The Flopcast

We're not quite sure why, but the subject of our latest Top 4 1/2 List is... Norway! So here's some of our favorite Norwegian stuff, as approved by the gods of Asgard. We have a silly Viking or two, an icy Justice League member, an 80s synthpop band (that was once trapped in a comic book), and lots more. In fact, Kornflake is revealed to be a superfan of Norwegian comedy, and would like you to kno...

Super-quick show this week, as we say Happy Birthday to masked and bucket-headed guitarist Buckethead, unveil our new Flopcast promo (which Kornflake both conceived and despises), and turn to the Pudding Pages to learn about the weird 1990s soda called Surge. (Fun fact: They still love Surge in Norway, where it goes by a slightly different name. Make your summer travel plans accordingly.) The Flop...

We're back for another round of our New Wave Game! The rules are simple, because the game is stupid. We're listening to the next three volumes in the Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80s CD series, and trying to guess each other's favorite songs. Volumes 4-6 include Flopcast favorites like the Go-Go's, Men at Work, Duran Duran, and Devo. There are also memorable one-or-two hit wonders l...

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2024 inductees have been announced, but instead of discussing them like normal humans, we're throwing them into a FlopFight tournament. Our competitors include Mary J. Blige, Foreigner, Frampton, and Ozzy. Our competitions involve cappuccino, penguins, and Smurfs. Anything can happen, and it will probably be ridiculous. Also: Happy Birthday to a Jersey boy who was in...

Inspired by a recent viewing of Saturday Night Fever, Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown flip through some comic books from the late 70s, when DC and Marvel tried to cash in on the disco craze. While Dazzler would become Marvel's disco queen of the 80s, first Spider-Man crawled around the dance floor battling the Hypno-Hustler! Then Batman and Flash enjoyed some Bee Gees tunes at the Disco of Deat...

Kornflake is back, just in time for a new game! A new WAVE game, specifically! Thirty years ago, Rhino Records released a fifteen volume series of CDs called Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80s. We're looking at the first three of these fantastic compilation albums, and attempting to guess each other's favorite songs. There are some genuine classics (from The Buggles, The Knack, Blondi...

Let's wrap up our review of The Krofft Supershow, a super-silly Saturday morning TV show from mad geniuses Sid and Marty Krofft. The second season brought us two weird new segments: Magic Mongo (in which a goofy genie crashes a bikini beach party) and Bigfoot and Wildboy (in which a Sasquatch and a kid with no pants battle aliens and Peter Brady). The show was still hosted by wacky rock band Kapta...

With Kornflake away on special assignment, Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown are free to obsess over The Krofft Supershow, a wild 1970s Saturday morning TV anthology series from Sid and Marty Krofft. Specifically we're looking at the career of musician and actress Debra Clinger, who played Superchick in The Krofft Supershow's house band, Kaptain Kool and the Kongs. Pre-Superchick, Debra and her s...

We're diving back into the pages of Dynamite magazine, so we can pretend it's still 1979. (Give it a try. Set the mood with a Gloria Gaynor record.) This randomly selected issue has Erik Estrada on the cover, and inside we learn that the CHiPs star had a problem with chips. Also inside: How to ruin your lunch with weird Dynamite recipes, a bizarre sneak peek at Mrs. Doubtfire, Tony Danza back in t...

Short show this week! We're sleepy. But during a quick visit to Northeast Comic Con, we find old friends, fancy nerd dice, and members of The Go-Go's, The Cars, and the cast of Growing Pains. We also recommend Enterprisesplaining, a silly new Star Trek podcast that doesn't care if you've ever seen Star Trek. Also: Happy Birthday to Matthew Modine. (Were you more disturbed by Matthew in Full Metal...

It's the second half of our look at every television series that debuted in the year 1999. And once again, we remember just a few of them, and only saw a couple. (Kornflake was a fan of Judging Amy, while for Kevin, this was the year of Freaks and Geeks.) But the list also includes dozens of obscure short-lived sitcoms, cartoons, talk shows, game shows, and at least one insane cannibalistic Canadi...

We're diving into television of the year 1999... which is quite recent by Flopcast standards, but yikes, it was a quarter century ago. We have a giant list of every TV show that debuted that year, and this week we only get halfway through the list. Several long-running cartoons started in 1999, including Family Guy, Futurama, and SpongeBob. But there were also cartoons we don't remember at all, st...

Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown are celebrating the career of comic book artist Ramona Fradon, who died this week at the age of 97. Ramona was one of the only women drawing comics way back in the early 60s, when she was the premier Aquaman artist for DC Comics, and co-created Aquaman's teen sidekick, Aqualad. Later in the 60s, she also co-created one of DC's oddest heroes, Metamorpho the Elemen...

