The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

The 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live's premiere is happening next week, on October 11th. As the 51st season of SNL starts tomorrow night, we decided to look at another disastrous SNL season, having covered Season 6 (episode 97) and Season 11 (episode 265) previously.  SNL was at a time of weakness, having lost key contributors in the previous year.  The show lost even more contributors in S...

The Squared Circle Time Machine gets ready for war as Dusty and Dustin Rhodes team up with The Nasty Boys to do battle with Col. Parker and his Stud Stable in the War Games Match at Fall Brawl 1994. We also continue the arc with The Masked Man from Episode 18 and see if he enters into the picture as Hulk Hogan tries his best to get Ric Flair back into the ring for a rematch at Halloween Havoc, bro...

Last year, Greg put this show up in the annual Viewer's Choice vote.  It did not win.  As always, we cover the shows that didn't win the vote in the following year.  After seeing this, Greg regretted ever picking this.  We all make mistakes, just like ABC did in 2012 after picking up this show which was like Bosom Buddies, but that's where the comparisons end.  The complete series aired, but not d...

In episode 34, we first talked about the Jason Bateman classic sitcom, It's Your Move, with very little video of the show at that time.  Fast forward five and a half years where some intrepid individual(s) uploaded all the episodes.  We felt it was time to give this show a proper revisiting.

CBS had a slew of hits in the early 70s, including a wartime comedy called M*A*S*H.  CBS went to the wartime well again in 1973 with this comedy about a battalion of primarily African-American soldiers in France during World War II.  As bad as the ratings were, that may not have been what got the show cancelled so quickly.  It's not good when your lead and a supporting cast member were arrested du...

The title of this series unintentionally goes deeper than the premise of the show.  It's not easy to keep the kids together after a divorce.  It wasn't necessarily easy to replace two actors who starred in this show's pilot, one of whom passed away to tragic circumstances.  It also wasn't easy for this show going up against two relatively new shows on TV, two favorites from the 1980s.  Certainly,...

We had ECW One Night Stand from WWE in 2005, and then WWE did it again in 2006, followed by the blah revival of ECW, so when most of the OG ECW roster jumps from WWE to TNA by 2010, what happens? Dixie Carter decides she'll have her own One Night Stand! WITH BLACKJACK! AND HOOKERS! Greg and Dane look at TNA Hardcore Justice 2010, where they go over dance-offs with the Full Blooded Italians, Raven...

In honor of our annual Star Trek Day, we have that moment when Jadzia Dax was an up-and-coming model working for someone whose assistant was Will Riker. Because it’s the 80s, it’ll be a melodramatic rise to the top. Lucky for her, she’s got the world’s top teenage fashion model in her corner. We go inside the world of two “Paper Dolls” and why they managed to… fold… so quickly.

College football officially kicked off last week.  Years ago, we looked at what might be the worst Monday Night Football game ever.  20 years ago today (September 5), what might have been the worst college football game between two true collegiate football powerhouses occurred.  Get used to the phrase "three and out."  It is used with frequency this episode. "The game that killed the Golden Era of...

In honor of the Eagles' start of the defense of their Super Bowl title, Greg and Dane on the SCTM go back to February of 1983 for a big WWF House Show at the Philadelphia Spectrum on PRISM. We got a big 10-Man Tag Team Match featuring Andre the Giant, Superstar Billy Graham, Pedro Morales, Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, and others. We also got Bob Backlund defending the WWF title against Big John Studd,...

Over the last 30 plus years, MTV has had some decent cartoons, most notably Beavis and Butthead and Daria.  3-South isn't on that list, but it holds a place in the heart of at least one of us.  Goofy and stupid but with some notable contemporary voice talents, this show might be best known as one of the gigs Brian Dunkleman took after the first season of American Idol.

Continuing from the last episode of the SCTM, Greg and Dane look at the first-ever event held at Chicago's United Center in WWF SummerSlam 1994. Leslie Nielsen will solve the mystery of the two Undertakers while Bret and Owen Hart battle in an epic Steel Cage match for the WWF title. Also, we got Sweetness himself, Walter Payton, helping Razor Ramon regain the Intercontinental title against the no...

