The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In was TV's most popular show in 1969.  The people behind it tried capitalizing on its popularity with a related show called Turn-On.  There were instant regrets, as ABC turned it off before the first episode aired in full.

We're going to the ballpark for this installment, as some of 1967's brightest Major League Baseball players went against celebrities back in the day on the softball diamond, with some very special celebrities handling the duties behind the mic and two legends acting as managers.

The next-to-last edition of the It Was a Thing on TV remastered series looks at one of ABC's first experiments with summer game shows back in 1990 with Super Jeopardy! and Monopoly.

This episode has it all four player Jeopardy! games, stories of when Mike and Chico faced off against form Jeopardy! champions, Monopoly's way too complicated ruleset and the lady who played Lumpy in the Star Wars Holiday Special!

Recently, word came out that American Gladiators is being rebooted...again.  By coincidence, we had this show slotted for this week in our schedule.  We talk about 4 shows which tried riding the coattails of the Gladiators--Knights and Warriors, Blade Warriors, Battledome, and Wild West Showdown.  There are other shows of varying success we mention at the end.  Put on your Spandex and get ready to take down some larger than life figures in this installment.

 

2:43 Knights and Warriors
32:50 Blade Warriors
40:11 Battledome
1:09:34 Wild West Showdown
1:26:36 Acknowledging other shows

We've scoured the Internet and found more of the crazy, cheap, and just bad local commercials, enough for this second helping.  From Dirt Cheap Liquor to our personal favorite Crazy Gideon, these ads have gone viral for a reason.

NOTE: There may be some flaky audio briefly in a few parts of this episode.

1. Frankie and Johnny Furniture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI7jC57GuZM
2. Dirt Cheap Liquor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1jbS6VJYEU
3. Horrible Insurance Commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l0ZmTLdy-A
4. Sutherland’s Kansas City - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN-sNsZo-1A
5. 97 cent Bowling - https://youtu.be/TVln73mCIrg
6. Phil Rizzuto for the Money Store - https://youtu.be/gS27G_Cj5qQ
7. TDM Motors High Point - Cuban Gynecologist, American car salesman - https://youtu.be/7b5CKSqlz60 
8. Dominos Pizza Alaska Commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLvUHiJoUGU
9. Helena, Arkansas McDonalds Commercial (1995) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P5JsN4H00Q
10. Burl Robinette - https://youtu.be/cLfmqQePqCU?t=31
11. Eastern Motors with John Witherspoon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eD73Mx35jE
12. Eastern Motors with Brian Orakpo and Gilbert Gottfried - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcw8LjGMiDQ
13. East Hills Mall (Back to School) - https://youtu.be/6bnanI9jXps
14. East Hills Mall (Mall Pretty) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfz4dsiERxg
15. Tint World Medford, NY - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y8fmjyQMag
16. Pizza N Go Rap Commercial - https://youtu.be/aYo8ITYMjaU
17. Mormon Haircuts (Rhett & Link) - https://youtu.be/9XLshEBvYdw
18. Crazy Gideon - https://youtu.be/QbVkTk9nvt0
19. Crazy Gideon (When the Rooster Crows…) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNnTXq90Xgc
20. Crazy Gideon (They Say I’m Crazy) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu8zby_4Dxk
21. Crazy Gideon Arts District Brewing Co. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qA5YxFVs5o

In the latest edition of the remastered series we look back to our New Year's Eve 2019 episode. We look at one of the biggest television disasters of all-time in First Night 2013 presented by Jamie Kennedy.

Enjoy as we talk about a lot of very 2012-ish things in this episode like Psy, Angry Birds, the Mitt Romney 47% tape and that Pepsi commercial with Drew Brees and One Direction.

One of our most popular series of shows is back for a third (and final?) installment.  The three of us look at more video game adaptions of TV shows, one going back almost 40 years.  Grab your controller and press start on The Video Game Show, Part 3.

This is it!  The big 2-0-0!  We look back at a great, short-lived show from the late 90s with a great cast of characters and array of guests, which got mishandled by the network during a time when there was a push towards educational and informational television on Saturday mornings.

It's time to release the drone in the newest edition of the It Was a Thing on TV remastered series as we go back to our Christmas 2019 episode covering the Food Network series (Charles Stiles) Mystery Diners.

We cover some of our favorite moments of (Charles Stiles) Mystery Diners including drag queen trivia shows, a grilled cheese eating contest and memorabilia mishaps in a diner.

It's listener request time!  We received a request to cover Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa months ago, and we finally found a spot for it on our schedule.  When a comet lands in the Old West, the end result is anthropomorphic cows.  Enjoy their adventures in this ABC cartoon from the early 90s.