It Happened One Year

It's time for another round of everyone's favorite alcove in the It Happened One Year complex of topics - The Love Corner! Sarah & Joe run down the list of marriages and divorces from 1984, from the titans of politics to the seedy philanderers of Tinseltown, with much classic digressing along the way. Hear tales of the hosts encountering many of today's subjects in the various movie theaters,...

The fourth and final pairing of Steve Martin and Carl Reiner created arguably their best movie, in the form of 1984's All of Me, and It Happened One Year is there to discuss! Sarah & Joe breakdown their memories of the star's films, why this movie may not be resonating down through the ages like some of their other projects, the somewhat odd circumstances of seeing both of these legends in per...

In the midst of all the pop culture items crowding the subject year, the hosts managed to dust off the rarely-used science corner and see what - theoretically - was taking place in outer space in 1984! Two main topics comprise most of Sarah & Joe's stumbling through the cosmos - the Nemesis Star/Death Star theory and the SETI project, both concocted to take wild swings at what might be going o...

The Ballad of Tony & Angela, or is it The Odd Couple meets The Brady Bunch meets the horniest of Golden Girls? ABC's long-running family sitcom Who's the Boss? checks all these boxes, and Sarah and Joe dig in deep to discuss the many facets of this until-recently difficult to watch show! Along the way are comparisons to other family fare of the era, how it stacks up against other Tony Danza wo...

"You'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984!" With this is awkward-ass phrase, the era of Super Bowl commercials fully began, and home computers took over the world. Sarah & Joe cover the impact of this short Ridley Scott directed spot, take a trip down internet-laden memory lane, and go over some of their favorite Super Bowl commercials - with many cameos from Budweiser, McDonald's, Groundhog Day...

Just in time for the Super Bowl, It Happened One Year is heading back to the gridiron to talk a little football! Sarah & Joe very quickly discuss the Super Bowls surrounding 1984 - both blowouts - before transitioning into rare collegiate sports talk in the form of Heisman Trophy winner and future Buffalo Bills great Doug Flutie! The Boston College legend's Hail Mary to defeat Miami is possibl...

An obvious pick by Sarah for topics - when Hulk Hogan fully emerged as a huge pop culture icon in the decade at Madison Square Garden in January of 1984! Just in time for this year's Royal Rumble, It Happened One Year finally enters the wrestling arena and talks a little leg-dropping and camel-clutching! Sarah & Joe break down the lives and careers of Hogan and the Iron Sheik, their glancing a...

It's Christmas Eve 1984, and the battle scars from the prior year's Cabbage Patch carnage still sting for employees and customers alike. The utter mayhem of '83 lives in legend at the Viewmont Mall in Scranton, PA, and everyone is anxious to avoid a repeat this holiday season. Surely, it can't get that bloodthirsty, that vicious, that diabolical again, can it? What fresh hell awaits the mall deniz...

Upon the discovery of their existence, It Happened One Year had no choice but to reconvene before the holiday and discuss the brain-melting lunacy of 1984's top TV holiday specials - Mr. T & Emmanuel Lewis in A Christmas Dream and Scrooge's Rock 'N' Roll Christmas starring Jack Elam. Sarah & Joe's wildly different opinions about this yuletide fare serve as a backdrop to an episode clearly...

Jacob Marley was dead to begin with (he always is!) and It Happened One Year is there to pick up the slack, in what was originally conceived as the show's holiday episode, before the hosts got carried away and kept recording Christmassy things (tune in next week!). Herein, Sarah & Joe get into all things Cratchit in order to discuss the acclaimed 1984 movie version of A Christmas Carol starrin...

It's Christmas Eve 1984 at the Viewmont Mall, and tensions are running high. Employees cower in fear of the shopping onslaught ahead. Customers prepare to do battle for the season's coveted gifts. And children hope to get on Santa's lap with last minute pleas to the big guy. But nothing goes as planned. It Happened One Year presents its third fully scripted, madcap episode, this time written by gr...

This Thanksgiving, it is best to remember what we truly have to be thankful for - '80s pop music and the advent of music videos. With the inaugural VMA Awards on MTV in September and the November release of her landmark second album Like a Virgin, Madonna fully took the world by storm in 1984 and staked her claim as THE star of the decade, and It Happened One Year is there! Sarah & Joe break d...

