The Con Men

When did Hollywood decide that everything needed to be computer-generated? Dan and Adrian are back for a spirited debate about practical effects versus CGI, exploring the history, artistry, and occasional atrocities of movie magic. From  2001: A Space Odyssey  and  Star Wars  to  TRON ,  The Last Starfighter , and  Jurassic Park , the guys trace the evolution of visual effects and consider whether...

Nine weeks in the vault, and The Con Men are back with a nostalgic trip to a time when Halloween candy didn't have calories, movie ratings were more like suggestions, and a trip to the video store could change your entire weekend. Adrian recounts a family adventure in Savannah, Dan remembers the physical consequences of getting older, and the two celebrate the approaching Halloween season with...

The Con Men hit the big five-oh with a trip through the Saturday mornings of their childhood. When Adrian encounters a youngster who's barely heard of  Looney Tunes , Dan recalls the brilliance of  The Devil May Hare , and the two discover why having someone who understands your most obscure cartoon references is practically a superpower. From there, it's a nostalgic journey through  Alien...

The Con Men are officially a year old, which seems as good a time as any to contemplate mortality. Adrian takes a look at what appears to be the final ride for  Jackass  and the strange sadness of watching a group of lunatics who built a franchise out of destroying themselves finally become too old to keep doing it. From Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O to the loss of Ryan Dunn and a younger crew that...

Dan survived Arkansas Comic Con and returns with stories: Kim Rhodes is a delightful goofball, Matt Ryan remains an absolute gem, Nana Visitor adds the second signature to the increasingly ridiculous Niners jersey, and Ming-Na Wen turns out to be every bit as lovely as you’d hope. There are signed action figures, airport rides,  Star Wars ,  Star Trek ,  Supernatural , and even an important lesson...

Arkansas Comic Con is upon us, Dan’s getting dangerously close to completing his original Marvel  G.I. Joe  run, and Adrian has discovered that an alarming amount of our childhood is just sitting on YouTube waiting to destroy an afternoon. From  The Real Ghostbusters  and  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  to the surprisingly hard-going theme songs of  SilverHawks ,  M.A.S.K.  and  Inhumanoids , nosta...

Before heading back to  Lanterns , Adrian has some things to say about  Batman: Caped Crusader —and very few of them are nice. Dan and Adrian dig into what happens when an adaptation changes familiar characters simply for the sake of being different, why Batman’s best reinventions still preserve what makes those characters work, and how  Batman: The Animated Series  and  Batman Beyond  managed to...

It’s been a rough week in the geekosphere. Dan and Adrian remember two performers whose work became part of our cultural tapestry: Tim Curry and Peter Cullen. From Frank-N-Furter,  Clue , and  Muppet Treasure Island  to the voice of Optimus Prime, the conversation turns to the performances that defined generations, the humanity behind them, and whether an iconic role should live on through technol...

Before we get back to glowing space jewelry and deeply dysfunctional mentorship, The Con Men take a moment to remember  Dolly Parton  — songwriter, performer, philanthropist, businesswoman, champion of childhood literacy, and one of those exceedingly rare public figures who somehow seemed to belong to everybody. Adrian and Dan also preview the absolutely stacked  Arkansas Comic Con , featuring eve...

Lanterns  has arrived in the DCU, and apparently somebody decided the best way to bring the Green Lantern Corps back to live action was  True Detective with power rings. Dan and Adrian dig into the premiere of HBO’s  Lanterns , the strange state of DCU continuity, and the decidedly unhappy partnership between veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan and would-be replacement John Stewart. Why does John’s f...

Course Description PHIL 042: Nostalgia Philosophiæ  is an interdisciplinary seminar examining the philosophical, cultural, and occasionally absurd nature of nostalgia, vintage media, and the collective memory of Generation X. Through case studies including  Rush ,  Super Mario Bros. 3 ,  The Wizard ,  Cheech & Chong ,  Popeye ,  The Honeymooners ,  Robin Williams ,  The Golden Girls , and the...

The people who shaped your childhood don’t stay forever — but the things they gave you do. The news of Sam Neill’s death sends Dan and Adrian down a winding road through the actors, musicians, comedians and cultural icons who became fixtures in their lives. From  Jurassic Park  and a 33-year-old movie ticket to James Earl Jones, Sean Connery, David Bowie, Leonard Nimoy, Richard Pryor, Robin Willia...

