The Flopcast

It's another Flopcast Halloween show, and we're counting down our favorite ghosts in a terrifying Top 4 1/2 List! We have ghosts from cartoons (where Shaggy screamed "ghost" with like eleven syllables), comics books (learn which ghost Kornflake wants to cosplay), sitcoms (we just saw the most beautiful ghost in the world), music, video games, and of course... breakfast cereal. (Not every cereal ma...

It's sort of a Halloween-themed show, but not really! Including: A concert report on super-cool garage pop band Bleached! (Their album Don't You Think You've Had Enough? might be our favorite record of the year...) Another concert report on a Beatles tribute supergroup, with Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross, Badfinger's Joey Molland, Chicago's Jason Scheff, and Micky Dolenz! (Micky sang "Rocky Rac...

It's time to flip through another issue of the magazine we all bought through our school book club long ago, Dynamite! And this 1981 issue is an amazing one, because the cover features a hero of ours, and someone you've heard on The Flopcast: James "The Amazing" Randi! Did Randi teach any Dynamite kids to avoid being scammed by faith healers and psychics? Let's hope so. Let's also hope the kids ke...

With our DragonCon coverage out of the way (finally!), it's time to catch up on every other silly thing we've done lately. Kornflake reports on Napkin Poetry with Jim's Big Ego, gum jingles with Marc With a C, Pac-Man Battle Royale at Funspot, and giant bugs at Gillette Stadium. Meanwhile Kevin attended a rare Boston performance by George Hrab (who covered a Wham song!) and spotted an Archie Bunke...

From the American Sci-Fi Classics Track at DragonCon 2019 (just a few weeks ago - we're still sleepy), here's a fun panel called "Cousin Oliver Was Framed: Classic Sci-Fi Sidekicks"! Joining Kevin on the panel are The Fortress of Baileytude's Michael Bailey, novelist and Cop Rock enthusiast Michael Williams, and Classics Track co-director Gary Mitchel! And yeah, we're talking kid sidekicks, as wel...

This week we cover the second half of our favorite and most exhausting event of the year, DragonCon! (If you noticed a shortage of geeks in your area over Labor Day weekend... they were all in Atlanta. And they were all ahead of us in the line at Starbucks.) Including: The Geek Girls Run; Classic Sci-Fi Court (good luck, 1984 Supergirl movie); stars from Doctor Who, Cobra Kai, V, and The Magicians...

It was five weird days with 85,000 weird humans... we have so much to cover from DragonCon that we're splitting it into two episodes! This week's review includes: The DragonCon Newbie Walking Tours; the ESO Network Meet and Greet; Doctor Who's David Tennant; legendary comic book artist George Pérez; Rankin/Bass animation expert Rick Goldschmidt; the Sci-Fi Explosion show (featuring Billy Ocean, be...

Our ten-part 80s celebration continues with a quick look at the Top Ten songs this week in 1982! It's an odd list, with a couple of veteran 60s acts (Paul McCartney and Crosby, Stills, and Nash), a couple of soft rock classics (from Chicago and our true love, Air Supply), and a rather awful song in the top spot. (It wants to reach out and grab you, creepily.) The 80s music talk continues with Kevi...

We're taking a break from our frantic DragonCon preparations to look at the Top Ten songs this week in 1981! The Pointer Sisters wanted a slow hand, the Greatest American Hero was walking on air, there was no getting over Ronnie Milsap, and there was no avoiding a pair of classic duets (one from Stevie and Tom, one from Diana and Lionel). Meanwhile Kornflake grabs a box of doughnuts and hits the r...

We're just days away from that massive annual gathering of the geeks, DragonCon! Why not spend Labor Day weekend in Atlanta with 80,000 of your closest and weirdest friends? In this, our DragonCon preview show, we run through the convention's various programming tracks, and yikes, there are a bunch: Animation, Comics, Costuming, Horror, Puppetry, Science, Skeptics, Video Gaming, and dozens more. Y...

All dumb things must come to an end, and you don't get much dumber than watching all the sequels to the summer camp comedy classic, Meatballs! But our goofy summer project ends now, as we chomp on pizza pie and somehow get through 1992's Meatballs 4: To the Rescue! Still no Bill Murray, of course, but a new hero emerges (on water skis) to put a bullet in the Meatballs franchise: Corey Feldman. Yes...

For no good reason, every summer we present a Top 4 1/2 List of robots! So it's time for our eighth annual robot list, and the theme this year is... tiny robots. We have tiny robots from movies, television, music, toys, comic books, and even the real world, where someday soon you could be injected with millions of nanobots and forced to do their bidding. And that day... will be a great day. We're...

