall preview special is on. Oh that you know what that that probably is where I should have gone. I've seen this recently. I actually have a tape of this and it's Gavin McLeod Captain Subing is throwing a party for the stars of eight new ABC shows and returning series included our film clips of the new series and home movies narrated by John Ritter shot during love boat filming in the Orient. Rita Moreno sings "Don't Rain on My Parade" during the episode. John Forsyth, Joan Collins, Linda Evans, Stephanie Powers, Robert Wagner, Robert Guillaume, Jack Palance, Ricardo Montaban, Susan Clark, Alex Carris, Brian Keith, Henry Winkler and McLeod sings the song consider yourself. Did I miss is this a love boat fantasy island night tonight? It normally is yes yeah nine o'clock love boat is on but this is just a preview special. It's just a this is just a one-off. Breaking character here's all the new shows for the season. Oh okay so it's not like all the people are pretending to be on the boat. Right you're playing themselves no they are it's really weird. Oh John Ritter's here yes okay but it's like I'm Gavin McLeod and I'm dressed as Captain Subing. Here's a song like it doesn't make any sense. And it's probably like in it's in that video quality as opposed to the film so that was always totally disconcerting when it's like fair with all the characters in the setting the set that I recognize but why does it look different? Right it's like seeing them without makeup or something. Yeah what's happened here because you don't understand the difference in film and video as a kid no just like something is terribly wrong here. I was huge on the fall preview specials because you wouldn't unlike now where every show has coverage all over the internet from the first shot that they shoot. Yeah you wouldn't know what was gonna be. Oh yeah it was the big reveal. The week of them airing. Yeah what what will TV have for me this year? It was huge and then I remember watching these things the next day at school like talking to kids being like you guys see the show webster that's gonna be on on Friday. It looks pretty awesome. You would kind of debate all this stuff. It was like a fantasy film. I love this hell like look it looks pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome. And then give them a cloud sing a song. Also I think that a lot of these weird specials were excuses for these actors to sing. Oh yeah absolutely yeah yeah well cuz and it was also still I mean the the golden age of Hollywood was obviously over but people were still alive who fondly remembered that where we're singing and dancing was a part of television variety show culture and all that and so I think they're not only did people were people kind of warm to that idea it hadn't become ironic yet but also a lot of the actors I think who probably were coming up. I thought they had to learn how to do that shit and then all of a sudden they're in this modern TV world where none of it's required. You don't even dance. I can sing. I can dance. I can do all these things. You don't even do a comedy sketch with a monkey. I feel like they're trampled with you. Yeah I mean variety show. I thought the straw boater for nothing. Nothing yeah yeah I think it's nuts for people to think of that now where people are like I have to be an all-around entertainer. Yeah absolutely. Yeah yeah like Charlie Sheen never thought to himself like I really should probably learn how to dance. I probably have to tap dance because I might have to do it with Tony Orlando at some point. Yeah just think of what you'd have to do with Tony Orlando and you'll be all set. See I'm going with that. I think about that often. I often do that. I read a lot of fan fiction of me in Tony Orlando. So 8.30 what are you all with? 8.30 I am going with Silver Spoons. Yeah if you were locked in between the the different strokes you've got to do Silver Spoons. It's the power up. You're not turning the channel. Absolutely not. I think you would be people would come and arrest you if you turn the channel. Yes you'd be foolish foolish unwise but yes I did love Silver Spoons and it was always a fan of Jason Bateman. He was easily the standout on that show. Yeah what was the character name again? His name is Derek. Derek yeah and he was fully formed Jason Bateman at this point. Yeah it is weird to see someone imprinted that early with sort of his persona you know. Although I always kind of like him I mean now he's kind of the put up his sort of shtick is sort of the put on every man right away. I mean ever since the rest of development. Right and before he was put upon God. Yeah he was the dick you know he was kind of more the Joe but then the oh yeah he was a little con man which is why he got it was not an official spinoff series but it was basically the same character's dark it's your move. Yeah and he was like a like a Machiavellian borderline personality disorder psychopath. Oh yeah. Yeah it was definitely like young Ted Bundy. Absolutely. Like do you remember the two-parter with the fake band he made up called The Dregs of Humanity? You know what I had most the way through that sentence I had no idea what you're talking about but then you said Dregs of humanity and some weird memories. Yeah there was that's maybe the most infamous episode where he it's a two-parter where he books a band at his high school that doesn't exist and his plan was to take the money and then have the band get killed or something and but he ends up having to perform the show so he steals skeletons and dresses them up and like puppets them from behind the stage and then the band gets big and he doesn't know what to do. God I'm gonna have to dude are these gotta be I'm like oh yeah oh yeah or I can hook you up I have a TV guy just got guidance counselor and drug dude. Yeah exactly oh yeah but this episode the day of the Badger Ball doesn't say what the Badger Ball is. Does it take place in Wisconsin maybe? It's Long Island. There are rich long islanders yeah on Silver Spoons finds Ricky indebted to Derek for saving his life and all Derek asks in return is for Ricky to find him a date which proves to be no small task. Oh yeah cuz who wants to date the rich incredibly rich wealthy good-looking kid? It's tough and 83 it was tough. I also want to point out that their nerdy friend Freddy was played by one of my favorite named actors of the 80s, Corky Pigeon. Which sounds like a Boston area elementary school insults. Corky Pigeon. You're like a fucking Corky Pigeon. Oh my gosh. Corky Pigeon. Kids are Corky Pigeon. So absolutely Silver Spoons is the move. Corky Pigeon he just fell off the face of the earth after that. Oh it's a shame I like that. I wanted him to be a top build movie star. That's the title. Absolutely. Corky Pigeon is Corky Pigeon PI, CPPI. Oh but I would say yeah we were talking briefly before that you know I have a connection to one Alfonso Rivera. Yes and this is before he was introduced to the series. Oh was there really next season he got introduced but he was thus that that show kind of became about Alfonso Rivera. It did I feel like people you know they have a vague memory of just Ricky Schroeder. Yeah but people don't really remember Jason Bateman as much from it as much as they do Alfonso Rivera which is. Exactly and that's one of the reasons Alfonso was introduced to the show so Bateman sort of was the breakout character of the first season got it to your move they needed a replacement they introduced Alfonso Rivera. Oh so he was only on one season. Bateman was only on one season it was just on the first season but everyone remembers him on the show which is how memorable that's because it all was. Oh interesting but yeah I was you know I did a hundred episodes of this show Ari there yet which is funny because it's weird to think that there are kids who will have memories. That's their super spoons. Yeah you know because I mean I was I was very happy to be on the show and everybody was great and really talented and funny and all that but it's not the kind of show I would watch. Right. You know what I mean it's it's for a different audience thing. Yeah it's like doing that so Raven or something. Right. You know but it is just bizarre to think that you know some kid has some weird childhood memory that 20 years now I'm like remember Christian Finnegan on that show. You had a real cookie pigeon thing going on. Sadly I don't think anyone bonds with any one particular show. Again because of the options and things like that. Yeah I mean I think that as well Peru. Right where they get where this where there is one channel. Yeah. Have you seen it dubbed in other languages? No but I do know just from because I'll get you know a $14 royalty check or residual check rather and it'll be from you know Peru or Brazil. It's very weird. Yeah. That's very weird but Alfonso he directed more directly. So it's not like like 20, 25, 30 something like that. So do they tell you like do you know who the director is going to be before that week? Yeah well you'll hear coming down the pipeline. Right. I mean Oli Leroy who created the show he probably directed 40 of them. Right. 40 or 50 and then Al probably did Al come out. Did he say come out. That's how he calls himself but he probably did the next and then Ted Lange. Oh yeah. Also Isaac from the Love Boat speaking Love Boat did probably 10 or 15. Wow. Yeah. So did you did Alfonso talk about silver spoons at all? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He he's a very funny nice dude. I don't think he liked me very much. Really? Why do you think that? He's raised five. Yeah. He hates white people. No. I don't know. No I I just never really got the vibe. I think he liked me as a person. I don't think he got me. Gotcha. Comitically. Right. You know what I mean? Like well he's a sitcom guy maybe someone coming from the stand-up world is just like at odds with that kind of mentality. Maybe. I don't know. I think what it was is he's so good at sitcom act. Right. Like that's his thing. But I will say it kind of reminded me a little bit of you know why they say somebody like Michael Jordan could never coach. Right. Or Kobe Bryant could never coach. He's too good. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't. And so he would just kind of he's kind of dude who would give you line readings. Do you know what I mean? Like say it this way. Right. Because that's the way you would say it. Right. You know what I mean? It's like not necessarily the way I you know whatever. I can't imagine anyone would be like Christians got kind of an Alfonso Rivera good thing going on in this episode. He's constantly breaking on to this dance. Why in this episode have they suddenly shown up at a place called burgers? I wanted to go to that restaurant so bad. Just burgers. Hang out that they went to burgers. Don't even remember. It was a few red burgers in an episode of Silversprunes. It was probably an 80% chance Alfonso Rivera would break up and dance. Because it was just that area. Yeah. It was like video games and burgers and him dancing. Well he's on dancing with the stars now and is a big you know reveal I guess tonight even or whenever that show airs. Right. He's gonna do the the Carlton. Yeah. It's like a big press release. And of course it's gonna happen. And they're making it seem like we're gonna get Alfonso Rivera to the girl convinced him. Stop him from doing the Carl time. Did he do it on set all the time? All the time. I mean he would act like like oh I don't want to and then you'd break into it. Yeah. I'll do it one more time. No one asked you to. If you're gonna insist. Maybe because you never asked him to do it that's why he was just like I don't like maybe. Maybe I don't know. That could be. Was he the first person from a sitcom that you grew up watching that you met or got to work with? No. Well probably I mean most of them were all on that show. I mean right to understand how many celebrities from 80s and 90s TV did guest bots and are we there yet? Right. It's crazy. Cindy Williams played my mother. That's really weird. Yeah. Yeah. That was probably and it's funny because I kind of forgot about that until I just said it and I just kind of almost got chills thinking about it. Right. You know. And she used to date Andy Kaufman. Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. She's funny. She's kind of you know and she's you know she's dark. You know she gets the joke. Oh yeah. She's not. She's not Cindy whatever. She's not Shirley. Right. You know. But that was that was really cool. I can't think of who else. Any any especially any black celebrity from the 80s. J.K. Harry. J.K. Yes. Oh I didn't. Oh my god. I didn't episode where she and I had sex. Really? Yes. I I need to shake your hands. I love her so much that that you just blew my mind. Yeah. That would be very weird. We had it. There isn't that so are we like hooked up and and I serenaded her. I sang the song use me by Bill Withers to her. Excellent. Excellent. Did you get the falsetto going? There is no falsetto in that song. You should get a falsetto going for that though I think. Yeah. Wish you they should have picked a song with falsetto. Yeah. But yes but I did. The Jackie is very nice. She is so fun. Like she killed me on 227. She was so fun. Did you say that I guess I was too white? I never watched 227. I mean. I felt like I wasn't allowed to. Like so I would be like excuse me. Are you watching black shows in here? Yeah it's like this isn't for you. Right. Yeah. That's fair enough. Although I did used to watch quite a lot of black shows in the 80s. I definitely watched like Amen 227 different world. Yeah. Everybody watched Cosby. It wasn't really like a. I guess I was just kind of influenced racially in ways that I wasn't aware of and you know that's true. That is true. Yes. And also my mom's from Georgia and her side they were incredible races. But it was never told like don't watch that as you never would have occurred to me. No put it on. Yeah. I'm not gonna put on 227. That's not for me. It doesn't make sense. Exactly. She's really funny on that show. I would have been bold over to even talk to her and her mind have to have a sex scene with her in a television sale. That is that is amazing. That may be the best reveal we've had on this show. I also got to kiss Paulina Porres go really. Really. Which is pretty much like kissing Rick O'Kasek. It's almost. It's the next best thing. You can't kiss Rick O'Kasek. He kissed Paulina Porresk. Was he on set just to make sure you didn't try anything funny? No. He wasn't. He unfortunately I think that would have been creepy for everyone. Well any time he's anywhere. Do you think can you think of a less attractive celebrity? No. Like empirically less attractive. No. When I was I was in a punk rock band when I was a teenager and we used to play at the rat in Kenmore Square which you remember a lot. And Rick O'Kasek used to come occasionally. Oh really? So he would like watch the shows and I was like 16 and like a hardcore punk rock band. I remember telling my dad once and he was like wow so he's gonna produce your records. I'm like no he's just a weird dude in the corner watching a punk rock show with a beer. But I think it'd be hilarious if you're on set you have to kiss Paulina Porreskova and Rick O'Kasek comes up to you and is like just I always feel like his Adam's Apple is gonna talk on its own. Yeah it would. Yeah. And it's just like you better not fucking try anything buddy. Like Cupid professional. Yeah. Threatened by Rick O'Kasek would be good. But yeah I felt and I that was actually one of the episodes that Alfonso Romero directed and I remember he was really kind of like I had a hard time with it. Like I was supposed to kind of be like all over her. You're getting a lot of action on this show. I was. Well you know I was the friend. I was basically the Larry from Threes Company. Essentially you know. For lunch. Yeah I always had a new girlfriend blah blah blah. And I was supposed to make out or like kind of and I don't know what it is about me but I just I can't just paw at any woman. That's weird. I mean you probably wouldn't do that in real life. I know. You know and so it was sort of awkward but I think she thought it was because like she made a joke like oh it's because I'm old or whatever. And I'm like that's not I mean maybe you feel that. Yeah but Alfonso Romero just couldn't understand. He's like dude if it was me I'd fucking tear fucking shit out man. No I'm not going to do that. Sexually assault her. Action. What a weird direction. Do the Carlton with your tongue. Do the alphabet. But yeah so. But it's awkward. You have a whole crew there. It's probably someone you want it going out. And maybe it's and again I'm not a great actor. I am not either. Well and I learned this about myself is that you know great actors they have to be able to turn off their brains in a way. Which is the opposite of being a stand-up. Exactly. Exactly. They have to act instinctively and actually get swept up. I mean to be a really good actor I would kind of legitimately have to kind of get a little horny. Right. You know to really put myself in that place and it's like yeah I'm not going to do that. Maybe you sure about divorce before and you could have got dad horny before you do it. All of us go with it. Dude divorce dad horny would be such a great punk rock band. Oh absolutely. Or just like a good album name for like a middle-aged comedian. Dude yeah I want to use the phrase divorce dad. Divorce dad horny it has to be just because you could say that to everyone and they would go oh I know exactly what anybody. You could say it to a nun the president. Yeah it's awkward and unsure. I'm sure but also indiscreet there's just like that. Anyone. Exactly. Yeah just airport bar or that. Yeah. And envious there's like an envy attached to it. Well wearing a really crappy leather bombers jacket. Yes. You know what I mean. Like to share it with the neck that somehow stretched out three times the size it should be. Or just like kind of the you know office working dad's idea of what cool is. Yeah cell phone on a bell clip. Yeah. What phone pornography. Divorce dad horny. Divorce dad horny it's going to happen. So nine o'clock after silver spoons what do you go. The road warrior. Road warrior. A future dystopian predictive movie. Yes. We're not that far off. I didn't react. I was trying to do a bit for a long time and I've never really been able to do anything with it but but the idea that I'm I'm nostalgic for the future like as it used to be portrayed like yeah I like when when you used to see movies about the future like we don't swear and we all were flowing roads. Yeah. Everything's made of poured concrete. Yeah exactly. And I'm like nostalgic for that future. Absolutely. People think about the future if there's like nothing positive now at all. The best thing that could happen is you die quickly. The best that you're right the most positive thing about the future is that they're gonna come out with that children of men pill. Right. Where you can just take it. That's it. Yeah. Because the 70s dystopian futures were actually pretty cool like Logan's run. That seems all right. Like I wouldn't mind dying at 30 if Logan's run was very clean. Very clean. Yeah. You can beam prostitutes into your house and it's totally legal. Everything's nicely colored. Yeah. That's very colorful. Very colorful. Very colorful. Meanwhile we're growing up and we get this post-nuke terrifying things like did you ever see the PBS movie Testament? It was like the more depressing day after. Wow. Yeah. Lucas Haas is like six years old in it and it won I think it won an Emmy but the movie is here's the whole plot. Nuclear bomb goes off like a couple miles from this town takes place in this family's home as they all slowly dive radiation poisoning that's it. Wow. That is it. That's the entire car. At least on the road warrior you have things blown up. Oh yeah there's chasing and I had no idea what like Leatherman culture was. Yeah. You know I didn't. Yeah I didn't I mean I didn't know gay men. If you were ten and knew that that would be concerning. Yeah. Yeah. We go see cruising. It looks pretty fun. That's a different kind of divorce dad. Yeah that's true. But yeah but I just remember like I didn't really know what gay meant. I mean I knew it was silly and starting to be scorned and laughed at but I didn't get it. And so like the whole thing where the guy's gay lover gets the boomerang in the head. Right. You know I didn't like I didn't understand like why why is he so angry. Right. What's good friends. I told the store for my dad my uncle is gay and he lived in our in-law apartment in the basement and my dad refused to acknowledge that he was gay and so one day I'm like dad he's gay and he's like no I'm like he lives with his boyfriend down there. He goes that's his buddy and then I went dad there's only one bed and it was like the sixth century. My dad goes there's only one there's only one bet like he was just couldn't believe it because it never even in a counter. He never even thought that was a possibility. But I think that that was probably a lot of people like that at that time. Oh yeah and it was just kind of one of those things where if you really made me think about it I know the truth but as long as I can find one shred to sort of hang on to. Yeah you know yeah. Well it's like Judas Priestfence. I mean Rob Halford. Yes. Super gay. And dressed as violently gay as you can be in a heavy metal band. Well that's the thing is that so much of gay culture especially back then was sort of subverting ultra manly archetypes and stereotypes or adopting them. Right. You know. And so therefore that straight people will be like yeah leather like real men or blackers in Stintov guys. Yeah totally. And that movie also I have to mention my favorite thing about the Road Warrior series is the Tina Turner song because it is the most shoved in title in a lyric I can think of. We don't need another hero. Well it goes we all know beyond Thunderdome. Yeah it's just like you just stick that in there. It's like Jordan Knight trying to put girl in as many new kids on the block songs as possible. You'll just have a song it's like okay girl like just stick it in a stick Thunderdome. What it sounded like like maybe the studio execs came in as like it'd be really helpful to us if you put the word Thunderdome in here. They went back in and just punched it in. Just go Thunderdome and we'll stick it in somewhere. Because otherwise it's just a pop song. It absolutely is. I feel like. There's nothing confusing about it other than like because if you don't know that that's from a movie like you'd never know. It