South Fellini Presents Legends of Philadelphia

In July of 1974,  on the initial leg of Bowie's Diamond Dogs Tour, David Bowie took over the Tower Theater for an unconventional week-long stint of performances. The iconic glam rocker played the 69th street venue, known for its unique acoustics, every night from July 8th through the 12th. These shows served as the source material for today’s episode, the history of Bowie's first concert album, Da...

I think we can all agree that the most eventful thing to happen in the last two years was the launch of the South Fellini podcast: Legends Of Philadelphia. And today we’re celebrating our 100th episode. Usually we take a pause every ten episodes to look back at the previous episodes to discuss some errors and omissions. To mark the special occasion we’re going to do some Q&A as well. So settle...

Daryl Hall and John Oates are pop rock icons who achieved massive success with a fusion of rock and roll, soul music and rhythm and blues. The duo reached the US Top 40 with 29 singles charting on Billboard's Hot 100 between 1974 and 1991, including 6 number ones. Lots of people know the discography but today, we want to talk about how Daryl Hall met John Oates.

The Philadelphia 76ers (colloquially known as the Sixers) are an American professional basketball team based in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Over their 60 years in Philadelphia they have won two championships but have the unique distinction of being the NBA team with the most mascots. Join us as we take a trip through the Sixer’s graven images of good luck.

Jim Gardner, is an American news anchor for WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He’s guided viewers of Action News through every event, large and small since 1976. Gardner is an institution in the Delaware Valley, just as iconic as the timeless Action News jingle. But he’s retiring this year. He’s already started scaling back his duties. So we thought today would be the perfect chance to chroni...

Rocky V is a 1990 American sports drama film and is the fifth installment in the Rocky franchise, starring Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire. Real-life boxer Tommy Morrison, stars as Tommy Gunn, a talented yet raw boxer.  And Stallone's real-life son Sage played Robert Balboa, whose relationship with his famous father is explored. After Stallone directed the second through fourth films in the ser...

Love Park is officially named John F. Kennedy Plaza. It is a public park located in center city Philadelphia across the street from City Hall. It is called “LOVE” for the Robert Indiana sculpture that sat above the massive fountain at its center. It began as an unloved concrete park but rose to fame as a skateboarder’s paradise before the city chased them away in the name of progress. Join us toda...

When it comes to notorious winter weather events throughout history, only a select few are remembered by name. The Blizzard of 1996 is one of them.  It’s one of the defining winter storms of the 20th century and is still a record-holder to this date for several cities. A true blockbuster storm, this nor’easter walloped the Eastern Seaboard in a manner that few snowstorms in the past have been able...

The Bone Wars, also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, was a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil hunting during the Gilded Age. This period was marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope, a zoologist at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and Othniel Charles Marsh of Natural History at Yale. Each of them resorting to bribery, theft, plagiarism, slander, and the...

Wing Bowl was an annual contest of endurance in which competitive eaters race to consume Buffalo wings. While the Wing Bowl gained a reputation of debauched insanity, the actual competition drew in legitimate contenders. These Contestants set international speed records that are still unbroken. In the world of competitive eating, the wing bowl became a must win event. So, Join us as we binge and p...

The Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) is an agency that manages the many parking operations for Philadelphia. This city is fanatical about it’s parking and the job of enforcing parking rules is no easy task. The PPA has been the subject of angry op/eds, ugly investigations, and brutal reality tv shows. These guys stir up a lot of strong feelings so, today we want to put it in neutral and take a...

Before there was an internet teeming with free porno, you had to go to a theater if you wanted to see hardcore action. Philadelphia was no stranger to triple-x entertainment. By the mid-80s almost every square-block in Center City had a porn theater. But long after the others had shuttered their doors one adult cinema kept on screening skin flicks. So buy a ticket, grab some popcorn, and join us a...

Many people took a minute over the holiday break to watch the new Beatles documentary, Get Back, a remixing and expansion of the old documentary Let it Be. And It got us thinking about the fab four’s relationship to Philadelphia. The Beatles only played twice in the city of brotherly love but made quite an impression, writing two hit (?) songs on their trip here. Join us as we explore Beatlemania...

