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Thursday, November 30, 2017

Episode 3-7: The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder "Iggy Pop"

This week, we discuss an episode of NBC's The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder from its final year. Tom sits down with BOTNS returning star Ricky Schroder. Iggy Pop performs three songs, bleeds a little, and chats with Tom. Plus "economist" Jerome Smith warns of impending 1980s doom, and "poet" Dorothy Greene-Pepper talks about loooove while Tom just tries to talk. Sit back, fire up a podtini, and chortle along with a broadcast legend (Tom, not us).



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Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Extree, extree! BOTNS Comes to YouTube

A NEW WAY TO LISTEN, REVISIT, AND SHARE:

We've had a YouTube page since almost the beginning, featuring play lists related to each episode "curated" by our very on Rick. Now we've started adding full episodes of the podcast. So far, we have all of season one available, but seasons two and three will follow soon(ish). If you're new to the podcast, catch up*. If you're a regular listener, revisit some of your favorite episodes, and either way, share, share, share.

*All episodes remain available through Libsyn, our RSS feed, Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Below, one of our favorite episodes "Let it be Lowenbrau."


Friday, November 24, 2017

Show Notes: Season 3 Episode 6: Knight Rider

*This episode of Knight Rider, "Lost Knight," premiered Sunday, December 9, 1984, on the National Broadcasting Company television network.

*Glen Larson created many series in addition to this one, including Quincy, The Fall Guy, Buck Rogers, and many others, and he also had a hand in previous BOTNS-spotlighted Magnum P.I.

*The series'  theme song, which has the appropriate title "Knight Rider Theme," is credited to Larson and composer Stu Phillips, who also created the theme for Battlestar Galactica and produced Shelley Fabares' hit "Johnny Angel," a fact that fascinates me for some reason.

*The Garthe Knight (the actual son of wealthy industrialist Wilton Knight) episodes are "Goliath" (Season 2, Episode 1) and "Goliath Returns" (Season 2, Episode 17).

*The K.A.R.R. (Knight Automated Roving Robot)--the evil counterpart of K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand) episodes are "Trust Doesn't Rust" (Season 1, Episode 9) and "K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R." (Season 3, Episode 6).  By the way, shouldn't that first episode be called 'Trust DON'T Rust"? Much cooler title.

*Hasselhoff's big break was on The Young and the Restless, not General Hospital, though he did play a doctor--Dr. SNAPPER FOSTER!



*Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) was a smash hit for Billy Ocean, reaching #1 on the Billboard singles chart in 1984.

*Doug's mom in this episode is played by Lenore Kasdorf (who, we confirm, is not Dawn Wells).Image result for lenore kasdorf

Image result for dawn wells


*The Hassslehoff appearance on Diff'rent Strokes occurs in that show's sixth season's "Hooray for Hollywood Part 1," which also features the first appearance of Sam!

*Check our YouTube channel for this episode's playlist, which includes a sweet custom Knight Rider pinball machine in action.

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Episode 3-6: Knight Rider "Lost Knight"

Cool, cool, cool! Master of cool Michael Knight gets into a spot of trouble when his cool talking car K.I.T.T. gets car amnesia and wanders into the wilderness. Luckily for them, cool kid Doug (Jason Bateman) finds K.I.T.T. Oh, and some dudes are trying to blow up a dam or something.



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Friday, November 17, 2017

Show Notes: Season 3 Episode 5: Super Friends

*The All-New Superfriends Hour aired Saturdays  at 8:00 on ABC against varying competition, most notably the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour.  The next season, it morphed into Challenge of the Super Friends as the heroes waged battle against the Legion of Doom.

*This episode premiered Saturday morning, September 17, 1977.

*Aquaman seems like a questionable choice for a core Friend in retrospect, perhaps, but he was a proven presence in DC animation, having starred in his own Filmation cartoons in the Sixties.

*Wendy and Marvin were two dork--er, teenagerss who accompanied the Super Friends in the first season of the show. Of course they had a dog, too. Of course they did. The subsequent DC comic gave them a little bit of back story, but there wasn't much to them on the cartoon.

*That Super Friends comic book was an in-continuity adaptation of the show running from 1976-1981 and written by DC info guru E. Nelson Bridwell. It was geared to younger readers.

*The pat on the head we love so much:



*Jim Starlin is a longtime comics scribe known especially for his work on "cosmic" characters like Captain Marvel, Nova, and Thanos.

*Gleek apparently has no non-tail-based powers.  He seems a direct creative descendant of Blip, the pet space monkey on Space Ghost.

*Bat Belt Mouse Compartment:



*As best we can tell, Aquaman would not survive LONG in outer space, but he is strong and invulnerable enough to not explode as soon as he is in it. Presumably he needs oxygen, though. Then again, we DO see him flying through space in the opening credits...

*Apache Chief's powers are the ability to grow really, really tall and the ability to track really, really well.

*The BOTNS research time found no link between Alan Moore and this TV show. In fact, a section for editing Wikipedia has this comment:

Is there a source for the "developed by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons" reference in the sidebar? I couldn't find any reference on google that didn't link back here.
Moore would have been 23/24 when this came out, before he started working on Judge Dredd, before he'd done anything except some illustrations for NME. I suspect this is meant as a joke.

*For more info about the voice cast from this version of the series, we recommend heading to acclaimed author Marc Tyler Nobleman's Noblemania page for this great series of interviews.

*El Dorado, a Mexican hero, debuted with the Super Friends in 1981.  He has an array of super powers like strength.

*Finally, here is our web version of our popular DECODER segment.