sounds like she's saying Thunderdome. I mean that's can't be what she said. What is that? Thunderdome a thing. I feel like that album that that's on. You could isolate the Thunderdome and just put it in any song on that album. It would work. It would absolutely work. Just insert Thunderdome and others. It would make about as much sense as any song. Perfect. Someone should do that. Some some horny dad. So you're going with Thunderdome. I would not have watched that although I like that movie quite a bit. There's two things that would have been torn between. I probably would have just kept it with Loveboat because I would have been watching the preview. We get Shilling Winters, Ernest Bordenine, Meredith Baxter, Bernie, I mean Marie Osmond, Christopher Lloyd. This is a big episode. Yeah. There's a lot. There's a lot there. Or TV-sensored bloopers. This is Wayne Rogers and William Comrade. That's the guy I was trying to think of. William Comrade. That was in that show we were talking about earlier. There's Peter Sellers, George Went, Tim Conway, Pam Dauber. I mean we get a lot of good stuff in this book. Yeah. I feel like I failed again. That's all right. It's a better choice. It's tough choices. You couldn't want both. You had to go with something. I saw the roadward and I'm like dang I didn't even stop looking after that. Did you go to the movies a lot or did you see like I read a movies mostly on cable at home? I guess I probably saw them at home or I had a friend who had cable or like I had a friend who his parents were much more lax and so they would like let him rent rated our movies and stuff like that but I guess I probably didn't see that. I don't know I mean I probably the same as everybody. I went to some movies. Right. Did your parents have a lot of rules about like what you could have been watchered of it just like whatever. I think it was more like whatever. I think my parents were parental in kind of fits and spurts. Right. Do you know what I mean? Like if they were in the room they would be like crack like what are you doing? Can't do that. Well I gotta go. Yeah. I did my work. I said it. Whatever happens. I gotta go lock myself in the bathroom with the six-packetal boys. Right. If I'm still awake when you're done watching this yeah my dad would be like there's just not for kids and within five minutes and a third beer in this sleep on the couch. I guess it isn't so much. Well and it's just like I said it I did my job you're not supposed to do that. Right. Now whatever. On paper I'm a parent. That's all I need if they come and check this is happening. So yeah I think in a lot of ways we got exposed to things that probably were inappropriate but also probably were pretty cool and made us a little hipper than your average. Yeah well and also but I mean it's inappropriate but it was 80s inappropriate. That's true. The stuff that was quote-unquote inappropriate in retrospect wasn't that damaging. No. And the stuff that was appropriate was incredibly damaging. Oh absolutely. Yeah like Testament for example here's a PBS drama we're watching people die of radiation poisoning. That was way more damaging to me than in hamburger the movie seeing boobs. But yeah yeah but I mean just even stuff like you know gay jokes and race jokes and you know what you know. Yeah or just you know casual hatred. Yeah exactly like that stuff you know probably would have done a lot more damage than the fact that you know there was a episode of 30 something that had sex and yeah they mentioned abortion. Yeah like the fact that you're like why would I even watch a show with black people because you don't know what he better as a kid is sort of more damaging to your soul. Exactly. Yeah a condom on the Hogan family. So Sunday night eight o'clock what are you going on with? Sunday night eight to nine o'clock on tour with Kenny Rogers. Kenny Rogers. Were you a big Kenny Rogers fan? My mom was and so we had Kenny Rogers greatest hits and I probably know that album backwards and forwards. So this my favorite this one HBO at eight o'clock this is the premiere of it. Which actually means I wouldn't have been able to watch it. You didn't have HBO. But did you guys have that joke? I don't know I can never tell if this is a Massachusetts thing or just to my school that out do you have HBO joke and then kids would say yes and then they'd go a horrible body order. Oh my god. Yeah absolutely. That was the height of themselves. Boom. Boom. And you're the joke in this won't make good podcasting but where somebody make a oh with their mouth be like hey what's this? And then you say blowers cramp and then you say do you get it? And they'd be like yeah I get it. How often? Yeah. Yeah. Damn. That's like the well 80s modern day. Do you ever blow bubbles? Yeah. My dad's generation was ever blow bubbles. That's the blowers cramp. Yeah. Yeah. So Kenny Rogers HBO. My favorite thing is their tagline of this and the ad is fantastic. I'm gonna scan this and put this on the web page. It is like the most 80s watercolor edition of Kenny Rogers. It's in black and white but you know it's teal and pink. You just know. You just know looking at it and it says Kenny Rogers live in concert feel right at home. This is such a weird period in country music where you know was at the tail end of that whole country poll and thing. Yeah. And where Kenny Rogers was a pop star. Oh absolutely. Pop star. And it's just such a silly looking human. Yeah I mean he looks like Bob Vila. Yeah. He looks like Bob there's no wearing disco suit. The funny thing is too I think he was prematurely white haired and he's probably like 30. Yeah. You're probably right. That's weird to think that he's younger than me in the photo. Yeah. But he looks like a 70 year old man. Yeah. You're right. I should I would that's Googleable. Yeah. We can see. We seem ancient and he's also dressed like 80s depictions of angels. Yeah. They all looked in dress like Kenny Rogers white beard white suit and like a like a warm draw. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's all sort of based on the Colonel the KFC. Yeah. That's who you want to see when you go to heaven. He sees one of the people that brought you there. I would not have watched Kenny Rogers mostly because I had a real aversion to anything southern at this time. Aside from Dolly Parton who I still love. And kids to make fun of me used to call me Kenny Rogers. Which in hindsight not that offensive but when I was three years old was incredibly enraging. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well my my first name is Fletcher. Actually Christians my middle name. It's a Christian. Huh? It's a Christian. Yeah. But every like first day of school they would do roll call to like Fletcher fitting in. It's Chris. Yeah Chris. Who did like Fletch when that movie came out. Yeah. Sure. Or Louise Fletcher. No. Nobody called me Louise Fletcher. Nobody was that smart or that creative. But in that I remember in music class you were singing you know every once in a while they would sing once was a man named Michael Finnegan. Of course that was a lot of fun. Oh that's typical. Because in the whole class we like once was a man named Fletcher Finnegan. And I would cry and cry. But really in hindsight not that offensive. No. Really. Sort of flattering. Yeah. But at the time just the worst thing you could possibly say. And the sad thing is I'm 41 and I still can't fully grow whiskers on my chin again. Well it's probably because of that song. It probably cursed. Stunted my testosterone. Stunted my facial hair growth. And they knew that's what they were doing. You know what it was? It was more of an incantation. They were like dancing a circle on bonfire. This weird Celtic cross on the wall upside down. It was pagan rituals. It was naked and dripping blood on their face. Very strange. Both dank chickens above their heads. It's very weird. I would have gone with the Steve Allen hosted ripoff of TV's bloopers and practical jokes. Called life's most embarrassing moments. You know I saw that in there and I didn't know what it meant. Like like life's you know. All-star studded flub vest. TV's bloopers and product jokes was so popular there were two ripoffs. One was called follow-ups bleeps and blunders that was hosted by John Rickles. And then there was life's most embarrassing moments hosted by Steve Allen. And I couldn't get enough of those kinds of shows. I definitely would have watched it. There's no way in hell I would have missed it. You did pass up Knight Rider. I did. But I will say partially because I feel like I'm sure everyone who's on the podcast would pick Knight Rider. Right. And so I was like all right you know let's do some hanging fruit. Yeah. I'm gonna get off the grid a little here. Fair enough. Kenny Rogers is the one I'd only think. It's a one yes. It's a very important. Which is probably the title of a Kenny Rogers song. It's a one I don't think. Did you know that a lot of Kenny Rogers a few of his major hits for a written by Lionel Richie? Yes. And if you listen to him you can hear the Lionel Richie in them. Oh absolutely. If you listen to the lady or you decorated my life. They're totally Lionel Richie's song. Yeah they're absolutely Lionel Richie's song. So in some ways you could say that Kenny Rogers is to Lionel Richie as vanity was to Prince. Oh. Kenny Rogers is Lionel Richie's vanity. That is hilarious. He's a protege. I don't there's something about that that is so creepy. Yeah. The thing of like Lionel Richie like seducing Kenny Rogers. Put this lingerie on. I guess more regularly he says Morris Day but that's not as funny. Yeah it's not funny. No. Nine o'clock would you go with? Nine o'clock on oh a poltergeist although that takes us past peak prime time hours. That's all right. You can't I don't think you can watch poltergeist before nine p.m. No. Did you see that in the theater or was that a TV? I think I did see that in the theater. That was probably the scene in poltergeist where the tree comes through the window. Yeah. Is maybe the scariest thing. Yeah I definitely saw that in the theater because I think I might even see that in a drive it. Oh nice. Yeah. Yeah. I saw very few movies in the driving around this time but that I feel like it'd be less scary in a drive-in for some reason. I don't know why. You know I don't I may I mean I we used to go to Cape God. Yeah the driving is still there. Yeah the wealthy driving. That's amazing but I might have seen it in the I just I do remember because the whole thing is you know he tells her earlier on that the the when to count the seconds between the light and the thunder see how far away it is and it's just it's really built well that it just keeps getting shorter and shorter and then the fucking tree comes through. It's a very well-made movie most of Spielberg ghost directed it for Toby Hooper who had a issue at that time. What was I believe no one's ever flat-out said this but just from context clues that I've inferred from interviews and stuff and don't sue me I'm not saying this is true but I believe Toby Hooper had a fairly heavy heroin habit and he was either kicked off or ghost directed a ton had movies ghost directed a ton at this time like four five six movies and if you watch Poulter guys like it's pretty evident that Spielberg directed a lot of that movie. It's it's not like a Toby Hooper movie. Wait