The Psycho Pirate tried to undo Crisis. From Animal Man 23. (C) 2025 DC Comics. Just in time for the pod’s 10th birthday, a bucket list guest for the show. We welcome, after two years of trying to line up schedules, Grant Morrison. When we started discussing doing the pod with Grant, it was Animal Man’s 35th anniversary. It’s now the 37th anniversary, but all that matters is finally having the chat. We talk about the book’s creation back in 1988 during the first wave of the British Comics Invasi...
May 25, 2025•1 min•Season 1Ep. 140
Even Kryptonite got an entry in Who’s Who. © 2025 DC Comics. It’s back to the future as we welcome back to the podcast our very first guest, Al Kennedy from House to Astonish. The original plan was to discuss one of Al’s Mastermind subjects, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (and DC’s Who’s Who), but we only got there after a meandering bit of chat about a variety of subjects, including wrestlers from the 2010s and their current identities (no kayfabe breaking here). But we do a deep ...
May 18, 2025•1 hr 53 min•Season 1Ep. 139
Whitey Caldwell and Kevin Sullivan as tag champs in the early 1970s. We’re happy to have Beau James (@kingofkingsport) back on the pod for a wide-ranging chat about his career and other classic wrestling topics. First up, we discuss Beau’s start in the business as a teenager, as it is currently Southern States Wrestling’s 44th anniversary month. We hear about going from behind the scenes gofer to referee to running his own promotion while still in high school. Did the kids in school know about B...
Feb 16, 2025•3 min•Season 1Ep. 138
Dusty Rhodes bemoans to Magnum TA and David Crockett how Baby Doll spent $4035 of his money in Hawaii. I’m happy to say that after almost ten years of doing the podcast, I can finally welcome Rob Naylor (@NINaylor) to the podcast to talk about Jim Crockett Promotions in the summer of 1985, when Rob and I both starting watching the company. We begin by talking about how we first found it, possibly on the same TV station in Philadelphia, even though we live 200 miles from each other in different s...
Jan 02, 2025•2 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 137
Do you remember this 1980s TV show, one of many Indiana Jones-inspired projects? We’re happy to welcome Jason Pays (@JasonPlaysNMS) back to the show for a chat about video games, adventure movies and more. The main reason Jason is here is to discuss the new game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Since it’s a massive game and Jason has other titles to play, neither of us has been able to even put a dent in the game yet. At the time of recording, Jason was still in the first setting and I just ...
Dec 21, 2024•2 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 136
Gorilla Monsoon squares off against Muhammad Ali in 1976, prior to the Ali vs Inoki fight. It’s our second WON HOF show of the week. We’re happy to have back on the show author and podcaster Brian R Solomon (@brianrsolomon) for another round of discussions about this year’s ballot. We cover a lot of the same topics as we did with Greg on the last show, including measuring tag teams in dog years, not voting for active competitors, judging someone’s entire career regardless of the category in whic...
Oct 27, 2024•1 hr 34 min•Season 1Ep. 135
Michael Hayes blinds the Junkyard Dog with the Freebird Hair Cream in 1981. It’s WON Hall of Fame season and this is the first of our shows examining this year’s candidates. We’re happy to welcome back Greg Klein (@jydbook) to discuss his advocacy of two people in particular, the Junkyard Dog and Houston promoter Morris Sigel. We go over both candidates in detail, including JYD’s drawing power in Mid-South and New Orleans in particular, his time as a main eventer versus his later career, the cul...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 55 min•Season 1Ep. 134
Kevin Sullivan, King Curtis Iaukea and Mark Lewin. Sullivan passed away on August 9 at age 74. Before we start, an apology for no podcasts during or after the Tragos/Thesz Hall of Fame a few weeks ago. During the travel to the event, we had some weather-related issues at home that necessitated putting any recording plans on hold. But we are now back, although we were it were under better circumstances. We’re very grateful to Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) to take some time to discuss the recent p...
Aug 12, 2024•2 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 133
Come on, join our convoy. Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) and Furiousa (AnnaTaylor-Joy) in Furiousa.(c) 2024 WB. It’s movie time again, as we are again joined by Justin Jones (@xPrimusPilusx) to discuss Furiousa, the latest film in George Miller’s Mad Max series and the prequel to Fury Road focusing on the origin of the character played by Charlize Theron. As you might imagine, it’s a spoiler-filled discussion of all aspects of the film,so if you’ve not seen it yet, you’ve been warned. We start with...
Jun 03, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 132
Greg Klein returns to discuss the UWF Title Tournament, held in May 1986 in Houston, Texas.
