Must See TV (Or You Missed It Forever)

Before streaming and on-demand everything, TV in the 80s and 90s was a commitment. This week on That Makes Two of Us, Mike walks Kelsey through the Gen X TV experience—where your schedule revolved around your favorite shows, and missing an episode meant you were completely out of the loop. From Saturday morning cartoons to iconic sitcoms, it was all about timing, patience, and a whole lot of channel surfing.

Kelsey reacts to a world without pause buttons or DVR like it’s ancient history, while Mike makes the case that Gen X might be the most battle-tested TV generation of them all. They swap stories, laugh at the chaos, and explore how those decades shaped the way we watch today—proving that sometimes, the struggle made it better.

 Different generations. Different perspectives. Same conversations. 

Contact us at: MikeandKelseyPodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Well, welcome back, everyone. This is episode two of That Makes Two of Us. I'm Kelsey, your resident millennial.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

And I'm Mikey D, your resident Generation X curmudgeon. Today we're going to start talking about TV. We're going to dive right back into the pop culture, and we're going to talk about the TV that created us, the TV that we love, the TV that we hated, the TV that maybe hated us, and made us into the crazy insane people that we are today.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

This will be broken down into three parts. And for this episode, Mike gets to tell us about the TV shows that raised him as a Gen Xer.

unknown 1:13

And there were a lot.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

Well, there were several. There was a lot of TV, and then there was the TV that we focused on, the TV that we kind of watched to a degree, and then the TV that we went, what what the fuck is this? Because it's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

And did you watch a lot of TV growing up, Mike?

SPEAKER_04 1:31

I did. Um but it was restricted to specific times of day. So for example, when I was elementary school, middle schoolish, TV was maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes in the morning. We would watch morning cartoons after we got everything ready for school. And we were up early, so we were able to do that. And then when we got home from school in the afternoon, typically the rule was we had to have our homework done before we could do anything else. And because we're latchkey kids, there's not really supervision. So maybe we did that homework, maybe we didn't. And the afternoon programming was dramatically different. So in the morning it would be like, you know, Looney Tunes and Spider-Man cartoons and that sort of thing. Oh, uh New Zoo Review, Great Space Coaster, Banana Splits, those were shows in the morning as well. And then in the afternoon, it was all syndicated sitcoms from the 60s. And I'm talking Brady Bunched, Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, uh I Dream of Genie was another one. Early on, Leave It to Beaver, not even sure how that show was popular. But it was. So that's that was the cart the the TV I had control of. And then at night, after about six o'clock, the parentals had total control of the TV. They're we're watching what they want to watch. Now, one thing that was a staple, Wheel of Fortune in Jeopardy. And to this day, I still watch those shows.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Backtracking a little bit. I did know that latchkey was a term used for people, kids around like the 70s, 80s who went home without much parental supervision and had to be by themselves after school. But I didn't know that latchkey was like an actual key that people used. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

It was the it was here's a key to the house. Basically, you have two rules don't die and don't burn the house down. Aside from that, you were large and in charge.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Yeah, but like latch key is an actual thing.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

It was a key.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

Yeah. That's why keyless entry is a very foreign thing to me these days, because I'm like, I don't need a key for my car. I don't need a key for my house. They don't trust me with keys at work. So I mean, you know, it's a thing.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

For a reason.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Debatable.

SPEAKER_05 3:57

Debatable.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Anyways, back to this episode about TV shows. We'll get off track a lot. Stay with us.

SPEAKER_05 4:04

Please.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

What is the first TV show you can remember watching, Mike?

SPEAKER_04 4:10

I think the first TV shows was your typical PBS Sesame Street Electric Company, Mr. Rogers. I think those were the first ones. And then it morphed into cartoons mainly. And then three stooges. Don't know why. I know that I know my pop loved it, so he'd put them on and we'd watch. And honestly, to this day, they're hysterical to me. Now, let me be very clear about something. I'm talking about the three stooges with Curly Joe, not with Shemp. Not a lot of people like Shemp. There's a reason there. And this was also, so this is between Looney Tunes, you know, and I'm talking Bugs Bunny, beating the shit out of all his adversaries, Coyote Roadrunner, and then the Three Stooges, it's not a wonder that in the time I grew up, we were slapping each other around and laughing at it every day. Like it was a thing. That was we learned very early on to laugh at other people's pain.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Okay, so these shows influenced you into violence.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

Not necessarily unwarranted violence, but hey, if there's a laugh in there somewhere, you might get smacked upside the head.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

What else did you feel you how you were influenced by these shows?

SPEAKER_04 5:40

Uh that's a tough one. I mean, obviously they they they tried to address some of the issues of the day, and I don't even remember any of that stuff because I very early on picked up on the fact that things are not going to get resolved in a half-hour show. You know, and just simply walking up to somebody and smacking them in the mouth isn't necessarily the best course of action. That's Bunch Bunny.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

But it's okay to laugh at people's pain.

SPEAKER_04 6:11

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to this day, look, if you fall in front of me, I'm laughing. Okay. I will be the first one to you. I will be the first one to help you. I will be the first one to call an ambulance for you. I will be crying laughing the whole time I'm doing it. And that's just the thing, especially if it's you know an acrobatic or catastrophic fall where you're flailing about and shit's flying everywhere. I'm laughing. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

This uh this guy in front of me the other day on one of those little mini skateboards that's only about the size of a shoe.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

Oh, is it the one-wheeled going or is it the it's got the four wheels, it's just very small.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Four wheels, very small. God damn. And he right when he passed me, and this other girl like tried to jump this grate on the sidewalk and it caught, and he went. And the girl tried to be nice and turned her head as she laughed, and I was just like, right in front of him.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

I'm pointing, I'm actually pointing.

SPEAKER_05 7:14

Look at you.

SPEAKER_04 7:15

And again, I'll be the first. Hey, you alright? You good? Can you do it again? Because that shit was funny. So, yeah, that's I mean, my early takeaways was that. Uh, I I remember enjoying all the cartoons, and I don't know why it's well, I know why now. Uh, when watching Mr. Rogers, and you're probably gonna laugh at this, they had a segment of that show where trolley comes through and you go to the land of make-believe, and I love that shit. Now I'm a grown-ass man, and I have an entire room dedicated to building a train platform, and now I'm like, oh fuck, I'm Mr. Rogers, except I don't have a trolley, I have trains.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

So you know that um the the younger generation now got like a spin-off cartoon from Mr. Rogers, it's called Daniel Tiger, and he's from he's one of the pups. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 8:12

I don't know who the I know who he is. Yeah, he's got his own show.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

He's got his own cartoon show. The kids I used to nanny watched it, they love Daniel Tiger, and the little trolley would come through and it'd pick up all the little characters and they go off and do their stuff. Look at how it's transformed. It was kind of cool to see.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

I love that. I I did not I did not know that. But I I always loved that segment when Trolley comes in on the track and okay, we're gonna go to land of make-believe. And as an adult, now I like I said, I think I build an entire room that's a train platform, and it's the land of make-believe for me. So these things that start very young, these television shows, it influence us all the way through because it's still influencing me.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

I mean, is there anything more innocent than Mr. Rogers?

SPEAKER_04 9:01

No. And he's one of the only ones that didn't have a scam. I know.

SPEAKER_05 9:07

He's one of the only ones that's like he's still a good guy, he's still good, you know. Sorry, Michael Jackson.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Sorry, Tom Hanks. Sorry, Tom Hanks.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

What did he do?

