The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

We're going back to school with three shows from early 1979, which tried capitalizing off the success of Animal House.  All three were busts, though each show produced quality future talent.  Also in this show, Mr. Whipple typecasting and ZIPPER?!

As an homage to the recent Omnibus podcast episode about Ronco, we look at commercials for what is likely Ronco's most popular product, Mr. Microphone.  Greg's dad also proposes new rules to football.

Join two of the top playboys from the 1970s, Hugh Hefner and Richard Dawson, for a night of roller skating, disco music, and tastefully done Playboy photo shoots in this 1979 special which epitomizes the late 70s nicely.

Like many things in the 70s and 80s, minor happenings were turned into celebrity-laden events for television.  It happened to collegiate cheerleading in 1980, infusing it with such personalities as Magic Johnson, Catherine Bach, and...Willie Shoemaker?

This episode is shorter than usual because under half of it is online and it is more of a retrospective than anything.  But really, that title is why we're here.

Who doesn't enjoy late night television's comedy bits between the monologue and the first guest?  We like them so much, we are devoting episodes to such segments which we affectionately call "shows within the show."  Our first look at late night shows within the show is David Letterman, running the gamut from a troubled teen who is clearly not a troubled teen, to a spoof of one of the most popular and controversial shows of the day.

In 2005, ABC was breaking new ground with Desperate Housewives and Lost.  Another show in the mix which absolutely bombed was the Steven Bochco police procedural Blind Justice.  This is the first show where all three of us gave up on it.  It's that bad.

As we mentioned in episode 80, while we were recording that episode, word broke that Regis Philbin passed away.  We felt we should honor the television legend both by looking back at one of his more forgettable shows, The Neighbors, but also by offering up our memories and favorite Regis moments, including Regis on Password Plus with someone from a previous entry.

The CW will start airing reruns of the amazing UK version of Taskmaster, starting on Sunday, August 2.  It isn't the first appearance of the creative competition show.  Comedy Central had a series of 8 episodes in 2018 which quickly disappeared.  If it's so good, what happened?

In 1986, Bruce Forsyth wasn't the only UK entertainer to be imported by ABC.  For one week, UK legend Noel Edmonds had his own self-titled talk show following Nightline.  Even throwing out a gaggle of superstar guests didn't get the show a longer run.