Partially an oral history of obscure TV shows, partially an oral version of MST3K, and partially a thorough episode guide, It Was a Thing on TV is an anthology podcast about obscure, forgotten, and odd TV shows, commercials, televised events, and almost anyone and anything else that was on television. For the most part, the subjects we cover are from the United States and Canada. We’re just three guys with a love for television. New episodes are generally every Monday and Thursday, sometimes more often.
Recently, the 25th James Bond cinematic release hit theaters. But would you believe there was a James Bond, er, Jimmy Bond to grace the small screen before Sean Connery? In 1954, the CBS anthology series Climax! had an episode based on the Ian Fleming work Casino Royale.
Simultaneously one of the most brilliant things on TV the last decade and one of the most bizarre, Too Many Cooks aired in the dead of night on Adult Swim. Within days, it was viral and repeated often. We offer a live commentary while watching the show and get into details about some of the production, and what happened to some of the actors and actresses.
It's the final edition of the It Was a Thing on TV remastered series and we're closing it with a look back at Episode 20 and the attempts to capitalize on the success of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? back in 2000.
We look at It's Your Chance of a Lifetime, Winning Lines and the 2000 version of Twenty-One. The gang talks about the greatness of the Wonderwall on Winning Lines and Mike talks about the time he auditioned for Twenty-One back in late 1999.
It only lasted 19 weeks but 1975's Musical Chairs was a landmark television program, as it was the first game show with an African-American emcee, in Adam Wade. It also had a fun theme song, a great cast of guests, and the cushy time slot after Match Game 75. It was also recorded at The Ed Sullivan Theater!
Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In was TV's most popular show in 1969. The people behind it tried capitalizing on its popularity with a related show called Turn-On. There were instant regrets, as ABC turned it off before the first episode aired in full.
We're going to the ballpark for this installment, as some of 1967's brightest Major League Baseball players went against celebrities back in the day on the softball diamond, with some very special celebrities handling the duties behind the mic and two legends acting as managers.
The next-to-last edition of the It Was a Thing on TV remastered series looks at one of ABC's first experiments with summer game shows back in 1990 with Super Jeopardy! and Monopoly.
This episode has it all four player Jeopardy! games, stories of when Mike and Chico faced off against form Jeopardy! champions, Monopoly's way too complicated ruleset and the lady who played Lumpy in the Star Wars Holiday Special!
Recently, word came out that American Gladiators is being rebooted...again. By coincidence, we had this show slotted for this week in our schedule. We talk about 4 shows which tried riding the coattails of the Gladiators--Knights and Warriors, Blade Warriors, Battledome, and Wild West Showdown. There are other shows of varying success we mention at the end. Put on your Spandex and get ready to take down some larger than life figures in this installment.
2:43 Knights and Warriors
32:50 Blade Warriors
40:11 Battledome
1:09:34 Wild West Showdown
1:26:36 Acknowledging other shows
We've scoured the Internet and found more of the crazy, cheap, and just bad local commercials, enough for this second helping. From Dirt Cheap Liquor to our personal favorite Crazy Gideon, these ads have gone viral for a reason.
NOTE: There may be some flaky audio briefly in a few parts of this episode.
In the latest edition of the remastered series we look back to our New Year's Eve 2019 episode. We look at one of the biggest television disasters of all-time in First Night 2013 presented by Jamie Kennedy.
Enjoy as we talk about a lot of very 2012-ish things in this episode like Psy, Angry Birds, the Mitt Romney 47% tape and that Pepsi commercial with Drew Brees and One Direction.