SPEAKER_02 9:22

He played Mr. Rogers. Oh, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

I still, you know, what's funny is that's a movie I actually have to see. That's all one of my lists. So, yeah, I mean, we grew up with those like early on in when I was growing up, it was cartoons, it was that sort of thing. And then as I got older, it it started morphing into other things like um the Saturday afternoon horror movies. That's what got me into horror. So after cartoons ended at about noon, right about one o'clock on Saturdays, they would do the horror double feature. And these were movies, these were old movies, uh, a lot of them in black and white, and a lot like literally the Bella Lugosi version of Dracula or Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, all the early tellings of these movies. So I'd watch some of those, and as an eight-year-old, I loved the thrill of being scared until I had to go to bed that night, and then I'm pissing my parents off because I'm like, fucking turn the light on, that shit's coming out of my closet, it's gonna eat me, and all the other things. And I still loved watching horror movies.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Did you have horror TV shows? Like I had goosebumps and don't be afraid of the dark. Did you have stuff like that?

SPEAKER_04 10:37

We didn't. This was uh a different era of television uh before we got to that sort of thing. I think I mean I can remember a couple of episodes of Star Trek that were a little freaky to me when I was younger. I can't think of anything else when it comes to oh, um yes, matter of fact, yes, to Twilight Zone, which was fantastic, and then Tales from the Dark Side, which was darker. It was like Twilight Zone, but it was darker. Where Twilight Zone would dance around it and go, you know, let's join this man as we watch him go down his journey. Tales from the dark side was like, let's watch this man as he's eaten by this creature. It was a lot different than the Twilight Zone, but it was still very good. In fact, later on Tales from the Dark Side was reimagined, I would say, as Tales from the Crypt.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

That's what I was thinking of.

SPEAKER_04 11:39

And Tales from the Crypt became a staple when I was older. I mean, the Crypt Keeper, that guy was awesome. Terrible special, not even, you know what? I won't even say that. They weren't even terrible special effects for the time, they were fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah, I think it could still hold up today.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

100%, 100%. So that's what started to change is as I got older, getting a little bit more into science fiction, Star Trek, Tales from the Dark Side, Twilight Zone, and more cerebral television, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

So as you became a teenager, sci-fi nerdy stuff really became your thing with TV shows?

SPEAKER_04 12:19

Not so much TV shows. I was into Star Trek, but once Star Wars hit, then I was absolutely into the science fiction and and everything that came with science fiction. Now, we didn't have the Lord of the Rings movies like we have today, but we did have the Lord of the Rings cartoons. And they were musicals.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

I have to admit, going back and re-watching these cartoons when they break into song, and the song is called Where There's a Whip, There's a Way. No. Oh, there was. That was a song way back, uh, the original Hobbit movie, I think it was. It was either the original Hobbit movie or the Return of the King movie. And these were cartoons. Rankin' Bass did it. Most of you would know Rankin Bass from doing things like Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph the Res Red Nosed Reindeer. But they did The Hobbit, they did Lord of the Rings, and in one of them, God, I gotta go, I gotta look it up. They there was a whole song with the Orcs called Where There's a Whip, There's a Way.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

I am now changing my phrase. Anytime I want to say Where there's a Will, there's a Way. I'm changing Will to Whip.

SPEAKER_05 13:38

As well as well you should because it was fantastic. Where there's a whip, there's a way. I mean, it was great. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

It sounds so dirty.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Looking back on it now, I'm going, Whoa, there's some underlying tones there.

SPEAKER_05 13:59

But as a kid, I'm like, yeah, where there's a whip, there's a way. Beat that guy's ass. He's not working.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

I will say that as an adult, I can only imagine what your parents thought listening to something like that. And as an adult being a nanny for a kid, they watched this show called Blaze and the Monster Machines. And the tagline for the main character was when he would like start taking off. He'd go, Let's blaze. And so the kids would just be running around being like, Let's blaze.

SPEAKER_05 14:31

Meanwhile, I'm lighting a joint. I'm like, Yeah, let's blaze. Let's do that.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

A long time ago. I don't I don't partake anymore. But I I get the inappropriateness or the um the undertones.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Who approved this line?

SPEAKER_04 14:50

Who said that was okay? Another thing, uh, there was a couple other shows coming up that I um I want to throw in there. Uh The Munsters, Adam's Family.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Oh, I watched those.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

And they were really, really good. And love the telling, love the storytelling there. And then Batman the TV show.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

Zap pow bam. Let's go. It was as as campy and as cheesy as it is, because it still is.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Yeah, you like those, you like those tights. Like those tights, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

I mean, who doesn't like those tights? Come on, you're a yoga instructor. It's not like you've never been in tights.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

I have.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

Oh, okay. Pop quiz, pop quiz. Wait, you wear tights? I wear the required uniform. Tights. What movie?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

I can see it. I can see it in my head.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 15:57

I'll say it again. I'll do it again. I'll do it again. Wait a second. You wear tights? I wear the required uniform. Tights.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

We're gonna have to cut this.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

It's so good.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

I know it is good. And I know what it is. What is it? I can't think of the name of it.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

It's the Breakfast Club. And we're not cutting this.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Cut it. Cut it, Mike. I want it cut.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

So those were all the shows. And and again, yeah, I mean, any sitcom you can think of from the 60s, whether it was um The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, they were all in syndication in the afternoon. And those are things that we would watch. And then TV started to change when we got more than three networks.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

More than three. I know.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

Stop the madness.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Okay. So we've heard what shows influenced you as a kid, what shows influenced you as a teenager. What were some real standout some big hits that you can remember from your generation?

SPEAKER_04 17:09

So some of the hits that we had in my generation. Um, Tuesday night lineup, Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. Now I enjoy these shows because who doesn't want to be the Fonz? You know what I mean? Who doesn't want let's be cool? Who doesn't want to be cool? And then Laverne and Shirley, which was a spin-off of Happy Days, was every bit as good in its own right, and in some ways better, depending on how you looked at it. So TV started evolving in that respect, but we also had right around that time was one of the greatest dramedies ever made, and that was MASH. And I remember I was about 12 years old when the final episode of MASH aired, and it was one of the most watched television shows of all time. And I knew it was a comedy, and I knew there was a lot of laughter, and they also tackled a lot of like serious things. There was an episode in particular where Hawkeye, who's one of the main characters, he's one of the main doctors on there.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

From Marvel? I love Hawkeye.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Stop. It's not. It's not get Jeremy Renner out of your head. Um, but Hawkeye was the storyline was that they were on this bus and they were traveling through the demilitarized zone, and they were stopped by the North Korean army, and they had to be quiet. They had to be quiet. And one of the women on the bus had this chicken with her, and he's telling this story about this woman and this chicken, and the North Korean soldiers are out there, and she's got to keep this chicken quiet. She's got to keep this chicken quiet. And he's going on and on and on about this chicken and this woman, and then he says, you know, she smothered it. And then you realize as he starts crying that it wasn't a chicken, it was this woman's baby.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

And it was a poignant episode. And I mean, I'm 11, 12 years old watching this and realizing they're still talking about the horrors of war, they're still bringing this to the forefront. Yes, it's a comedy, but they're still in the middle of a war. So it was a really I mean MASH was great, great. There's there's a lot of people out there that would say MASH is probably one of the greatest TV shows that was ever made. When they finished that, I think it was God, more people watched that finale at the time than anything else. And I have ingrained in my head, I think it's one of the final scenes where Hawkeye gets on board the helicopter and he takes off, and his best friend BJ Honeycutt is standing on the ground waving to him, and they've repositioned the rocks of the landing zone to say goodbye. It's one of the best finales of any TV show that's ever been made. So we had shows that like that that were television events. The final episode of MASH, that's a television event.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

I do know the show MASH, but MASH was also a game I used to play in school. You would write MASH on a piece of paper, and it stood for mansion, apartment, shack, house. And then there was like a whole thing that you did with you and your friends. Stop it. And it was like, who got to live in a mansion, who got to live in an apartment, who got to live in a shack, who got to live in a house in the future. Kind of like a trigger warning for Mary Fuck Kill.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

I'd rather play that. I have played that. I've had a better time. Um pop quiz. Do you know what MASH actually stands for?

