It Happened One Year

Having largely dealt with 1984's Christmas season last year, It Happened One Year had to dig deep to unearth the Xmas episode topic this time around, and what better place to turn than to the cabbage patch itself! Sarah & Joe take a look at the big ABC special that aired December 7th, 1984 - The Cabbage Patch Kids' First Christmas, discuss the casting and bizarro plot, and attempt to track bac...

After trudging through many years of popcorn entertainment and bikini skydiving thrillers, It Happened One Year finally tackles highbrow, award-winning cinema in the form of the glorious biopic Amadeus, and you are there! Listen as Sarah & Joe recall hazy memories of watching the film in decades past, debate whether the film justifies its runtime, breakdown the near-casting and complex adaptat...

The old standard returns! It Happened One Year is once again looking at what aired on November 3rd in 1984, checking in over a year since exploring ABC's programming! This time, Sarah & Joe delve into the hard-boiled, sexy, action dramas that were Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Airwolf, and Cover Up! Along the way, much discussion is made about Stacy Keach's mustache, how Oscar winner Ernest B...

Geraldine Ferraro is dead. So are Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Pat Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson, and all the members of the Female United Politicians of America, but that isn't going to stop them from lending their assistance to the 2024 Presidential campaign on Earth, from their gathering place at the Radisson Valhalla Inn & Suites located on the celestial plane. President Biden's alarming...

With Election Day right around the corner, It Happened One Year finally gets around this season to discussing the biggest news story of 1984 - the Presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale! Sarah & Joe being the political nerds they are go deep into the Democratic primaries, discussing Ted Kennedy's reluctance, Gary Hart's late surge, Jesse Jackson's implosion, and Mondale...

The first presidential ticket to feature a woman was formed in 1984, when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, and history was made! In 2024, with another historic Election Day bearing down, It Happened One Year transports you to the great beyond, as a coalition of female political figures gathers in hopes of aiding a current candidate to gain the title of Commander in Ch...

Despite being a classic of the American theater and winning a rare Pulitzer along the way, Sarah & Joe were largely unfamiliar with Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, but that has all changed! It Happened One Year once again wanders into the rare live theater corner and kicks around the musical painting biopic for good and all. Along the way there's some discussion of what makes a good...

101 episodes and nearly three years later, It Happened One Year is finally talking Muppets again! Given the rousing success of Season One's breakdown of 1994's felt properties, it was only natural that Sarah & Joe would tackle that beloved classic from '84 - The Muppets Take Manhattan! From its sorrowful place as the final, big screen Jim Henson Muppet outing to the singularity of its setting...

Despite the Paris games wrapping up, Olympic fever still grips It Happened One Year, as it's time to cover the glittering Los Angeles Summer Games of 1984! Sarah & Joe tackle some of the biggest stories and stars of those contests, including the rise of women's American gymnastics, fronted by Mary Lou Retton, the record-setting run (and jumps) of Carl Lewis, the controversial collision of Mary...

Recorded on the day Joe Biden decided to drop out of the presidential race, Sarah & Joe take a pretty unhinged tact in attempting to discuss the cult classic film pitting Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers against Dr. Emilio Lizardo aka John Whorfin and his gang of aliens! Kamala Harris's chances as the potential first female president, the greatness of Ellen Barkin, Donald Bigbooté, ...

Originally intended as the wrap-up to Episode 27's discussion of 1984 and Joe Biden's floundering campaign, this follow-up recording went completely off the rails with the hours-old assassination attempt on candidate Donald Trump, and so - in order to not overwhelm the creaky narrative of that show - here is the rest of Sarah & Joe's conversation from that day. Enjoy?

It's true, the classic novel was published in 1949, but it's quite obviously relevant to this season, and to the modern day, and thus - It Happened One Year is going all-in on George Orwell's 1984! Sarah & Joe discuss the history of the novel and their reactions from recent reads. Then, the greatest marketing tie-in of all time - Michael Radford's 1984 starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, fi...

Just in time for the All-Star Game, baseball is back on the show! Prior to 2016, the one Chicago Cubs team that lived in local memory as the best chance to break the World Series drought was the squad from 1984, and It Happened One Year is there! Sarah & Joe recount the basics of the '84 team's run to the NLCS, how No Lights at Wrigley played a part in the overall discourse, the progression of...