Is Rocky IV a Christmas Movie? The climax takes place on Christmas Eve. Written, directed, and starring Sylvester Stallone Rocky IV co-stars Dolph Lundgren, Burt Young, Talia Shire, Carl Weathers, Tony Burton, Brigitte Nielsen and Michael Pataki. Rocky IV was the highest-grossing sports movie of all time for 24 years, before it was overtaken by The Blind Side. It is the fourth installment in the R...

Belsnickel (also known as Pelznikel, Kris Kringle, and Bell Sniggle is a crotchety, fur-clad Christmas gift-bringing figure in southwestern German folklore, originating in communities along the Rhine. The figure is also preserved in Pennsylvania Dutch holiday celebrations to this day. Join us as we explore the life and times of Santa’s weird cousin, The Belsnickle.

Linvilla Orchards is a 300-acre family farm dedicated to agriculture, entertainment and education. Generations of Delaware Valley families have returned there each fall/winter to enjoy the seasonal displays, mazes, and hayrides. A more recent addition to the farm are their fields of christmas trees. Join us as we journey into the wilderness to cut down our own Linvilla Fir.

Philadelphia has a reputation across professional sports for having the roughest fans. It’s not the biggest city in the U.S., but it is the meanest. In terms of heckling, jeering, throwing stuff and verbally abusing the opposing players, no one does it quite like Philly fans. But the incident that put Philadelphia fans on the naughty list was the time they booed Santa Claus and pelted him with sno...

Thanksgiving is all about traditions: all-day food preparation, arguments with your parents, and football rivalries. But there’s another, often overlooked, sporting event that takes place the same day. This annual contest of champions is the soothingly adorable National Dog Show, broadcast after the NBC thanksgiving day parade. Pedigreed dogs of all shapes and sizes (along with their dedicated han...

Rocky III is a 1982 American sports drama film written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone. The third installment of the Rocky franchise, it is the sequel to the 1979 film Rocky II and the second in the franchise to be directed by Stallone. The film features returning co-stars Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith, Talia Shire, Burt Young and marked the feature film debuts of both Mr. T and pr...

We are doing things a lil differently this week. This is our “skip week” where we take a break from the regular format. One of the most fun things about doing Legends of Philadelphia are all the great comments, emails, and DMs we get on the social medias. Listeners clued us in when we were wrong and shared new stuff that we didn’t know before. So, today we’re going to dig through the last ten epis...

Tucked away in a remote section of Fairmount Park, you’ll find the stone framed entrance to a small cave. This enhanced structure, dug into the side of a hill, marks what is believed to be the 17th century home of America’s first doomsday cult. Johannes Kelpius and his followers made their home on the Wissahickon and prepared for the end of the world. So, join us in the Kelpius Cave if you want to...

Today we want to cleanse your palate of all that horror with something saccharine. Despite our plain Quaker roots, Philly has a big, rotten sweet tooth. This city is the birthplace of classic halloween treats, Good and Plenties, Peanut Chews, and Candy Corn. So join us for a good ol’ fashion belly ache as we dig into this gooey goodies grab bag.

Philadelphia’s State Hospital for Mental Diseases, also known as Byberry Insane Asylum, was built at the end of Roosevelt Boulevard in the Somerton section of Northeast Philadelphia. For nearly 200 years Byberry was the home to thousands with mental illness. Several investigations into the conditions at the hospital at various points revealed that patients were neglected, abused, and experimented...

A horror host is a person who acts as the host or presenter of a program where horror films and low-budget B movies are shown on television or the Internet. Usually the host assumes a horror-themed persona, often a campy or humorous one. The horror host has had a long and storied history in radio, comic books and local television. So, today we want to shed some light on Philadelphia’s campy creatu...

Theodore Bundy was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. He confessed to 30 homicides, though, his true victim total is unknown, and could be much higher. Bundy was regarded as handsome and charismatic; traits that he exploited to win the trust of his victims. He was also a college boy and studied right he...