Episode 49 – Santa Claus: The Movie

The legend comes to life.

This Christmas Eve, we’re back in the studio to celebrate the season with Rebecca Friedman of KTQA-LP 95.3 FM, and dive into the 1985 holiday movie where Alexander and Ilya Salkind, the father and son producer team behind the Christopher Reeve Superman films try to make lightning strike twice with a mythic origin story for jolly old Saint Nick himself in Santa Claus:The Movie!

Rescued by a group of elves after being caught in a deadly blizzard, a 14th century toymaker fulfills an ancient prophecy to become an immortal holiday gift giver to all the children of the world. Colliding with the free enterprise crassness of the 1980s, Santa Claus is despondent after one his elves is manipulated into working for a unscrupulous and greedy toy executive who wants to steal Christmas for his very own.

Fun Size Episode 58 – A Human Soup of Band-Aids and Pee

We continue our chat with Michael Warbington, as we look at the trajectory of big-budget franchises and the knee-jerk fan anger that Martin Scorsese’s criticisms of “theme park” movies vs. “cinema”….and maybe he has a good point?

And maybe we should really stop complaining about the apparent theatrical monopoly of blockbusters and start championing smaller independent films, like The Paper Tigers instead.

And finally, has toxic fandom finally drifted into a form of self-harm for some people, as one Disney fan on social media starts drinking water out of Walt Disney World’s public fountains and rating its taste?

Fun Size Episode 54 – Birds Aren’t Real

We’re joined by Australia’s own Paul Hix from Waiting for Doom – the Doom Patrol Podcast, to dig into the latest and strangest conspiracy theory: Bird Trutherism!

Counterfeit avians? Feathered Cameras in the Sky!? Why does it feel like the desire to answer serious questions in the most unserious ways has gone frighteningly mainstream?

Has the legalization of marijuana in many states left us doomed to a future where pot smoking will be branded tragically…uncool?

And we get an opportunity to grill our Aussie guest on an outsider’s view of American culture and cuisine. Do we have things that scare and confuse others as much as vegemite does us? (Spoiler: yes, we do.)

Fun Size Episode 49 – Tales of the Quarantine Titans

We continue our remotely-recorded conversation with David Gutiérrez, and grapple with the seedy underside of professional wrestling, and the strange corporate strange-hold that Vince McMahon has on the industry, in the wake of his XFL’s second collapse.

We also talk about the relative quality of children’s media franchises from the point of view of parents. Is refreshes itself much more frequently than stuff aimed at “grown-ups,” but is any of it any good? And what will the art these kids make look like in 20 years?

Hide your clouds, because we’re gonna yell at them!

Fun Size Episode 46 – Quarantine Titans

We’re back! Sort of…

In a special remotely-recorded quarantine edition of the show, we sit down with Joe Preti of the View from the Gutters comic book podcast to pine for long lost sources of food, like the cafeteria at Joe’s work and a couple of local sandwich shops.

We ask: has the quality of McDonald’s food gotten worse since we were kids, or were we blinded by a child’s epicureal standards? Has junk food in general gotten worse?

We also talk about how good Adam Sandler movies could be if only he tried. And Batman v. Superman comes up, and… we just can’t not.

Black Ops Episode 17 – Ask Us Anything: 2019 [CLIP]

In our new nearly two hour episode, exclusive to our Patreon supporters, 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.

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

Join us!

Fun Size Episode 30 – That’s My Kind of Garbage!

We’re back to dive into an overstuffed grab bag of off-topic nonsense with Roz Townsend, and we grapple with the important questions that keep us up at night.

Is Colonel Sanders the closest thing we have to an American Time Lord? What are our favorite fictional restaurants? Are self-published fan zines a lost art? Are skunks a form of Pokémon? Did Freddie Mercury go super saiyan in the ’80s? Are modern video game mechanics inaccessible to people who didn’t grow up with them?

Plus, Casey becomes annoyed at a group of small children not being as entranced by My Neighbor Totoro as he is, and we all betray our socialist leanings.