The Flopcast

Normally we save our "Too Many Comics" reviews for the ESO Network's Patreon supporters. But this one is for everybody, as Kevin and the Mayor flip through the oldest comic book we have here at the studio. And oh yes, it features a chicken. Published by Quality Comics way back in 1946, it's Egbert #4. In the lead story, Egbert the chicken and his fox buddy The Count enter a pie-eating contest. Try...

As we enter the horrifying year of 2025, we thought we'd roll back half a century and look at the music of 1975. We're perusing Billboard's Top 100 song list for the year, and as you'd expect, it's a weird list. The hippie acts were winding down, disco was ramping up, easy listening schlock was at its zenith, and everybody -- literally everybody -- was kung fu fighting. It was probably also not a...

If your New Year's Resolution was to strengthen your vocabulary with the help of some DC Comics superheroes, we've got you covered. Yes, we're turning back to The Super Dictionary, that bizarre book of words and definitions for the kids of 1978. Our latest batch of Super Dictionary entries features: Supergirl catching flies, Wonder Woman staggering about in a fog, Black Canary vs. a giant owl, Kry...

We're wrapping up our annual two-part memorial show, covering people we lost in the second half of 2024 from TV (Linda Lavin, John Amos, Bob Newhart), movies (Teri Garr, Shelley Duvall, James Earl Jones), music (Quincy Jones, John Mayall, Kris Kristofferson), and more. (Richard Simmons, Dr. Ruth, Famous Amos, the "You've got mail!" guy... our list has a lot of range.) The egg nog is flowing freely...

In Part 1 of our two-part memorial show, we look back on people from pop culture (and beyond) who died in the first half of 2024. It's a long list, so it's a long show. Including: People from movies (Cindy Morgan, Carl Weathers, Louis Gossett Jr., Dabney Coleman, Donald Sutherland), comedy (Richard Lewis, Joe Flaherty, Martin Mull), television (Joyce Randolph, Kevin Brophy, David Soul), music (Mel...

Welcome to the Flopcast holiday variety spectacular, in which we sip egg nog and nothing happens. But we do pack quite a few festive subjects into this quick little show, including: Weird 1970s Christmas cartoons! (The Fourth King is an obscure one we'd never seen before. And our favorite, A Cosmic Christmas, is now available from RiffTrax!) A Joan Osborne concert! The Air Supply Christmas album!...

Spinning out of last week's review of The Year Without a Santa Claus, this week we're looking at another classic Rankin/Bass Christmas cartoon that debuted fifty years ago: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas! It's set in the bizarre little town of Junctionville, where humans and mice coexist in a way we can't quite figure out. There we meet a humble clockmaker, a nerdy mouse, a clueless wacky mayor,...

The Mayor of Chickentown is here to help us celebrate the 50th anniversary of a Rankin/Bass animated classic, The Year Without a Santa Claus. It's best remembered for Snow Miser and Heat Miser, of course, but we're here to break down the whole thing. We discuss the goofy plot, the goofier characters, the actors behind those characters, the book that inspired the cartoon, the live action remake, th...

It's the holiday season, which means it's the holiday movie season, which means it's time for us to get to work. Because if you tune your TV to the Hallmark channel (or Lifetime, or Netflix, or anywhere else), you'll be assaulted by dozens of ridiculous new romantic holiday movies. A parade of big city girls will be returning to their quaint home towns to save their families' struggling mistletoe...

As usual, we ring in the stupid holidays with a Letters to Cleo concert report, because our favorite 90s Boston band always comes home for Thanksgiving. (Letters to Cleo once performed on Parks and Recreation, and weirdly, just down the street from the concert, we spotted an actual citizen of Pawnee, Indiana. It was either Jerry, Garry, Larry, or Barry.) Then, as we approach the 100th anniversary...

Even as we stagger toward a horrifying future, The Flopcast is here with more silly things for you, because we're gonna get through this together. And this week we're celebrating Danny DeVito's 80th birthday (just as we celebrated his 70th birthday about a decade ago), we have a Chickens in the News story about an actual robot chicken... and then we just turn the whole show over to the robots. If...

Need a break from, you know, everything? We're just hiding behind a giant stack of Dynamite magazines, and you're welcome to join us. We've pulled out a Dynamite issue from 1980 with the hosts of That's Incredible on the cover. (Cathy Lee Crosby looks lovely, while Fran Tarkenton and John Davidson are missing some teeth... our copy may have been defaced decades ago by some kid with a Bic pen.) Ins...