what does Toby Hooper I mean it's funny because I always I already did a lawnmower man and I and that movie was so terrible. It's awful and so I just kind of always assumed that Toby Hooper was just kind of like this hack director but then I keep hearing about what did Texas Chainsaw Massacre was what? Oh okay and and that was his big movie I mean that was that movie was huge and that's what he that was the first thing he made next movie made was movie called Eatin Alive which was very Texas Chainsaw Massacre but the first sort of mainstream movie he did was Poulter guys hired to do Poulter guys and it was a big deal yeah they had issues with it then he did this movie called Life Force which was a huge canon movie it was a major major movie that huge budget cast of thousand Steve Rales back was top build when he was a star and it just it was based on a novel called Space Vampires but it was supposed to be a huge summer movie and it bombed and then he kind of just crashed for yeah and does a lot of like made for TV stuff these days right but it was Texas Chainsaw Massacre that made it which is you would never get someone who directed a movie like Texas Chainsaw Massacre now and then a major major Hollywood studio and maybe the biggest producer director in the world has him make for all intents and purposes a scary family movie yeah that is well I mean I Robert Rodriguez maybe yeah you know spy kids but yeah I mean not not that whatever that what's the movie L what's the L. Mariachi it's not like that's Texas Chainsaw Massacre shot Nosten at the same place Texas Chainsaw Massacre was made actually oh it's all coming all time purple can Kenny Rogers I'm gonna sing it I'm gonna sing it and watch the hairs on your face suck back into your skin that's how you shave every morning just going and sing that song it hurts it's our first ring I there's three terrifying things in Poulter guys the the the tree scene the weird doll under the bed yes and the fried chicken face nothing seemed oh is it was a fried chicken we're all maggots are all over his face oh yeah kids freaked out that's right like what so what he said yeah and it's just like peels off while he's eating this fried chicken in the mirror terrifying and weirdly the first movie that made me scared of television because the yeah television was such a prominent feature in that movie and then she got sucked into the television and it probably I mean you know it seems so obvious and cliche now but that's a pretty genius absolute metaphor like I don't I'm maybe there was something else to explore the idea of like white noise you know or snow as being spooky or supernatural whatever but at the time I bet that was a pretty I mean I guess that's why it's such an iconic in using our children to television yeah yeah exactly it's very meta at the time you know but I will say that just the image of her in front of the TV and the words there here under it is still fucking scary it's really creepy and I think it resonates with people now because the TV in a lot of ways is an invader in your home it's it's things coming into your house that you have control over to a degree especially at that time it's it's like a you know just like an open portal yeah it's almost yeah it's um it's almost so cliche but you know I thought like why isn't anyone done a movie yet where people are like being sent like homicidal signals through their iPhones right do you know like you think that I mean you know you think the king wrote a book called the signal oh that's right yeah but that's but and it makes them kill is it make people I think so some people kill themselves some people die yeah yeah but but yeah that'd be a perfect way to just it's almost too obvious but it's like why hasn't anyone done because they made a ton of movies like that about television after this especially you know B movies there was a movie called the video dead where zombies came out of the television demons - there wasn't we called the brain my favorite movie stars Kevin Dillon and it's called a remote control and it's you know what no one has ever said that sentence my favorite movie stars Kevin Dillon yeah well a lot of people like the 1988 blob remake nobody likes that he was in that was it Hanoi Hilton or hamburger he was one of the other things I think it'd be hilarious to see people I had this I don't know the things I find funny I realize no one else does but I for one thing I think is funny is if you had a guy who was really adamant that Roy Disney got screwed over like he was when Michael Eisner took over Disney be like no man that was Roy Disney's Empire to lose like just can't believe it and then also like people getting an argument over Matt Dillon versus Kevin Dillon you can ask anyone who's the better Dylan and everyone be like who cares nobody cares about that I feel like I could have that argument I probably could I mean I guess probably it's weird to think that there are people that exist who when they think of the Dylan family you know Kevin is from there Dylan yeah yeah he's there Dylan yeah Kevin Dylan oh you mean Kevin Dillon's brother yeah he's in this movie I imagine someone I would have gone with another huge special NBC's just killing it this week with a show called and this is quite a hoodie title the best of everything jeez that's the show that's said you know that's bold it's a two-hour spectacular a celebration of winning moments with the greatest collection of greats ever assembled share their greatest moments of personal triumph and excitement a laughing singing eye-popping spectacular few people on the show Paul Newman Sally Kellerman Dustin Hoffman Meryl Streep Jack Lemon Marcus Allen Heather Locklear Gordon Thompson Melinda Kulea Jeffrey Scott John Eric Hexum soon to be dead Priscilla Barnes Donna Mills Barbara Eden Hal Linden Wayne Gretzky Lionel Richie God it is to the it's truly the best of everything no wait I'm sorry to repeat to me that the premise of this is again it's a celebration of winning moments with the greatest collection of greats ever assembled share their greatest moments of personal triumph and excitement this is the most vague yeah what is this about great it's great I mean what happens wait great things are they gonna sell me a time share is that it sounds like just trying to convert us to Jesus yeah exactly it's it seems like some sort of con like Burgess Meredith Ben Kingsley the best of everything just the best of everything what else could you possible why would you question this it'll be like the best of everything the invention of the cotton gin and also a nice chicken soup recipe it's honoring it says all right here's a longer synopsis if this is helpful Alexander H. Cohen the man behind TV's Polish Tony Awards shows in 1982's night of 100 stars spectacular travels around the country to ponder the phenomenon flamboyance philosophy and exhilaration of America's varied champions to do it he has assembled musical comedy sequences magazine style features and plenty of celebrities Barbara Eden Hal Linden and Dorothy Loudon are the host of this two hour program which spotlights the stars in a tuneful tongue-in-cheek salute to TVs Emmy Awards and also includes segments on Broadway fashions here's where it gets good hot air balloons the Kentucky Derby Academy Awards the grimmies and finally the Special Olympics the best of everything that is yeah hot air hot air balloons like third build hot air balloons build over the Special Olympics Wow I think I need to see this yeah holy smokes what a great week of television we're only on Sunday I know I'm yeah this is this is already the best thing ever Monday night eight o'clock that's incredible it truly is it truly you can only after you have to go with that's incredible I mean it's not even a debate I mean that's incredible absolutely this particular episode is the fifth season opener and it includes lottery co-stars Ben Murphy and Marshall Colt and a segment on the winners of the eight point eight million dollars in an injured New Jersey lottery and also a man who drives a nine inch nail through a board with his bare hand then extracts it with his teeth a champion Skeech shooter who takes aim at targets while riding a unicycle and with his gun held behind his back and over his head yeah see this was kind of the the entire forerunner this was like YouTube the show yeah like essentially is like people doing geek you know people had skills then yeah but it was like post side show culture yeah it was a whole internet absolutely this is really the only venue if you had a weird talent and that was your only talent you're like I worked 30 years to be able to ski shoot backwards and pull nails out of boards of my teeth that I hammer my hand yeah god this this that's incredible show better stay in the air because I put in all these years of how is this not coming back that's incredible I imagine you could do that and just have YouTube books well yeah I mean yeah you're right I mean I guess that's what it would be would just be a clip show I mean I guess there are I guess so much of that falls into Tosh that's true you know but is Tosh showing the world's largest pickup truck because that's what that's incredible show get on the ball get on the ball Tosh I will say I would have watched that's incredible as well but up against it on PBS was a show called orangutangs the orphans of the wild it is sad Peter Eustinoff made it yeah that's incredible is the move nine o'clock would you go with nine o'clock this wasn't as hard for me I did there wasn't much that appealed to me there's not a lot even on but I remember young doctors and love being a movie that was very silly and goofy and sort of an air like kind of a it is writing the airplane crest it is it's a fun movie Michael McKeean is in it let's see what TV Guide gives young doctors in love they give it zero stars this is a 1982 movie with strong language and adult themes a frenzied the setup of the medical profession Sean Young isn't it that was the first big roles same year as Blade Runner yeah wow yeah it's a quite a very quite a very career she has fun movie I've rewatched it since it's not bad it's a good cable move the only other thing I probably will watch that although me now is intrigued by a thing called Vincent on at that time you know I saw the word again I was looking at the grid so I didn't know what Vincent meant prepare to have your mind blown okay Leonard Demoy in a one-man show that views Vincent Van Gogh through the eyes of his brother Theo let her name all right as Vincent Van Gogh you know I didn't I never really I was never a Star Trek fanatic or anything like that so I knew Leonard Demoy's ago that Spock or whatever right but the more I learn about the guy the more he seems like a dude who was probably just so miserable oh I bet doing that because he probably fancied himself a true real real yeah you know and and I'm sure he was I mean I could say this like let's say that are we there yet was like the biggest show on TV it never would have been it was you know not designed to be like that but you know and I get trapped on this show or whatever that's what everyone knows us yeah and I'm just a stand-up comedian if I was like a real playwright like you know I was serious serious one-man show you know that would be a kind of torturous so poor Leonard Demoy I bet he was very drunk for