We continue our chat with Sam Mulvey, and tear the still-beating heart out of the world of martial arts frauds and scam artists. From manufactured biographies involving hidden temples and battles to the death, to selling mail order pamphlets through comic book ads promising access to forbidden techniques, we look at the grey area between the real and the phony.
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Only their mother can tell them apart.
This month, we’re learning the first rules of a crisis situation with returning guest Sam Mulvey of KTQA 95.3 FM radio, and exploring the first installment of the Schwartzenegger/Reitman collaboration trilogy, the wholesome eugenics comedy: Twins!
Genetic superman and polymath Julius Benedict, raised on a utopian tropical island, learns on his 35th birthday that the government experiment that created him in the 1950s also created a twin brother, Vincent, who was sent to a Los Angeles orphanage. Reunited with a sibling seemingly his opposite – a short, balding, and cynical car thief – the kind and naive Julius drags his brother on a road trip to find their long-lost mother, previously believed dead. Along the way, they run afoul of loan sharks coming to collect, a high-paid assassin, and discover a loving family they never knew they had.
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This month, we’re back with Sam Mulvey to get nerdier than we have for a while.
Mike takes the rough draft of his new “Bechdel Test”-esque thought experiment about media worldbuilding for a spin and tries to punch holes in it. Are our large shared universe worlds really as large and expansive as they appear to be, or is that just an illusion to hide something much smaller and more insular?
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“It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”
This month, we’re getting the band back together with the Station Manager of KTQA 95.3 FM in Tacoma (and former Illinois resident) Sam Mulvey. We’re on a mission from God to drive our car through John Landis’ anarchic car chase musical guest-starring a Mt. Rushmore of classic R&B/soul artists from Aretha Franklin to James Brown: The Blues Brothers!
Released from a 3-year prison sentence, “Joilet” Jake Blues is reunited with his brother Elwood and learn that the Catholic orphanage they grew up in is about to be shuttered unless it can pay an outstanding $5,000 property tax bill in the next eleven days. Now on a mission from God, the Blue Brothers must reunite their ne’er-do-well rhythm and blues band to put on a big show, no matter how many shopping malls they have to drive through. But first they must outrun a rival country western band, a gang of neo-Nazis, a heavily armed mystery woman, and seemingly every cop in the state of Illinois.
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We’re continuing our talk with Patrick Johnson, and we’re waxing nostalgic.
We look back at the sliding timeline of The Simpsons and try to count the anachronisms as they pile up. But nothing could prepare us for the existential crisis triggered as we realize that under current show continuity, Homer Simpson is now a Gen-Xer.
We also reminisce about our brief time as public access TV producers on the Seattle Community Access Network. We dealt with shoddy equipment, a menagerie of conspiracy-minded weirdos, and a city council budget crunch that ultimately killed the station. We’ve got boxes full of Pepe!
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It’s a Captain Picard Day miracle!
After a five-month hiatus, we’re back….ish. We’re broadcasting remotely with KTQA Radio‘s Sam Mulvey and trying to shake some of the cobwebs out.
Casey meets a wild Keanu and we wonder ponder again the magical unicorn nature of his celebrity namesake. And on the opposite end of the moral spectrum, we predict the inevitable airlock assassination of future space-despot Elon Musk.
We try to unpack media Copaganda, our changing relationship with police-centric media and lament how a lot of the progress made in this year’s uprisings against police violence have slowly rolled back.
Sam fills us in on the radio station he’s been building, and we talk about all the media we’ve been watching and reading from our protective bunkers, trapped in a world we never made.
Also! We have a Discord server now! Join us!
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In our double-sized fiftieth Fun Size episode, in the middle of a global pandemic and nationwide uprisings against systemic and racist police violence, we sit down with Sam Mulvey of KTQA radio in Tacoma, to….talk about something something…
Did we mention that Zack Snyder broke the third seal by announcing the release his own — inevitably underwhelming — cut of a superhero movie you don’t remember? What are the limits of escapism in a real world on fire? Is it even possible to watch a cop show with ungritted teeth anymore? We try to keep it together, and dig through the wreckage for some kind of meaning.
PLUS: a major announcement about the show at the end of the episode!
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We sit down with the notoriously Trek-skeptical Sam Mulvey to give our first reactions to the first episode of Star Trek: Picard. Is it what we wanted, and have modern iterations of Trek changed so much — or have become so rigid — that they’re just not for us anymore?