SPEAKER_02 21:11

From the show?

SPEAKER_04 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Military? No.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

Not even close. And this is what this is this is I love this part. It's Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Because that's what they were. And they were able to move and they were able to relocate. And it was MASH 4077th. They were the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Nice. Like you said, not even close, but kind of close.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Mansion? Oh no, I'm sorry, military. Military. Military.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Second word was army.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

All right, so you were in the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah. Okay. I was circling. I was circling. So those that's What you say would be hits from your generation. What about the flops? We all have to have some flops.

SPEAKER_04 22:05

I mean the flops faded into obscurity.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Do you remember any of them?

SPEAKER_04 22:13

Oh god, let's see. I remember a couple from when I was younger. Um, Small Wonder was kind of a flop. Uh, it was about a guy that builds a robot that's an eight-year-old girl. Uh it was pretty bad. I think it ran for one or two seasons. Um we have that now.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

It's called Meg. It ends a little differently.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

Megan? Yeah. I watched that and honestly, I didn't think it was that bad. The dance part killed me.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

I couldn't do the dancing, but that I mean Do we think it deserved a sequel?

SPEAKER_04 22:53

I don't maybe I don't know. They're doing sequels for everything. And I think this just falls into the category of just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

That's fair. So, what do you think your generation did well with TV shows?

SPEAKER_04 23:10

Oh, that's a great question. I think one of the things that they did very well was incorporating the nuclear family. I mean, just about every television show had mom, dad, and the kids. And then there was the satellite family, you know, grandparents, uncles, or family friends that were all involved, and everybody was kind of doing their thing together. So it was. I mean, after 1975, everything was optimistic. I mean, the Vietnam War had ended, we were going into the 80s, and the entire 1980s, aside from a couple of significant events, was a time of optimism. It was a time of celebration. Like, there's no war. We're the generation that was born from World War II, and all we need to do is get our shit straight, go to school, get a good job, and we're good to go. I mean, there was a lot of optimism, and that carried over into the early 90s as well. It was just it was a good, good time to be alive, and there wasn't a lot of I guess there wasn't just a lot of conflict. I mean, there was some here and there. I mean, we had the assassination attempt on Reagan, the Iran Contra scandal. But we also had optimistic moments like the fall of the world, the wall in Berlin. I mean, that was a huge deal in the middle of the 80s. They tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev. So everything was more on an optimistic upswing. There wasn't a whole lot of darkness. Now, with that said, they still did TV that was, you know, more on the dark side or more in the realm of the Twilight Zone type stuff. Like you had Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, which was a TV miniseries that ran on NBC in the early 80s. You had um The Day After Tomorrow, which was a made-for-tv mini-series that talked about the devastating effects of a nuclear war, and it it didn't hold back, and I think that was one of the most watched miniseries as well. So there was there was definitely both sides of the coin, and they were moving into more gritty TV as well, with some of the crime dramas, some of the cop dramas. Uh, you're gonna find out because one of your assignments is to watch Hill Street Blues.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

So I watched it.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Did you watch it?

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah, I did my homework for the episode.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Well, thank you. Thank you. Well, you get a gold star for today.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

I have to be praised for everything.

SPEAKER_05 25:45

You get a trophy.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

I want a certificate.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

You get a oh, you want a certificate? Okay, it's not as expensive as a trophy. Sure, you can have a certificate. What did you think of Hill Street Blues?

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Well, the assignment was for me to only watch three episodes. So I watched the first three episodes. Um it's not the type of show that I normally am into. Um, it's a cop drama. There's a lot, like if you're offended easily by things, don't watch this because there's so much shit that happens in the show that I'm like, it canceled, canceled. Can't can't say that. Two examples can't do that.

SPEAKER_04 26:33

Two examples right now.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Um, it happened within like the first five minutes. Episode one, first five minutes, they said one of the things they had to do was uh they were in like their morning meeting.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

Roll call.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Yep. And he the he wasn't like the he, I guess he was like the captain or something.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

Is it the uh the older guy with the white hair? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a sergeant. He's a sergeant.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

So he's telling them like you can no longer walk around with weapons that aren't like protocol weapons. So he's like, everyone has to take like everyone taking their weapons, and we have to check their weapons. So everyone starts pulling them. I thought that was funny because everyone's pulling out all these like crazy guns and all kinds of shit out of their pockets. And this girl lifts up her skirt and she's got a gun on her thigh. And the guy next to her just puts a hand on her thigh and like takes the gun out for her and then pops her in her thigh. And then another the she's like the attorney lady Davenport.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Yep. And then like the cop guy, and she has a thing for uh, what's his name? The captain.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Yeah, and but like this creepy cop guy corners her. And he's like touching her necklace, but it's like really close to her very low cut, unbuttoned blouse. And he's just very he's in there, yeah. He's he's all up in there. He's in pretty much every interaction that happens between men and women in that show is really inappropriate. And not okay, not okay, and they'd all be fine.

SPEAKER_04 28:23

I love every I love all of that. And the funny part to me about that is we didn't at the time, at the time, didn't see that as abnormal. Yeah, didn't see that as hey, you know, she's fine. I was helping her out. I got her leg.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

I can tell it's a really heavy part of the show, it's constantly happening.

SPEAKER_04 28:43

It's not just that show. If you look at any of the shows from that time frame, you are going to find that type of behavior. When we talk about Cheers, for example, which was a comedy set in the bar in Boston, and it's a fantastic show. However, comma, there's a whole storyline where Diane Chambers, Shelly Long's character, is set up with a stalker. This guy's actually stalking her, and she is set up on a date with him, and he actually assaults her in the bar. They have the men in the bar have to physically intervene to stop the assault, and it's a comedy show. So it's completely different time, things that would have flown then. You couldn't, you couldn't do that today.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Yeah, there was a scene where one of the guys is uh in the bathroom and he's talking about how like messy everything is, and he's like, we should have the female officer start cleaning three scenes.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

Oh no, he didn't do that, did he? He did. Let's get the women in here to clean that up. Yeah. That's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Um, but yeah, I I don't know if it was uh in my own personal choice, it's probably not a show I would continue to watch. But it seemed fine.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

It's a different show, and that show evolved as it went on, and it's that show makes shows like NYPD Blue, Law and Order. It that Hill Street Blues makes those shows possible. Without Hill Street Blues, you don't have any of those shows. That's just that's just how it is. Whether it is or not, whether it's right or wrong, we're not here to debate that. We're just saying that at the time, that's what the climate was.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

So would you say shows back then based their stuff more on like reality, what was going on, or when you watch shows, was it like a complete escape from what was happening in your life?

SPEAKER_04 30:51

I think in the case of Hill Street Blues, it was one of the first instances of a drama of a primetime drama trying to push the envelope. I I firmly believe that. And I think that for a lot of the other shows, it was just we're gonna have a good time, this is gonna be fun, this is gonna be light, this is gonna be a caricature, if you will, of what's actually going on in the world. You know, again, we were in a very optimistic time. There was no war, the economy was good, people were people were generally happy. We I mean we had a lot. I mean you could go out, you could send your kids out in the street to play, and you didn't have to worry about them getting abducted. It's true. She just looked at me, folks. If you could have seen the look that she just shot me, it was like, are you out of your fucking mind?

SPEAKER_02 31:51

I mean, I'm not gonna say as a true crime junkie, the 70s, has a lot to answer for when it comes to people getting kidnapped and murdered.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

Okay. Taking away the Ted Bundys and the John Wayne Gacy's and the night stalker and son of Sam. I mean, just to name a few, taking away from all of that, otherwise it was a glorious time. Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:20

Let me let me let me let me segue into a different way with that. In my neighborhood, you were fine.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

And the reason for that was everybody knew each other. If somebody random come walking through the neighborhood, it was not uncommon for adults to go, who are you? Who are you here for? That was not uncommon.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

You can't ask questions like that nowadays, because people would be like, Oh, you're being racist.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

Or you're I mean, that may be the case, but it doesn't stop me from asking those questions in my neighborhood. I almost stopped a guy the other night, like, hey, who are you? And then I realized it was one of my neighbors.

