The First Ones

This month, Queen Mel and Sarcastro dive into the world of 1980's southern interior decorating with the first episode of Designinig Women.  A show about four thirty to forty somethings that run thier own interior design company in Georgia while also navigating the tropes of love, friendships and trust.  This show features a cast of strong actors including Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, an...

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro are joined by Mr. The Slayer to visit a place where everybody knows your name as they discuss the first episode of Cheers from 1982. Starring Ted Danson, Shelly Long, Nicholas Colasanto, Rhea Pearlman, and George Wendt, it was a sitcom that proves to the group that it can stand the test of time, at least for their generation.  Queen Mel and Mr. The Slayer also di...

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro gather around with friend of the show, Mr. The Slayer, to talk about the pilot episode of the 1972 series, M*A*S*H.  From the comedic approach to a terrible situation for the characters to be put in is fantastically acted out by the cast which in this episode was made up of Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, Loretta Swit, Larry Linville, McLean Stevenson and Gary Burghoff....

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro watch Hogan's Heroes, the comedic portrayal of a group of Allied POWs in a stalag from 1965 who get up to a lot of mischief in getting over on their German captors.   The show starred Bob Crane as the titular Col. Hogan; Werner Klemperer as Col. Klink the man in charge of the camp; John Banner as Sgt. Schultz, the only German officer in the camp who knows about t...

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro watched Sledge Hammer! which aired it's first episode in 1986 and starred David Rasche as the titular Sledge Hammer, a slightly (or more than slightly) unhinged from rational thought police inspector, who is joined by his more level-headed partner Detective Dori Doreau played by Anne-Marie Martin.   This show had them questioning is it a sitcom based on the way i...

This month Sarcastro and Queen Mel are sitting down with Mr. The Slayer to discuss his recommendation of the Out of This World, a sitcom that premiered in September of 1987 and was about a girl who finds out on her thirteenth birthday that she's half alien and begins to get powers from her absentee father's side of the family.   So many questions, What powers will she gain?  Will she use them for...

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro sit down with Mr. The Slayer to talk about the first episode of Charles in Charge from 1984.  In this episode we learn that Scott Baio as the titular Charles is in fact in charge of the lives of three young children in New Jersey and takes his job as their live-in manny very seriously even when faced with the dilema of having to cancel a date with his dream girl,...

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro sit down with their guests, The Slayer and Fatty, to discuss the first episode of 1981's Gimme a Break which starred Nel Carter as some sort of live in housekeeper/cook/mother figure to a gruff police chief and his three daughters.   After observing the family dynamic and seeing that Nel is appartetnly the only character who isn't a fish out of water they determi...

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro are joined by Fatty and The Slayer (Mel's co-host on The Sunnydale Diaries) to discuss the first episode of WKRP in Cincinnati from 1978 which is about a struggling AM easy listening station that's getting a facelift to become a rock station and it's quirky cast of characters.  Somehow it's a show that everyone except Sarcastro had seen growing up.  Queen Mel als...

This month Queen Mel and Sarcastro discuss the first episode of the sitcom Benson from 1979.  A spin-off of the series Soap starring Robert Guillaume as the titular Benson DuBois who has been hired as the head of household for fish-out-of-water Governor Gatling of a never confirmed state played by James Noble.   Benson meets some of the staff of the mansion consisting of the Chief of Staff, Secret...

In the season two opener of The First Ones Sarcastro and Queen Mel are joined by guest commentator Fatty and producer Banky to talk about Blansky's Beauties, a Garry Marshall show that was so good at getting cancelled they made the same show twice using several of the cast members under a different show name and on two networks.  Starring Nancy Walker of Rhoda and The Dick van Dyke Show fame, as N...

This month in the season one finale of The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Queen Mel who has become part of the POoRCHoices family and the official co-host of the show moving forward.  Fatty and Banky also sat in on the episode to talk about Mork & Mindy from 1978, based on a cameo character on another Garry Marshall show, Happy Days, and helped to launch the career of Robin Williams and co-sta...

This month Sarcastro is joined by Corporal and Banky to discuss the Washington, DC neighborhood sitcom, 227 from the grand old year of 1985.  Somehow this is a show that Sarcastro never watched growing up but one that Corporal remembers in the deepest chambers of his mind.  Starring Marla Gibbs, Hal Williams, and an extremely saucy and overly sexually charged up Jackée Harry it was definitely a sh...

This month Sarcastro is joined by Fatty, Banky and friend of the show and co-host of The Sunnydale Diaries, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast, Queen Mel to talk about a show she recommended, Tales from the Darkside.  A horror anthology series in which Sarcastro was the only one on the show who had never heard of it. The first episode happened to be an actual aired pilot that first hit television...

This month Sarcastro selected the late 80's show, My Secret Identity, starring a young Jerry O'Connell just three years off of starring in Stand By Me and 6 years before his stint on Sliders.   Banky joins in to help recall how much they actually don't remember about the show and question the writers' decision to have the power of flight propelled by hairspray cans used to rescue a damsel in distr...

This month on The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Fatty and Banky to talk about The Facts of Life which Sarcastro noted he had some help selecting which series to cover for this episode from friend of the show and co-host of The Sunnydale Diaries: A Buffy Podcast, Melanie.   With a premier in the fall of 1979 none of them realized how large of a cast the first episode had and that future star M...

This month on The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Corporal Fatty, Banky to discuss the first episode of Andy Richter Controls the Universe from 2002.  Turns out it's a show where Andy Richter may not be the nice guy he imagines himself to be based on the dubious plan to get his new office mate fired and repeatedly imagines the bigoted deceased founder of his company talking to him which may mak...

This month on The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Fatty and Banky to discuss the first episode of Mr. Belvedere from 1985, starring Christopher Hewitt as the titular Mr. Belvedere who based on just this first episode could potentially be a grifter with how he never confirms that he was sent by the "domestic agency" to be a live in housekeeper and nanny to the Owens family and their patriarch pl...

In episode five of The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Fatty and Banky to discuss the first episode of Newhart from 1982, starring Bob Newhart playing a do-it-yourself author named Dick Louden who moves from the big city to a quaint Vermont town to restore the historic Stratford Inn with his wife Joanna (played by Mary Frann) and they meet a cast of characters that have a certain charm or lack...

In episode four of The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Fatty and Banky to discuss the first episode of The Bob Newhart Show, starring Bob Newhart playing a psychologist named Robert Hartley who makes his living off the good people of Chicago and their problems.  There's no question that everyone liked the show enough to watch it but they all wonder why the character's name isn't also Bob Newhar...

In episode three of The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Fatty and Banky to discuss the first episode of All in the Family, starring Carrol O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Sallie Struthers and Rob Reiner.  It's the story of a New York City family locking horns on societal and political views on how the world should work and how we should treat each other as a society which feels like it's holding a mi...

In episode two of The First Ones, Sarcastro is joined by Fatty and Banky to discuss the first episode of Bosom Buddies starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari in a story of two young ad agency associates just looking for affordable housing and love in 1980's New York City. Intro and outro interpreted and performed by Sarcastro.  

In the premier episode Sarcastro is joined by Banky to discuss the first episode of ALF and his meeting of the Tanner family after his spaceship crashes into their garage and seemingly causes no alarm to the neighborhood.  The first episode leaves Banky wondering what Willie Tanner did for a living and has Sarcastro realizing that while he loved the show at 7 years old, that love doesn't hold up i...