We looked at the TV shows of 1974 (fifty years ago!) a few months back with the Mayor, but now it's Kornflake's turn. Our list again includes some of the usual suspects like Rhoda and The Rockford Files... but ultimately we can all agree that the most important show of that year was Hong Kong Phooey. We also take a quick look at some bands that debuted in 1974; some are still favorites of ours (Bl...

It's the terrifying conclusion of our Halloween FlopFight! Leaping into the tournament this week are characters from Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus, Bewitched, Happy Days (what?), and more. Each matchup is drawn randomly, and the exact competitions are randomized too. (So for example, it could be Count Chocula against Jack Skellington, but in a pie-eating contest. Stuff like that.) So any...

Halloween superfan Blasted Bill joins us for a Halloween FlopFight! We're randomly throwing Halloween characters (from horror movies, cartoon specials, cereal boxes, and beyond) into another ridiculous tournament. Why, the very first match has the Great Pumpkin battling Yummy Mummy! Who will win? That depends on the exact nature of the competition, which is also chosen at random. So anything could...

As our Halloween festivities continue, we take a quick look at the horror movies parodied in Mad Magazine in the 1980s. Including: The Shining, Poltergeist, Psycho II, a couple of Alien movies, and Gremlins (with Alfred E. Neuman as Gizmo on the cover). Speaking of Mad and Alfred, we just visited the Norman Rockwell Museum for an amazing exhibit called "What, Me Worry? The Art & Humor of Mad Magaz...

It's Halloween season, which means it's Monster Cereal season! And while we rarely eat the stuff anymore, we do welcome the return of Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, and the new girl, zombie DJ Carmella Creeper. (Sorry, Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy fans. Those weirdos aren't around this year.) The big news is that the monsters have pets now! Meet the Frightful Friends: Benny the Bat, Igor...

With Dragon Con finally out of the way, we can have some real fun! Let's read the dictionary! Specifically we're diving back into The Super Dictionary, a bizarre 1978 book for kids that mixed learning and DC Comics superheroes, and left everyone thoroughly confused. After perusing a few more entries, we have some questions, such as: Is Batgirl a pirate? (Or a mechanic, or a bikini model?) Is Super...

Let's wrap up our look back at Dragon Con 2024, before we have to creep back to Atlanta for Dragon Con 2025! The final two days of our favorite nerdfest included: Sci-Fi Court! (The Mayor defended Beastmaster, and Kevin defended Wonder Woman. But not the Wonder Woman you're thinking of.) A couple of rounds of Roll-A-Panel, in which a giant d20 determined which movies were discussed! (Don't worry,...

The Mayor of Chickentown joins Kevin and Kornflake as our look back at Dragon Con 2024 continues! This time we're covering Friday and Saturday, when the convention was so crowded that we could not have squished one more nerd into Atlanta. Our coverage includes: The Geek Girls Run! The ESO Network's Freaks and Geeks 25th Anniversary panel! More panels on punk rock sci-fi, Office Space, Aquaman, cic...

Here we go with the first of three (yikes, hopefully no more than three) Dragon Con review episodes! This week Kevin and Kornflake go over everything that happened Wednesday and Thursday, as our giant Atlanta nerd festival was just getting started. Including: A meeting of the geeks at Logan Airport in Boston! The Dragon Con debut of our pal Blasted Bill! Our third annual meeting with the Muscovy d...

It's Dragon Con weekend, but we didn't forget about a weird Flopcast summer tradition: our annual robot-themed Top 4 1/2 List! And we have a special guest to deliver the list: our old pal (and original Sponge Awareness Foundation member) Jim, finally making his Flopcast debut! Jim has a list of surprise robots from movies and TV; that is, robots that we didn't know were robots until the big reveal...

Dragon Con is just days away, which means tens of thousands of nerds shall soon descend upon the unsuspecting city of Atlanta. (Actually, Atlanta knows we're coming. They're jacking up the price of giant rum drinks at this very moment...) Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown will be busy with panels, presentations, and various bizarre Dragon Con events, so this week we're sharing our schedule with y...

Dragon Con, our favorite gigantic nerdfest of the year, is just a couple of weeks away, and we're already exhausted. Today we're looking at Dragon Con's guest list of TV and movie stars, writers, artists, musicians, scientists, podcasters, puppeteers, and miscellaneous weirdos. Including: A trio of Lord of the Rings hobbits, a Monty Python guy, a Robot Chicken guy, a bunch of Fraggles, a bunch of...

Kornflake returns to wrap up the summer song project we started last week! This time we're covering the 1990s, and selecting the songs we most associate with each summer. So we'll probably cover some Mariah, some Paula, and perhaps a Barenaked Lady or two. Along the way, our 90s memories include Kornflake on the radio requesting a Seal song, and Kevin in a church basement insisting that life is no...