SPEAKER_05 33:00

Oh man, sorry, I know you. You're fine.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

I just think that and I don't see this too much nowadays, but we knew all our neighbors. I knew who the people were in a six-block radius. Maybe not everybody, but I knew, and especially if I if if I was in trouble and I needed help, I knew I could go across the street to Mr. Gleakman's house and knock on his door, or or two houses down to Mr. Schwartz. Hell, my next door neighbor was a teacher at the high school, so I I knew where to go. Now it's different in that respect. I still like to know my neighbors. I still make it a point to know my neighbors, but I don't see that all over the place like it used to be. It also used to be neighborhood segregation, if you will. And what I mean by that, and don't throw me under the racist bus. What I mean by that is you would have an Italian neighborhood for two blocks, then you would have a Polish neighborhood, then you would have a Russian neighborhood, then you would have a black neighborhood, then you would have a Hispanic neighborhood. It was just that was the way it was. It wasn't right or wrong necessarily, and all the neighborhoods were nice. It wasn't like these were bad neighborhoods. You could walk through these neighborhoods, people knew each other, and I don't think we know each other on that level now.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Yeah, that is true. People are just suspicious. Don't try and use the word line. Wait, what's the matter with that? I can't use the word cluster. I'm trying to use the words.

SPEAKER_05 34:38

Why can't I use dust?

SPEAKER_04 34:42

God, I sounded creepy there. Sorry. My fault, guys. I'll do better.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Well, back to the TV shows.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Circling back around.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Back to the TV shows. What would you say your generation did well with TV?

SPEAKER_04 34:58

Storytelling. Uh I think our storytelling was really good. There was depth to the story. There was emotion to it. I mean, a lot of the TV miniseries were really good. Uh, there was one uh it was called The Thornbirds with Richard Chamberlain, who was like the king of TV miniseries that was really well. I think they did one called Shogun. The Martian Chronicles was good. So I think uh storytelling. Storytelling was really good. I mean, even the old Star Trek episodes, they were innovative uh stories for the time. And Star Trek, while we're on the topic, was one of the first shows that said we're gonna have somebody from every ethnicity, everybody's gonna be equal. This is a show about the future, this is a show about space travel. So when you look at the bridge crew of the USS Enterprise, everyone was from a different place on the planet, and it was all equal. In fact, little known fact, the first interracial kiss on television was on Star Trek between Captain James T. Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Isn't she an alien?

SPEAKER_04 36:11

She's Swahili. But thank you. Kelsey has clearly never seen Star Trek.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

I've seen the movies.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

Which ones?

SPEAKER_02 36:25

All of them.

SPEAKER_04 36:26

All of them. So you've seen Star Trek the motion picture.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

I mean not your, not your I've seen my Star Trek film.

SPEAKER_04 36:35

So you haven't seen Star Trek, is what you're saying, in essence. You've seen the Chris Pine movies. Yeah, I've seen the Chris Pine movies. Okay, so no. So for the record, folks, Kelsey has not seen Star Trek the way it was meant to be seen.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

And Aurora was green.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

Uhura was not green.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

She's green in the movie.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

She's really not. Zoe Zaldana.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

Is Uhura.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

You know who I pictured in my head. Her guardians of the galaxy character.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Gomora?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Gamora. Gamora and a whore. You keep telling me.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

You can't tell me that I'm the same.

SPEAKER_04 37:22

Oh God, I need a minute. Oh God. Okay, so your next homework assignment will be to absolutely watch some old Star Trek because it's fantastic television for one thing, but damn, she was green. No, she wasn't green.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

My movies got mixed up there.

SPEAKER_04 37:44

Oh God, that's hilarious. So yeah, I think the TV started trying to get a little bit more gritty as we moved into the mid-80s with especially some of the primetime stuff. They started doing primetime soap operas like Dynasty and um Dallas, Knott's Landing, uh, shows like that. And I'm not even sure. There was a medical drama, I think it came before ER called St. Elsewhere. And that particular one launched the careers of Denzel Washington, Howie Mandel, just to name a couple. And it had one of the worst finales in television history.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Oh, I think you told me about this one. Is this where it was like it was all a dream?

SPEAKER_04 38:27

It was a kid that had a debilitating illness or mental problem. Phrasing. Phrasing was so bad on that.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

I I watched you.

SPEAKER_04 38:42

No, it was terrible. I'm sorry. And it turns out the entire show, the entire staff, every single character was a character in this kid's head. And it was all inside of a little hospital inside of a snow globe that was on his nightstand. That was the end of the show. And it left a lot of people going, Are you fucking kidding me right now? And it's that whole it and great point though. Because it's the whole it was a dream trope. Because that has been beat to death on a level that that stop doing it. Just stop fucking doing it. It was a dream. Fuck you. Okay. It was a vision. It was stop it. Stop it. It's not okay. So and you know, if we're being honest, it was a great drama up until then. And there are countless shows that were fantastic that had the shittiest ending in all of all time.

unknown 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Finales really shut the bud. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 39:54

So I just just to confirm it, the entire final episode of St. Elsewhere concludes with a snow globe ending that revealed that the entire series, including the hospital, its characters, was all a figment of Tommy, who was an autistic child.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

It's always a Tommy.

SPEAKER_04 40:13

Well, you know what's interesting about that is, and we'll get into this when we start covering music, folks. But The Who, the rock band The Who, not The Who, they have a concept album called Tommy, which is about an autistic kid.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

I watched the musical version of it.

SPEAKER_04 40:32

So I don't think it's that far outside the realm that they said, oh, we'll have an autistic kid named Tommy, and the entire show is his imagination inside the snow globe.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

What did your generation do well? Uh bad. We already did well. What did your generation where do they fall short on TV?

SPEAKER_04 40:50

Um, I think where they fell short was some of the outrageous, over-the-top, almost nonsensical television. Uh several shows spring to mind. Um, and these are shows, and let me be clear, like these are shows that I loved. I loved, right? The A Team. I love the fucking A-Team. The premise, fantastic. The show plot lines, absolutely bonkers. Bonkers. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna hire a band of mercenaries in LA that ride in a black and red van. Right. They have uh Hannibal, who smokes his cigars, Dirk Benedict as face, who's supposed to be the pretty boy, Howlin Mad Murdoch, who's an insane person, and then you've got Mr. T, who's possibly one of the greatest characters to ever come out of the 1980s. And I pity the fool.

SPEAKER_05 41:46

I pity that fool. Which you're crazy. I pity the fool.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

Fantastic. Um, another good one. And this was this was born out of the Star Wars Fallout.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Wait, was that the most outrageous thing?

SPEAKER_04 41:59

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're gonna I'm gonna No no no, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

I was like, that's it, they're just gonna ride in on a plot. I mean, it's crazy. They're in a black and red van.

SPEAKER_04 42:08

It was the it was the plot lines of it. And you also had plot lines uh in other in other shows that uh I don't know if they would fly today. Like the whole concept of the Dukes of Hazard. I don't know if that would fly today, but it was entertaining as shit back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

It's funny because every show you're saying, I'm like, I saw that movie. I saw that movie. That was a good movie.

