The Flopcast

This week Kevin and Kornflake are joined by special guest Ed, from The Sponge Awareness Foundation! But Ed is not just the other half of Kevin's old comedy band. Ed is also a train expert, and today we're talking trains. HEY, WAIT, COME BACK. This is The Flopcast, so specifically we're talking about trains from old movies, TV shows, and cartoons! Anyone else remember the short-lived 1979 show Supertrain? (It was Love Boat on a train, essentially. We miss it terribly.) Can you name the movies that had Jack Lemmon and Jon Cryer racing through Boston's South Station, just like Kevin and Ed did when being chased by screaming Sponge Awareness fans? Want even more details about that train scene in our favorite obscure summer camp show, High Feather? Ed has tracked down some fascinating facts about all this and much more. It's scary and fun. (Mostly scary. Happy Halloween.) Also: A Super Megafest preview and World Numbat Day, both of which we somehow make all about trains. Why, we might even keep the train talk going next week. You've been warned.

Direct download: Flopcast_390.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:49pm EDT

It's another Flopcast Halloween show, and we're counting down our favorite ghosts in a terrifying Top 4 1/2 List! We have ghosts from cartoons (where Shaggy screamed "ghost" with like eleven syllables), comics books (learn which ghost Kornflake wants to cosplay), sitcoms (we just saw the most beautiful ghost in the world), music, video games, and of course... breakfast cereal. (Not every cereal mascot sounds like Peter Lorre... but they should.) Also: Our 10-part 80s music series concludes with the Top Ten songs this week in 1989, including Kornflake's beloved New Kids, a dance music act Kornflake can't believe Kevin saw live, a seed of love, and some naughty elevator music. Plus: Happy Birthday to Weird Al! And what is Al's mysterious connection to a shady outfit known as the Classy Chickens? Listen and find out... if you dare.

Direct download: Flopcast_389.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:00am EDT

It's sort of a Halloween-themed show, but not really! Including: A concert report on super-cool garage pop band Bleached! (Their album Don't You Think You've Had Enough? might be our favorite record of the year...) Another concert report on a Beatles tribute supergroup, with Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross, Badfinger's Joey Molland, Chicago's Jason Scheff, and Micky Dolenz! (Micky sang "Rocky Raccoon," and no one else is allowed to sing "Rocky Raccoon" anymore.) Kornflake hits the road again, does not find the Swan Boats, but does find coffee approved by the Godfather of Punk! We wish a Happy Birthday to one third of Wilson Phillips! A Halloween edition of the Pudding Pages leads to a discussion of something truly terrifying, the McRib! But nothing is more terrifying than the Top Ten songs this week in 1988! Seriously, it was 31 years ago, and we still wake up screaming...

Direct download: Flopcast_388.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:27am EDT

It's time to flip through another issue of the magazine we all bought through our school book club long ago, Dynamite! And this 1981 issue is an amazing one, because the cover features a hero of ours, and someone you've heard on The Flopcast: James "The Amazing" Randi! Did Randi teach any Dynamite kids to avoid being scammed by faith healers and psychics? Let's hope so. Let's also hope the kids kept reading, because this magazine also includes cat cartoons (Heathcliff, Garfield, and those odd B. Kliban cats), the Facts of Life girls, a Disney World tenth anniversary contest, Count Morbida's puzzle pages, how to buy a Speak & Spell, how to write to Donny Osmond, a couple of weird posters, and of course, Dynamite Bummers. This is a fantastic magazine; we recommend that you travel four decades back in time and renew your subscription. Also: The Top Ten songs this week in 1987 (look out, here comes the hair metal), and Happy Birthday to one of our three favorite Van Halen frontmen.

Direct download: Flopcast_387.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:10am EDT

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