The Flopcast

We're just days away from that massive annual gathering of the geeks, DragonCon! Why not spend Labor Day weekend in Atlanta with 80,000 of your closest and weirdest friends? In this, our DragonCon preview show, we run through the convention's various programming tracks, and yikes, there are a bunch: Animation, Comics, Costuming, Horror, Puppetry, Science, Skeptics, Video Gaming, and dozens more. You Will Not Be Bored. Hundreds of guests will be there too, including stars from The Karate Kid, Shazam, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Doctor Who, Gotham, iZombie, Star Wars, Star Trek, and everything else. (But who cares -- they had us at Karate Kid.) Meanwhile Kevin and the Mayor will be participating in various panels and presentations, and we share our (tentative) schedules here. (If you think we're not going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Weird Al's movie UHF, you don't know DragonCon's American Sci-Fi Classics track. There will be spatulas.) Lots more ESO Network personnel will be on hand as well; find us at the Thursday night ESO Network Meet and Greet! Get a weird Flopcast badge ribbon! (Your friends will FREAK OUT.) Also this week: We're celebrating the 50th birthday of Kornflake's second favorite star of Friends, and we're counting down the Top Ten songs from this week in 1980. How timely of us. See you in Atlanta.

Direct download: Flopcast_380.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:55am EDT

All dumb things must come to an end, and you don't get much dumber than watching all the sequels to the summer camp comedy classic, Meatballs! But our goofy summer project ends now, as we chomp on pizza pie and somehow get through 1992's Meatballs 4: To the Rescue! Still no Bill Murray, of course, but a new hero emerges (on water skis) to put a bullet in the Meatballs franchise: Corey Feldman. Yes, he's a Goonie, he's a Frog brother, and now he's at Camp Lakeside teaching us to play Strip Charades. But just in time to ruin everything, here comes our villain, and yikes, she's a Superman II Phantom Zone villain! The evil owner of the rival camp is Ursa herself, Sarah Douglas! Great to see Corey and Sarah, but how's the movie? Join us as we sort it all out, and rank all four Meatballs films. Meanwhile you'll hear thunder crashing in the background, because Mother Nature is displeased by our movie night selection, and you know, she has a point. Also: Happy Birthday to noted late night talk show host Magic Johnson. We remember.

Direct download: Flopcast_379.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:00am EDT

For no good reason, every summer we present a Top 4 1/2 List of robots! So it's time for our eighth annual robot list, and the theme this year is... tiny robots. We have tiny robots from movies, television, music, toys, comic books, and even the real world, where someday soon you could be injected with millions of nanobots and forced to do their bidding. And that day... will be a great day. We're also celebrating actor Sam Elliott's birthday, because we strongly suspect that his mustache is actually a tiny robot. And along the way we somehow get distracted by a Grizzly Adams poster, which is the exact opposite of a tiny robot, but you know, these things happen.

Direct download: Flopcast_378.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:11pm EDT

It's summer concert report time, because our white and nerdy hero "Weird Al" Yankovic just came through New England with his "Strings Attached" tour, featuring an entire symphony orchestra! Kornflake and Doornail scored VIP tickets to the New Hampshire show, where they ventured backstage and met Weird Al himself (plus a bunch of Stormtroopers). Weird Al's Boston show was next, at an outdoor venue on a nasty hot day, but we all dared to be stupid and showed up anyway. (Hey, it was the 30th anniversary of Al's movie UHF; our plan was to beat the heat by drinking from the fire hose.) Anyway, if you've always felt that Weird Al shows suffered from a lack of oboe players... do not miss this tour. Also: We're freaked out by giant crazy sea birds, and we're celebrating Hilary Swank's birthday, because she will always be our next karate kid.

Direct download: Flopcast_377.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:12pm EDT

The longest summer in history continues, thanks to our ill-conceived project of watching all the horrifying sequels to that classic summer camp comedy, Meatballs. Tonight we're suffering through Meatballs III: Summer Job, which is even worse than Meatballs II, and is not even set at a summer camp. But it does offer an early starring role for Patrick Dempsey, replacing Chris Makepeace from the original movie as Rudy (and rendering the character creepy and unlikable). Meanwhile Sally Kellerman is way too good for this movie, but there she is, in a role so bizarre we'd rather not even discuss it. (But we do.) A few other Meatballs III actors are recognizable as well, from The Muppet Movie, WarGames, the 90s X-Men cartoon, and being married to Gene Simmons. And one quick scene brings to mind a certain Martian we're sort of obsessed with around here. Throw in the River Rats (a gang of creeps on jet skis), an angry bull attacking everyone, and a soundtrack featuring Loverboy, and it's hard to imagine how it all went wrong. But yikes, it sure did. Join us and we'll get through it together. And if you feel like you need something to ease the pain, we're celebrating National Refreshments Day too! We recommend iced coffee. Always.

