It Was a Thing on TV: An Anthology on Forgotten Television

Episode 497--Sara

NBC was still trying to get their bearings aligned in early 1985.  One midseason replacement which had decent enough ratings against formidable competition was Sara, Chico's submission for the listener vote last year.  Quite a few cast members from Sara went onto much greater things, including a popular Oscar winner, a comedian/pundit, a multi-talented award-winning actress, and everybody's favorite cousin from Mypos.

It Was a Thing on TV Presents: Before the Show VI

In our latest "Before the Show" Greg and Mike in Segment 1 go over one of their latest things in the pre-show segments by looking at the College Football announcer pairings for the week. They also discussed Shannon Sharpe's um ........ social media skills earlier this week.

Then in Segment 2, Chico joins on as they discuss the rating system Mike has created for Quinn Martin's opening title sequences and looking ahead as Episode 500 approaches.

Episode 496–Clerks: The Animated Series

Kevin Smith gave us "Clerks", a cult classic indie film from 1994. "Clerks" gave us Jay & Silent Bob. Jay & Silent Bob gave us a lot of laughs.... so ABC gave an order for an animated follow-up. Then America gave it a shot... and ABC gave up after a pair of eps, only for the show to become... a cult classic. Join us as we travel the full circle to the Quick Stop.

Episode 495--Laugh-In

Not to be confused with Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, this version was a series of specials throughout the 1977-78 television season with little connection to the original.  The positive of this version is a superstar talent got his first national exposure on this show, among other talents who had lengthy careers in television and elsewhere.  A negative is the producer got sued and lost millions because he didn't have everybody's permission to do this show.

Episode 494--Bob

Bob Newhart struck gold with The Bob Newhart Show in the 70s and Newhart in the 80s through 1990.  Could Newhart do it again with another self-titled endeavor?  Bob was a clever and funny show, but it didn't have a certain something that both his previous shows had.  Despite quality names as guests including a future Friend, the show was saddled with bad time slots and only lasted a handful of episodes into its second season.

Episode 493--1970s and 1980s 15-minute educational shows on PBS

It's time for the final entry of Back to School 2024.  This time, we're focusing on educational shows.  Everybody remembers shows like 3-2-1 Contact, The Electric Company, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  But do you remember some of the 15-minute shows like Wordsmith and Math Wise?  If not, we have you covered in this episode about educational shows which generally ran from about 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon from the 1970s through the early 1990s.

To see many of the shows mentioned in this episode and more, visit https://libraries.indiana.edu/agency-instructional-technology-ait.

Episode 492--Roomies (It's no Classholes.)

Before Brian Griffin created a series about two oddball roommates on an episode of Family Guy, that premise was used in a short-lived NBC series which paired up a 14-year-old with an ex-Marine in his 40s in a college dorm.  Ratings were amazing for the premiere episode, but the show still lasted only 8 shows.  Find out why in this installment.

Episode 491--Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher

It's time to go back to school for the next three installments!  We start with someone who is teaching until he gets his big break in acting, hooking up with seemingly every single lady along the way.  Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher brought some realities teenagers went through (and still go through) at the time, in addition to being a light-hearted comedy.

Episode 490--The Video Game Show Vol. 4: A New Hope

After the last video game show (episode 201), we said it would be our last look at video games based on TV shows.  We lied!  We found nine more games worthy of covering for what we believe will truly be the final video game show we cover.  This time, we found some truly bad games from a variety of genres, from dramedy to animation to action shows.

Episode 489--Platypus Man

It's the mid-90s and two startup networks are looking for programming.  A flavor of the month at the time was giving stand-up comics their own shows, see Seinfeld, Life with Louie, and Roseanne, and later The Drew Carey Show and Everybody Loves Raymond.  The new network was UPN and the comic was Richard Jeni, who took a concept from his stand-up show and loosely molded it into a Seinfeld-like TV show.