many years I will say this if he had to make it up all of our scovary would have tore it up yeah I mean he and he's all people forget he's like a super Boston guy like he grew up in Scotty Square in Boston which is the tough part of Boston where sailors would get tattoos and go to burlesque shows and beat people up and he moved he taught acting in Boston I mean in LA like he moved out there and was like an acting teacher and it was serious and then you know did in search of where he hunted poltergeists Tuesday night eight o'clock what are you going with he is at eight o'clock going with a team big fan of the 18 moderate fan of the 18 my older brother loved the 18 and so I ain't know I I liked Dirk Benedict because he he watched a he's got a circle act good so I always did like Dirk Benedict I mean he's just likable I mean there's there's nobody that doesn't like Burke Dirk Benedict well he had kind of had that smarmy Jason Bateman thing yeah going but yeah he was a theme huh running theme of yeah yeah exactly but yeah he kind of was like a TV Bill Murray in a way you know that he was the guy who had this the punch line yeah and he's also kind of a but like you never thought anything bad was gonna happen to him right like his way out of everything like Val Kilmer and real genius right are the kind of guy who just gets through it all exactly I kind of class the anti-hero over El Kilmer and Willow yes mad mortigan is just Chris Knight I think we can all agree that Chris Knight oh yeah that that wasn't my morning yeah I got it's a medieval medieval Chris Knight this one is the 18 the second season gets underway with a bang as the team transports explosives to a Zimbabwe diamond mind whose owner was killed trying to make the delivery himself I mean we read about that in the papers every day these days not not a day goes by some Zimbabwe dynamite lines yeah I would watch the 18 everybody watched it you couldn't not watch I also love that you know they would never show who played Hannibal George Propar George Propar they would never actually show if I remember they would never show George Propar to actually doing anything physical they would always cut away and they'd have just obviously a double or ever and you know running in the beginning it's like this dude's like 60 years old yeah I was pictured him just walking around with one of those butt pillows like a emerald pillow like for I don't know why even as a kid like every scene when he's driving I was just like he's sitting on one of those pillows I'm sort of a weird back massager every single scene he I've heard millions of people who've worked with not millions it's an exaggeration for people who've worked with him say that whatever he introduced himself for the first time he would say I'm George Propar I'm not a nice man and I won't be talking to you that's why we need to do himself on the set and he hated Mr. T hated him oh really because that show was pitched to Propar as this is your show you're the star of the show yeah he was clearly not the star of that show oh I imagine and there was big arguments about who got paid more and who would get more lines so like as that show went on you would see fewer and fewer scenes of him and tea and scenes together Wow boy that's interesting and also we were talking earlier about how things that were damaging and you wouldn't know not that it's damaging but it's like they're you know mental in illness as portrayed by the 18 yeah oh yeah seem like such a riot so it's great to be around and what a power like that I know we need to get out of this get the guy suffering from dementia the man the paranoid schizophrenic he can save us put him in front of a plane perfect yeah perfect that would be great to do an 18 where it was actually a mentally like an actual mentally old her yeah even that movie remake it was still kind of a quirky you know I'm a fun I thought it would be great if the movie remake blew your mind by the last scene they pull away and it's actually the demented fantasy of those guys who are all in a home they're all in an institution like the 18 is just all because they would all be in an institution yeah they all suffer from some sort of mental illness a guy that's so violent a violent guy who's so afraid of flying you have to drug him yeah that's that's a problem that's a problem that's a that's a medication requiring problem and you know obviously face man has got some sex addiction issues absolutely you know absolutely what are you trying to run from that you're is a con man yeah yeah not these are not nice people no I'm not a nice man I'm not a clock what are you going with nine o'clock go I don't know I know nothing about this the title appeal to me it's a made-for-TV movie called one shoe makes it murder absolutely this movie I didn't know a lot about but also I should mention made-for-TV movies huge deal yeah huge deal at this yeah I kind of miss the fact that that still isn't a thing still I agree you know and I didn't really watch that many of them because they felt like they were for like ladies definitely for older yes yeah yeah for mom these are mom movies yeah but but yeah I imagine how to watch a lot of these now how small the budgets must have that yeah you're talking about making a two-hour movie that's going to air once and never gets not even like now where it's gonna live on cable right I mean some of them were pilots that didn't get picked up and so yeah a lot of them would do that a lot of the one-hour shows they would sort of pitch as made for TV movie as a pilot sort of almost like a backdoor pilot because all of the networks had nights that were like the CBS Monday night movie every yeah or the the mystery movie Sunday night mystery movie so they were able to sort of see like test things out there and so some of them the budgets would be decent but the other thing was I think people forget that at this time especially the networks had a ton of money like there was only three networks they were the thing that everybody watched and cable was around but they had a lot of money and they would dump a lot of money into shows so some of these made-for-TV movies actually had pretty big budgets compared to now not compared to movie budgets yeah but we're pretty sizable but it's funny I mean you know putting it in political geopolitical terms like it was like the Cold War yeah there's the US there's the USSR yeah those are the sides yeah you know what I mean and it was an arms race yeah and obviously the threat of nuclear war I'm sure at one point it was real I think sometimes people overstate how much people in the 80s actually worried about it yeah absolutely we didn't really any of your kids it was kind of one of those things people are like like it's equivalent of the Ebola outbreak now it's like okay yeah there's something to be taken care of and it's dangerous we're not right we're not like hiding under our desks yeah you're not duck and cover yeah exactly but um shit what was my point there I had a point the networks were like the US but there was something come there had to be something comforting though in the fact that it's like I know who my enemy is I know who my rival is like if you work for ABC it's like there's CBS there's NBC that's where the players you know and so I can see when Fox came in it was just like hey no no you can't do that our club yeah how how that was able to not violate antitrust for that long you know why were there only three it was I mean I guess just to have the capital to create another network would be unthinkable yeah I mean you do as much as you know all the problems I have with Rupert Murdoch or whatever you do have to give Fox credit it's like they pushed their way into the door the way they did it was genius too I don't know if you remember the way that it rolled out but there were local network affiliates which are the the numbered stations and then we had UHF stations which every every local area had and these were local stations you know Channel 27 25 28 56 so what Fox did was they went into every market and made individual deals with UHF stations in every market and they launched Fox only on the weekends to start with so during the week it would be the local UHF station and Friday Saturday Sunday would be Fox so the risk was low the the local UHF stations mostly just aired movies on the weekends so it was yeah for them yeah and it was kind of a good symbiotic relationship and then when that was able to build then they were able to slowly take over the whole week and then eventually buy the stations and you couldn't have done it any other way you couldn't have come right out of the gate yeah those those UHF stations had no idea that they were signing their own death warrants exactly they were like this is a good little deal cuz no one thought that would have worked it that's a crazy plan yeah time yeah but was pretty great I mean I don't know if that was the plan all along or not but either way like genius man you make that sound so interesting oh thank you so this movie starts Robert Mitchum who I absolutely love he brings his big screen experience portraying world-weary gumshoes to the small screen and one shoe makes it murder a 1982 made for TV movie he plays a hardened ex-cop Angie Dickinson is his troubled this is a word I've never seen in a morata yeah it means you know object of his affection TV guide pretty big vocabulary yeah in a morata and together they're swept up in a complex case of vice blackmail and homicide Mel Farah is in it Howard Hesman is in it this sounds like a pretty cool movie I kind of want to see this now it's just such a like I mean I guess it's an evocative title but it's a frustratingly evocative it is what those words don't make sense together in the same sentence it's just like a jumble one shoe doesn't make anything yeah it's word salad yeah if you had two shoes you'd be alive right now the man with one red shoe makes it murder it probably means a woman shoe I'm thinking I don't know or they find a shoe on a thing that looks like an accident and it's not the guy shoe and they're like this one shoe now makes it murder yeah that the back maybe a single white female was called one shoe makes it murder it would make more sense yeah is that high heel death yeah well high heel makes it one high heel makes it murder right like okay I get I get it now what kind of shoe is it yeah one shoe that does that that says dude to me could be horseshoe could be could be all kind of worms we've opened with this may never be close then you could put it was that it was a horseshoe would be like three shoes makes it that's true that's true and if we're talking about murders maybe they're talking about crows we have no idea it's just the the onion just keeps getting pulled back it's never gonna end Wednesday night eight o'clock would you go with real people so you love these sort of documentary shows I did I guess I used to love real people I always thought like in the same way that love boat was the light-hearted one of fantasy on and there was like the dramatic one dark I always thought of real people in that's incredible is having the same relationship so real people was the dark one no real people to me was the fun sort of okay not so he dark but was kind of like serious now we're in serious that's incredible to me was serious these are serious things were showing there