1) Take the first word in the theme song for this show:



2) Then take the letter next to the muppet right above Zoot in this picture:


3) Then count the number of students in this pic:





4) Finally, what are the Super  Friends doing while Wonder Woman is talking?



Have you figured it out?

THANK + U + 4 + LISTENING.

Thank you for listening!


Thursday, November 16, 2017

Episode 3-5: The All-new Super Friends Hour

With the Justice League movie arriving in theaters, we sell out again, this time talking about the animated and friendly adventures of the Justice League from 1977 in The All-new Super Friends Hour. Yes, you get Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and even Aquaman, but you also get Robin, the Wonder Twins Zan and Jana and their space monkey Gleek, and Native American hero Apache Chief! Plus safety and health tips, craft segments, and the hard-to-beat Decoder. Also, the Secret Four, an escaped tiger, time travelers, and giant cobras! Holy buffets, Batman! What didn't they include?



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Friday, November 10, 2017

Show Notes Season 3 Episode 4 The Sandbaggers

*The Sandbaggers aired on ITV (United Kingdom) for 3 "series" of 7, 6, and 7 episodes each from 1978 to 1980.

*As we mention in the pod, Tubi TV (free, ad-supported) and BritBox (subscription) have all episodes available for streaming.

*"Decision by Committee" is episode 3 of series 2.

*Greg Rucka's Queen and Country comic book series, which inspired Mike to seek out Sandbaggers, ran 32 issues and was followed by several miniseries and novels.

*Click HERE for our look at the Amelia Earhart controversy as portrayed on the, er, original version of In Search Of.

*The Ops Room website devoted to The Sandbaggers is here.

*Vince Gilligan, showrunner of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, is NOT, as far as we know, Ian MacKintosh.

*The SIS (Secret Intelligence Service/MI6) was established in 1909. MI5 is the domestic intelligence unit of the U.K.

*The 60 Minutes Mike Wallace, as opposed to Sandbagger Mike Wallace, was just over 60 when this aired.

*Author Brendan Koerner (The Skies Belong to Us) identifies 1968-1972 as the "golden age" of skyjacking, with over 130 in that period alone. In 1973, new security regulations for passengers took effect and began to reduce the incidence as the decade continued.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Episode 3-4: The Sandbaggers "Decision by Committee"

This week, we look at The Sandbaggers, a classic British espionage series from the late seventies. Action takes a backseat to palace intrigue and political maneuvering as Director of Operations Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden) tries to rescue his primary operative from a hijacked plane. One of us compares this one to the prestige dramas of today, plus we offer "startling" evidence about the whereabouts of missing and presumed dead show creator Ian Mackintosh. NOTE: "Startling" means completely made up.



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Friday, November 3, 2017

Show Notes: Celebrity Bowling

*Celebrity Bowling was syndicated, but best we can tell, this episode (Leslie Nielsen and Susan Saint James versus Angie Dickinson and Lloyd Bridges) premiered April 30, 1975.

*The series is on Amazon Prime and YouTube but no longer on Hulu.

*McMillan and Wife was part of NBC's Mystery Movie wheel from 1971 to 1977 and starred Saint James, Rock Hudson, and Nancy Walker (plus John Shuck, who is also mentioned in this episode). Hudson was a San Fran police commissioner.

*Police Woman was an Angie Dickinson vehicle lasting 1974-1978 on NBC. Dickinson was undercover police sarge Pepper Anderson.

*Joe Forrester  was a spinoff of anthology Police Story (produced by David Gerber, who also did Police Woman). It only lasted one season (1975-1976) on NBC.

*Leslie Nielsen was in a "frequent guest star" phase, appearing in numerous one-shots and recurring roles all over the place at the time.

*Jed Allan played Don Craig on Days of Our Lives from 1971 to 1985 and had shorter stints on General Hospital and Lassie. He was Steve Sanders' demanding father Rush on Beverly Hills 90210.

*Cheryl Kominsky (now Robinson) is a Hall of Fame bowler who, as this profile puts it, "brought a charismatic charm and movie-star looks to a ladies’ tour dogged by the perceptions of female pro athletes that prevailed at the time. " I still think she could have explained the best ball format better, though.

*White Consolidated Industries started as The White Manufacturing Company, became The White Sewing Machine Company, and eventually purchased Westinghouse's appliance business. Electrolux bought the company in 1986, and the White-Westinghouse brand appears to be dormant.

*The social theory we refer to on the podcast is the "social capital theory" developed by Robert D. Putnam and explained in his 200 book Bowling Alone. According to Wikipedia, He has described the reduction in all the forms of in-person social intercourse upon which Americans used to found, educate, and enrich the fabric of their social lives. He argues that this undermines the active civil engagement, which a strong democracy requires from its citizens. Bowling is just one example of the forms of "social intercourse" that have declined. See also fraternal organizations, Girl and Boy Scouts, veterans groups, etc.

*Evander Holyfield was a former Cruiserweight and Heavyweight boxing champion, while Paul "Mr. Wonderful" Orndorff was a pro wrestler whose career peaked with a big feud against Hulk Hogan in the WWF.

*Dan August was a Quinn Martin series on NBC 1970-1971. Check out the awesome opening in our YouTube playlist for this episode.



Thursday, November 2, 2017

Episode 3-3: Celebrity Bowling

Celebrity Bowling: seventies celebrities strive to strike in a modified and slightly confusing version of the Sport of Kings! Leslie Nielsen and Susan Saint James face off against Angie Dickinson and Lloyd Bridges. What's not to love? You can almost smell cigarettes and fried food from here, and you never know who might stop by (hint--an Oscar winner!) We picked the wrong week to stop using our Amana Radar Range.



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