KnockBack: The Retro and Nostalgia Podcast

When you're a kid, you can't escape breakfast cereal. (And frankly, why would you want to?) You ate it in the morning, or maybe out of a sandwich bag on the bus or at lunch. When you got home from school, you may have helped yourself to half a box while watching afternoon cartoons. And who hasn't snuck a bowl or two late at night? The point is, cereal rules, and we wanted to dedicate an entire epi...

Hey bud! Way back in 1981, Rolling Stone journalist Cameron Crowe wrote and published a book chronicling his time spent undercover at a Southern California high school. It was called Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and it's something of a collector's item today, having never even been republished since. Indeed, it would have no doubt become an obscure (albeit interesting) piece of early-'80s trivia,...

For many of us, being a child during the summer largely revolved around one thing: The swimming pool. Whether you had an above-ground pool or an in-ground pool, or you had to rely on your friends' pools for your aquatic adventures, or even if you spent the dog days of summer at the municipal pool or at the local Y, there's a decent chance you've got some swimming-related memories tucked away in yo...

Way back in 1985, a most unusual flick came to the silver screen. It was called The Goonies, and for most people that saw it (both then and now), it morphed into an instant classic, a memorable movie in an era of memorable movies. Thing is, it's an interesting product well above and beyond it '80s cult status. It stars some famous actors, it was conceived by one of the film industry's most famous...

Let's face it: Nostalgia is often heavily rooted in locations, and not only events. Today's episode of KnockBack seeks to explore that idea, going over the homes we've lived in with a fine-tooth comb in order to extract some deeply-held memories. From a few houses on Long Island for the both of us, to Colin's experience living in Maine and New Hampshire for a few years as a kid, it turns out that...

What can you say about the best-selling home video game console of all-time? PlayStation 2 -- launched in 2000 -- completely morphed the way we looked at gaming machines. The fact that PSone could even play audio CDs was a revolution; now we were looking at a machine that could play game discs and DVDs alike, opening up even more entertainment possibilities. More than 150 million units sold later,...

If there's one true reason why the American adaptation of The Office resonates so much with people, it's because it feels hauntingly real. Lots of us know a Michael Scott or a Dwight Schrute, a Pam Beesly or a Jim Halpert. And lots of us understand, in one fashion or another, the 9-to-5 grind, and all that comes along with working in seemingly soul-sucking corporate environments. While The Office...

Do you remember your first "girlfriend" or "boyfriend?" Your first date? Your first kiss? Today's episode of KnockBack -- as voted on by the show's Patreon supporters -- is dedicated to just such topics. As adults, matters of the heart are often incredibly complicated and high stakes. That's why it's so important to occasionally reminisce about our far more innocent, far more straight-forward days...

We don't often talk about music on KnockBack, which is strange, considering it's a massive part of Moriarty Life. So for only the second time in our show's run, we're dedicating an episode entirely to music, particularly live music. What have been our very favorite concert experiences? What were our first concerts, our most memorable concerts, and the worst concerts we've been to? How has live mus...

Video games have unrivaled narrative potential, and 2007's BioShock is possibly the single greatest example of how gaming and storytelling can expertly intertwine. BioShock is the story of an underwater libertarian utopia run by a brilliant business magnate, and how the weight of his own stringent ideology leads to his dream's rapid undoing. But in reality, it's about far more than that. It's a ma...

'80s movies are a goldmine for a nostalgia and retro podcast like this one, but few films of the era are held in as high esteem as 1984's Karate Kid. The story of Daniel LaRusso and his trials and tribulations as "The New Kid" -- a new kid who just happens to learn lethal karate from an old, unassuming man -- is an undeniable classic. So let's chat about Daniel-San, his sensei Mr. Miyagi, his neme...

When we launched KnockBack, we didn't know what to expect. We had this idea to do a nostalgic, retro-driven podcast, but nothing was set in stone, and Dagan had never co-hosted a show before, so we had no idea how it'd turn out, or if anyone would like it. The end result, though, has been extraordinary. KnockBack is a passion project for us -- the Brothers Moriarty -- and convening every couple of...