cuz they would sometimes show like a man with no arms builds his own fake arms yeah but it was just or was just even if even if it was happy and silly and world's biggest truck the real people seem more like we're just hanging out right we're like the fun one yeah I could see that like the the sort of audio the sort of vibe of it yeah cuz real people I believe was John Davidson John no John Davidson was that's incredible real people let's see you hosted it Sarah Kursal and skip Stephen Stevenson yeah Stevenson was the he was the comic relief he real people had more of a local news vibe yes I guess yes that's a leather man vibe right right for sure that's incredible the newscaster real people's the weather man yes exactly good so good way to put this says on the second leg of the Chicago to Washington DC train trip the cast tours Niagara Falls and joins in a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party in Boston Harbor also a dancer who believes stress can be tapped danced away an 88 year old woman dedicated to protecting beavers and a punk rock club operated by a 66 year old woman named Evelyn Granny Knoll yeah that sounds more like huggers yeah yeah well you know they're not time with things that are incredible there's some of things that are real none of those are incredible no no real that but can you believe these real people is a real people called stuff that happened that these are real people I'm talking about real have you seen these people they're real I don't think anyone ever questioned it too like come on I definitely would have watched that as well nine o'clock what are you going with um not we're on Wednesday yes nine o'clock the facts of life season premiere this is a huge episode so I knew it was the one hour episode one hour and facile did that a lot they would do one hour season premieres most of their seasons interesting I think maybe some sitcoms do now but probably is a lot less frequent they probably didn't let them get away with that once they open up the stupid shop over our heads yeah yeah was there like clearly yes as handyman George yeah yeah although the opener the one hour opener of the shop opening called grand opening was a one hour oh well yeah I'm surprised I just surprised were they still getting ratings at that point it was trailing off yeah it was it had been on for 10 years yeah and the shows did a lot of weird things this time to where they would have a big made for TV movie summer event movie facts left go to Australia facts like yeah and all these sorts of things huh so you would never see that now no no but this one is uh change marks the fifth season opener as Blair and Jill make the transition from high school to college where Joe faces a financial crisis that may end her school days meanwhile a running with the headmaster has mrs. Garrett wishing for a change of scenery this is the episode where mrs. Garrett quits and opens the store Edna's edibles yeah I was in five opener okay yeah it's a big deal Pamela what was her name she's on Louis yeah she was introduced to the cast this season oh really sort of the new Joe they wanted right the tough you know the tough street yeah and she was introduced this season and then was kind of ditched by the next season when didn't quite work so wait so mrs. Garrett went to Edna's edibles yep and did the show just kind of move to Edna's edibles yeah sort of the primary location yeah so what happened was and I when we were talking earlier was mistaken I thought this was the hour a season before this but when they introduced Joe to the cast that show had a lot of changes the first season was very much more about the school there was twice as many girls including yeah they fired all the girls the second season they introduced Joe they had her get all the girls in trouble by getting fake IDs and trying to buy a beer and so as a result the school made them all move in with Mrs. Garrett so she could keep an eye on them so they all lived with her yes then they kind of moved away from the school even more had Mrs. Garrett open up her house as Edna's edibles so they all still lived with her and the store was in the house good lord yes just like saving on sets it really is winnowing down it really is smaller and smaller cast less and less sets but I love this show loved it absolutely yeah it's funny for a show I watched so much and I did I don't have that many memories of specific episodes I mean the very special episodes I really don't I just I remember Blair looked a lot like my mother which was creepy that bother you it did bother me because she was like thought of as the hot beautiful one and and that always just kind of could maybe feel creepy that would make you feel creepy I understand that I can understand that there were I mean they really tackled some crazy issues I mean there was an attempted rape on Natalie that I do remember when she was dressed as Oliver Hardy it's really the best way you can sum up the confusion of tone in the 1980s of television shows they were to handle this really heavy weighty topic but still have that sitcom well they are like that to compensate for it's crazy you know we can't make it all serious we got it brings some levity and then people will be okay with it yeah insane there was an episode where 2D talks to a teenage prostitute the whole episode but it's funny really weird Lionel Richie guest started an episode yeah yeah I think it was and not to poor Kim Fields like we all watched her boobs just explode enormous in a way that I mean that was right in my wheelhouse like she got boobs right as I started to be uncomfortable like to notice yes I started to be aware boobs so those were like some of the first boobs I just remember they would like taper down they would put her in the biggest I mean there was the 80s as well but like huge Thursday night eight o'clock this is a show that I didn't really watch but you know you were swearing by it oh yeah give me a break I love give me a break I love no Carter I thought she weirdly reminded me of my aunt Helen who was not a sassy black lady I don't really understand why but this was of the subgenre of nannies and housekeepers which was a huge subgenre the 1980s why are we so obsessed with that I mean I guess it was probably the only way to explore racial or cultural cultural culture clashes true in a way that felt well well why else would you be taught what do I personally talk to a black person well right obviously right but still made for a very blue collar family so where they where they blew down was a cop played by it again one of my favorite named actors Dolph sweep who seems so much like a real guy because he was so miserable all the time oh Jesus now like that was every episode but now was a mentally ill person she was like completely unreasonable she was extremely violent she just smacked people she's throwing people in closets and locking them in there all the time it was like flowers in the act which loves it too I mean you know to do an episode of a show like that where you know we need a we need a new living made and this woman shows up and she's just brassy and she's telling people what to do and she's and then at the end of the um you're fired yeah you locked my daughter in a closet for two days that is not acceptable yeah not at all and in this particular episode the pointer sisters guest star playing the doo-op girls knows old singing group who pop out of the past bringing bitter memories of the dirty trick they played on now she was a former singer a former singer sisters oh another thing about bringing us all around when I was in over there yet that one the Telma Hopkins played the lead actress's mother and she was on a bunch you know probably on 40 episodes yeah yeah and she was in Don yes she was Tony Orlando and part of she was and she was in Nell's old singing group with the pointer sisters on the show oh really I was best friend who was still in the singing group with her and she was hideous to her as her best friend like she was Nell to Telma Hopkins like it was like you would not be friends with this person they'd basically just send you to jail yeah and and maybe they had a point in teaching you maybe you're kind of an asshole that's true that's true maybe it's time for you to give them a break you know the pointer sisters did a lot better without you yeah yeah yeah my favorite pointer sister song totally automatic I'm a neutron dance guy neutron dance guy I was like the bony pointer singing lead sing songs what was that song no way to control it is to what I know oh yeah oh I like that's a great song yeah that is a good song oh that's a woman singing that to everybody gets a man oh my god that's like there's only one bed revelation for a lot of people automatic woman singing it weird yeah I know I know Thursday night so 8 30 we go with 8 30 mama's family maybe the worst to come of all time brutal I and again I don't have a whole lot of actual memories of it my mom's from Georgia and so I feel like it were they reminded me of her dumb relatives a little bit not that they were you know right they were they were like old-timey as well like that or dislike that I like laughing at it okay I got you do you know I mean that it was just like yeah I know those people and I can't laugh in their faces and realize I'm laughing at this yeah I in the first season was on NBC and it was a better quality season I will give them that Carol it was a spin-off it was a spin-off we're not shows a sketch they would do it because that's I think that's probably why I'd watch this because although I did not watch mama's family I loved carapornet show okay and so I remember I fond memories of Vicki Lawrence right you know from that there's probably only two sitcoms I can think of that were spin-off some sketch shows yeah that's that's I mean you know that's a pretty remarkable thing that is amazing with the other one the honeymooners was a sketch on the Jackie Gleeson now oh wow and he would still after the honeymooners ended he had a series of variety shows in the 70s and would do honeymooners episodes in color in the variety shows yeah it's so funny you know in the in the 90s and in 2000s this sort of a Saturday night live movie machine yeah you know cat Mary Cap and Gallagher gets around me the rocks that rock spirit all those ladies man so many of them probably would have made much better television shows oh yeah if you made some of those into a sitcom yeah they would have been a lot better yeah yeah it's yeah it seems like a a pretty easy model for how to you know talk about road testing you know with the whole movie the week thing right if you want to see it whether it's why not just take one at every 30 minutes yeah I guess part of the problem is that those characters stay on SNL they're yeah they're not but I mean when maybe they looked at it as a conflict where you have it on to TV you lose it from SNL right and it's a TV but yeah I was like one Bobby Moynihan leaves like have a fucking drunk uncle right sitcom yeah yeah I don't know why you wouldn't do that and when Lauren Michaels does that he can pay us just a small stipend just something yeah just something maybe ten bucks a week just give me a under five yeah part on something like that would be fine you can make out with my name I'm a terrible part so yeah I probably wouldn't have watched that because I hated