Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries Maximum Fun
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- Society & Culture
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Two friends, Austin and Brenda, delve into the rich history of secret nerd mysteries near and dear to their hearts in their own loose, light-hearted way. If you've ever wondered "Why Saturday morning for cartoons?" or "How come Chuck E. Cheese cares so much about other people's birthdays?", this is the show for you!
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Rerun - Goosebumps
Brenda's on vacation this week, so we're here to present a slightly truncated version of one of our favorite episodes: episode 87, Goosebumps!
This week your host Brenda takes you on a deep dive into the history of the second highest selling children’s book franchises in history: Goosebumps, the brainchild of writer RL Stein. This episode features haunted masks, childhood traumas, lost media, and yes, another heated legal battle. Listener beware, you’re in for a scare! -
The Early Days of Adult Swim
It's hard to imagine a time without the wild experimental shows on Cartoon Networks infamous nighttime block, Adult Swim, but in the early 2000's, a couple cartoon network employees would take a chunk of the channel's advertising budget and get to work (potentially in a closet) on creating a subversive, modern take on adult animation that would unknowingly change the genre forever.
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The Tragic Fate of the Real Life Simpson's House
In 1997, Fox launched an advertising campaign for the Simpsons that involved giving away a real life recreation of the Simpsons house. However, building a fictional house in real life isn't as easy as it might seem, and this would be just the beginning of the project's troubles.
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No One Out Pizzas the X-Men: The X-Men Pizza Hut Promotion
In the early 90's Marvel Comics, having just turned their luck around with the publishing of "X-Men #1" would collaborate with Pizza Hut to release one of the most hype fast food promos of all time. This teamup would cement the X-Men's place in popular culture and make it the pop culture juggernaut it is today.
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How Scrappy Doo Saved Scooby
It's hard to imagine a world without Scooby Doo, but that was the reality that Hanna Barbera faced in the late 70's when Scooby Doo's network at the time, ABC, threatened to pull the plug unless something was done to bring new energy to the show. Enter Scrappy Doo, Scooby's nephew and savior of the franchise. Nowadays, he's the butt of the joke, a punchline, a villain, but in the 1980's he was just another member of the gang. Here's the story of how the puppy everyone loves to hate saved Scooby Doo so he could continue to be loved for generations to come.
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How Darkwing Duck got Greenlit
In the late 80's, the television animation branch of the Walt Disney company needed new shows for their popular weekday lineup "The Disney Afternoon". But with strict deadlines and even stricter issues with copyright, making a new cartoon wasn't easy. In the end, we would get "Darkwing Duck" the terror that flaps in the night, a comedic parody of golden age superheroes like the Spirit and Green Hornet. But just making it to air doesn't mean that Darkwing Duck's out of the woods yet!
Customer Reviews
Entertaining and informative!
My partner told me about this podcast after discovering it himself not too long ago, saying after listening to the episode on fan fic that he thought I might enjoy it...and he was right! I'm currently skipping around the backlog of episodes and it'll probably be a bit before I'm caught up, but thus far every episode I've listened to has been great. Listening to Brenda and Austin talk about fandom and industry related topics kind of reminds me of some of the discussions I have with my partner and friends; the conversations are fun and easy to listen to but also pretty thoughtful and informative! I also enjoy the format idea of having one host pick and research a topic, then lead the discussion to bring info to the table the other host may not know about. I also like that there's a bit of time at the start of each episode for talking about nerd-related news. Even with older eps, it's been nice to get a refresher on some of what was happening at the time. (Also much appreciation to Brenda for being a fellow Generator Rex fan and for the few minutes she dedicated to talking about the show in part 3 of the Cartoon Network episodes. GenRex is so underrated and it's rare to hear it brought up and talked about positively in a podcast. The show was super important to me years ago and I still love it now, so any podcast that takes even a little time to talk up GenRex automatically wins points from me!)
I liked it but…
Apparently, these people hate anyone over 40. Always making jabs about older generations that if they meant them as funny landed flat. Gave up after 5 episodes.
But if you’re in your 20s, you might like it.
Such a wonderful show!
The dynamic between Austin and Brenda is so wonderful, and it’s so much fun to hear them chat about these topics. The combination of news, and a specific topic make for great listening, and I love learning new things about different nerd topics. 10/10 recommend!