Today's episode of KnockBack is very special, because it stars our mother, Betty Ann Moriarty. Our mom was born in Brooklyn in 1950, and grew up in the shadow of New York City -- on our beloved Long Island -- during a storied era of American history. Our (too) brief discussion centers around her childhood and teen years, reminiscing about days long gone. Brought up in an Italian household with an...

The 21st century has brought with it the slow-but-steady demise of malls across the United States (and elsewhere, of course). But in the post-World War II era, when families started sprouting up in the suburbs in huge numbers, malls weren't only centers of commerce, but centers of pre-Internet socializing, too. So today, let's chat about the mall during the latter end of its triumphant era, in the...

For many children, one of growing up's great traditions is having a pet or two. (Or maybe even five or 10.) This episode of KnockBack revolves around our memories of the pets we grew up with, our many cats, our rabbits, and even a scorpion named Wellington. We also solicited a ton of entries from the audience, and go through your pet stories, too. What did these animals mean to all of us? How did...

When Nickelodeon launched its original Nicktoons lineup in the late summer of 1991, it did so with an eclectic collection of three shows. You had the young adult-friendly Doug, Rugrats for the younger viewers, and The Ren & Stimpy Show for... well... for some other strange reason. For four years, from '91 until 1995, only 52 episodes of Ren & Stimpy would be produced and aired, but the misadventur...

There's probably no single trilogy more responsible for the trajectory of the video game industry than Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3 on NES. The first game, in particular, was revolutionary, while the third game showed the true power of what Nintendo's aging hardware could do. (As for the second game, well, we love that one, too.) Today's episode of KnockBack is dedicated to remembering these thre...

If you're one of the many KnockBack listeners that loves when Dagan dives deep into animation, this episode is for you. Today's nearly two and a half hour-long chat is dedicated to Don Bluth, a man famous for his work at Disney in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. And then there's his own independent work in the decades since, works ranging from An American Tail and The Secret of NIMH to The Land Before T...

For those of us that grew up with the NES, Metal Gear was a fun -- albeit strange -- game that kinda just came and went. It wasn't until 1998's Metal Gear Solid, about a decade later, that we understood the full ramifications of what creator Hideo Kojima was really trying to say and do. A tale of politics, espionage, and warfare, Metal Gear Solid is a beloved franchise today, and although it didn'...

For a podcast about all about nostalgia, we'd be crazy to skip the so-called Holiday Season, the section of the annual calendar perhaps most rife with memories. Today's episode of KnockBack is dedicated to Christmastime (or whatever you might celebrate), and all of the amazing remembrances of festive times past. Presents. Family. Food. Togetherness. And that time Colin knocked down the tree, and c...

In the early '80s, the home console vanished as quickly as it arrived. But only a few years later, a new champion emerged -- Nintendo -- and gaming on your television has only grown since. Nintendo was a force to be reckoned with during the NES era, with no real competition, but as the decade turned and the Super Nintendo appeared poised to continue NES' dominance, a fresh-faced challenger arrived...

In the early-to-mid '80s, Michael J. Fox was a household name because of his work on Family Ties, the beloved American sitcom. But by 1985, Fox was catapulted even further into the stratosphere by Back to the Future, a film about time travel, and the unexpected -- and often fun and zany -- results of utilizing such advanced technology. Today's episode of KnockBack is dedicated not only to the orig...

It's not terribly uncommon for Nintendo fans to feel that The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the best Zelda game ever released. The third title launched in the series -- coming to stores in 1991 in Japan and 1992 elsewhere -- A Link to the Past marks the fledgling franchise's first jump to new hardware, and represents a serious retooling of the original's winning formula. Of course, it's a...

In 1937, Walt Disney and his fledgling animation company executed a quantum leap when they released Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the first animated feature film of its kind. The rest, as they say, is history. Today's episode of KnockBack is dedicated to those early days of Disney features, from Pinocchio and Dumbo to Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, as well as many others. And who better to...

There are a lot of classic sports films, from the somber and serious to the wacky and insane. Caddyshack squarely falls in the latter camp. Released in 1980, Caddyshack tells the story of a midwestern American country club via the antics of its most colorful patrons and employees. With an all-star cast including Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Ted Knight, and with Harold Ramis he...