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.
We've seen it before--a star almost immediately gets a new show after the end of a popular show. Shirley Hemphill of What's Happening! was in just this position after the end of that show. She rebounded with One in a Million with podcast favorites Richard Paul and Carl Ballantine for all of 13 episodes.
We present to you Mike reading from the 2018 literary classic The Golden Girls 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Enjoy and happy holidays.
It's another story about a show that premiered after the "Big Game" and died not long after. The show was in the same vein as Police Squad! and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and it came from Stephen J. Cannell. But was America ready for an hour-long police comedy? Obviously not.
We have had this on our list for a while. A recent YouTube discovery pushed it to the front of the line. We give you in almost entirely alphabetical order, every guest star on The Love Boat...almost.
One of the more fascinating and entertaining Saturday morning shows in the mid-70s was The Ghost Busters, starring Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch, who worked together in the 60s on F Troop. Unrelated to the movie franchise of the same name, it got a second life in the 80s thanks to that movie, but that's another episode. It was cancelled for a reason we haven't covered thus far on this show, but you'll have to listen to find out.
One of our favorite shows from the mid-2000s was MXC: The Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. When the show debuted, it started with a bang...or is that an almost snap of someone's neck? One contestant called Rob Tussin tried making a glorious entrance but it almost ended in catastrophe. And he jumped right up and continued with the game!
We wrap up our Halloween trifecta of shows with some humor, straight from the minds at Saturday Night Live. In 2016, David S. Pumpkins appeared on a Halloween sketch. He proved to be so popular that he got his own half-hour special the following year.
ANY QUESTIONS?!?!
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.
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.
This is it! The big 2-0-0! We look back at a great, short-lived show from the late 90s with a great cast of characters and array of guests, which got mishandled by the network during a time when there was a push towards educational and informational television on Saturday mornings.
