As a long, beautiful summer draws to a close, Kevin unleashes Eerie, Indiana on Chris, an ostensibly spooky kids show that aired on NBC in the early 1990s. Will child hero Marshall "Mars" Teller manage to survive the many twists, turns, and macabre happenings of the peculiar town of Eerie? Will he somehow manage to defeat a mid-level marketing scam, his romantic rival, and a conspiracy of cognitively colossal canines? Settle in and find out!
Sep 01, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 46
With a brand new movie release right around the corner, Kevin and Chris are joined by returning guest Natasha Vinik (@NatashaVinik) to discuss It, the 1990 TV miniseries adaptation of the Stephen King classic. Natasha had a particularly intense relationship with It in her youth, and she dishes all the deets for your listening pleasure.
Aug 19, 2019•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 45
Returning guest Evan Tognotti joins Chris and Kevin to relive One Small Hero, a rightfully forgotten 1999 children's film about perseverance, boring forests, and an extremely stress-free kidnapping. Once upon a time, a four-year-old Evan watched this movie about seven or eight times while trapped aboard a Carnival cruise ship, and now he's sharing the story of Sarah, Reese, Hutch, Baby, and Joey Cooper for our listening pleasure.
Aug 05, 2019•1 hr 26 min•Season 2Ep. 44
Kevin and Chris are joined by Brian Houghton to discuss Trancers, a 1984 time travel/sci-fi flick starring Tim Thomerson as Trooper Jack Deth. A cop who embarks from the year 2247 to 1985 Los Angeles, all to foil a somewhat convoluted attempt at future government overthrow, Deth is aided in his mission by none other than a young, fresh-faced Helen Hunt. Prepare to go up the line!
Jul 22, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 43
This time around, Kevin and Chris are joined by India Hamilton to revisit Warriors of Virtue, a central plank of her childhood entertainment experience. Prepare to be sucked down the sewer to the land of Tao, to be thrust into a brutal war between anthropomorphic Roos, thickly-built bald generals with goatees, and Angus Macfadyen.
Jul 08, 2019•1 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Following Kevin's completion of perhaps the most important video game of Chris' childhood, Earthbound for the Super Nintendo, the guys are joined by returning guest Seth Millstein and first-timer Sean Sterling to break down the all-time cult classic RPG. If you only know Ness from Super Smash Bros. it's time to get wise!
Jun 25, 2019•1 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 41
With moviegoers everywhere (or at least surely somewhere) buying their tickets for Godzilla: The King Of Monsters, Kevin looks back at Roland Emmerich’s oft-derided take on the great lizard. Complete with old-young Matthew Broderick, Kent Brockman, Roger Ebert, baby Godzillas that are definitely not raptors, and Jean Reno griping about croissant and “french roast.”
Jun 10, 2019•59 min•Season 2Ep. 40
The NBA Finals are nearly upon us, and for a lifelong Warriors fan like Chris, it's just another chapter in a seemingly impossible dream. Which is why he decided to celebrate by dipping two decades into the past, to a game between Golden State and the hated L.A. Lakers all the way back on April 20, 1999. And your favorite Warriors are all here! Erick Dampier! Chris Mills! Terry "Top Cat" Cummings! Bimbo Coles! Settle in for the jump ball.
May 27, 2019•57 min•Season 2Ep. 39
This time, Kevin brings forth Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, a cherished late 80s single-season sci-fi series with a fake Darth Vader, a million-dollars-per-episode price tag, and a particularly brazen kid’s toy tie-in gimmick. But you know what they say: Kid Kev gets what Kid Kev wants (“nobody puts Kid Kev in the corner” would’ve also been accepted).
May 13, 2019•52 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Chris finally plays his ace in the hole, and Kevin simply wasn't prepared for it: Death and the Compass, a 1990s film adaptation of a Jorge Luis Borges story of the same name. Kid Chris was blown away by this low-budget, highly dissonant, Peter Boyle-as-mystic-detective indie film some 20 years ago, but what to make of it now?
Apr 29, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 37
This week, Kevin pulls from the vault a truly bizarre relic of the 1980s: Small Wonder, wherein a cookie-cutter American sitcom family welcomes a robot daughter to the mix. Come for Vicki's incorrigable japes, stay for grandpa's anti-robot bigotry!
Apr 15, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Baseball season is finally upon us! And so, Chris decided to take Kevin ― and all San Francisco Giants fans ― back to a particularly harrowing time, a full eight years before the start of their golden, shimmering championship dynasty. Specifically, the 2002 World Series, perhaps the most ignominious moment in the franchise's history, and the formative experience of Chris' life as a sports fan.
Apr 01, 2019•1 hr 35 min•Season 2Ep. 35
As winter turns to spring, Kevin brings us a 1990 film set in rural Ireland that seeks to plunge viewers into a permanent emotional frost. Namely, The Field, starring Richard Harris, Sean Bean, John Hurt, and Tom Berenger. Spoiler alert: Richard Harris is really protective of his field, and young Kevin was not prepared for this desperate, squalid, and decidedly leprechaun-free tale. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Mar 18, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Unfortunately, Kevin is ailing, and as such the boys weren't able to whip up a brand new episode this week. But they'd never leave you high and dry without your content ― feast your ears on the decidedly lo-fi, previously unreleased Now We Know pilot episode! This was recorded in late 2017, the very first bit of Now We Know ever produced. And it concerns what was, at the time, the lowest-rated episode of The Simpsons on IMDB: Lisa Goes Gaga, from the show's 23rd season.