SPEAKER_04 42:35

And see, we graduated into chips with uh with with Eric Estrada as as Poncharello, and again, like these storylines were over the top. Did they try to address certain things? Yes. Was it campy? Fuck yes. Was it good? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes, I mean, there were episodes of these shows that were absolutely horrible, you know. Um, what's a couple other ones? Oh, born out of the Star Wars Fallout, and one of my favorite shows. In fact, I've been looking for it and I can't find it uh without paying for it on Amazon, and I'm not doing that, so fuck you, Amazon. Um Buck Rogers in the 25th century.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

You're looking at me like I'm supposed to know what that means.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

Gil Gerrard, Aaron Gray, Mel Blank as the voice of Tweaky.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Your memory is insane.

SPEAKER_05 43:40

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

I can't I can barely remember a person's name that I was introduced to yesterday.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

I mean, this was a show. The premise of the show is fantastic. Okay. I'm gonna paint you a picture. Captain William Buck Rogers. In the last of the manned Saturn probes launches from Cape Canaveral in a freak accident. The controls of his spacecraft are locked. His life support malfunctions and he is frozen in his spacecraft. He is locked into an orbit that takes him around the galaxy and brings him back to Earth 500 years later, where he is woken up and he is now a 20th century guy living in the 25th century.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Sounds like Phil of the Future.

SPEAKER_04 44:39

No. Now Buck Rogers, huge back in, I think it was the 30s, with Buster Crab, was the original in the black and white, and Buck Rogers was a whole thing. This show was fantastic. I fucking loved it. And looking at it now, it's awful. It's awful. You had a fucking robot, right? That was like a combination of C3PO and R2D2, but it was voiced by Mel Blank. Mel Blank voiced Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Tweety Bird, all those guys, right? So this would be Tweaky. Beatty beatty beatty. Nice job, Buck. That's Tweaky, right? Then you have Colonel Wilma Deering, Aaron Gray. Hot. Super hot. 10 out of 10. Her character was supposed to be the rigid military person. Didn't work out that great. And then you had in later episodes, Hawk. This was a guy who had a wig that was like white and black, like an eagle's head. So his head looked like an eagle. He had uh like a leather costume that had black feathers on the shoulders. Uh think Catness Everdeen.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

I'm with you. I'm right.

SPEAKER_04 45:59

Think Catnus Everdeen, except it's a dude, it's weird. And his spaceship is in the shape of a hawk. Which looking back on it now, and I just realized this this guy's from somewhere out in deep space. How do they have hawks out there? Does he go on Earth? Is he from Earth? Did he go out there? So you just have to suspend belief for all this shit, right? But this was a great show to me. And these were the things I think that we we got right. They tried everything. And if it worked, they ran with it. If it didn't work, it got canceled.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Are there any shows from your generation that you've re-watched?

SPEAKER_04 46:38

I to this day will re-watch Cheers over and over and over again. Does some of the comedy hold up? No, it doesn't translate great. I think that there was a couple of episodes around sexual assault that really downplayed the seriousness of that. And there was a couple of episodes around homophobia that were really downplayed and could have been done a little different. And they were still trying. They were trying to address it, they were trying to bring attention to it, and they were trying to do something positive with it. So I don't fault them for that. Uh other shows that I go back and re-watch, I've been looking for the day after tomorrow because I want to go back to that one.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

It's a really good movie, too.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

Love J Jill.

SPEAKER_04 47:33

Oh my God. And I don't think uh, and I take that back. It's not the day after tomorrow. It's just called the day after.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Okay, that's very different.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

It is very different, so my bad. And yeah, I dig Jake Gillamall, too. He's got to be.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

And just imagine all the people listening.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

Calm the fuck down. Okay. We've rerouted and corrected. Um, another one uh that I would go back and watch in a heartbeat is Buck Rogers in the 25th century, a thousand percent. 18, like any of these shows I would go back and rewatch.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

What was it about cheers that makes it such a comfort show for you?

SPEAKER_04 48:09

A couple different things. One, I loved how together everybody in that bar was with each other. Like they were just more than friends. You know what I mean? It was the same people in the bar all the time, and then cheers ran into the early 90s. And by that time, I was 21. And I was going out to the bars, and I just wanted to go to a place where everybody knew my name. Hey, you know, and I did. There were there was a couple bars in my home now where I'd walk in and half the place would turn around and go, oh, Mikey. And that was just our jam. That was our and and you know, keep in mind, again, different time, but this was there was a bar, you know, your corner pubs were a big deal in the community. It was a place to gather, it was a place to hang out, and I mean we were in there all the time. So I think that's part of why Cheers resonated with me. I also thought it was funny as hell, and we did a lot of the same joking around that they did on that show. Like it's just, I think part of that show and a lot of the sitcoms, and even the cartoons and three stooges and all that, it helps shape my sense of humor. I have a twisted fucking sense of humor. No, I mean, not everybody gets it. And what I don't know what this says about me, but when somebody doesn't get it and they deadpan stare at me and I'm laughing my ass off at the joke I just made, that's one of my favorite things. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie, I think it's hysterical. And we have to laugh. We have to laugh at all of this stuff, right? People talk about equality. Great, I'm gonna make fun of you equally. I'm gonna make fun of all of you, right? Because that's when I was a much younger man, I had a job and I was having a tough time at the job because I felt like I was getting picked on all the time. And one of the senior guys pulled me aside one day and he goes, What's going on? I said, You know, this is fucking bullshit. Everybody's fucking with me. You know, they're all laughing and everything. And he goes, Mikey, you gotta take into consideration something. They like you. That's why they're fucking with you.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

If he's making fun of you, it means he likes you.

SPEAKER_04 50:33

Okay. Why, why, why? Why I feel like I'm having a moment and and and no, no, and you're enjoying it on top of it. It taught me a valuable life lesson because later on I watched somebody who came into that job who wasn't liked, and nobody talked to him, and nobody fucked with him, and he didn't last. And I went, okay. So say what you will, but it helped shape me as an adult and helped help me fit in because I knew if they're messing with me, or if I'm getting messed with, or if I'm messing with other people, it's because it's because we're getting along, it's because we like each other. So yeah, cheers helped teach me that. So did the three stooges in a weird way, because I'll smack you neck. Yeah, thanks to your norm.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

Well so you had your TV shows. Would you say that your TV shows were influenced by what was happening in the real world?

SPEAKER_04 51:46

A lot of them were. MASH was the Korean War. Um trying to think of any of the ones. I mean, it wasn't until the 90s when I was coming into my 20s and starting to watch more adult drama that I started realizing that they're talking about things that are going on in the world. But there was a lot of shows in the 80s that just weren't hey, it's an hour, we're gonna have fun, and if it's a half-hour show, whatever the problem is, we're gonna solve it in that half hour.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

What were some of the things that were happening culturally for you in that during that time period?

SPEAKER_04 52:31

The 80s. Um, like I don't remember too much from the 70s. I mean, the Vietnam War ended in 75, and I have no memory of that at all. Um, the earliest memories I have of like significant cultural events, the first one was probably Lake Placid, New York, 1980, the United States men's hockey team beating Russia. It was a huge deal. I was nine years old. I didn't know why the adults were freaking out, but I knew it was a good thing. And then uh, I think I was 12 or 13. I came home from school one day and and I I walked home from junior high to my grandparents' house. And when I went and walked in the house, my granddad said, uh, you need to go next door and get your aunts and uncles. They shot the president. And they were showing President Reagan being shot by John Hinckley outside the hotel in Washington. They were showing it over and over and over again. And I knew about John Kennedy, President Kennedy, and his brother Bobby being assassinated and Martin Luther. So it was a big deal. And then another big cultural moment, and it's it's like, hey, here's a big hope, heap and dose of generational trauma, by the way. Because, like, okay, we go to school, hey, we're gonna watch the space shuttle today because the teacher's going to space. This is gonna be amazing. So let's put, you know, everybody get in the classroom. Here's the TV. Look, there's the shuttle, everything you had. Ten, nine, eight, there it goes, and everything is great, everything is great. Throttle up. And there's that moment of for me anyway, there was that moment of what the fuck did I just watch? Did that is that and then the teacher very quickly snapped off the TV, and then they came over the PA system in the school and said, All students are to report to the auditorium right now, and we go to the auditorium, and now we have something has happened, and we need to talk about it. And I mean, this is where the Gen X are in me comes out. What's a fucking grief counselor? We don't grief counselor, okay. Teacher blew up. Go talk to your parents about it. That was it. That was it. We knew something bad had happened, we knew it was serious. Um, those are I those are the big things that stand out to me in the 80s. I mean, I got into politics later on in the 80s as a teenager, which is funny for a teenager. So the Iran Contra scale uh scandal and all that, but yeah, the the Challenger explosion, that was a big one.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

And how did shows reflect stuff like this happening at the time?

