Subliminal Messaging as seen by Reuben Flagg in American Flagg issue 1. (c) Howard Chaykin We take a look at the use of subliminal message in two classic 1980s pieces of science fiction - Howard Chaykin's American Flagg comic from 1983 and the original British pilot for Max Headroom from 1985. We discuss the history of each project, how subliminals were used in the plot and just ahead of their time both projects were and would fit right in today's culture in 2023....
Mar 27, 2023•23 sec•Season 1Ep. 12
Just another day in the Euclid Galaxy. No Man’s Sky screenshot. We’re happy to welcome video game streamer Jason Plays (@jasonplaysnms) to discuss, among many topics, our mutual love of No Man’s Sky. We talk about its notorious debut in 2016, rebound in 2018 and how it continues to grow in 2023. We also look about the free update strategy employed by Sean Murray and Hello Games, is there a method to their updates and things like Expedition events and what the future holds for the game and studio...
Mar 11, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 118
Kang meets Merlin in Strange Tales 134, July 1965, by Stan Lee and Bob Powell. (c) 2023 Marvel Comics. “The best laid schemes of mice and men…” To tie-in to both Valentine’s Day and the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania movie, the plan for the podcast was take a look at the wedding of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne from Avengers 60. But that story, and the previous issue, the first appearance of Yellowjacket, present a lot of stuff that is very totally out-of-place for 2023 sensibilities. ...
Feb 12, 2023•23 min•Season 1Ep. 11
The March 1986 issue of Amazing Heroes, guest edited by Mark Waid. After many years, I’m happy to say we have got Mark Waid (@markwaid) as a guest. And what better subject to discuss, fresh off his new book Dark Crisis - Big Bang, than the concept of continuity and the multiverse. Why has the idea of multiple worlds become so popular in the last decade or so, when it was something often thought as troublesome years earlier? We discuss how omnipresent it is now, in comics, movies and more. We als...
Feb 01, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 117
The Natural Blonds, Ken Timbs and Pat Rose, with Chris Love (Bert Prentice) from WOW TV. in 1987. It’s been a while, but this is episode number four of the It’s a Family Affair episode of the podcast. We’re very happy to welcome to the show for the first time, and hopefully not the last, veteran wrestler Pat Rose. We go over a good chunk of Pat’s career, starting with Nick Gulas in Chattanooga in 1979, working most of the territories in the 1980s and then retiring in the mid 1990s. Of particular...
Jan 08, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 116
Gene Autry and “Santa” (Hank Patterson” deliver Xmas presents in The Cowboys and the Indians. What better way to celebrate the holiday season than looking at two very loosely Christmas-themed singing cowboy pictures? First, it’s Roy Rogers and “Trail of Robin Hood.” There are no merry men or archery contests, but we do have a turkey shoot in a story about a businessman, his daughter and their nefarious foreman trying to corner the marker on Christmas trees. Leave it to Roy, Trigger and Bullet to...
Dec 25, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 10
An original 1985 Starrcade VHS tape clam shell. Bought from the pages of PWI. I’m always happy to welcome back Beau James (@kingofkingsport) back to the show. Just in time for Thanksgiving, we’re going to talk about the Grandaddy of them all, Starrcade. Well, the shows that were held on Thanksgiving by Jim Crockett Promotions, from 1983-1987. We’re going to go over the cards on all five shows, spotlighting some underrated matches, as well as the ones everyone remembers: Flare for the Gold, The I...
Nov 22, 2022•1 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 115
Batman and the Gray Ghost from BTAS episode “Beware the Gray Ghost.” The Plot returns with a tribute to Kevin Conroy, who sadly passed away on November 10, 2022 at the age of 66. In our corner of the popular culture universe, he’s best known for being the voice of Batman (and Bruce Wayne) in the DC Animated Universe starting with Batman the Animated Series in 1992 and continued until 2019, encompassing animation, video games and even live action. So, here’s a short look at some of our favorite B...
Nov 17, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 9
The Original Ghostbusters. No, really. Bob Burns, Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker. To wrap up Hallowe’en Month at When It Was Cool, let’s look at some spooky 1970s Saturday morning TV shows. First, the original Ghostbusters from 1975. Spencer (Larry Storch), Tracy the Gorilla (Bob Burns) and Kong (Forrest Tucket) are bumbling detectives fighting vampires, monsters, ghosts and the like. There’s a little bit of Borscht Belt comedy, some vaudeville humor and a lot of silly gags. Some famous charact...