Back-to-back game show episodes?! Well, sort of! Recorded an absurdly long time ago, Sarah & Joe go into all things Jeopardy - from the original Art Fleming show straight through to this year's wild three-rounded Celebrity Jeopardy, with all the Ken Jennings and Becky Lynch trivia along the way! What is the eerie fate that befell both longtime show hosts? How does Pluto offering a Jeopardy cha...

Serial get-rich-quick fanatic Michael Larson was almost out of schemes to earn the elusive buck. Bills piling up, kids needing school clothes, ice cream truck season ending - obstacles were plentiful. So when he filled the living room with a dozen television sets to allow the universe to deliver his next great idea for success, the family was understandably skeptical. But the events that followed...

1984 wasn't just the Presidential election and the Olympics and bustin' ghosts - there were also amazing tales of crimefighting parrots and the raffle for a century-old lobster, where nothing turns out the way you'd expect! This landmark It Happened One Year episode sees Sarah & Joe finally tackle the existence of God, while batting around some of the greatest animal stories in podcast history...

What is left to say about Ghostbusters that hasn't already been said? Sarah & Joe take a swing at it in this spooky It Happened One Year entry! They cover their personal relationships with the property in the 1980s, the reemergence of the franchise in the past decade, and how it compares to other film series where the first film was a big commercial and critical success, and then just coasted...

Michael Larson was an out-of-work ice cream truck driver, struggling to make ends meet for his young family (and multiple ex-wives) in Lebanon, Ohio. His penchant for get-rich-quick schemes caused few to take him seriously, and so when he announced he was going on a game show, no one thought much of it. But his subsequent run on CBS's Press Your Luck in 1984 would go down in television history. It...

Strap in, folks! It Happened One Year commemorates recording on International Women's Day with tales of exploration, politics, murder, and music, with some truly unhinged interludes along the way! Listen as Sarah & Joe wander off into the pointlessness of space walks! Gasp at Sarah's suggested names for this episode, and whether this sets feminism back decades in the doing! Marvel at the hosts...

The most unexpected of bonus episodes arrives here in the midst of season three, as It Happened One Year harkens back to its early days in the form of finally discussing murderer and Heisman winner O.J. Simpson! Despite putting out shows dealing with Kato Kaelin, F. Lee Bailey, Naked Gun 33 1/3, and Al Cowlings (the inaugural episode of the entire show), Sarah & Joe never solely concentrated o...

It's time for another round of everyone's favorite alcove in the It Happened One Year complex of topics - The Love Corner! Sarah & Joe run down the list of marriages and divorces from 1984, from the titans of politics to the seedy philanderers of Tinseltown, with much classic digressing along the way. Hear tales of the hosts encountering many of today's subjects in the various movie theaters,...

The fourth and final pairing of Steve Martin and Carl Reiner created arguably their best movie, in the form of 1984's All of Me, and It Happened One Year is there to discuss! Sarah & Joe breakdown their memories of the star's films, why this movie may not be resonating down through the ages like some of their other projects, the somewhat odd circumstances of seeing both of these legends in per...

In the midst of all the pop culture items crowding the subject year, the hosts managed to dust off the rarely-used science corner and see what - theoretically - was taking place in outer space in 1984! Two main topics comprise most of Sarah & Joe's stumbling through the cosmos - the Nemesis Star/Death Star theory and the SETI project, both concocted to take wild swings at what might be going o...

The Ballad of Tony & Angela, or is it The Odd Couple meets The Brady Bunch meets the horniest of Golden Girls? ABC's long-running family sitcom Who's the Boss? checks all these boxes, and Sarah and Joe dig in deep to discuss the many facets of this until-recently difficult to watch show! Along the way are comparisons to other family fare of the era, how it stacks up against other Tony Danza wo...

"You'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984!" With this is awkward-ass phrase, the era of Super Bowl commercials fully began, and home computers took over the world. Sarah & Joe cover the impact of this short Ridley Scott directed spot, take a trip down internet-laden memory lane, and go over some of their favorite Super Bowl commercials - with many cameos from Budweiser, McDonald's, Groundhog Day...