SPEAKER_04 55:26

I think that they parodied it or they wrote around it, but it's not like it wasn't like like when you turn on Law and Order today or Law and Order SVU or any of these crime shows today were you know ripped from today's headlines and they're they're taking it head on and diving into it. They danced around it. There is one movie that stood out to me partly because my mom loved it. It was called The Burning Bed. And it's I think it was Farah Foss that was in it, and it was about a woman who was being abused by her husband. Damn, and at the end of the movie, she ties him to the bed, burns it, thousands of Nigas Valen, and sets his happy ass on fire. Go, girl. I mean, he probably asked for it. Not probably, if he was beating up on her, he asked for it. So there were movies like that. There was concern. Drugs started to become a concern, uh, particularly when you had like, I think it was Karen Ann Quinlan who became a vegetable because of the drug overdose. And then in the mid to late 80s, the crack epidemic started, and that started to shape a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

Yeah, you guys had like those crazy drug commercials back then, right? It was like an egg on a frying pan, it was like, this is your brain on drugs.

SPEAKER_04 56:48

Which was funny because the only thing that that actually did was make people do drugs. It was like, don't tell me to say no. I'm not saying no. And that was uh Nancy Reagan, First Lady. That was her contribution as first lady. We're gonna do the just say no campaign. We have commercials on this all over the place. And it was it was here's this fucking hot ass frying pan, and they crack an egg, and the whole commercial was just crack the egg. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? Like the person making this commercial's on drugs, and immediately like me and my buddy looked at each other and were like, Well, we like eggs.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 57:33

Back by I don't I don't think this is having the intended effect, you know. So there was a lot of that stuff. Um but again, we grew up in a different time. I mean, there was no it wasn't I'm not gonna say it was a gentle time. I mean, you were held accountable for your actions. If you fucked around, you found out. I mean, people are saying that now, it's 2025. Oh, fuck around and find out. And I laugh at some of the people that are saying that because I'm looking at them going, you've never fucked around and you've never found out. And I'll give you a great example of this. When I was a young kid, one of the uh things we like to do is we put chromies on our bikes. Chromies were metal caps for the tire stems. So it'd make that like no, no, no, those are baseball cards, but thanks for playing. You're welcome. Kids ask your parents. So one of the things that we would do as kids is we would go around and look for high-end cars to take these metal-colored tire stem caps off and put them on our bikes. And I saw this car one day in a parking lot, and I wanted the chromies that were on the car, so I took them. And I was taking the fourth one off, and I hear a voice behind me go, now put them all back on the fucking car.

SPEAKER_02 58:56

Oh my god, that means he was like just watching you do the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 58:59

100% he was. 100% he was. Now I'm not more than 10 or 11 years old. And he comes over to me, he's like, You like to fucking steal? And I'm like, uh, not anymore. So he goes, Okay. So what he did was he took a tool and he pulled the the valve stems out of my bike tires, which flattened my tires.

SPEAKER_05 59:21

Damn!

SPEAKER_04 59:22

He's like, I should beat the shit out of you, but get out of here. So now I'm walking my bike home. I get about three quarters of the way home, and he pulls up in a car, and I'm right by a bridge over over a creek near my house, and he gets out and he's still pissed. He's like, You little motherfucker, you want to steal from me, and but he snatched my bike from me and he threw it off off the bridge.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

Holy shit, okay, that's a bit much. Certain dunies, calm down.

SPEAKER_04 59:54

Never stole another thing in my life. Not like that. So there were consequences. If you talk shit to the wrong person, you're you were gonna be in a fight. And frankly speaking, I don't think that it's bad for kids to get into fights.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:13

Did you then have to go home to your parents and explain what happened to your bike?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:16

I did. I did. And what did you learn? What did you learn? And as my dad, and God bless him, I mean, he taught me so much, and he was right about all of it. He said, You learned a lesson today. Part of that lesson is don't be an asshole. Don't be an asshole.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

There's a lot of assholes out there nowadays.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

There's a lot of assholes out there, and part of the reason for that is because they've lived a long time with no consequences. So I think we were held accountable in ways that people are not held accountable today, especially with the internet. I can go on the internet right now, I can be whoever I want, I can say whatever I want, and nobody's gonna nobody's going to tell me otherwise. I might get fact-checked here or there, or if I say something really fucked up, I might get kicked off the platform. But overall, there's no real consequences. When I was 14, if I looked at a guy and said, Go fuck yourself, and he went, Okay, come on. Oh god, no, no, am I gonna fight this guy, and I don't want to do that. So there was real consequence. So I think that I don't know that TV reflected that as much.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

Like, I don't know how we got here.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

I don't know how we got here either. I don't know that TV reflected that as much. I I don't, like I said, a lot, you know, a lot of the shows, things were solved in a half hour, things were solved in an hour, and it just wasn't like that. But we were again, we were also in such an optimistic time, and we were just enjoying everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:59

Are there any shows that you couldn't watch from that generation because you were too young that were like big shows?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:07

I mean, nothing immediately springs to mind. I mean, some of the daytime or some of the nighttime dramas like Dynasty or Dallas or Knott's Landing, but I had no interest in those shows anyway. I did not give a shit. I was not allowed when they were in prime time and and airing, I was not allowed to watch Cheers. So that was the Thursday night lineup. You had Cheers at eight o'clock, followed by Night Court. And then I can't remember what came after that, and then I think it was at 10 o'clock. I can't even remember that. But I wasn't allowed to watch those shows at that time.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

Why couldn't you watch Cheers?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:50

Well, two reasons. One, my bedtime was eight o'clock. That's non-negotiable. The other thing was that um back at in in that time, it was felt that that was inappropriate comedy or an inappropriate show for me as a an 11-year-old or 12-year-old to watch a show about a group of people at a bar getting drunk and trying to get laid.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

So, how old were you when you did eventually watch Cheers?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

Well, see, here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

Oh, here we go.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:22

I used to sneak out of my room, and I would I I just a vivid memory of laying at the top of the staircase listening to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

But just listening and not being able to see, were you able to follow?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

Yep. 100%. 100%. But this I mean, also I I've been accused of having an overactive imagination. So that's not that surprising to me. But I would, I would, whether it was Cheers or Night Court or even other shows that I was not allowed to watch, I would I would sneak to the top of the stairs and I would listen to these shows, or I would listen to what was going on on TV. Or sometimes I was able to finagle depending on the show and depending on what was going on. Can I please stay up? Can I please stay up? Please, please, please, please, please. And I think sometimes I just warm my parents down and they were finally like, okay, fine, shut the fuck up. And yes, you could stay up. Um, there were also other shows that were, you know, throughout the year that they were on one time a year, and I was allowed to stay up for those. For example, and we had you know, we had religion in my home. During Easter, it was the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. That's like a three-hour fucking movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