San Diego Comic-Con 2026 has come and gone, and Dan and Adrian are unpacking everything that mattered—from Marvel's next big swing to DC's Lanterns, Spaceballs 2, Ghost Rider, Black Panther 3, Resident Evil, Rings of Power, and everything in between. Along the way they celebrate Rick Moranis' triumphant return, debate the future of interconnected cinematic universes, lament the lack of Star Trek n...

From Pong to PlayStation. From Atari to Xbox. This week, we're taking a long walk through video game history... not as historians, but as the kids who actually lived it. Dan and Adrian swap stories about growing up during the golden age of gaming, remember the console wars between Nintendo and Sega, revisit the arcades that emptied our pockets, and celebrate the games that became more than enterta...

What begins with Cotton Bureau notifications, AOL’s “You’ve Got Mail,” Jimmy Stewart impressions, and the Mandela Effect eventually becomes an exploration of the movie soundtracks and scores that permanently lodged themselves in Dan and Adrian’s brains. The pair dig into why people so confidently misremember pop-culture history, from “Luke, I am your father” to Sinbad’s nonexistent genie movie, be...

What childhood toy would you buy back today, regardless of how financially irresponsible the decision might be? Dan and Adrian rummage through the toy boxes of their youth, revisiting everything from Figment, Merlin, Speak & Spell, and Computertron to He-Man, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Boglins, Dino-Riders, Captain Power, and vintage Star Trek figures. They talk about the toys they kept, the coll...

Every fan has an origin story. This week, Dan and Adrian trace the roots of comic conventions back to the 1960s before diving into the comics, characters, and moments that shaped their own fandoms. From the earliest Comic-Cons and the rise of San Diego Comic-Con to first comic books, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, MAD Magazine, and the changing landscape of collecting, the conversation becomes a nosta...

This week on  The Con Men Show , Adrian and Dan take a nostalgia-fueled run through the strange, glorious, and occasionally cursed world of cartoons that became movies, movies that became cartoons, and toy lines that became entire childhood operating systems. The conversation starts with  Masters of the Universe , from He-Man lore and the Sword of Power to the 1987 Cannon Films live-action movie,...

This week on  The Con Men Show , Dan and Adrian travel from Earth to Eternia for a spoiler-filled walk-through of the 2026  Masters of the Universe  movie. Adrian brings the He-Man credentials, Dan brings the toy-history goblin brain, and together they unpack a movie that knows exactly what it is: big, weird, colorful, funny, sincere, and proudly toyetic. They talk childhood memories, the scale of...

Summer has arrived, and The Con Men are feeling nostalgic. Dan and Adrian take a winding trip through the traditions, memories, and pop culture touchstones that made summer special. From Southern heat and humidity to summer camps, swimming lessons, family vacations, church trips, beach days, and childhood rites of passage, the conversation explores how summer shaped a generation. Along the way, th...

🚀  THIS WEEK ON THE CON MEN SHOW!  🚀 A mysterious Imperial warlord! A runaway Hutt heir! A bounty hunter with a score to settle! And one tiny green force-wielding chaos goblin standing between peace and absolute mayhem! Dan and Adrian strap into the cockpit and punch it to hyperspace as they break down  The Mandalorian & Grogu  — a Star Wars adventure packed with monsters, Mandalorians, dogf...

This week, Dan and Adrian limp across the finish line on approximately one functioning brain cell and somehow end up having one of their most honest conversations yet. What starts as tech issues, Bluetooth confusion, and convention-road exhaustion spirals into a surprisingly thoughtful discussion about toxic fandoms, gatekeeping, nostalgia, reboots, and why people get so weirdly territorial about...

This week on The Con Men Show, Dan and Adrian somehow begin with tabletop roleplaying games, detour through cosplay discourse, spiral into Moulin Rouge appreciation, take an unexpected international food tour, and eventually land on the question: what terrible movie ideas somehow became billion-dollar franchises? Along the way: D&D nostalgia, Robotech memories, Shadowrun chummers, Paris travel sto...

This week,  The Con Men Show  opens where all serious cultural criticism should begin: with action figures, shelf math, and the adult collector’s sacred distinction between “playing with toys” and “building dioramas.” From GI Joe displays to Star Wars figures, from still-carded Star Trek toys to one wounded LEGO Shuttle Discovery, Dan and Adrian stumble directly into the real topic hiding in plain...

This week, The Con Men wander through the stars before landing squarely on the convention floor. What starts as a deceptively simple question— which era of Star Trek would you actually want to live in? —turns into a thoughtful (and occasionally ridiculous) breakdown of technology, comfort, danger, and the strange appeal of frontier living versus utopian polish. From smoky-jacket Original Series vi...