The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

Pricing games on The Price is Right can be hit or miss.  You can have winners like Plinko, Rat Race, and Master Key.  You can also have misses like the dozen games we will cover in this installment.

(Please note, this was an April Fools Day joke.  98% of what you hear in this episode is fake.) While searching for material on a previous episode, we stumbled upon information about a very brief BBC comedy from 1980 capitalizing off of the popularity of Doctor Who and The $1.98 Beauty Show.  Combine the two and you get a series in which nothing outside of blurbs of the episodes exists, Rip Taylor...

Comedy Central's TV Funhouse was from some of the minds associated with an entry from last week, The Dana Carvey Show.  It looked like a kid's show, but it was definitely not for the kids.

We look at ads Hulk Hogan has done over the years, from the conventional to the bizarre. For your benefit, here is an ordered list of the ads covered and where to view them.  All links will open up in a new tab. Honey Nut Cheerios Commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YTvB11JbY Hulk Hogan Workout Set - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyuKfO5wUHs 800-LoanMart - https://www.youtube.com/watc...

The Dana Carvey Show had future superstars among its supporting cast and a who's who of comedy writers but why did it fail so quickly, besides the absurd show airing immediately after a very special episode of Home Improvement?  We look at why this show was truly too funny to fail.  Warning:  There is some language which is not appropriate for everybody.

Take a risk!  Take a chance!  Take a dare!  We double dare you to listen to this episode about the short-lived quizzer Double Dare.

We look at one of the most recent entries on our list, The Cool Kids.  It was co-created by Charlie Day, it had brilliant writing and casting, and it was loaded with TV legends.  What could go wrong?

We talk about the ultimate spoof of daytime talk shows, Night Stand with Dick Dietrick.  Topics in this show include successes (and a failure) which came for most of the people behind Night Stand, the time there was an accidental wardrobe malfunction, and what happened when Mike wrote an e-mail to the show.

We start our look at short-lived shows we loved by looking at one of our favorite series from the 1990s, The Critic.  This show bounced around a bit, but had a lengthy life in reruns and even was revived as a brief web series in 2000.

The three of us have played video games for decades.  We decided to dedicate an episode to bad video games based on television programs.  If you like this, fret not; a second video game show will be coming later this year.

By coincidence, one of the biggest flops in TV history debuted 40 years ago today.  It was the epitome of Fred Silverman's tenure at NBC.  What do you get when you cross a Japanese pop duo with a comedian and turn it into a variety show?  You get Pink Lady.

Did you ever want to win a disco date or a dinner for 2?  You could on the classic Canadian series The Mad Dash!  In this episode, we look at this life-sized board game adaptation from the 1970s and 1980s.

One of the most requested shows in this podcast's short life has been It's Your Move.  We look at why this brilliant series had such a short life, how it was a predecessor of future shows, and what exactly The Dregs of Humanity has to do with this show.

The $50,000 Pyramid is the forgotten version of the Pyramid franchise and for good reason.  We talk about the changes to the short-lived version and the celebrities on this version, including at least one whose only time playing the Pyramid was in this version.

February 18 marks the 100th birthday of The Dean of Game Shows, Bill Cullen.  We look at three of his less successful shows--Winning Streak, The Love Experts, and Pass the Buck.

We look at two memorable shows from Fall 1979, albeit memorable for differing reasons.  Beat the Clock was quite a departure from previous versions of that show, and Whew! was funny and engaging but had a confusing rule set.  Ultimately, both shows died in part to a common desperate last gasp attempt to gain viewers--making the shows celebrity-based.

The new and vastly improved iteration of the XFL began play this weekend.  We look back at the original XFL from 2001 and where it went wrong, from being too much like the WWE to the absolute lack of decent players.  Almost 20 years later, we're wonder who exactly hated "He Hate Me."

Tom Poston was a beloved television fixture for decades, ranging from The Phil Silvers Show in the 1950s through The Suite Life of Zack & Cody in the 2000s.  Poston also appeared on many game shows through the years.  We look at three times in the 1980s when Tom Poston's game play wasn't exactly stellar, though we do not put the entire blame upon Tom.

UK celebrity Noel Edmonds finished hosting their version of Deal or No Deal on Channel 4 in 2016, after over 11 years.  In 2017, he return to Channel 4 with a game show/sitcom hybrid called Cheap Cheap Cheap, which was just weird weird weird.  We look at this bizarre hybrid which has been compared to Twin Peaks.

People enjoy seeing ads during the Super Bowl sometimes as much as the game itself.  In the late 1980s through the late 1990s, The Bud Bowl was likely the most popular series of Super Bowl ads.  We reflect on The Bud Bowl's growth and eventual demise.

"Banzai" was a British show which eventually aired on four different networks in the United States.  Why would such a show be bounced around?  Could it be the controversy that followed it?  We look at this bizarre and offensive show.

Spike TV took a chance on a different type of reality show, one in which everybody was an actor but one person, who the entire show was built around.  "The Joe Schmo Show" was a memorable and fun unique endeavor which we remember quite fondly.  We will cover the other seasons in the future.

We look at an infomercial for the CD-i entertainment system from the mid-90s, while spending a significant amount of time talking about the system's titles, versatility, and technological downfalls.

One of the most hyped series of 2003 was "Joe Millionaire."  It lasted two seasons, and was off TV by the end of 2003.  We look at this flash-in-the-pan which briefly made a star out of a construction worker/underwear model.

"Doctor Who" has been a television staple for close to 6 decades.  One of the oddest entries in the "Doctor Who" canon happened in 1993 with its 2-part special titled "Dimensions in Time."