Good God.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:41

I was allowed to stay up to watch the whole thing, and I watched it every time. That show comes on now. I'm like, oh shit, and I'll put it on. Here's one that you will know: Wizard of Oz. Oh yeah. That was aired once a year. I think that was around Easter as well. Um and and some of these things, I remember the first time I watched March of the Wooden Soldiers with uh Laurel and Hardy, who was a comedy group from the 30s, 40s, and uh it scared the shit out of me. It it really did because they had the boogeyman and the boogeyman would come and get you, and the whole thing at the end of the movie is Laurel Hardy. They there was a toy maker, and he made all these giant wooden soldiers. So Laurel and Hardy went in, they were pushing the buttons and getting all the soldiers to to move, and they fought the boogeyman, and it was real cool. So there were certain television events that yeah, we're allowed to stay up and watch those.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:41

What was it like for you then if your first introduction to Cheers was listening to it, and then when you actually got to watch it?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:51

It just put faces to the names. Like, you know, I knew the voices so well at that point. I'm like, I know that's Sam, I know that's Cliff, I know that's Norm. That's definitely Carla. You know, and uh it was just it was just awesome. I mean and then they went into syndication, and me and my friends would just watch them over and over again. And this is the same thing with the sitcoms from the 60s and 70s, they were in syndication well before that. So I mean, I think I saw every episode of the Brady Bunch twice, three times, you know, uh Gilligan's Island every episode, two, three, four times, because it's on every day, sometimes two hours at a time. So all these shows, and and some of them didn't even run that many seasons. Like Star Trek, the original series, ran for I think it was two seasons. That was it. And it did not do well at the time. It was in syndication that it got the following it did. But then again, you go right back to the Star Wars effect. If Star Wars isn't successful, you don't get Star Trek the motion picture. So yeah, I mean there was just a lot of stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Did any of these shows bring about your first celebrity crush?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

Ooh. Yeah. I remember watching The Brady Bunch. And I remember looking at Marsha and feeling away, Marsha, Marsha. And I'm like, I don't know what this feeling is. Figured it out a couple years later. Maybe it didn't take that long.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

How old are you?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:33

How old am I?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:34

No, how old were you when you had this feeling?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:37

Oh, uh God. 12, 13, maybe late 11. No, had to be late 11-ish. 11-ish, 12-ish.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:49

That's wild because you know 11-year-old boys nowadays know exactly what that feeling is.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:55

Okay, but they have a thing called Pornhub that was not available to me at all. Um But yeah, the the Brady girls, not Jan. I'm like girls? Not Jam. Ginger and Marianne on Gilligan's Island was another one. Um some of the some of the I don't want to call them bad girls, but you know, Catwoman on Batman, and you know, Julie Newmar, she's gorgeous. I mean, she's fantastic. So and then watching Star Trek, Captain Kirk is a whore, so he's trying to fuck everything that moves, and there were always female interests there. And then you show me a green girl, and I'm like, well, that's different. I'm kind of into it, kind of into that for some reason.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:45

Okay, so there was a green girl.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:47

Yes, okay, yeah, but her name was not Gamora, okay. No, so yeah, I mean, there was a lot of um awakenings, if you will, particularly once MTV started. Once MTV started and the music video started coming out, that was a game changer as far as that goes.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

Stay tuned for our music episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:16

100%. Um Madonna hit the scene, I think in 1982 or 83 with Holiday was her first single. And immediately all the parents were like, Who is this whore? And I'm like, What is her name? And I need to be around her. Like, this girl is awesome. So, yeah, there was a lot of that influence for me on television, 100%. Yeah, I was 12 years old when Madonna's holiday released, and that was the first video, that was the first time she came on the scene, and then she immediately followed up with Lucky Star, Crazy for You, and then The Nuclear Bomb that was like a virgin. And then there was a whole lot of other artists like that that just the Bangles, Susanna Hoff from the Bangles. My god.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:07

Her acting wasn't half bad either. I liked Ali Good Their Own.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:11

But I was pretty good. She had some bad ones early on, though. I mean, at close range, not the greatest movie. Uh, Desperately Seeking Susan, campy comedy, not too shabby. Rosanna Arquette, little over the top in that one, but still a good movie. Still a good movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:30

Okay. All right. Well, we're gonna close out this episode with Mike doing a little game, a little quiz game.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:38

Let's play a game.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:40

Would you like to play a game? That's an obscure movie reference.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:46

Saw.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:47

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:47

It is Saw though.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:49

It is not Saw.

unknown 1:10:50

I don't want to play a game.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:52

Would you like to play a game? Yeah, let's play checkers. How about Global Thermonuclear War? It's a movie called War Games with Matthew Broderick and Ali Sheedy. It's fantastic, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:11

I have heard of that one. Okay. So I'm gonna say some TV quotes and we'll see if Mike knows who said it and from what.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:20

Hopefully, I will not suck at this.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:23

I do horribly with pressure moments like this. I do really well when it's just off the cuff, but if I'm asked directly, my brain just melts.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:33

Fair enough. Um, I do think that uh part of this is gonna be the quality of Kelsey's presentation of said quote. Okay, well no pressure.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

Nobody cancel me for how I say these things.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

Oh shit, it just got interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:47

And for the first one.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:49

Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

The blame, the blame.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:52

Oh my god. Her Valencia's tattoo is the character Fantasy Island. With Ricardo Montabon. By the way, not for nothing, uh, Saturday night viewing, love boat, fantasy island. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

Yeah, that was how you spent Saturday night?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:08

Uh, not at my house. I had to go to bed.

unknown 1:12:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:12

But if I was sleeping over at a friend's house every Saturday night, watch.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

I don't know how this one was said, so I'm just gonna go for it. Nanu Nanu.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:25

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

Did I say it right?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:29

No. Nanu Nanu.

unknown 1:12:32

Ah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:33

And that would be Robin Williams. Uh the character is Mork, and the show is Mork and Mindy, which, by the way, was a spin-off show from Happy Days.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:41

Nice. Doing good, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:44

Also, it was Robin Williams' first foray. I mean, that's what put him on the map. He he did one episode of Happy Days where he starred as Mork, and they did an entire show called Mork and Mindy based off of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:54

What does that quote reference?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:57

Uh he's an alien that comes to earth in an egg. It was the 80s. And uh might have been late 70s. And um, he lands in Boulder, Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:16

And uh sounds like resident alien.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:19

Um, probably not that far-fretched, to be perfectly honest. And he meets uh Mindy, who is single female, so she takes him in so he doesn't get you know captured by government forces or anything, and he's learning how to be human. Well, nanu nanu is one of his greetings. I don't think he did that. Um, and then his curse word was shazbut.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:47

I'm taking shazbutt. Shazbutt. Shazbutt. I'm gonna use that one stealing that one. Being such a shazbutt.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:57

It's it's more like shit. So shazbutt. Shazbutt.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

Do you remember that movie? American Girls Are Easy.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:09

Earth Girls Are Easy. Why is it gonna be American Girls Are Easy?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

Earth Girls are Easy. Oh my god, I love that movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:17

Gina Davis and Jeff Goldblum.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:19

Yep, yep. And uh what's his face? Isn't it? He's like the really he's portrayed as like the really cute uh surfer boy one.

unknown 1:14:34

What's his funny name?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:37

Oh my god, I can't believe I'm blanking on his name.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:40

He was in Earth Girls Are Easy?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:41

Yeah, he was Jeff Daniels? No. From Dumb and Dumber.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:51

Jeff Daniels. Jim Carrey?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:56

Don't remember him in that one, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

He's the blonde one that's like the hot surfer-looking one.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:02

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:03

Yeah. It's funny. I was about to say Jim, and I'm like, Jim doesn't sound right, but yeah, no, Jim Carrey.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:08

Son of a bitch. He's in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:13

Oh god.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:14

There's a lot of people in here that it's such a weird movie, but it's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:19

It's so good.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:20

Like Julie Brown is in this movie. Uh Damon Wayans, Jim Carrey. Julie Brown was like a singer. She's a quirky, weird one. She has a song. I think it's still out there. Yeah, I think you could still find it. But it would not fly today. The song is called The Homecoming Queen Has Got a Gun. And the entire song is about a homecoming queen that shoots up homecoming.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

Yeah, sensitive topic nowadays.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:45

Nah, you can't do that. You couldn't. This was before stuff like that was happening.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

Alright, back on track.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:52

Back on track. Quote me.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:53

What you talking about, Willis?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:55

Oh god, Gary Coleman. Uh, different strokes.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:58

Do you remember his character name? Arnold.

unknown 1:16:01

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:02

He's good, guys. He's good. Uh I don't know if I'm gonna say this right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

No problem.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:08

Okay, that's any one of like 50 different.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

I'm a creature that says it.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:15

Alf?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:16

Yeah!

