The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

We reach the conclusion of the Trek Trilogy as Greg and Chico make the voyage to 1986 San Francisco with the Enterprise crew as they look for some humpback whales and get into all sorts of crazy shenanigans in the past.

Merrill Heatter found his greatest success with Hollywood Squares.  After it was cancelled in 1980 (see episode 68), Heatter tried the Squares format, but with some twists.  In this show, we briefly cover 4 titles--Battlestars, The New Battlestars, All-Star Blitz, and the unsold 1993 pilot Hollywood Teasers.

They're a staple on TV today, specifically in the overnight hours.  Half-hour infomercials came on the scene in the early 90s, filling holes in television schedules at all hours of the day.  In this installment, we look back at 9 such infomercials from the 1990s and talk about how cheesy they were and memories we had watching them.

For the first time ever here on Podbean, we bring you the preshow we do before the show. There's been so much going on in the past week that we have to talk about it to you right here. Enjoy as we discuss the dumpster fire going on at Twitter, Newlywed Game '96 on BUZZR and the time Johnny Olson won a Boy George look alike contest! Timestamps 0:03 - Intro/Twitter is a dumpster fire 3:16 - FTX goes...

It's been a while since we have talked about the patron saint of this podcast.  McLean's birthday is coming soon, so we felt the time was appropriate to talk about his first series after he left M*A*S*H.  To be fair, you can't fully blame McLean for this show's downfall.

It's listener request time once again!  This time, we look at a 1977 summer replacement variety show with the band behind one of 1976's biggest songs.  The Starland Vocal Band Show may have centered around a one-hit wonder, but it starred some future star power.

In October, we asked you to vote on which of three candidates you wanted us to cover as our Election Day episode.  Your winner was Fish, the spin-off of Barney Miller about Phil Fish's home life with his wife and five precocious scamps.

It's the start of November and election time is around the corner.  We felt it was appropriate to visit this relevant dramedy turned comedy with George C. Scott from FOX's early days.

For Halloween, we present this It Was a Thing on TV "special presentation." Greg and Chico take a look at the Marvel Studios Disney+ special "Werewolf by Night." Ted suggests that you give this a listen.

Wrestling fans tuned into the WCW Halloween Havoc 1993 Pay-Per-View expecting a night of exciting wrestling and what happened in the first four minutes was so weird that it's been on Greg's mind for the last 29 years. Find out if a bunch of trick-or-treaters from Atlanta can be scared by Tony Schiavone.

Our final Halloween episode for this year is about a show which could be considered Twin Peaks for kids.  Originally, it lasted a season but found life after its demise on several networks, including a follow-up series and a series of young adult books.  Prepare yourself for the bizarre world of Eerie, Indiana.

In 1986, NBC expected to air Saturday Night Live in its usual post-news time slot.  The New York Mets had other plans, forcing SNL's hand to record that night's show in the dead of night, and causing the episode to air weeks later.

The gang returns to the world of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction for this episode which has a Halloween theme in one of the segments. Is one man actually being haunted by a meddling trick or treater who's pretending to be the grim reaper on Halloween night? Can a mysterious drifter help Roy from The Office find love with his wife? Is it possible that two people who are about to be married can turn...

We start Halloween off looking at an obscurity from the early 90s which apparently has a small cult following.  Originally, this was called She-Wolf of London but due to budget cuts and production moving from London to Los Angeles, the show underwent a format change and went by Love and Curses.

ABC went against the grain with some of their TGIF offerings.  First, Dinosaurs aired during TGIF.  Second, it was followed by Camp Wilder, an untraditional family sitcom loaded with future star power.

This past summer we encountered through IMDB in one of our episodes this Netflix teen romantic comedy based on a YA book. Greg and Chico sit through the movie that started an era that both of them had no idea even was an era. Can young Elle end up with her best friend Lee's hot brother? Can Greg and Chico make it through this movie in one piece? Follow the rulebook as Greg and Chico enter the The...

After Westworld, the movie but before Westworld, the HBO series, there was a very brief TV series titled Beyond Westworld.  In 1980, CBS attempted to continue the story of robots gone amok, the agents hired to stop them, and their creator from taking over the world.

Since the new fall TV season has gotten underway, we thought it was time to release the Director's Cut version of our Fall TV Campaigns episode from last year. We have about 45 minutes of new material added from the original version that we released over on the Place to Be Nation last year. So let's all be there for this look back at one of our best episodes as we give you the touch.

It's the early 1980s and the Brady kids have grown up and are ready to begin adulthood.  Two of the Brady daughters got married, the couples moved in together, and Alice joined them for some reason.  Typical Sherwood Schwartz hilarity ensued...briefly.

Before baseball season began in 1999, during a viewer mail segment, a viewer asked David Letterman how Letterman prepared for opening day.  The response was the first of three appearances of this segment, Ball, Get Out of My Nachos.

In this installment, we mark the 40th anniversary of the compact disc by going down under and all around the world for ABC Australia's coverage of the breakthrough technology.  Someone should have warned people in 1982 to not touch the bottoms of CDs. "Towards 2000: Introducing the Compact Disc" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tx6TYnPat8  

In 1994 and 1995, both ABC and NBC had a joint venture where they'd air primetime baseball.  It went sideways after some markets did not get regional coverage.  It didn't help there was a strike which cut short both seasons, including no World Series in 1994.

For the 25th Live Show, Greg and Mike look at the 1988 ET ripoff "Mac and Me". A little alien is stranded on Earth away from his family where he befriends a little boy (does this look like anything?). Also, he and his family need Coke to live for some reason. But yes, folks nothing about this movie would be complete without talking about Paul Rudd's favorite scene. Grab a Big Mac and listen to Gre...

Our 4th show revisited is a show that was beloved among fans for decades, which unexpectedly turned up on BUZZR in 2021.  Before then, roughly 15 episodes were available.  We felt we needed to revisit this classic since we now know much more about Whew!

NBC might have made a big comeback in the mid-1980s, but there was one huge weakness for them--Friday nights at 9 PM against shows like Benson and Dallas.  Half Nelson was another Friday at 9 victim, succumbing after a month and a half.  But it had a lot of big names!