The It Was a Thing on TV Podcast Network

It's time for the final entry of Back to School 2024.  This time, we're focusing on educational shows.  Everybody remembers shows like 3-2-1 Contact, The Electric Company, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  But do you remember some of the 15-minute shows like Wordsmith and Math Wise?  If not, we have you covered in this episode about educational shows which generally ran from about 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon from the 1970s through the early 1990s.

To see many of the shows mentioned in this episode and more, visit https://libraries.indiana.edu/agency-instructional-technology-ait.

Before Brian Griffin created a series about two oddball roommates on an episode of Family Guy, that premise was used in a short-lived NBC series which paired up a 14-year-old with an ex-Marine in his 40s in a college dorm.  Ratings were amazing for the premiere episode, but the show still lasted only 8 shows.  Find out why in this installment.

It's time to go back to school for the next three installments!  We start with someone who is teaching until he gets his big break in acting, hooking up with seemingly every single lady along the way.  Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher brought some realities teenagers went through (and still go through) at the time, in addition to being a light-hearted comedy.

After the last video game show (episode 201), we said it would be our last look at video games based on TV shows.  We lied!  We found nine more games worthy of covering for what we believe will truly be the final video game show we cover.  This time, we found some truly bad games from a variety of genres, from dramedy to animation to action shows.

It's the mid-90s and two startup networks are looking for programming.  A flavor of the month at the time was giving stand-up comics their own shows, see Seinfeld, Life with Louie, and Roseanne, and later The Drew Carey Show and Everybody Loves Raymond.  The new network was UPN and the comic was Richard Jeni, who took a concept from his stand-up show and loosely molded it into a Seinfeld-like TV show.

Tomorrow (August 16th) marks the 25th anniversary of the premiere episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on ABC. The gang shares their memories and expectations leading up to the first episode while looking at some of the questions from the premiere.

Some of the questions in the premiere seemed easy in 1999 while some questions that looked hard in 1999 would be considered easy in 2024.

The 1990s was a renaissance for George Foreman, between regaining the WBA heavyweight championship, and the creation and rise in popularity of what became the George Foreman Grill.  Before those events, Foreman helmed a self-titled short-lived sitcom.  Happy 78th birthday, Susan St. James!

In the television landscape of 1998, there was a need for late night programming on FOX and other channels not part of The Big Three networks, something to fill the void when The Arsenio Hall Show ended.  Enter the NBA hoopster with a million dollar smile and the energy to match.  Unfortunately, said hoopster didn't have the chops to host.  It didn't help the show's sidekick got the boot during the 3rd episode.

As the 2024 Paris Olympics come to a close later this week, we go back again to our 2021 Olympics series of shows for this special "Best of" with one of our favorite episodes. Back in 2003-04, FOX presented a series of specials with man going against members of the animal kingdom.

Come for Kobayashi eating hot dogs against a bear, stay for the focused zebra that must realize that it's in a race!

In 1988, the U.S. Men's basketball team finished with a disappointing bronze medal, after having won the gold in almost every other previous Olympiad.  For that reason or because some teams had professional players, the Olympics opened the games to professionals.  The United States loaded up their squad with 11 of the NBA's best, plus Christian Laettner.  The first game was against Angola which, to put it kindly, was slaughtered by the Americans.