KnockBack: The Retro and Nostalgia Podcast

For many kids, music is a gigantic part of life, and the bands, albums, and songs we grow up listening to and enjoying often help shape the people we end up becoming as adults. With that in mind, we dedicate the longest episode of KnockBack to date to 10 albums each (or 20 albums total) that indelibly influenced us as children and teenagers. Indeed, much of our focus is on our middle school and hi...

For virtually all students, lunchtime (and the recess that often followed) was a pivotal moment of each school day. Indeed, going off to eat and goof off with your friends acted as the perfect respite from never ending waves of math problems and reading assignments. Today's episode of KnockBack -- framed heavily around listener comments -- is all about lunchtime and recess, and the many, many stor...

It's almost always true that "the book is better than the movie." But when it comes to the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -- which is based on the 1964 Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- the movie is definitively better than what inspired it. Starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a timeless mix of humor, music, and zanines...

For a decade, Castlevania fans knew their beloved series as something traditional. You'd go through a stage full of bad guys, you'd fight a boss at the end, and you'd move on to the next level, where you'd do it all again. But then, in 1997, Symphony of the Night came to PlayStation (and Saturn!), and changed the formula forever. Widely considered one of the very best games ever created, Castlevan...

Almost every episode of KnockBack is focused on something: A topic, or a product, or a place and time. Today's episode is a bit different, though. Each month, CLS Patrons get to vote on what we should cover in a future episode of this show, and you guys and gals voted for us to tell some of our favorite childhood memories. So we've done just that. From feats of hockey heroism and snowball fights w...

In the late '80s, Katsuhiro Otomo changed animation forever with the release of Akira, the film adaption of his manga series of the same name. His Akira manga began in 1982, and wouldn't conclude until 1990, two years after the movie was released. But one thing was true then, and remains true now: Akira, as a film, is one of the most impressive and important pieces of long-form animation ever crea...

From late 1985 until the very end of 1995, immensely talented artist Bill Watterson produced Calvin and Hobbes, a beloved comic strip all about a young boy and his imaginary tiger friend. During the decade it ran -- and in the decades since -- Calvin and Hobbes has touched millions, but even more fascinating than the strip itself is the reclusive man who made it, a man who voluntarily walked away...

In 1954, J.R.R. Tolkien -- British writer, scholar, and Oxford professor -- released the most important and influential piece of fantasy in literary history: The Lord of the Rings. As a follow-up to The Hobbit, which Tolkien published nearly two decades earlier in 1937, the so-called Trilogy represents some of the most beloved fiction in the entire English language. A mere podcast cannot and will...

There are films we really love. Other flicks we totally hate. And a mass of movies in the middle that just kind of exist. Then, there are the so-called Guilty Pleasure Movies, films that, regardless of critical reception and box office draw, have us coming back for more... even if we try to keep our adoration of these films to ourselves. As requested by CLS Patrons, this episode of KnockBack is al...

In 1983, the original Star Wars trilogy wrapped up with Return of the Jedi. From Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett to Emperor Palpatine and Admiral Ackbar, Episode VI is chock-full of great characters, but it also happens to be the culmination of a story that, at the time, was six years in the making. So let's delve into what was once assumed to be the final Star Wars film and talk about our favorite a...

The three movies in the Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy are widely considered to be the best superhero movies ever made, particularly within the nearly decade-long time they were produced and released. Rife with exceptional acting talent -- from Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, and Heath Ledger to Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and beyond -- Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight flicks feel real...

In the Analog Days, nothing was more important to a kid than Saturday morning, for it was there that a week's worth of pent up creative, athletic, and outright childlike energy could be expended. Fueled by sugary cereal, Saturday mornings typically began with cartoons, but it was what these mornings in front of the TV could lead to that's perhaps most tantalizing. Playing sports. Going to the movi...

The 1960's in the United States was a turbulent time of upheaval and reform, and Mad Men -- which ran on AMC from 2007 to 2015 -- gave viewers a glimpse into that world from an unusual perch: Madison Avenue. Widely considered one of the greatest television shows of all-time, Mad Men introduces audiences to a wide-ranging cast of characters all revolving around one man: Don Draper, the Creative Dir...