We talk about fake click-bait pop culture new sites, the trend that the lead-ups to movie releases are now even longer than the Presidential election, and wonder why so many fans are seemingly unable or unwilling to see the humanity of robotic and android fictional characters.
Also, Mike makes a desperate attempt to convince Sam that the Fast and the Furious franchise is something he might enjoy.
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In our new nearly two hour episode, we’re answering your questions in our first Ask Us Anything episode!
We start by sharing three facts about ourselves that you might not know, then we tackle your questions!
We talk about our musical obsessions, past political activism, strange retail job stories, how we met, our adventures with conspiracy theorists on public access television, our respective parenthood and non-parenthood, Al Pacino impressions, Mike’s cancer treatments, desert island selections, and how we first fell in love with our favorite pop culture fandoms. And so, so many digressions.
Included in this episode are questions by David Gutiérrez, Grant Richter, Wesley, Tim Batson, and Gem Newman.
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We sit back down with Sam Mulvey to learn that Keanu Reeves is now in a video game, and that he remains the best human. And we ponder…
Are there places on the internet, and in online gaming, where people are actually nice to each other? Are we doomed to transform into digital sociopaths when we’re given both anonymity and the means to kill strangers with lasers — and no consequences?
Plus, we’re approaching the upcoming reimagining of Frank Herbert’s Dune by Denis Villeneuve with optimistic apprehension. Deep breaths, everyone.
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“Just one more thing…”
In this month’s Single Serving Selection, we join Ask an Atheist‘s Sam Mulvey to snoop around the first episode of the beloved inverted-mystery series, starring Peter Falk’s rumbled detective: 1971’s Columbo: Murder By the Book.
When one half of an award-winning mystery writing team learns that his more-talented partner is leaving for a solo career, he sees his meal ticket slipping away. The only way to save his career and claim a sizeable insurance policy is to commit the perfect murder. The only hitch is that the crime is being investigated by a personable and seemingly-clownish police detective who just might have his number.
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In our latest episode, we join Sam Mulvey to dig into the question of adapting properties that we care about, and whether it’s important to even attempt fidelity to the source material.
From Watchmen to Dune; from Starship Troopers to Ready Player One. Is it sometimes the wisest choice to take a giant critical poop on a property when we translate them to a new medium? Plus, Mike saw Venom, and…yeah. We talk about what could have been — a gloriously R-rated cannibal crime fighting movie.
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We continue our talk with Sam Mulvey and dig into the questions that try men’s souls. We ponder the repeated use of various firearms in movies, and why laser weapons aren’t nearly as numerous these days.
We dive into the insane and definitely-not-okay animal stunt work of movies past, and marvel at how Donald Pleasence’s pain threshold can be so impossibly high. Plus, we asked our Patreon supporters about their stupid childhood fears, and more!
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They stole his mind, now he wants it back.
It’s time to get our asses to Mars and regain our buried identities with returning guest Sam Mulvey of the Ask an Atheist radio show. This month, we’re plunging into the hyper-violent science fiction mind-bender: Total Recall.
Douglas Quaid is haunted by dreams of Mars. Becoming obsessed with traveling to the red planet, Quaid buys a virtual holiday with implanted memories from Rekall, Inc. For a little extra, he opts for the vacation package where he can live the life of a heroic secret agent. But when the procedure goes haywire, Quaid learns that he truly is a secret agent with buried memories. Now hunted by deadly assassins, he escapes to Mars to learn the truth and save the world… Or maybe he’s just been lobotomized and trapped in a dream world.
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The rules have been reset.
We close out Terminator Month with Week Four, where we jump into our homemade time displacement machine with Sam Mulvey of Ask an Atheist to break our brains trying to sort out the continuity of the sequel…prequel…soft reboot(?) that recreates the franchise for a new generation: Terminator: Genisys.
When John Connor sends soldier Kyle Reese back to 1984 Los Angeles to protect his mother and safeguard the future, Reese finds himself in a different 1984 with a different Sarah Connor. The war across time between humans and machines has fractured the timeline. Now the only thing standing between the human race and utter destruction are Kyle, Sarah and an older, obsolete T-800 Terminator acting as their protector. Bring plenty of aspirin and a flow chart.
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