SPEAKER_04 1:16:17

From the planet Milmac. I like to eat cats.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:20

How does he say it on the show? How does he say it?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:23

I mean, he's a Muppet, so he says it. No, Alf's voice was actually more of like a 30 or 40-year-old beer drinking guy. Like more like a matter-of-fact kind of thing. No problem. No problem. You know, he was kind of like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:42

Nice. Kiss my grits.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:46

Oh, that's uh oh, it's the diner show. Alice? No.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:53

It's the other one.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:54

Flow?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:55

Yeah. Polly Holiday from Alice and Flow.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:00

Kiss my grit.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:02

Ooh. Okay, hopefully you know this one. Let's be careful out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:06

Oh god, that's the sergeant Hill Street Blues at the end of every roll call. And that always ended the same, or it always started the same way. He would do roll call, he would dismiss the officers for their tour, and he would go, hey, let's be careful out there. And then it would cut to the garage door rolling up, and the theme song would start playing, and the cars would roll out.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:27

Nice. Make it so.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:34

I mean, that's Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek The Next Generation. Played by Jean-Luc Picard.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:47

It's funny that you remembered that.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:50

Oh my god. I I no, I have to know this. Patrick Stewart.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:56

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:58

If I didn't know that, it was like take my science fiction card away from me, for fuck's sake.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:04

Alright. Well, I shared since we since one of the Hill Street Blues quotes was in there, and that's what I watched. I shared what I thought about it. What did you think about that show, Mike?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:15

I enjoyed it a great deal. I thought it was a little bit over the top at times, but I did enjoy I love The Sgt. I loved there was a character in there, I don't remember her name right now. I think I think the actress that played her was Betty Thomas. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. She was a good character. I loved the dynamic between Kavanaugh and the captain. I thought it was a very good cop show early on.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:42

Also, the fact that the sergeant had a girlfriend in high school and everyone was just okay with that. They're like, hey man, how's your girl? He's like, I'm great, she's getting good grades, and she's on the sports team and all the things. I'm like, what? The dude's like 70.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:59

Some of it didn't age well, but it's still a good show. Give it a watch. You tell us what you think. I would love to get some comments on that.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:08

Like if anyone's seen the show, tell us what you think.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:11

Because some of the, and you know, again, some of this TV and movies and everything else that we're talking about, some of this stuff did not age well. I like I said earlier, Cheers is one of my top three sitcoms of all time. And there are jokes in there, particularly in the first, say, four seasons, five seasons of that show, that they do not hold up today. And looking back on them now, I go, oh, I mean, we were laughing at it. It's kind of fucked up.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:39

Also, the captain's wife, ex-wife, whatever she is, gives me real Skylar vibes. She's annoying as hell.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:48

Oh, yeah. She used to come in like a bull in a china shop. She was not fun to be around. And having just literally just finished re-watching Breaking Bad last night, Skylar White is a horrible person. I I I applaud Anna Anna Gunn because she played that character so well that I hate that character. That's a good. And that's agreed. That's how you know it's a good performance. Um when when when they elicit an emotional response based on the character that they're playing, it's fantastic. And I just I love to hate Skylar now.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:28

Yeah, who do you think is worse, Skylar or Lori Grimes?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:37

Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:39

Skylar.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:40

Yeah, because if you haven't watched Walking Dead, Lori is also awful.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:42

Lori is awful. However, Lori is a victim of circumstance.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:48

To a point.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:49

But there's several questions with Lori, like, hey, uh, you didn't think to maybe get your husband out of that hospital before you guys took off out of the city? Just a question, because he woke up there and then went looking for you and you were gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:02

Yeah, but Shane said he was dead.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:08

Here's where I go with that. I need to see that with my own eyes. I need to know that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:16

But are you gonna take your young chit kid Carl to take the time to go to the hospital and check? Are you getting the fuck out because this is zombie apocalypse?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:23

Okay, I'm not taking my coral. I'm not taking coral coral. It's nacho cheese, coral. It's nacho cheese. I am not taking Carl with me, however, common.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:36

Hey Carl.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:37

Having trained for the zombie apocalypse since I was about 10 years old. You guys stay here. I'll be back.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:44

But she doesn't know that.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:47

Tough shit. Tough shit. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:49

If it's Kitty said the kitty.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:51

I'm just saying. I'm gonna find out for sure. I'm not just taking somebody's word that my spouse is dead in a zombie apocalypse, especially if they're not sprinters. If they're shamblers, we're going to the hospital. Skylar White made a lot of choices. And all of them were bad. All of them were bad. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna fuck my boss. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna give my boss three-quarters of a million dollars of my husband's drug money.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:22

Knowing that my boss and buzzle.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:24

No, right, right, right, right. And I thought Walter White's response to that was priceless. Let me get this straight. You gave six hundred and seventeen thousand dollars of my money to the man who was sleeping with my wife. Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound great. No shit, Sherlock. So yeah, I would go with Skylar White over Lori Grimes. I agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

I agree. Well, thanks, Mike. Thank you, Kelsey. Taking us a little blast in the past there.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:59

Well, I like what we did here today because I feel like we covered all the way up until right around, oh, I don't know, when you were born. Which means we get to talk about the shows that help shape Kelsey. And we're gonna learn a little bit or a lot of bit about Kelsey when we go down that rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:16

How did Kelsey become the person that she is?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:20

So many questions. So many questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:23

Find out next time. All right, guys. Well, thanks for joining us for Mike's little TV TED Talk.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:31

By the way, um, I know that I had given you homework for this episode to watch Hill Street Blues. Do you have any homework for me?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:39

I do. So for Mike, he has to watch at least the first three episodes of my favorite show from my generation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:52

Okay, first of all, what makes you think I haven't already watched it?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:55

Because I know you haven't watched the show, you've watched the dumb fucking movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:02

And you always said you refused to watch the show because of the dumb fucking movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:06

Okay, first of all, the movie was great. Let's just start there, okay? Christy Swanson, love you. Donald Sutherland, icon. That's right out of the gate. Second of all, I may or may not have watched some of the show. It may or may not be better than the movie. Probably not. But we'll find out because I am gonna do my homework. I'm gonna figure out how to watch this show.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:30

It's on Hulu.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:31

Which we don't have anymore. Thank you. No, we don't. Oh, we do we fixed that.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:35

We haven't until August 28th.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:36

Oh, good to know. Crap, I gotta get on that. Okay, so.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:42

You can't watch three episodes of a show in like 20 days.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:45

Yeah, I think I can manage that. So I will be watching uh several episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And then we are gonna be talking about, we're gonna be talking to Kelsey about the TV that helped shape her and got her to who she is today, along with her wicked sense of humor that I very much enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:04

So you can make sure to keep all your kids away from these shows.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:08

We will be formulating a list of okay, this is what not to do, just say. So yeah, uh that's pretty much gonna wrap up this particular episode. Don't forget, subscribe us, subscribe to us, rate us, tell all your friends about us, and uh just keep following us because it's just gonna keep getting better and better.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

And we will see you next time on that next tourist. Thanks, guys.