Mike Returns Again to Cheers Cast!

Mike returns to Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, for a chat about the twenty-first episode of Cheers‘ sixth season, “Our Hourly Bread.”

When Cliff announces his raise at the post office, Sam and Woody try to confront Rebecca for wage increases of their own, only to get stuck with empty titles for the same pay. But hearing that Cheers’ revenue is down, the gang decides to hold a raffle to raise funds for the bar, with a Caribbean cruise as the prize. But when Woody announces the winner as entrant #66 (or is it #99?), they’re suddenly facing a bar full of angry patrons.

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Mike Returns to Cheers Cast!

Mike returns to Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, for a chat about the eleventh episode of Cheers‘ fifth season, The Book of Samuel.”

When Sam goes on vacation, Woody is chosen to manage the bar in his absence. But he’s floored when he receives a letter from his old girlfriend in Indiana, announcing that she’s now engaged to someone else…and will be coming to Cheers to give him the news in person. Seeing that Woody is afraid to look pathetic in front of his ex and her new fiancee, Diane lies and says that Woody has been dating someone too. Now roped into a double date, Woody turns to Sam’s little black book for a fake girlfriend.  Only too late  does he realize– that he’s on a date with Sam’s cleaning lady.

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Mike is Back on Ryan Daly’s Cheers Cast!

Mike is back on Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, for a chat about the ninth episode of Cheers‘ fourth season, “From Beer to Eternity.”

After being handed another humiliating softball defeat by their rivals at Gary’s Olde Towne Tavern, the gang at Cheers is looking to turn their luck around. Sam challenges Gary to the one sport that he hasn’t been beaten them at yet: bowling. And Woody just might be their secret weapon, if only he hadn’t been traumatized in a tragic bowling accident years before.

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Mike Returns to Ryan Daly’s Cheers Cast!

Mike returns again to Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, to dig into the eleventh episode of Cheers‘ third season, “Peterson Crusoe.”

Lovable barfly, Norm gets some terrifying medical news and falls into a deep existential slump. When that news quickly turns out to be merely a flaw in the X-ray machine, Norm’s new zest for life causes him to announce that he’s leaving Cheers forever, to live on a beach in the South Pacific. Chickening out on his dream at the last minute, Norm now has no idea how to let his friends at the bar know that he never left town and is currently subsisting on pretzels and beer nuts, living out of Sam’s office.

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Mike Returns to Cheers Cast!

Mike returns again to Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, to dig into the thirteenth episode of Cheers‘ season two, “Battle of the Exes.”

Carla’s dirtbag ex-husband Nick is getting remarried, and he’s invited her to the ceremony. Currently single, Carla is worried that showing up alone will only allow Nick to rub his happiness in her face.  So, Carla convinces Sam to pose as her boyfriend in a desperate move to make her ex jealous.

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Episode 39 – Spider-Man

“Spins a web, any size. Catches thieves, just like flies.”

This month, we’re web-slinging through New York with the Fire and Water Network‘s Ryan Daly and Tobiah Panshin of the House of Jack and Stan podcast. We’re climbing the wall over Marvel’s revolutionary and relatable comic book hero: the Amazing Spider-Man!

From his beginnings in a cancelled anthology comic by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962, Spidey has exploded into multimedia superstardom, and changed the superhero genre forever. He’s headlined literally thousands of comic book issues, seven feature films, and countless animated shows. He’s been a company mascot, a parade balloon, a breakfast cereal, a cartoon pig, and even the star of his own failed Broadway musical.

We dig into all things pertaining to the web-head, try to figure out if the Daily Bugle is a reputable news source, and try to answer that question: is Spider-Man hero, or menace?

Music: 
“Main Titles/Costume Montage” from Spider-Man (2002) by Danny Elfman

Fun Size Episode 35 – My Boss is Trying to Kill Matt Damon

We’re back with a Frankensteinian Fun Size double feature!

First, we continue our chat with Kit Laika, where a discussion about Lords of Chaos, the recent semi-fictional Norwegian death metal movie, leads into a talk about how music biopics in general — and Bohemian Rhapsody, specifically — usually aren’t….very good.

Then we talk to Greg Hatcher about how the history of television shows didn’t include dedicated series finales until the Fugitive in 1967, and we look at the mixed results of shows that tried to continue after losing their lead actors.

Plus, we look at the trope of the characters who exist solely in high tech control rooms with hundreds of screens.

Mike is Back on Cheers Cast!

Mike returns again to Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, to dig into the seventeenth episode of Cheers‘ first season, “Diane’s Perfect Date.”

When Sam and Diane agree to set each other up on blind dates, Diane takes it seriously, and Sam doesn’t — because he’s outsmarted himself into thinking that Diane is setting him up with her.  Only realizing his mistake at the last minute, Sam sets her up with a complete stranger at the bar…who might actually be a deranged killer just released from prison. Mike and Ryan dig into one of Cheers’ trademark farcical episodes, and why it holds up so well.

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Mike Returns to Cheers Cast!

Mike returns to Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, to dive into the fourteenth episode of Cheers‘ first season, “Let Me Count the Ways.”

When Diane learns that her family cat has died, she’s devastated. But the rest of the gang can’t be pulled away from the night’s Celtics game to show her the slightest bit of sympathy. Mike and Ryan dig one of the show’s first attempts to balance comedy with sincere drama, marvel at how wonderfully underrated Shelley Long’s performances are, and wonder if we’re on the other side of a cultural shift where it concerns the loss of a pet.

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Mike Is on the First Episode of Cheers Cast!

Mike make an appearance on the pilot episode of Ryan Daly‘s podcast tribute to the classic 1980s sitcom, Cheers Cast!

We look at the 1982 pilot of the show, set in a downtown Boston bar, that would become a television juggernaut. Mike sits down with Ryan and fellow guests Rob Kelly and Omar Uddin to dig in and talk about a piece of TV history.

Does the show hold up? Does it hit the ground running in the pilot? Is it really funny? Not to be a total spoiler, but yes, yes and yes.

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Episode 21 – Twin Peaks

Log Lady

“That gum you like is going to come back in style.”

Mike and Casey are consulting our logs and getting a booth at the Double R Diner to share some damned good coffee and pie with returning panelists Roz Townsend and Pól Rua. Our topic: David Lynch’s surrealistic supernatural thriller/soap opera: Twin Peaks.

We get into the show’s weird and often contradictory tone, and its widely panned theatrical follow-up movie Fire Walk with Me.  We discuss its massive influence on shows like Lost and the X-Files, and try to figure out if Lynch was creating fantastical, challenging art, or just being pointlessly weird for its own sake.

Music: 
“Falling” from Twin Peaks by Angelo Badalamenti

Previously titled: “Happening v. Fargo”