Oct 29, 2022•21 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Al’s new book. Go buy it. We’re happy to welcome Al Getz (@AlGetzwrestling) back to the show to discuss a variety of topics, but most importantly his new book, Charting the Territories: The 1971-1973 LeRoy McGuirk Oklahoma/Louisiana Wrestling Almanac. We talk about the process of putting the book together from all of Al Getz’s into the 20+ year history of the territory and the use of his wrestling statistics to look at where people worked on a card and how prominent their feuds were during a par...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 114
The Ultraviolet team in their prison vault. Don’t call it a cemetery. The Plot Podcast in Hallowe’en Month at the When It Was Cool Network goes from tongue in cheek to deadly earnest. We’re joined by Odessa Steps Magazine contributor Justin Jones (@xPrimusPilusx) to discuss one of his all-time favorite TV shows, 1998’s Ultraviolet. The British show, written and directed by Joe Ahearne, stars Jack Davenport, Susannah Harker, Philip Quast and a young Idris Elba as a team trying to fight the good f...
Oct 15, 2022•2 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Morpheus meets Hector Hall. (c) 2022 DC Comics. Much like the comic itself, our podcast on the first season of the Sandman TV show is finally here. To do so, we’re happy to welcome back AP reporter Ashraf Khalil (@ashrafkhalil) to talk about it. It’s only fitting since Ash read many of those issues by borrowing them off me or reading them in our dorm in college, when the series was being originally published back in the 1990s. We’ll talk about reading the series in real time, the pain of publish...
Oct 06, 2022•2 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 113
Martin Landau as Count Zark in The Man From UNCLE’s “The Bat Cave Affair.” As part of When It Was Cool’s Hallowe’en Month, the pod looks at some of its favorite 1960s spy TV shows and what happens when they run into some creatures. Or do they? First, we have the Man from UNCLE and the second season episode “The Bat Cave Affair.” What is THRUSH’s “Operation Night Flight” and why does the agent behind it, Count Zark (Martin Landau using his Bela Lugosi impression 30 years before Ed Wood), seem to ...
Oct 02, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Don Fargo, Rip Tyler and Mike Diamond in “Rip’s Corner” from WOW TV. We have our first back to back guest, even though it’s been two months and there were also three episodes of the Plot Podcast since then, but we’ve happy to welcome back Kris P Lettuce (@krisplettuce) from the Armstrong Alley You Tube channel to talk more rediscovered old school wrestling. We start by talking about his upcoming order from his tape source “the Greek” and just what will be on that 100 DVD order, including Windy C...
Sep 30, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 112
A looby card for Shoot the Piano Player. With the recent passing of Jean-Luc Godard, we look at three French New Wave heist films: Shoot the Piano Player, Band of Outsiders and Le Doulos. We start with a very cursory explanation of the French New Wave, Cahiers du Cinema and the influence of Post WWII gangster films, what we would later call film noir: private eyes, trench coats and fedoras, femmes fatale, chiascuro lighting and so on. (Apologies to all my former film professor for some very brie...
Sep 18, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 5
The Inspector and The Matzoriley Brothers, from The Great De Gualle Stone Operation. (C) 2022 MGM. In this episode, we look at what happens when a studio makes a sequel without its creator and without its star and its more successful cartoon analog. In 1968, Mirisch Films decided to make a third Pink Panther without Blake Edwards, Peter Sellers and Henry Mancini. And we got Inspector Clouseau, directod by veteran comedy producer/director Bud Yorkin and starring Alan Arkin, in between making The ...
Aug 21, 2022•17 min•Ep. 4
Introducing the team in Secret Six issue 2. (2) 2022 DC Comics. We’re back with a new episode of The Plot and it’s back to the spies, this time in comic book form with two topics for discussion First up is Secret Six, the seven-issue DC Comics from 1968 and 1969. We look at the creation of the book, its fairly obvious inspiration (see Episode 1), the members of the team, their mysterious leader and an issue-by-story description of their missions. We talk about the book’s premature end, the unsol...
Jul 27, 2022•18 min•Season 1Ep. 3
The American Ninja from Texas Championship Wrestling. We’re happy to welcome for the first time to the show, Kris P Lettuce (@krisplettuce), the man behind the Armstrong Alley You Tube channel. We discussed the treasure trove of found footage he has been posting on his channel featuring independent wrestling from the 1980s., 1990s and 2000s. First up, we talked about his channel and the origins of all this footage, including a subject we’ve been talking a lot lately on the show, tape trading. Ju...
Jul 24, 2022•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 111
The Great American Bash issue from Pro Wrestling Illustrated. We’re happy to welcome back Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) for another marathon pod. The main focus of the episode is the first Great American Bash in July 1985. We go over the show match-by-match, what was going on for each person at the time going into the show and where things were going after the show on the road to Starrcade 1985. We also talk about the other JCP show that night in Columbus, Georgia. There’s also discussion of bot...
Jul 12, 2022•4 hr•Season 1Ep. 110
He loves only gold. Henry Holland (Alec Guinness) in The Lavender Hill Mob. The Plot returns with a look at one of the greatest heist comedies in film history, 1951’s The Lavender Hill Mob., starting Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. We discuss the film’s plot, how a mild-mannered bank clerk masterminds a robbery of an armored car full of gold. We also give some background on the film, Ealing Studios, some of the creators behind the scenes and its filming. We also give a quick shout to the new...
