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Partially an oral history of obscure TV shows, partially an oral version of MST3K, and partially a thorough episode guide, It Was a Thing on TV is an anthology podcast about obscure, forgotten, and odd TV shows, commercials, televised events, and almost anyone and anything else that was on television. For the most part, the subjects we cover are from the United States and Canada. We’re just three guys with a love for television. New episodes are generally every Monday and Thursday, sometimes more often.
Episodes

2 days ago
Episode 536--The World Football League
2 days ago
2 days ago
Our lead-up to "The Big Game" continues with this look at a mid-70s competitor to the NFL, a league which actually got big names to join its league. Like start-up competitors from the past and the future, the league had a very short life for a number of reasons, one of which is not the dickerod.

5 days ago
5 days ago
"The Big Game" is coming up this Sunday. By coincidence, this installment is about a Disney made-for-TV movie centered around one of this year's "Big Game" participants, the Philadelphia Eagles. What happens when Tony Danza goes from being a garbageman to the team's place kicker? It's an ending only Hollywood could write in more ways than one.

6 days ago
6 days ago
Greg and Dane are back with the first episode of their new wrestling podcast "The Squared Circle Time Machine" here on the IWATOTV Podcast feed. Greg and Dane look back at the first five Royal Rumble's and share some of their favorite memories including Ric Flair's epic title win in '92, Demolition going one-on-one to start the '89 Rumble, and lots and lots of stalling at the early Rumble's!
Just don't forget to put that cigarette out!

Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Episode 534--To Tell the Truth, 1990 version
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
It's hard to keep a good format down. A decade after the Robin Ward-helmed version of To Tell the Truth (see episode 139 for more), the show returned with a mix of old and new panelists, the tried-and-true format, but also a total of five hosts, including the pilots. A formidable reboot lasted 3/4 of a year in a time when game shows as a whole were a dying breed.

Monday Jan 27, 2025
Episode 533--Mega Man: The Animated Series
Monday Jan 27, 2025
Monday Jan 27, 2025
Arcade games exploded onto the scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with several shows, animated or otherwise, airing on TV. Jump ahead to the 1990s and video games left the arcade, going to living rooms everywhere. One popular franchise, still popular to this day, was and is Mega Man, which had an animated show from the masters of adapting video games to television, Ruby-Spears, the minds behind cartoons like Pac-Man, Saturday Supercade, and Dragon's Lair.

Thursday Jan 23, 2025
Episode 532--Chicken Soup
Thursday Jan 23, 2025
Thursday Jan 23, 2025
The show covered in this episode shares many of the same traits as episode 531, Bridget Loves Bernie--the trials and tribulations of an interfaith couple, the good ratings, but also the swift cancellation. Social mores changed quite a bit from 1972 to 1989, meaning this show didn't get the criticism from religious leaders. What happened? You'll have to dive into this heaping serving of Chicken Soup to find out.

Sunday Jan 19, 2025
Episode 531--Bridget Loves Bernie
Sunday Jan 19, 2025
Sunday Jan 19, 2025
Falling in love and becoming a couple have long been a staple of television series. In 1972, CBS, after the overwhelming success of a controversial sitcom in All in the Family, added this show, another controversial entry which was about an interfaith relationship. Despite superb ratings, the series lasted one year due to said controversy.

Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Episode 530--Team Knight Rider
Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Chico's birthday is coming up and he chose this as his Money in the Bank. In 1982, NBC had an upstart sci-fi drama starring David Hasselhoff and a talking car. Fast forward 15 years and the franchise now had quintuple the vehicles, with quintuple the drivers. Do more talking cars mean more success? (We're covering it. There's your answer.)

Tuesday Jan 14, 2025
Minisode 33--The Many Formats of the Chain Reaction (1980) bonus game
Tuesday Jan 14, 2025
Tuesday Jan 14, 2025
Today, January 14, marks 45 years since the premiere of the original Chain Reaction on NBC. In honor of this anniversary, we look at the many (three) bonus rounds from this series which ran 5 months, where Fred Grandy once declared, "Ten bucks!"

Monday Jan 13, 2025
Episode 529--The Reel to Reel Picture Show
Monday Jan 13, 2025
Monday Jan 13, 2025
In our previous episode, episode 528, we covered one of the first shows on a new network, The WB. This time, we're covering one of the first shows on PAX in 1998, an adaptation of a Canadian board game about movies. The whole production had one major issue, one which led to the show's demise just over a month after its premiere.