The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

The Valentine's Day week tribute continues with a fun little game that didn't have the run it deserved, the late-90s Annie Wood speed dating game Bzzz!

Vanna White was everywhere in the late 80s--Wheel of Fortune twice a day, touring the country by train, a best-selling writer, and scantily clad in an adult magazine.  NBC tried to capitalize on her success with a made-for-TV movie starring Vanna called Goddess of Love, which was downright bad.

In 1985, the Chicago Bears earned a place in pop culture history with their iconic song and music video during their Super Bowl winning season. Over the years, several teams and companies outside of football have tried to replicate the Bears magic with not much success. We cover a variety of these songs in the longest episode of the podcast yet!   The Patriots & We - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It's the week of The Big Game!  You know which one, that Superb Owl.  Like last year, we're looking back at something regarding that event.  The 1989 edition had a halftime show which wasn't the marching bands or Up With People from years past.  It also hadn't reached the era of epic musicians.  Instead, it was magic tricks and 50s music, all in glorious 3D.

Famous TV chefs include Julia Child, "The Galloping Gourmet" Graham Kerr, and "The Frugal Gourmet" Jeff Smith.  One chef whose legacy is as good as the above people but wasn't as big of a name is Art Ginsburg, who went by the moniker "Mr. Food."  We spend this installment looking at the career of this underrated icon, as well as some of the secrets to his 90-second cooking segments.

I'll trade you my Fonzie for your Vinny Barbarino!  We offer a primer to TV trading cards, a smattering of shows which made their way to cardboard, and what types of cards are available nowadays.

From 1961 to 1989, CBS affiliate WBNB-TV served TV audiences in the U.S. Virgin Islands with an eclectic mix of programming. Sadly the station went dark permanently due to Hurricane Hugo, but the station's legacy lives on YouTube thanks to an ex-employee who saved various clips from the station. YouTube Channel of Ex-WBNB Employee Matt Locker https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw88tiXi8FAPoHMUagJfqs...

Who didn't love cartoons and video games in the early 80s?  Pac Man was successful.  But the anthology with cartoons of Pitfall, Space Ace, and Kangaroo?  Not as much.  We talk about the cartoon cavalcade called Saturday Supercade in this installment.

The 1980's was the age of MTV and Miami Vice. So naturally the star of Miami Vice, Don Johnson would try his hand at music with an album called Heartbeat. The song from the album of the same name would be featured on MTV and it's one of the weirdest music videos we've ever seen. Follow along to the video at this link as we do a live watch of it. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CR4lSORZ_Q

When is a right answer not a right answer?  When it's a trap!  That was the original premise of Trivia Trap.  Once that format was viewed as flawed, most of the game changed.  It didn't help; the show was gone in 6 months.

Oh Madeline had plenty of quality guests, the versatile and multi-talented Madeline Kahn, and had its moments.  It also had three unique theme songs and was revamped in its sole season.  It was Carsey-Werner's first TV series, before they hit it big a year later with The Cosby Show.

When we found out Nickelodeon was simulcasting the NFL Wild Card game between the Saints and the Bears, we knew this had future entry written all over it. And the broadcast was everything we hoped it would be. Join us in a live watch of the second half as we see how many Nickelodeon shows Nate Burleson can punch on your bingo card.

Everybody knows about the current version of Jeopardy! and some remember the original version.  We're not talking about those shows.  We talk about the nighttime version from 1974-5 and, to a great extent, the 1978-9 NBC version.   Also in this episode... *  The 1977 CBS Jeopardy! pilot *  Password Plus' frequently changing time slot *  Arte Johnson meets Bobby Riggs

When the worst shows of all-time are mentioned, The Ropers makes that list with frequency.  Is it justified?  We state our cases that it was an average show and that there are many shows worse, and we have covered a lot of them.

On this off-topic episode here on Podbean, Greg and Chico do a recap on the second season of The Mandalorian which recently finished on Disney+. They discuss their favorite moments from Season 2 along with The Child's ..... let's just say taste in food. Afterwards the duo then turns to recent developments in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with WandaVision launching later this month.

Happy New Year! We're releasing the second of our two Director's Cut versions from Place to be Nation POP to start 2021 with a bang! The SNL Doumanian Season Episode is presented with extended bits from the season to add proper context to the episode including the legendary Al Franken "Limo for the Lame-o" sketch.

We ring out what has been an absolute disaster of a year with a look at what was on TV in 2020, changes due to COVID, shows that ended in 2020, and those we lost in 2020, among other things.  Here's to a great 2021!

Over two years, The Morton Downey Jr. Show took the nation by storm.  It was all over by Fall 1989, maybe because it was too controversial but also because the new late night show on the block at the time also took the nation by storm, The Arsenio Hall Show.

For Christmas/New Year's we're releasing as our present to you the Director's Cut versions of two of our more popular episodes originally released on the Place to be Nation POP version for the first time on our regular feed. We start with Herb Abrams' Universal Wrestling Federation as we look at a time when old Herb tried to insert himself into an angle along with a special eBay Price is Right in...

On this Christmas Eve we look back at what was the binge watching hit at the start of the COVID lockdown this year in Tiger King on Netflix. We look at the insane cast of characters including Joe Exotic, Jeff Lowe and yes that b***h Carole Baskin! Due to some strong subject matter in the show, listener discretion is advised.

Earlier this year, we looked at 9 bad video games based on television shows.  We found 9 more and felt it appropriate to cover them before the Christmas holiday.  With any luck, we'll find 9 more and do a 3rd installment in 2021.

Davis Rules is one of our favorite short-lived shows.  It was funny and it had Jonathan Winters, yet it ran on two networks over 15 months.  Also, we question if there is any situation in which Parker Lewis can lose.

Ernie Anderson is among our favorite announcers.  We decided to dedicate an episode to his life and career, going back to his radio days after World War II.  He might be the only announcer to have an annual fest in honor of one of his TV characters.   The Complete Ghoulardi Clip Collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34c4k23JNTk WEWS-TV5 News Promo with Ernie Anderson: https://www.youtube.com...

When this lit up the socials last week, we made the decision that not only was it worth submitting but it was also worthy of live show status.  Put a Lifetime Christmas movie, a KFC infomercial, and romance in a Vitamix and this would be the result. The complete "A Recipe for Seduction": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9mgD1DpmZ8

One of the more recent shows on our list, Personal Injury Court was clearly not real, between nobody apparently having health insurance to the ridiculous amounts of money people for which people sued.  Let's dive head first into the legal sauce with this installment.