The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

In this installment, we look at shows we believe lasted one season too long.  (Your mileage may vary.)  Mostly, we cover comedies which lasted a year too long.  Continuing a trend from last week, Greg continues his basketball coach namedropping streak.

The last NBC daytime game show was a good one, a true challenge.  Caesar's Challenge had Ahmad Rashad, gladiators, and a rotating cage of letters.  Also in this episode, the guys rattle off the name of everyone in Arizona in 1993 they can think of.

Who knew racism could be so funny...?!  Carter Country somehow ran two seasons, despite a character who was an out-and-out racist.  Only one of us three could make it through an entire episode, and for good reason.  File this one under "doesn't age well."

The Undertaker wasn't the only person who celebrated the 30th anniversary of their debut in WWE this past week. At the 1990 WWF Survivor Series a heavily overhyped giant egg was set to hatch and out of it came ....... a man in a turkey suit. Listen as The Gobbledy Gooker and Mean Gene Okerlund try to excite a bored crowd in Hartford by dancing to Turkey in the Straw.

It's a tradition unlike any other here at It Was a Thing on TV.  Last year, we looked at the 1983 Thanksgiving Day parade.  This year, we jump to 1984, a time with Avril the Eccentric, creepy Cabbage Patch Kids, and a Fraggle with permanent sex face.

Rankin-Bass' first holiday cartoon was this highly fictitious take on the traditional and now-highly outdated take on the first Thanksgiving, involving a mouse who saves everything with a printing press?!  All the talent in the world couldn't save this antiquated relic, given what we know now.

A personal favorite of ours, what happens when you combine a Christmas episode with a naive teenager, then sprinkle in two of the goofiest mafiosos you'll ever meet?  You'll get a very special episode with one heck of a takeout business.

It's another show from the late 70s which tried capitalizing on the disco craze.  Unfortunately, timing is everything.  Makin' It even had a Travolta, just not that one.  Also this installment, we return to full strength.

1-900 numbers were a staple of television advertising back in the 1980's and 1990's. It seems you couldn't go one half-hour back in the day without seeing a commercial for a 1-900 number. Chico and Greg go through some of the best(?) of these ads for you in this episode.   Freak Phone - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq97QAYDDoI Elvis Hotline - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBhLWiU4rSs Boglins...

In honor of the upcoming reboot on Peacock, we look at the time the Bayside gang spent their summer vacation for a nice relaxing trip to Hawaii at Kelly's grandfather's hotel. Over the course of the trip they encounter Hawaiian natives, greedy hotel owners, shady lawyers and yes Mr. Belding. Also, Zack Morris being trash tries to hook up with a women who works at the rival hotel. You won't believe...

As chosen by our listeners on our Facebook page we present possibly the craziest subject on our podcast yet. Featured in the 10th season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, A Case of Spring Fever is a 1940 educational short subject about a man who has a problem with springs and wishes to never see another spring again. Don't say we didn't warn you about what happens next. NO SPRINGS! TEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!

In 2001, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone created a send up of television sitcoms involving the then brand new presidency of George W. Bush. It had the brilliance that the duo is known for, so why did this show only get eight episodes? Chico and Greg try to find out the reasons why in this episode.

We're covering our second baseball episode of the month. In Episode 54 we covered the 2004 reboot pilot of Mister Ed so now we're covering one of our favorite episodes from the original series. For the show's fourth season premiere in 1963, our favorite horse and Wilbur pay a visit to Dodger Stadium to see their favorite team along with legendary coach Leo Durocher. This episode answers the questi...

In our previous episode we discussed Paul Lynde's self-titled sitcom at ABC in 1972-73. After another failed sitcom with Paul in a starring role at ABC, Paul did various guest spots on shows to fulfill his contract with the network. In 1976, Fred Silverman decided to give Paul his own primetime special for Halloween and in true Paul Lynde fashion he made it his own. Listen as Paul is trapped in a...

Paul Lynde is one of the all-time legends of television from his zingers on The Hollywood Squares to playing Uncle Arthur on Bewitched. In 1972 after the cancellation of Bewitched, producer William Asher gave Paul his own self-titled sitcom based on a play that he had performed years earlier. Despite playing against type, he managed to make the best of it, sadly everything else around him didn't w...

Nick at Nite was a staple of our childhood's back in the 1980's and 1990's. One popular show on the early Nick at Nite lineup was Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was so popular that the powers that be at Nick at Nite decided to run a marathon on Halloween Week 1990 along with a contest for the viewer to guess how many people kick the bucket during said marathon to win a murder mystery cruise. Also,...

In honor of the World Series, we look back at a classic baseball episode of one our favorite shows on the podcast. In 1984, the Chicago Cubs went to their first postseason in almost 40 years and a new NBC sitcom set in the Windy City capitalized on Cubs Fever. In this classic episode of Punky Brewster, Henry has to battle crazed fans, radio call-in contests and scalpers all in an effort to get Pun...

It Was a Thing on TV proudly celebrates it's 100th episode! In honor of this occasion we're going back to where it all started as we revisit The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour. We know more about this topic from the reruns on BUZZR than we did around this time a year ago when we started. We look at the different celebrities that appeared on the show, the contestants and many memorable moments o...

Doctor Who has had many memorable characters in it's almost 60-year history on the BBC. However, not every character can be Sarah Jane Smith, Amy Pond or even K-9. Meet Kamelion, a robot who's apparently not a robot. A character so bad he only appeared in two televised Doctor Who serials but has since appeared in many spin-off Doctor Who books and audio dramas in which some of the plots of them wi...

Who doesn't love a good hometown commercial?  They're goofy, they're low-budget, they're corny, and often they're viral.  We look at over a dozen such ads.  Greg also raves about The Sega Channel and Mike talks about his run-in with presumably the star of one of these ads. Commercials in this episode, in order: Right Price Furniture:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BdDpV5eI94 Ieuter and Secor In...

Every bad show has a bad season, it seems.  We will cover such bad seasons in future episodes.  For now, we are dedicating an entire show to one such season, Saturday Night Live's 6th season.  Almost nothing from the show's 5th season carried over, and it showed.

It's another social experiment gone wrong, in multiple ways.  Utopia didn't last two months and it cost FOX $50 million in just acquiring its rights.  Surely some heads rolled.  And what's the deal with the cartoonist as host?

A world run by kids--no curfews, unlimited candy, and no homework...right?  Here's a social experiment from 2007 which sought out to see how 40 children would run their own society, CBS' entry Kid Nation.

Before returning you to your regular universe, we have two more visits in the Sanford and Son family--the very short-lived series which replaced the parent show, titled Sanford Arms, and an early 80s attempt to revive the franchise in Sanford.

Over the next two episodes, we will explore the three spinoffs of Sanford and Son, as well as the show which caused Sanford and Son to end.  In part one, we look at the first spinoff, Grady, as well as the show which effectively killed the mothership, The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour. This episode and the next may have low volumes.  Some of our microphones acted really weird when we recorded.  We're sorr...