In 2001, Nintendo followed up the poor-selling Nintendo 64 with a console that would barely do 60% of N64's total sales. It was called the GameCube, and when compared to its contemporary PlayStation 2, it was largely looked at as a children's toy, and an unpopular one at that. But for those who ignored the haters and delved into its rich catalog, Nintendo's GameCube arguably offered the best pure...

Few animated films are more important than The Lion King, released in 1994 towards the height of the Disney Renaissance. An unlikely hit, the movie was animated by what was at the time considered a b-team, with the so-called "Top Talent" toiling away on 1995's Pocahontas. Turns out both movies are awesome, but The Lion King is considered the better product. Go figure. Today's episode of KnockBack...

The Internet began as an academic and military experiment in the post-World War II United States, and decades later, the World Wide Web built on top of it changed the world forever. In the mid-'90s, the Brothers Moriarty gained Internet access at very different moments in their lives. So let's explore what made those dial up days so special, and what it was like being on the Internet during the mo...

In the late 1970s, something amazing happened: People didn't have to go to the movie theater anymore to watch films. Crazier yet, they didn't have to be home at specific times to watch TV. The same device made both revolutions possible: The VCR. But the VCR didn't reach its full potential until the advent of the video store in the early '80s, and it's here that we begin our tale, reminiscing over...

Between GI Joe and Star Wars -- not to mention all of the other competing toy lines of the time -- the early '80s were a busy era for little boys across the west. But then, 1984 rolled around and brought with it a revolutionary new toy line: Transformers. Transformers' three-pronged approach -- action figures, cartoons, and comics -- saturated the landscape for several years, years Dagan remembers...

In 1987, upstart Japanese publisher-slash-developer Capcom changed the game when it released Mega Man (known as Rockman in Japan), a silky smooth, beautiful, and dynamic non-linear side scrolling shooter. By 1990, Capcom had followed up the original Mega Man with two fantastic sequels, cementing the franchise in old-school Nintendo lore. Today, on the longest episode of KnockBack to date, we disse...

Skateboarding as we know it today became a true phenomenon on the west coast in the late '70s and into the '80s, and it just so happens that skating has been one of Dagan's biggest passions for more than 30 consecutive years. So we dedicated today's episode of KnockBack to those neon days, when skating was niche, looked down upon, and truly rough around the edges. It's always a pleasure when Dagan...

While there are a number of amazing '80s teen movies we could easily swoon over, John Hughes' 1985 classic The Breakfast Club is the most quintessentially '80s of 'em all. It's strange that a straight-forward movie about five students serving Saturday detention together could become such a powerful and beloved calling card of a place and time, and yet, The Breakfast Club remains a beacon to Gen X-...

Few (if any) television shows in history tickled our funny bones like Seinfeld. From 1989 until 1998, the demented stories of Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine captivated audiences with their absurdity, told with the assistance of incredible humor and world class writing. Today's KnockBack is dedicated to the amazing, spectacular, GOAT 180 episode run of Seinfeld, and focuses on the characters the...

Throughout the '80s, the Indiana Jones trilogy riveted moviegoers around the world with its tale of a cunning, adventurous archaeologist traveling the planet in search of priceless relics. Today's episode of KnockBack jumps into what makes Indiana Jones so beloved and so well-remembered, with specific sections of the show dedicated to each of the core Indy movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temp...

In 1991, Final Fantasy IV came to SNES (we initially knew it as Final Fantasy II in the west), and it changed entirely our expectations of what a role-playing game could be. With a dire, multi-dimensional story, a diverse cast of interesting characters, a stunning soundtrack, and a serious gameplay hook, Final Fantasy IV burrowed its way into gamers' hearts and minds the world over, and 27 years l...

In 1978, a year after Star Wars: A New Hope came to theaters, a book quietly found its way onto store shelves. It was called Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and it took place in between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. And thus, the Star Wars Expanded Universe was born, storytelling from A Galaxy Far, Far Away done outside of the films themselves. Spanning across literally thousands of books, c...