Jun 24, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 2
What happens when a safecracker breaks his hands? Willy (Peter Lupus) and Terry (Wally Cox) from the Mission: Impossible pilot episode. We’re happy to debut a new podcast series in conjuction with the When It Was Cool network with the first episode of The Plot. What’s that, you ask? It’s going to be an examination of the spy/heist genre. It will look at film, television, comics, cartoons and whatever else that can fall under that umbrella. First up, we go to the very top of the genre for me, the...
Jun 06, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 1
The Injustice Society, from History of the DC Universe. Pencils by George Perez, inks by Karl Kesel. (c) 2021 DC Comics. We’re happy to welcome Karl Kesel (@karlkesel) back for his annual visit to discuss the latest Impossible Jones kickstarter. At the time of recording, there were two days left in the Impossible Jones / Polecat Kickstarter, which has been trying to reach its latest stretch goals in the final days. Karl tells about new character Polecat, what he has in common with last issue’s g...
May 31, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 109
Before he was Handsome Jimmy or the Boogie Woogie Man, he was Big John Vallen. We have a very special show and a very special guest today. It’s our first on-location recording and it’s a big one. While going through Southwestern Virginia, I was able to stop and have a conversation with the legendary Hall of Famer, the Boogie Woogie Man, Handsome Jimmy Valiant.. We sat down ringside at Boogie’s Wrestling Camp to have a chat about a lifetime in the wrestling business. We couldn’t get to everything...
May 06, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Good Night, Funny Man. RIP Gilbert Gottfried. It was a bittersweet podcast to do, reliving the life and career of the great Gilbert Gottfried with Longbox Heroes’ co-host Joe Sposto (@joesposto). Most of our memories revolve around Gilbert’s 122 appearances on the Howard Stern show. We discuss our history of hearing Gilbert on the show and many of his famous incidents over the years: Dracula Gottfried, the Jerry Seinfeld voicemail, arguing with Amy Heckerling’s assistant and many more. We also g...
Apr 17, 2022•2 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 107
Moon Knight 24 cover by Bill Sinkiewicz. (c) 2022 Marvel. We’re happy tp welcome back Karl Stern (@WIWCool) from When It Was Cool to talk comics, comics TV, popular culture and classic wrestling. We start the show talking about the first episode of the new Moon Knight show on Disney+. If you want to avoid spoilers, skip ahead to around the 15:00 mark. We discuss what we did and did not like in the first episode, where they might go from there, changes to the characters from the comics, Karl’s lo...
Apr 01, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 106
A 1912 T202 Hassan Triple Folder tobacco card featuring Hughie Jennings and Ty Cobb. We’re happy to finally have filmmaker, journalist and author Greg Klein (@JYDbook) on the pod for a chat his new book, his old book and more.. To start, we discuss Greg’s new book, The Paper Tigers, a fictional account of a real-life incident in baseball history. After Ty Cobb was suspended in 1912 for going into the stands and attacking a fan, his teammates refused to play a game in Philadelphia, leaving manage...
Mar 09, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Sean Lock, Jimmy Carr and Jon Richardson play Carrot in a Box on 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. We’re very happy to welcome back writer, comedian and podcaster Kevin Day (@kevinhunterday) back to the show to talk comedy, football and more. The reason we wanted to have Kevin back on the show was to discuss the British panel show on TV, following the death last year of Sean Lock. Kevin worked with Sean on a number of shows and has written for dozens of shows including Have I Got News for You, 8 ...
Feb 01, 2022•1 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Ric Flair vs Ted DiBiase, 1985 Mid-South TV. Thanks to Dick Murdoch, one of the best angles in wrestling history. It’s also one of the 100 Greatest Bloody Matches in Way of the Blade by Phil Schneider We’re joined on the podcast by Phil Schneider (@philschneider) from DVDVR and Segunda Caida to discuss his new book, Way of the Blade: 100 of the greatest bloody matches in wrestling history. We talk about how he came to write the book and some of the nuts and bolts behind it: how did he pick the m...
Dec 30, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Chillin’ with Andre in the Roost. I don’t think he has an iced latte. We’re happy to welcome back Andre Segers (@andresegers) from GameXplain, depsite Nintendo doing one of their famous stealth drops a few hours before our scheduled recording time. We talk about that announcement, an update for Mario Karl Live, as well as some of the other games Andre has been playing recently. He’s been playing Mario Party Superstars just about every day with fans on the GX Youtube channel, so we chat about how...
Nov 18, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 102
Impossible Jones and Holly Daze. (c) Karl Kesel and David Hahn. I’m happy to welcome @karlkesel back to the show to talk about his newest Kickstarter project, Impossible Jones & Captain Lightning Team Up. With less than a week to go, Karl talks to us about the new project, the recently shipped Impossible Jones & Holly Daze Team Up, the creations of those characters and how they were influenced by his writing Harley Quinn, the creation of Captain Lightning, bringing childhood creators to ...
Oct 16, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 101