Direct download: Flopcast_376.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:14am EDT

Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown have just returned from CONvergence, a wonderful science fiction/fantasy convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So we're reviewing our whole crazy Fourth of July weekend in the upper midwest, including: Kevin's panels on Aquaman, Riverdale, and DC comic books, TV shows, and movies; the Mayor's panels on She-Ra, Doctor Who, The Magicians, and choosing your own adventure; CONvergence guest of honor, writer, and internet sensation Chuck Tingle; concerts from The Doubleclicks, Beth Kinderman and the Player Characters, Karl Brown, The Dregs, and The Gernsback Continuum; comedy and role-playing games with Joseph Scrimshaw; the amazing Nerdlesque dancers; The University of Minnesota Raptor Center's giant birds; lots of amazing cosplay (including Admiral Pepper's Lonely Death Star Band, a chicken group, and our own Mayor's Eleven/Eleven costume); field trips away from the convention for cider, Chinese food, the Mary Tyler Moore statue, and of course, the giant blue chicken; and yeah, even more. 'Twas a festive convention in a terrific new location, and we threw our new Flopcast badge ribbons at everyone we met. Also: We're celebrating the birthday of America's gremlin-loving sweetheart, Phoebe Cates. Slip into a red bikini, or not, and join us.

Direct download: Flopcast_375.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:02pm EDT

We're still recovering from last week's movie night (Summer camp aliens! Run for your lives!), so it's a simple show this week, catching up on our recent silly activities. Including: Kornflake on the road in search of adventure and/or relaxation; the music of Carbon Leaf; a live album release show by The Great Molasses Flood; another Moth storytelling show with Matthew Dicks; the Mayor onstage at Old School Game Show; Kevin running around an island for no good reason; and random encounters in Boston with AT-ATs, the Pride parade, and exploding rabbits. Also: It's National Dive Bar Day. So go somewhere that's sketchy, shady, and creepy (you really want all three), and belly up.

Direct download: Flopcast_374.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:00am EDT

Last summer, we devoted a Flopcast episode to Meatballs, the Bill Murray summer camp classic. This summer, we're going to suffer through the horrifying Meatballs sequels. (It's a court-ordered punishment, presumably. Don't jaywalk in Chickentown, kids.) So for this episode, with Kornflake kicking and screaming in protest, we get started by watching and discussing Meatballs Part II. The year was 1984. Bill Murray was off busting ghosts, and wisely avoided this turkey, but the cast is still bursting with familiar faces. In addition to Soap's Richard Mulligan and Night Court's John Larroquette, we have the girl from Escape to Witch Mountain, the older brother from The Wonder Years, the robot from Buck Rogers, and Pee Wee Herman! With that lineup, you ask, how could they go wrong? Oh, they found a way. And yes, it involved a creepy E.T.-style alien who goes to summer camp. Yikes. So hang on, grab some pizza pie, and we'll get through this together. Meanwhile, we're already not looking forward to Meatballs III...

Direct download: Flopcast_373.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:41am EDT

Kevin and the Mayor of Chickentown are preparing for a silly, geeky Fourth of July weekend at CONvergence! It's one of our favorite conventions, it's in Minneapolis, and there is a giant blue chicken sculpture nearby. Perfect. Guests at this year's CONvergence include writers Peter David and Chuck Tingle, comedian Joseph Scrimshaw, and nerd music duo The Doubleclicks! We're also looking forward to a special CD release performance by our friends Beth Kinderman and the Player Characters! And we run through our CONvergence panel schedule: You'll find the Mayor on panels about Doctor Who, She-Ra, The Magicians, and choose-your-own-adventure books! Meanwhile Kevin's panels will cover Aquaman, Riverdale, and a variety of DC stuff (comic books, movies, and TV). Plus: We reveal our new Flopcast badge ribbons! You know the drill: Find us at CONvergence and get a ribbon. (Warning: They just might be slightly Brady-themed...) Also: We recall chasing ice cream trucks for weird frozen items, because Kornflake is celebrating National Bomb Pop Day again...

Direct download: Flopcast_372.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:05am EDT

Here at last is our God's Comics concert review! Every ten years, Kevin gets together with friends Sean and Adam to form God's Comics, a cover band that only plays Elvis Costello, Men at Work, and The Monkees. In the wake of our legendary 1999 and 2009 shows, our adoring fans demanded a third show, which happened just last month at The Hearing Room in Lowell, Massachusetts. 'Twas a festive evening of old friends, classic pop songs, and one rubber chicken. (Oh, and Kornflake almost stole a couch.) We also have a special conversation recorded right after the God's Comics show, with one of those old friends, Sarah! This talk (during which much Earth fruit is consumed, Robolar-style) covers a bunch of silly topics... but we keep circling back to Silver Spoons. (You know how we feel about goofy 80s sitcoms, and you should have seen this coming.)

Direct download: Flopcast_371.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:23pm EDT