it so much but it later went into first-run syndication it was even worse when we were McLean and was out into the cast and maybe my least favorite sitcom character of all time Bubba and this one is a cassette tape lauding the powers of positive thinking transforms units into the warm abulant yeah abulant opposite of her bitter old self I shouldn't struggle this hard with TV guides vocabulary yeah that's crossword yeah that that's like the USA today you know it's difficult I mean mama's family shouldn't use the word abulant yeah or I know I'm pronouncing it right abulant so I would have watched the show on PBS called bits bites and buzzwords computer graphics creation and design of computer games oh it's kind of fun 1983 it sounds like something you would see now as sort of a satire right you would see some you know oh yeah yeah we predict in the year 1991 the earth will fall into the sun right right just then wash of pixels across the screen nine o'clock would you go with nine o'clock I mean we got it made I loved this show at the time I know I watched it again I don't it was kind of one of those in one ear at the other shows yeah I certainly washed it it was probably designed for that was like that and like it's a living we're like shows it's a living both those shows actually share a kind of a lot in common so it's a living the first season was actually called making a living and Angelina was the star the inexorable Angelina and that show was on NBC was canceled was brought back in first-run syndication as it's a living we got it made also on ABC NBC canceled brought back in first-run syndication for many years after that in the same package it was the first time they did that Charles in charge happened the same year and mama's family they were all shows that failed the first year and came back in syndication was very very weird huh huh and we got it made it was crystal Bernard is that no she was in she was in its 11 she was in its living also supposed to take place in the Bonaventure hotel like Buck Rogers the restaurant at the inflow tell we got it made was another maid sitcom these were two single guys living in an apartment in oh oh okay I totally have a different Joe in mind yeah they have these they hire a maid a live-in maid because we all know a lot of guys in New York who have a live-in name so you just call the show sex legs exactly child human traffic and that's basically it was Terry Copley was like this really hot blonde girl and so that was it was it has sort of a threes company sleaze vibe going on yeah one of the one of the actors that was played by I don't think he was openly gay but Tom velard who's a gay actor which was weird that he was like he was like oh yeah Terry Copley and I was like but this one was this episode an old boyfriend of Mickey's Mickey was Terry Copley the character shows up determined to win her back even if he has to throw himself off the balcony to do it wow I will say people threatening to jump off balconies came up in every single 80s sitcom I can't think of an 80s sitcom where there was not an episode where someone had to talk someone off a balcony I think maybe they were they were maybe they just come up with that technology to make it look like they were high up yeah like oh we finally found a way to like light it so it looks like there's outside right or they're just invested in a ledge set and we're like yeah look this cost us a million you write an episode where someone's gonna kill themselves that's what we do it I've never ever had to talk anyone else what when we can do our ledge episode thinking uh yeah season two season three season three is about the right time for a ledge episode it'd be funny of every week it was a show about a person to talk people on ledges and every week was a different ledge and a different guest or a talk show where the guest is on a ledge out on a ledge and we caught on a ledge you interview the person on the ledge that's the talk show that's the talk show every week dude that is actually a great talk show no here's what the talk show is it's it's basically on one balcony yep there's a letterman or you know or a car's in the sitting at a desk and then on the balcony next door is a succession of people who come out and they're gonna kill themselves yeah interviews them right before the perfect let's do it this gonna be huge 930 what'd you get with 930 cheers gotta go cheers never met a person who didn't like cheers and growing up Massachusetts I think it was yeah honestly I wonder how much that clouds our perception of it yeah I I would say that maybe just because I am who I am I spent probably a number of years kind of deriding cheers you're not deriding it but kind of no it's not as good as people say because you are ashamed of Boston partially because I have that as well yeah I mean totally well and also and not that I'm ashamed of it I don't there's certain aspects of it don't identify I don't identify one yeah I agree but the kind of person I am I probably would have felt that way wherever I grew up right grew up in Memphis I'd have an anti-memphis thing but I had you know I think that is I mean I have the same exact thing I mean you know there are the things that we sort of lion eyes here in Boston the shittiness like the McMom type movies the boondock Saints style Boston yeah I'm like yeah fucking salty I hate black people let me get a fucking lodge dunks in a fistful scratch tickets and wear my sweatpants yeah like that yeah that's red socks you know awful Bruins jackets you know I got my fucking starter jacket on who the fuck are you but again there's that culture in every city there's Chicago there's guys really but but I will say that my I mean I've been in New York for 23 years I'm never gonna leave I'm think I'm a lifer and in all that but my initial impulse is I've been doing this one man show I'm trying to work on the solo show about New York and I know that I talk about how my reason for going there is is a fuck you to Boston yeah it was just like oh you hate New York I hate you so I guess I must belong in New York it makes it I mean I often I mean I've worked incredibly hard to get rid of a Boston accent to various degrees of success I there are things that just as you grew up you realize they're not normal that you inherit from here and it's the kind of like my first instincts to punch somebody or like you know we'll see I grew up so the opposite of that right you know like you're more Boston I'm more Massachusetts yeah and so I you know don't relate to that aspect of it but I just just that that Boston accent you know it was so horrifying to me when Goodwill Hunting came out and people started to like they love it women oh my God so sexy is like the grossest people in the world you have no idea what associations I have there's a guy not known on the tee putting a baggy full of coke in his pants that's the guy that has that accent yeah guy who's trying to sell you tickets to a game you don't want to go to that you buy just because you're afraid he'll stab you it's the guy who has that kind of accent for me it's like you know it's it's the it's the dude cocking his fist back and calling me yeah fucking quiet you know because there's an incredible sort of tribal xenophobia that is very much tied to Boston yeah they're like oh you're from two fucking streets over from me I fucking hate you yeah what are you talking about in the more the older I get in the more I travel when I encounter someone from New York or any even fill it out any Northeastern kind of city I'm like oh we have a lot in common more so than I have with this person from Georgia yeah it's true and in that I almost feel bad for the people that don't recognize that or have a weird rivalry because the the rich people that get paid to pay for a team that's arbitrarily attached to your town are different from the rich people yes but that's why it's like my my view of cheers I think was slightly skewed because of that and my wife actually just last year we went we were upstate we went up to upstate New York for like a month and she watched every she watched the entire series so good and it's so good and that pilot is the best pilot yeah best comedy pilot I mean I'm sure probably is taught in classes but in terms of introducing every character who every character is everybody gets their little bit but it and it sounds hacking cliche it's not you're like oh this is what it's so nice sit comms are trying to do yeah this is this is the model it's kind of like when you hear like a shitty Nirvana ripoff it's like you know Bush was trying like when you hear never mind oh that's what you're trying to write right I see what you were going for yeah you didn't understand what made it great exactly and cheers there were the people that did sort of emphasize the fucking Boston aspects of it but not as much as the people who love stuff like wall burger I don't even know what they like the shitty aspects of Boston that now people love the boondock Saints type people oh yeah but cheers is a very thoughtful sad show yeah and it almost it it criticizes in a lot of ways the things that people say yeah Boston about you have a washed up ex-athlete who's sad and lonely yeah you have a bunch of drunk people whose only family is this bar you know and even a character like Cliff who is a very much accurate Boston stereotype of a blue collar uneducated guy who's the kind of guy who goes yeah I went to school school of hot knocks like yeah exactly yeah who's this this like has aspirations to be better than they are but is the same person who would turn around be like you think you better than me yeah and it's all those things that they just capture perfectly they really do and it's um what I love about cheers and specifically that pilot is that every character gets his or her own type of joke right whereas one of the things that always infuriated me about friends especially as I went on it's like all of a sudden like Joey's getting zingers it's interchangeable yeah you know you know okay there are a few Phoebe's a space cadet jokes but it's like Monica Rachel like they all their jokes just put them in a hat pick out and just hand them out you know sometimes you can tell there are shows where all the characters speak exactly like the creator of the show yeah yeah yeah that's what that's what was great about cheers is that you know that's a Karla joke that's a coach joke that's a that's a norm joke you know and one of the things I love that we have this this more Boston the Massachusetts again but this conflict of the the students the the academia here is always in huge conflict with the town that's yeah that's actually what I what I another thing I was gonna say I love about it is that it there's two boston's that exists right on top of each other there's the South the boondock Saints shit and then there's the PBS Boston Pops you know Harvard arts and culture yeah you know cradle of education in America what the what the rest of the country thinks boston is right which is so funny that those two things lie right on top of each other and they're in the conflict of that because you get these people who go I grew up in a fucking projects when they didn't know or they loved that about themselves and they're fucking into lopas coming in and it's like you would that's 30% of the population Boston would have no economy