It's time for our annual review of the nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame... which means we could start screaming "What about the Monkees?!" at any time. But there are some worthy and long overdue performers up for induction, such as Cher, Mariah, and (finally!) Kool & the Gang. Join us as we go through the whole list for you. (Spoiler: Still no Tiffany. COME ON.) And yeah, if you think K...

After a three year break, we're getting back to The Backs of Life! (As requested by absolutely no one! You're welcome!) Back in 2021, we started reviewing all the "backdoor pilot" episodes of classic 80s sitcom The Facts of Life. Now as we finally revive this very important project, we've brought in a special guest reviewer: friend of the Flopcast, Sci-Fi Explosion mastermind, and certified Factol...

It's another goofy random little show this week, including: Kornflake finds an Oompa Loompa at the Chocolate Expo; Kevin finds a rock star at the disco; the secret language of chickens is revealed; we're less than excited about Popcorn Day; and it's almost time to revive our Facts of Life review project, the Backs of Life. Just as Tootie prophesized. The Flopcast website! The ESO Network! The Flop...

It's a surprisingly disco-themed episode, because Kevin, Kornflake, the Mayor of Chickentown, and Ed from Sponge Awareness Foundation all met in the middle of New Hampshire for a spectacular ABBA tribute show. We were there because our old pal (and occasional SAF guitarist) Mike was onstage in the band, delivering killer guitar solos like you never heard back in the disco era. We followed the show...

Ready for more vocabulary lessons with the Justice League of America? We're diving back into The Super Dictionary, a 1978 book that attempted to mix learning with superheroes, and succeeded in being completely bizarre. This time we'll look at entries involving: walrus baseball with Aquaman, cleaning an invisible jet with Wonder Woman, nap time with the Man of Steel, people crashing when they try t...

National Whatever Day involves dancing like a cuckoo; our 2024 health and fitness plan is mostly lo mein-based; the Sid and Marty Krofft Saturday morning shows of the 1970s are now streaming (great news for Bay City Rollers fans like us); we somehow connect the Krofft shows to The Love Boat, the Snow Miser, and Chewbacca's creepy dad Itchy; and we finally share our New Year's Resolutions. Spoiler:...

Kornflake returns to join Kevin and The Mayor of Chickentown as we finish our look back at those we lost in 2023. Our coverage of the second half of the year includes: sitcom favorites (Chrissy from Three's Company, Bull from Night Court, Kraus from Benson, Chandler from Friends), cartoon favorites (the voices behind Harley Quinn, Solomon Grundy, and some School House Rock classics), musicians (me...

Time to look back on those we lost (from pop culture and beyond) in 2023. This week we're covering the first half of the year, and our list includes people from movies (Raquel Welch, Treat Williams, Alan Arkin), television (Adam Rich, Cindy Williams, Richard Belzer), music (Burt Bacharach, Harry Belafonte, Tina Turner), comics (Al Jaffee, Lee Moder, John Romita Sr.), wrestling (Leaping Lanny Poffo...

It's a typical holiday episode, in that we're discussing Julia Child, Pop Rocks, and Newsies. But there are some vaguely holiday-themed subjects too, including Kornflake's newfound candy cane addiction, Kevin's recent guest appearance on Gleaming the Tube (discussing old Christmas specials!), and a round or two of the Figgy Pudding Pages. We're keeping it super-short this week and passing the savi...

Special guest Blasted Bill joins us for a Very Flopcast Christmas! And we're putting Bill to work on an extra festive Top 4 1/2 List of... Santas! Bill and Kornflake share their favorite Santas from movies, television, ski slopes, bar crawls, and maybe even Canada. (Let's hope at least one of them picked a Santa from a Rankin/Bass cartoon, or Kevin will freak out like the Burgermeister.) Also: Bil...

Every year dozens of ridiculous identical made-for-TV holiday movies are forced upon the people. And every year we try to fix these movies by making them weirder. We've selected a few of this year's new releases (from the usual suspects like Hallmark and Lifetime), most of which star Lacey Chabert as a big city lawyer who finds true love after returning to her quaint home town to save her great-au...

Break time is over, and the FlopFight resumes! Ed (from the Sponge Awareness Foundation) is back to help us wrap up our tournament of game show hosts (and associated game show weirdos). The players are drawn at random, and the competitions are drawn at random, so anything could happen. Will Bob Barker face Richard Dawson in a Spam-juggling competition? Drew Carey vs. Paul Lynde at Electronic Battl...