Mar 04, 2019•38 min•Season 2Ep. 33
The very same week Nickelodeon announced it's rebooting Are You Afraid Of The Dark? in October, Kevin and Chris watched a trio of episodes of the 1990s original, a children's creepshow classic of the first water. But how does it hold up all these years later?
Feb 18, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 32
In the crossover episode of a lifetime, Colleen from WikiWhy leads Kevin and Chris on a journey through The Borrowers, one of her childhood classics. And to be clear, this is the one with John Goodman, and the gross cheese spray, and baby Draco Malfoy, and that scene where Arietty scoops the ice cream with her hands.
Feb 04, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Don Bluth classic The Sceret Of NIMH has charmed, vexed, and harrowed children the world over for decades, including a pint-sized Kevin Werkheiser. Will Chris, who’s never properly seen it before, fall similarly under its thrall?
Jan 21, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 30
And thus begins season two! Kevin and Chris celebrate the occasion in grand fashion by revisiting the 1983 cartoon classic Inspector Gadget, in which the beloved mechanical G-man is long on bad jokes and light on basic investigatory competence.
Jan 07, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Rounding out a rousing first season, and amid the Christmas release of Bumblebee to boot, Kevin and Chris finish out the 2018 year with a look back at the 1986 animated Transformers movie. And it's not light on star power, including Judd Nelson, Casey Kasem, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Idle, and mere days from death, the final performance of Orson Welles.
Dec 24, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Special guest Sean Hurlburt brings one of his childhood favorites: Ernest Saves Christmas! Santa needs a replacement, a streetwise teenage runaway needs to learn to believe again, and only the inimitable Ernest can make it all happen. Will he do it, or is the title incredibly misleading? Find out!
Dec 10, 2018•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Christmas is right around the corner, at least in relative terms, and thus Kevin treated Chris to one of his holiday favorites, a classic of the 1970's Rankin/Bass oeuvre. Namely: 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, which tells the tale of a skeptical (read: atheist) little mouse who ruins everyone's Christmas with his egghead opinions.
Nov 26, 2018•53 min•Season 1Ep. 26
In a delightful palate cleanser, Kevin and Chris look back at a handful of TV commercials from the latter's childhood that successfully burned themselves into his brain. it's a nostalgic celebration of that inimitable, "I'm never gonna die" stage of not-quite-late capitalism ― the 80's and 90's.
Nov 12, 2018•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 25
This time, Kevin and Chris are joined by special guest Miranda Everitt to discuss 1989's Little Monsters, a hybrid children's/freak-out/gross-out/coming of age comedy starring Ben Savage, Howie Mandel, and some pretty peculiar and suggestively dark themes. But fear not, your trusty friends are here to lead you through the night.
Oct 29, 2018•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 24
In a Now We Know first, the boys discuss a book! And, in keeping with the October Halloween extravaganza, it's a genuine fright: William Hope Hodgson's 1908 supernatural horror forerunner The House on the Borderland, which was hugely influential on H.P. Lovecraft and Chris Tognotti alike. Steel your nerves, for ahead be pig-men!
Oct 15, 2018•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 23
In a surprise bonus episode, Now We Know continues its fright-filled month of October by looking back at Garfield's Halloween Adventure, a 1985 animated special that clearly left some marks on young Kevin's psyche.
Oct 10, 2018•48 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Kicking off an October month of spooktacular episodes to sate your Halloween hungers, Kevin and Chris are joined by Jessica to discuss a movie that haunted her young life ― Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings.
Oct 01, 2018•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 21
For the groundbreaking 20th episode of Now We Know, you'll step into a time warp, hurtling you 20 years into the past to revisit the very first time Chris watched a political debate. And, as it turns out, the in question debate have been a historic one ― you'll never find a political candidate more devastatingly on-message than New York Senator Al D'Amato.
Sep 16, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Don’t look now, but Paul Reubens is a spaceship and he done stole a kid! That’s a brief, wholly unfair description of Disney’s 1986 classic film Flight of the Navigator, which Kevin and Chris were all too eager to relive.
Sep 03, 2018•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 19
This time Kevin and Chris are joined by a very special guest ― Bay Area stand-up comedian Natasha Vinik ― to gaze back at a childhood favorite that'd been kicking around in her head for decades. Namely, 1989's Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland , a lavishly animated film based on the groundbreaking early 20th century comic strip of the same name.
Aug 20, 2018•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 18
This week, your humble hosts look back at a tragically unheralded pair of comedy pioneers, Jim Coyle and Mal Sharpe, better known as Coyle and Sharpe. The hilarious duo tormented and tantalized many random San Franciscans in the early 1960s with their absurdist brand of street interviews, and spoiler alert, they are timelessly great.
Aug 06, 2018•58 min•Season 1Ep. 17