It's summer concert report time, because our white and nerdy hero "Weird Al" Yankovic just came through New England with his "Strings Attached" tour, featuring an entire symphony orchestra! Kornflake and Doornail scored VIP tickets to the New Hampshire show, where they ventured backstage and met Weird Al himself (plus a bunch of Stormtroopers). Weird Al's Boston show was next, at an outdoor venue...

The longest summer in history continues, thanks to our ill-conceived project of watching all the horrifying sequels to that classic summer camp comedy, Meatballs. Tonight we're suffering through Meatballs III: Summer Job, which is even worse than Meatballs II, and is not even set at a summer camp. But it does offer an early starring role for Patrick Dempsey, replacing Chris Makepeace from the orig...

Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown have just returned from CONvergence, a wonderful science fiction/fantasy convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So we're reviewing our whole crazy Fourth of July weekend in the upper midwest, including: Kevin's panels on Aquaman, Riverdale, and DC comic books, TV shows, and movies; the Mayor's panels on She-Ra, Doctor Who, The Magicians, and choosing your own adve...

We're still recovering from last week's movie night (Summer camp aliens! Run for your lives!), so it's a simple show this week, catching up on our recent silly activities. Including: Kornflake on the road in search of adventure and/or relaxation; the music of Carbon Leaf; a live album release show by The Great Molasses Flood; another Moth storytelling show with Matthew Dicks; the Mayor onstage at...

Last summer, we devoted a Flopcast episode to Meatballs, the Bill Murray summer camp classic. This summer, we're going to suffer through the horrifying Meatballs sequels. (It's a court-ordered punishment, presumably. Don't jaywalk in Chickentown, kids.) So for this episode, with Kornflake kicking and screaming in protest, we get started by watching and discussing Meatballs Part II. The year was 19...

Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown are preparing for a silly, geeky Fourth of July weekend at CONvergence! It's one of our favorite conventions, it's in Minneapolis, and there is a giant blue chicken sculpture nearby. Perfect. Guests at this year's CONvergence include writers Peter David and Chuck Tingle, comedian Joseph Scrimshaw, and nerd music duo The Doubleclicks! We're also looking forward to...

Here at last is our God's Comics concert review! Every ten years, Kevin gets together with friends Sean and Adam to form God's Comics, a cover band that only plays Elvis Costello, Men at Work, and The Monkees. In the wake of our legendary 1999 and 2009 shows, our adoring fans demanded a third show, which happened just last month at The Hearing Room in Lowell, Massachusetts. 'Twas a festive evening...

It's no secret that Kevin and Kornflake are longtime fans of Brooklyn's ambassadors of love, They Might Be Giants. (Their matching Doctor Worm tattoos sort of gave it away.) And since John Linnell (you know, the keyboard/accordion half of the band) has a birthday this week, we're sharing a few TMBG memories, and flipping through a giant (well, it might be giant) stack of TMBG albums. Including: Ke...

Here's an extra-special, extra-weird show we've been meaning to unleash for a few weeks. It's the adventures of Kornflake and Doornail at MarsCon 2019! Yeah, we already discussed MarsCon (the Minnesota science fiction convention which also hosts our beloved Dementia Track of comedy music) back in Flopcast episode 358. But now you'll get the whole story, from both Kornflake and our perpetually gigg...

It's an extra-goofy show, because we're recording from separate remote locations, AND our recording equipment keeps malfunctioning! But we're here anyway, just for you. And this random catch-up sort of show features: Joe Cool vs. Mr. Cool; Star Wars burlesque; stand-up comedy with Dana Gould, Bobcat Goldthwait, and friends; Queen Jessica Mercy at the Watch City Steampunk Festival; our ESO Network...

We're just days away from the third ever performance of Kevin's weird cover band, God's Comics! So this week we have a special interview with our God's Comics co-conspirator, Sean Fullerton! Kevin and Sean recall their mid-90s glory days at the late great Grind coffeehouse, and how their love of Men at Work, Elvis Costello, and The Monkees led to this silly cover band project. Join us at The Heari...

It's our goofy anniversary show, as Kevin and Kornflake celebrate seven years of The Flopcast! Yes, we've released a Flopcast every single week since May 2012, because clearly there is something wrong with us. Join us as we run through some fascinating Flopcast stats! (Have we done more Top 4 1/2 Lists or Chickens in the News? Stuff this very important information into your brain.) We also look at...

Kevin and the Mayor road trip down to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for an evening of science and silliness with George Hrab and the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. (We assumed Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey would meet us in Bethlehem... but we had a lot of growing up to do.) Meanwhile Kornflake checks out an online concert by our favorite sci-fi pop band, the future of the future, The Fantasti...