The somber topic of celebrity death leads down an avenue to discuss television comedy in this straight-from-the-headlines It Happened One Year. Andy Kaufman's 1984 death (or grand hoax) leads Sarah & Joe to discuss his career, from Saturday Night Live to Taxi to wrestling, before pivoting into the seemingly evergreen popularity of Friends and the shocking loss of Matthew Perry. How and why sit...

As has become a yearly tradition, It Happened One Year is taking a look at a single night of programming from the topic's television season, and so it begins with ABC's November 3rd shows! T.J. Hooker, The Love Boat, and the long forgotten Finder of Lost Loves comprised Saturday night entertainment on the Alphabet Network, and Sarah & Joe are there! Listen as they question strange props, guest...

Back-to-back It Happened One Year politics?? You bet! Washington D.C. is providing the crazy content and IHOY is channeling it hard through 1984! Sarah & Joe look back at Tip O'Neill's epic run as Speaker in the '70s and '80s, and contrast some of the expectations for the role with how it is managed today. This naturally leads into the current House having no Speaker, the tumultuous mess that...

How well all the covered topics relate to one another is debatable in this lustiest of episodes from It Happened One Year! Ostensibly here to discuss the shameful handling Miss America Vanessa Williams received in 1984 over the publishing of old nude photos, Sarah & Joe pivot into the many and varied scandals enveloping politicians and celebrities thanks to their uncontained urges - with cameo...

So when she's on land, she just HAS legs?? This is the main conundrum tackled in It Happened One Year's most riparian of episodes - a discussion of Ron Howard's Oscar nominated mermaid comedy Splash! Sarah & Joe take up the task of deducing mermaid lore on film (if there is any) and compare that to the freewheeling creativity on display. Along the way they dive into the bizarro made-for-TV seq...

Unexpected twists and turns abound in what nominally is an It Happened One Year dedicated to the long-running syndicated phenomenon that was Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, premiering in 1984! Sarah & Joe discuss their foggy memories of the show and how that compares to a modern rewatch, then sidetrack wildly into why these sort of shows are popular, modern reality television that sprung...

Not ones to shy away from a good eulogy, It Happened One Year makes a rare foray into the animal kingdom, by way of commemorating the lives of some trailblazing creatures! From American "monkeynaut" Miss Baker to Kansas zoo orangutan legend Djakarta Jim to Liberty and the many critters frequently spotted on the White House lawn, Sarah and Joe dig deep to find the bones buried in these tales of fur...

Football is upon us once again, and It Happened One Year is getting flagged for excessive celebration, as per usual! Sarah & Joe make their yearly predictions for 2023 NFL outcomes, but only after taking a look at two big events from 1984's football season - Walter Payton becoming the all-time leading rusher, and the events surrounding the Baltimore Colts hightailing it out of Maryland in the...

We're doing it again! It Happened One Year is back, now covering the pivotal political and pop culture period of 1984! First up, Sarah & Joe take a look at arguably the biggest star of the decade, Michael Jackson, and the many perils and pitfalls he faced in '84. The laborious Jackson 5/The Jacksons tour surrounding their latest album Victory serves as the backbone, and along the way attention...

You guessed it - we're doing it again! Join Sarah & Joe for a third trip into the past, looking at the events big and small, famed and forgotten from a new subject year! There'll be sports and politics! Movies and sweet jams! Cool fashions and dumb haircuts! New episodes arrive starting in August!

After twenty-six months spent taking extended looks at 1994 and 1967, It Happened One Year has finally reached its milestone 100th Episode! Hosts Sarah & Joe navigate this sort-of retrospective look at the show, by way of roping in many friends of the podcast and Baseball Humbug/Visitors to Nova Scotia veterans to hang out, play trivia games, cover overlooked corners of the subject years, and make...

What better to close out Season Two than with an historic, super-sized episode commemorating the dear departed of 1967! Sarah & Joe take an uncharacteristically deep dive into the many notables in film, music, sports, politics, writing, art, and society who vacated the premises in the subject year, with a list of icons including Vivien Leigh, Che Guevara, Otis Redding, Spencer Tracy, Dorothy Parke...

Life may be a numbers game, but as that great American Ned Ryerson said, it's also "one big crap shoot, any-hoot." So how significant really is the fact that the 200 millionth American was born (probably) on November 20th, 1967? After an introduction by friend of the show and Visitors to Nova Scotia star Kristin Mann, Sarah & Joe dig deep into U.S. and World population, from the predictions made i...