with that yeah yeah what flavors boston and cheers addressed that with the shelly long character in a way that was critical of her but also critical of people's reaction to her yeah and it was so well done and and and gray in the best possible way and in the jokes the jokes that shelly long would make like her reference points were actual smart reference points like they wouldn't make it something that sounded kind of smart but people have to know what it is like no she'd be talking about rock mononoth fourth or whatever it was like yeah she'd make reference to the she'd quote you know William Blake and you know and she would go on some long William Blake quotes like you just couldn't even do that on our on at least on a multi-cam sitcom what you would get now is a guy who basically is cliff clavin writing that dialogue so it would be the person thinking what they think a smart person would say exactly yeah exactly and just a great show I loved yours finally Friday night Friday night eight o'clock what are you gonna gotta go them Duke was the Duke boys gotta go them Duke boys and again this is probably you know it's funny because going through this I'm I'm realizing how much of my TV watching was probably influenced by my mom in the south the south yeah you watch he hon you did yeah I mean when I I was too young to really understand any of it I just remember I don't think there was an age appropriate to understand yeah but I do remember it being on yeah but yeah but the dukes of hazard I I remember taking my tape recorder and sticking it up to the the screen so I could get the song on cassette tape and then you know the little handheld tape oh yeah my first Sony yeah yeah and I would I would listen to it you'd mom answering the phone in the background oh I was the king of making tapes where I you know you'd stuffed toilet paper in the top yeah top two holes and I put and I'd sit by the radio and I would just wait until a song came on and so you'd always miss the first five seconds yeah it'd be the DJ talking over the top of it but yeah my parents tonight I'm yours my rods tour to it's gonna come on I know it I used to my dad fancied himself kind of a music aficionado and my parents went big into 80s fuel credit debt that they're like a little life stuff so my dad got like these expensive speakers and he joined like all the CD clubs in the early 80s and he used to make these tape compilations his name is also Ken Reid he would dub them the Ken Reid collection of modern music and they had volume numbers so it'd be like Ken Reid collection of all of modern music volume 8 and so he'd sit there and have like wall of voodoo in the clash this is exactly what I would have done this at that time absolutely because it's totally the person I want you know my in college and like high school college and slight post-college making the mix CD it's a big that was my thing yeah you know oh yeah creating the album art work you know the sequencing yeah I would put clips from movies in between the songs I hope by VCR up to the stereo I would have had the technical know how for that went all out with that and yeah I mean that I would get stuff off the radio what I used to do was I love the Dr. Demento show no sure and my dad it's great and he wouldn't have any the songs from it so I would make mix tapes where I would intro the Dr. Demento show type songs but because I didn't have the songs I would then sing the songs so it's like four-year-old me singing fish heads and then I would listen to it because I didn't have access to the song oh that's awful you listen to your own listen to my own version I would do cover version of songs so that I could listen to them that is that is Plato's cave so this episode of Dukes of Hazard has a very odd nickname even for Dukes of Hazard for a character and this says the dukes were into a sixth season in pursuit of Lulu Hogg's kidnappers while a frightened boss begins to realize how much he truly loves his quote little come quote I don't remember that character was she like a hot Lulu Hogg yeah she was still a good dude yeah was evil cuz she okay she was later in the series this is six season this is almost near the end of the row oh okay all right then yeah but the is this is this post coin the replacements yeah post yeah it was the season before I think this is a return of the real dukes okay because those two guys also did the voices of the animated series which had the fake dukes oh really yeah yeah okay yeah it was very confusing yeah I would probably not have watched Dukes of Hazard I I started getting if I had watched mama's family that week I would have been way too done with the south yeah so on Nickelodeon I would have watched the science fiction series tomorrow people unrelated to the song by Ziggy Martin thankfully that was a terrible song really was that Bob Marley was it Ziggy it was Ziggy yeah I thought it was the hour is your past yeah that's probably being played by a college student somewhere in Boston right now awful song yeah I'd like to the to the Dylan brothers I wonder if there's someone's like Ziggy Marley's dad so I would have gone with that and at 8 30 would have gone with Webster the debut of Webster so nine o'clock what are you going nine o'clock go straight nine to eleven blazing saddles yeah this is the CBS special movie presentation of blazing saddles classic movie one of those movies you mentioned earlier when it's on you have to watch it yeah I think it's my favorite Mel Brooks movie when it all said and done I mean yeah people I think people would say the producers but they're lying they they they now love the producers right now that it's becomes nobody like that one yeah and it was like the obscure obviously young Frankenstein maybe yeah no one says silent movie no it's his history of the world well I mean I think a lot of people love history of the world but I think blazing saddles is funnier like history of the world is kind of just so thrown together yeah it's very up and down and yeah like space balls yeah yeah blazing saddles though is solid and I assume that's on little yeah so little scary I wonder how much of that was the influence of Richard Pryor that's the sort of X factor and that I think yeah I think you're probably right and and yeah I think that probably had a lot to do it it has an edge that the other Mel Brooks movies don't have it stands out it's definitely something it's not satirical about it like in terms of culture yeah nothing satirical about the young Frankenstein or history well those movies are like mad magazine and I always thought the blazing saddles is more like national ampoure yeah yeah whereas yeah whereas something like Robin admin entices like cracked I wouldn't even offend cracked that way it's more like plop like we're how can we get it's so crazy it's crazy it's probably like us just scholastic smag so that is the end of the week and normally what I read to people is the cheers and jeers and see if you agree or disagree but there are no cheers and jeers in this edition well that's my first year that's your first year that there is years TV guide September 17th to 23rd but there is a TV Q&A TV Q&A this is sort of the Google of its time all right this is before people were able to look things up they were to write questions into TV guide so I'd like to ask you a couple of these questions and see what you're answers okay question is it true that there are bugs that live in TV sets and feed on the components inside immediately we came to mind was that Tom Selleck sci-fi movie run away run away with Gene Simmons yeah because they had the little mechanical spider acid spider so you think they live in TV yes I do the answer is the brown banded cockroach looks the warmth of a TV set and made the glue that's using the construction of wood cabinets this is less true than it used to be because sets are no longer provide so much heat all right true question this is this might be my favorite one my friends friend already you know it's good had a chicken cooking in the microwave when he turned on the TV on an unoccupied channel he saw his chicken cooking on the TV screen is that possible what I love is it's the question of an insane person yeah but someone's saying enough to realize that he should distance himself by two degrees was my wasn't me it wasn't even my friend my friend's friend there's not even somebody who I'm friends with this is a friend of some other guy that I'm friends it might even be a friend's friend friend and when I say friend I mean like a guy I know the guy knows a guy yeah yeah that I mean who knows this is let's say this is an old person yep and so this is 83 yep and so this is someone who came of age and maybe the 50s microwave yeah exactly and like exactly like people say how silly was how scared people are microwaves well if you were to go back in time it might not seem so weird it might not seem so great cooking a thing with invisible magic fire yeah yeah exactly don't tell me I should put my head anywhere near that yeah you know and then maybe it's the same thing when it comes at like you don't know how TV works is maybe there's some sort of laser they look similar to two devices maybe it's possible if ever you're gonna go yeah his answer your friends friendship lay off the cooking cherry yeah flatter call them a drunk that's then that's got to be the last question of the Q&A right there's one more oh because you think that would be the that's the top of the button you know I mean that's the button you can't get a better question and that's a normal questions then a crazy question someone to lay off the cherry but this is this is weirdly this is really sequenced wrong bad sequence about ten years ago I read that a giant flat picture on the wall TV screen was about a decade in the future can I buy one now and if so where not far off about ten years off again when flat screens off was concerned about the late 90s but for consumers the early 2000s really was that late yeah yeah so he was about 20 years off yeah I guess he's about 20 years off and this guy says no it's been 10 years off for as long as I can remember and it always will be that's never that is funny actually that's a much better topper but they weren't aware they were never fly TVs will always do not flat I will see cooking a chicken on a TV before that TV is flat truly is the best of ever thinking yeah thank you so much thank you so much having me I had a great time there you go that was Christian Finnegan we got a lot of million dollar ideas out in that episode so if anyone makes a lot of money on any of those please just just kick us back a little bit I think that that's fair as always you can email me at candidate can read calm you can go to TV Kydon TV Kydons you can go to TV guidance counselor calm and sign up on for our email list we'll hear all sorts of stuff about our live events you'll hear about any contests or anything like that that we're doing you can go to our Facebook page and like us there and talk to other people that like the show there are some which is amazing to me so as always please continue to tune in on Wednesdays download the show stream the show however you get it because there will be a brand-new episode every single Wednesday of TV Gaiden's there's something about that that is so creepy yeah the thing of like Lionel Richie likes seducing Kenny Rogers