Over 5 years and 500 episodes ago, we tried a "concept" episode where Greg read actual titles to episodes of Maury.  (Episode 60, if you want to visit that show.)  We are back with a second compilation from shows which aired after our initial May 2020 episode.  How many ways can Maury's staff describe DNA test episodes?  The answer is 'many.'

In prior episodes, we have talked about the first two iterations of The Joe Schmo Show.  While it is an often funny and unpredictable format, one can't go to the well with that format too often, due to the familiarity of the personnel and the wacky (and suspicious) scenarios which unfold.  After a hiatus of over a decade, the format returned with the same host, the same crazy situations, actors tr...

It's eight days before SummerSlam 1994, and on the latest episode of The SCTM, Greg and Dane look at this USA Network special hyping the PPV. They look at Leslie Nielsen's search for The Undertaker, the possibility of Lex Luger selling out to Ted DiBiase, and Bret Hart fat-shaming Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart. Make sure to eat a Domino's Pizza before you listen to this episode.

You’ve heard many stories about Elvis… his music, his moves, his crappy movies, but have you listened to the one where he invites Miss Tennessee to a kung fu movie and then starts a relationship? In 1981, Stephanie Zimbalist was the beauty queen, and Don Johnson was her King in a made-for-TV tragedy about the last few years of his life.

In this installment, we have yet another revival whose shelf life was incredibly short.  Was it because of the competition?  Was it because all the major characters were played by new actors?  Was the original series too fresh in the minds of viewers?  No matter the answer, The Case of the Quickly Cancelled Show got a swift verdict from viewers and CBS executives.

Greg and Dane begin their first real-time arc here on The Squared Circle Time Machine as they review a storyline from 1994-95 WCW. It's the August 1994 episode of the Clash of the Champions featuring the big rematch from Bash at the Beach between Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair for the WCW title! But this rematch may be ruined by a man in a mask pulling a Nancy Kerrigan on the Hulkster brother! Can Hogan...

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, there was a crew of space garbage pickers before previous installment Salvage 1.  (See episode 399.)  NBC aired the pilot episode with little fanfare and little success.  However, something happened within two weeks of the pilot airing which gave NBC a reason to turn this pilot into a full-fledged series, albeit for just a smattering of episodes.

Here is another case of taking a successful movie and turning the general premise into a lackluster TV show.  Though there is no connection between this show and Look Who's Talking, outside of slightly changed names, the similarities are there.  Despite being called the worst show on TV in its first season, the show got a second season and remained bad.

In the newest "Best of", we go back to Episode 82 when the gang covered this ABC drama from Steven Bochco from 2005 that was his big follow-up to "NYPD Blue". It's about a NYC Police Detective who gets shot, he becomes blind, and he solves crimes! That's the show, everybody! But hey, it's the first episode we covered that has future show HoFer Rena Sofer in it! That counts for something, right? RI...

The newest episode of the SCTM looks at a big episode of Smack-Smack-Smack-Smack-Down! It's Stephanie McMahon's first episode as SmackDown GM, and she's booked a big show that features a Steel Cage-Steel Cage-Steel Cage Match between Edge and Chris Jericho-Jericho-Jericho. Also, we got the WWE Debut of Rey Mysterio-Rey Mysterio-Rey Mysterio! And we got the SmackDown debut of The Next Big Thing-The...

104 years ago on July 23, one of our favorites, Calvert Deforest AKA Larry "Bud" Melman, was born.  In honor of this milestone, we are watching a VHS release of a workout video for those who think Jazzercise is too strenuous.  Sit back, grab your remote, as well as a cold one and your favorite snack for Larry "Bud" Melman's workout for couch potatoes.

In the latest episode of The Squared Circle Time Machine, we look back at one of the worst pay-per-views of all time in the 1991 Great American Bash from WCW. In this episode, we are joined by HypSports legend RickinBaltimore, who was at the Baltimore Arena in July of 1991, and we get his first-hand perspective on the crowd's reaction to Ric Flair leaving WCW and how they took their anger out duri...

In our latest "Best of" we go back to Episode 47 and look at an instructional VHS tape put out in 1997 called "The Kids Guide to the Internet". Take a look at what all the kids in 1997 were doing when putting a web search on Yahoo! All the kids in 1997 wanted to surf to MTV dot com, get their sports scores, write an e-mail to Bill Clinton and watch Mister Ed in a pixelated small QuickTime video su...