Jun 01, 2024•3 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Don Fargo and his new Fabulous Fargos (Ken Timbs and Pat Rose) with host Christopher Love (Bert Prentice) from a 1987 episode of World Organization Wrestling We’re happy to welcome back Al Getz (@AlGetzWrestling) to discuss the latest edition of his Charting the Territories books, this one covering 1971-1973 Gulf Coast Wrestling. We talk about the main players in the territory at this time, including Cowboy Bob Kelly, Bobby Shane, Don Fargo and Rip Tyler, as well as future stars like Kevin Sulli...
Apr 06, 2024•2 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 130
Young Tony Schiavone interviews Ole Anderson on WTBS in 1985. RIP Ole Anderson. We welcome back Beau James (@kingofkingsport) to the show for some wrestling history chat, including looking back at the lives of Ole Anderson and Mike Jones aka Virgil. We discuss Ole’s long career, as wrestling and booker in both Georgia and Charlotte. We talk about his tag teams with Gene Anderson, Stan Hansen, Ivan Koloff and Arn as a member of the Four Horsemen. We talk about his famous feud with Dusty Rhodes, t...
Mar 10, 2024•2 min•Season 1Ep. 129
L: Peter Wyngarde as Jason King. C: Jason Wyngarde and Jean Grey in Uncanny X-Men 132. R: Jason Wyngarde and Diana Rigg in The Avengers. Imitation and flattery, et cetera. It’s been a while, but we are happy as heck to welcome back writer, journalist and From the Sublime editor Iain Hepburn back to the show for a long chat about some classic British popular culture (and other stuff). We start with the recent passing of film and tv music composer Laurie Johnson at age 96. Although probably best k...
Feb 05, 2024•2 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 128
Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) in disguise. From Amadeus. Continuing our podcasts centering on biopics, we turn our attention to one of the best of the 1980s, Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman and adapted by Peter Schaffer from his play of the same name. It’s a look at the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), through the lens of his rival, Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). We discuss Schaffer’s play, which turned into the film, including all the well-known actors who starred in both the ...
Jan 16, 2024•36 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Von Erichs vs Freebirds six-man match from 1984 David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions. It’s a same day turnaround for this holiday treat, as Justin Jones (@xPrimusPilusx) returns to the podcast to discuss The Iron Claw, the new movie about the Von Erich family, which we saw earlier today. There are plenty of spoilers (for a docudrama), so if you haven’t seen it yet, save it for after you watch it. Short answer: it’s a good movie, in and of itself, but not great, and pretty good for a wres...
Dec 27, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Godzilla vs The Marvel Universe. From Godzilla 24 by Doug Moench, Herb Trimpe, et al. (c) 2023 Marvel Comics. After seven long years, we’re happy to welcome Zander Cannon (@zandercannon) to the pod to discuss the mad monster party, officially known as Godzilla Minus One. We basically go through the entire film plot point by plot point, so if you haven’t seen it yet, save the pod for after you’ve watched it. Short version: it’s as good or better than all the buzz you’ve heard about it. We talk ab...
Dec 17, 2023•2 min•Season 1Ep. 126
The famous 1974 photo of Exotic Adrian Streeet and his coal mining father. It’s always great to welcome back birthday twin Kevin Day (@kevinhunterday) to the show. First up, once I learned Kevin had been a fan of World of Sport wrestling growing up, I knew that would be the subject of his next appearance. Since he was casual fan watching, he brings a different perspective to the business than most of our usual guests, who are historians or competitors themselves. We talk about how it evolves ove...
Nov 11, 2023•2 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 125
The Sheik and Princess Salima, also known as Edward and Joyce Farhat. Who better to have on the show to discuss scary wrestlers for Halloween than the man who wrote a book about maybe the scariest of them all, The Sheik (Edward Farhat)? I’m happy to welcome for the first time on the show, author, historian and podcaster Brian R Solomon (@BrianRSolomon). Brian’s biography of the Sheik, Blood and Fire, tells the story of how the boy fascinated by Middle Eastern culture in things like Rudolph Valen...
Oct 29, 2023•2 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 124
Dust in the Wind. What happened to Michi’s (Kumiko Aso) friend? From Pulse (2001). It’s spooky season, so let’s have a review of famous 2001 J-horror film Pulse aka Kairo [Circuit], written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurasawa. It’s literally a “ghost in the machine” plot, as it appears a group of Japanese students have found out the dead are trying to come back to our world through … the internet? Luckily, it’s 2001, so it takes a while thanks to dial-up. While some of the deaths are horrific, none...
Oct 22, 2023•17 min•Season 1Ep. 19
It was a Starfield wedding and the old folks wished them well. I’m excited to welcome back Jason Plays (@jasonplaysNMS) to the show to discuss a variety of topics. First up, Starfield has been out for about a month now and we were both super looking forward to it. How has Jason found the game so far, his likes and dislikes, comparing it to both past Bethesda games and space operas like Mass Effect. I’ve been slow playing, where Jason is on his fourth playthrough, so while there are discussions o...
Sep 30, 2023•3 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 123
A murderers’ row of Whose Line panelists: Josie Lawrence, Paul Merton, Tony Slattery, Mike McShane. First off, get well soon to When It Was Cool head honcho Karl Stern, after his medical incident, as we know say these days. Onto the show, a love letter to one of my all-time favorite shows, the original, British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which just celebrated its 35th anniversary. We discuss the history of the show, first on BBC Radio 4 (of course) and then its debut on Channel 4. Who ...
Sep 24, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 18
The Cary Grant of Pigs, Arnold Ziffel. (c) 2023 MGM. We’re happy to welcome Daniel Budnik (@dannyslacks1) to the podcast to discuss an underrated comic great of the 1960s, Green Acres. Daniel wrote “From Beverly Hills to Hooterville,” an episode guide and analysis of the three shows created by Paul Henning in the 1960s: The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Aces. We talk about the show’s origin and how Jay Sommers based on the show on “Granby’s Green Acres,” a radio show with a s...
Aug 27, 2023•1 hr 47 min•Season 1Ep. 122
On the 78th anniversary of the Atomic Bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, we look at some of the popular culture around that event. We start by discussing the 1980 song “Enola Gay,” by the 1980s British band Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (OMD). We look at a brief history of the band, the success of the song both at the time and its historical legacy and a not-necessarily-obvious resonance it had in popular culture. After that, given the box office success of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” we...
Aug 06, 2023•25 sec•Season 1Ep. 17
An ad for the New York Cosmos that ran in DC Comics in 1977. We are happy to finally have Kieran Maguire (@kieranmaguire) from the Price of Football podcast on the show. Even though he only a few miles up the road in Philadelphia last week, this episode was a Trans-Atlantic recording, done both late night and early morning. While his teaching day job brought him to the States, he managed to get to see his Brighton and Hove Albion squad take on Chelsea in one of this year’s Premier League pre-sea...
Jul 30, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 121
The Force of July, from their Who’s Who entry. (C) 2023 DC Comics Every year on American Independence Day, I post a picture of The Force of July on social media, both as cheeky humor, but also to make a small comment about 1980s comics and authoritarianism. This year, instead of that, I decided to do an episode devoted to the short-lived DC Comics villains (Yes, if you couldn’t tell, they are the bad guys). We start by discussing their first appearance in Batman and the Outsiders Annual 1, by Mi...
Jul 04, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 16
The Plot looks back at the career of the late, great Alan Arkin, who recently passed away at the age of 89. We talk about his folk music career before getting into acting and then play some clips from a number of our favorite films in which he starred, from “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” to “Grosse Point Blank.” Did you know Arkin was on both Sesame Street and The Muppet Show in his career? Whether comedy or drama, one of the best actors of the last half-century. Rest in Peac...
Jul 02, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Stanley meets The (well, a) Sandman. From Stanley and His Monster 1. (c) 2023 DC Comics. Inspired by the Sandman re-read that Joe and Todd are doing at Longbox Heroesv (@longboxheroes), we look at a tangentially-related series, the 1993 series Stanley and His Monster, by Phil Foglio. We give a brief history of Stanley’s creation, in the mid 1960s in the funny animal comic Fox and the Crow, how Dennis the Menace/Ralphie Phillips mash-up Stanley Dover meets his pet monster and how he has to hide h...
Jun 19, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 14
If you come at him, you better not miss. Although we cover sports (and pseudo sports) here, we felt it was better to have our tribute to the late great Jim Brown, who passed away this week, was to analyze a small part of his popular culture career, by looking at some of his most-famous Blaxploitation films. Brown made two films as the Green Beret turned Mob enemy Slaughter, in Slaughter (1972) and Slaughter’s Big Rip Off (1973). In the first, he squares off against the psychotic Rip Torn and in ...
May 22, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 13
My second favorite wrestling angle of all time. Eddie Gilbert buries Bill Watts. Amazingly, it’s taken almost eight years of the podcast to discuss officially discuss the Russian Flag Burial angle. It’s my second favorite angle of all-time and I once named a blog after it. I had to get a fellow Mid-South/UWF fan on the show, so I’m happy to welcome back Greg Klein (@jydbook) to discuss it. There’s a preamble before we get to the angle, discussing Watts’ use of Russian heels in Mid-South (Volkoff...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 54 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones. From the Super Mario Brothers Movie. (c) 2023 Universal. With such a huge week for Nintendo, who else could we get to talk about it but Andre Segers (@andresegers) from GameXplain? Of course, we start with the juggernaut that is the Super Mario Brothers Movie. On the day of recording, it had just passed the $500 million plateau, and still hadn’t opened in Japan yet. In a spoiler-filled chat, we discuss the plot (does it matter it was straightforward?), the vo...
Apr 16, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 119
