When We Were Young - an 80s and 90s pop culture podcast

It’s When We Were Young’s most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational episode yet! Gonzo, Miss Piggy, Fozzy, and friends may be best known for kid-focused fare these days, but Jim Henson’s world-famous puppets originally had roots in more grownup entertainment, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, the first season of Saturday Night Live, and a “Sex & Violence” TV special that provided a test run for puppets on primetime.  In this episode of the podcast, we look back at the very beginning of Henson’s puppeteering career on public access television more than two decades before the gang got their very own variety program in THE MUPPET SHOW, which became a worldwide phenomenon starting in 1976. Chris, Becky, and Seth rewatch some of the series’ most notable episodes with guest stars Rita Moreno, Steve Martin, Harry Belafonte, and Elton John, and discover that their mileage for puppets delivering dad jokes may vary. Then we revisit Kermit and company’s big screen debut in 1979’s THE MUPPET MOVIE, which awed fans by taking the Muppets out of the studio and having them ride bikes, drive cars, and show off their felt feet for the very first time, all in pursuit of Hollywood stardom. Do we still feel a rainbow connection to these early Muppets outings? Or have the lovers and dreamers aged into old fogeys sitting up in the balcony, heckling the lovable puppet performers down below? Play the music, light the lights, raise the curtains, and prepare for some controversial opinions on the When We Were Young podcast’s Muppets episode tonight! Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

It's Part 2 of Hanksgiving, our special holiday series showing gratitude for America's Dad TOM HANKS! In this episode we revisit 1994's FORREST GUMP, the blockbuster dramedy from Robert Zemeckis that won as many Oscars as it had catchphrases. Becky, Chris and Seth debate whether this light-as-a-feather stroll through mid-to-late 20th century America is just as beloved now as it was upon its release, or if it's gone as stale as a 30-year-old box of chocolates. Elvis, John Lennon, JFK - anyone who's anyone is making a computer-generated appearance in our latest episode! Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Happy Hanksgiving, everyone! In our first of two episodes sharing our gratitude for one of Hollywood's most endearing, reliable stars - that would be none other than TOM HANKS, of course - we take a look back at the actor's breakthrough performance in the hit 1988 comedy BIG. Is a romance between an adult woman and a 12-year-old boy in a 30-year-old man's body problematic? Kind of! We also discuss some other less-than-memorable body-switching flicks and what we would have wished for if we encountered a Zoltar machine at age 12. Let's see if BIG still captures our heart and soul (as played on a comically oversized piano). Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Becky, Chris and Seth wanted to pull out the big scares this Halloween season, and what's scarier than being adored? Join us as we take a look back at MISERY (1990), director Rob Reiner's first (and only) foray into horror. This film gave us Kathy Bates — and gave Kathy Bates an Oscar — and introduced the term "hobbling" to millions of horrified moviegoers. In this episode, we discuss whether iconic movie villain Annie Wilkes had an influence on Hollywood's leading ladies breaking bland and embracing frumpiness, and if James Caan was the best choice for the role of Stephen King stand-in/author Paul Sheldon. We also share the artists we believe we're the number one fans of, who we promise we will not imprison in our homes. Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Oh, you thought we were done talking about all the creepy-crawlies that go bump in the night, that slither in wait hoping to swallow you whole, and that can somehow turn on a gas oven using a dorsal fin? Hardly! In this dazzling, toothsome, and scaly finale to When We Were Young’s ‘90s Creature Feature extravaganza, Chris and Seth revisit three more hit movies that represent the monstrous tail end of this genre’s heyday. First, they were pretty sure the end was near when their boat sank in the jungles of the Amazon River and they were nearly swallowed whole by an immense ANACONDA (1997), but they were saved at the last moment by a documentary film crew led by JLo, Ice Cube, and an indecipherable but legendary Jon Voight. Hoping to find respite and relief in the calm waters of LAKE PLACID (1999), they instead found Betty White raising a world-record killer crocodile, and Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, and Oliver Platt competing to see who'd had the most severed heads flung at them. Finally, in one last desperate attempt to get away from it all, Seth and Chris took a trip and a dip in the DEEP BLUE SEA (1999) heading to an underwater scientific research station at the forefront of Alzheimer's research - but the three resident bioengineered mega-sharks who also lived there immediately crashed their party and proceeded to flood them out! These giganto makos had the gall to eat Seth's parrot, and one of these cunning sharks nearly got Chris too - until he took all his clothes off and electrocuted it. Dazed and shocked to have made it out alive, our hosts have sworn never to leave dry land or violate the Harvard Compact ever again. Grab your swimsuits as we revisit the waterlogged beasts of the latter days of Hollywood's creature features in what is by far the wettest episode of WHEN WE WERE YOUNG yet. Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the '90s, an elite team of podcasters has been selected to journey deep into the jungle, dive deep into the ocean, and dig deep underground to locate some of the deadliest predators ever known to moviedom. Two of cinema’s greatest auteurs made creature features that have gone down as classics - Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS in the '60s and Spielberg’s Jaws in the '70s. In their wake, however, the genre known as “nature horror” took a steep downhill turn into low-budget schlock, and sadly creature features became an endangered species. But for a brief, beautiful window during the 1990s, movies about hungry, hungry critters great and small came roaring back! The genre flirted with becoming mainstream again, nabbing bigger budgets, bigger stars, and monster-sized box office receipts (in some cases). So welcome to Part One of our '90s Creature Sexa-Feature! (“Sex” as in “six.” Get your mind out of the gutter - there might be alligators down there!) In this episode, we unearth 1990's TREMORS, which features Kevin Bacon and Reba McEntire pole-vaulting away from giant worms, then direct all eight of our eyes toward the shrieking spiders of ARACHNOPHOBIA (from that same year), which still has the power to scare at least one of our hosts off his tuffet. Finally, we go bananas for the killer gorillas of CONGO (1995), which features Tim Curry, Laura Linney, and a host of others giving performances that are almost as big as the lost diamonds of Zinj. Pour yourself a green drop drink and pack up that sesame cake, because we’re hunting down and rounding up the very finest big screen animal attacks of the 90s! (Survival not guaranteed.) Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

If you thought we had just one bun in the oven for our lineup of Arnold Schwarzenegger comedies about birth and child-rearing - surprise! This topic is actually twins! In our previous episode, we cooed over 1988’s Twins, in which Schwarzenegger popped his cherry as a humorous leading man and wowed us with his lack of vanity in getting laughs. In this episode, we carry our “Schwarzepreggers” topic to term, seeing if Arnold’s final two collaborations with Ivan Reitman are what we’re expecting - and if they still deliver. In KINDERGARTEN COP (1990) Arnold stars as Detective John Kimble, a grim cop who learns that the only way to bust a drug dealer is to go undercover as a kindergarten teacher. (Don’t ask.) There’s plenty of deception, betrayal, yelling at children, gunplay on school grounds, and even a feral ferret - but are the laughs here, or absent? This bizarre blend of kiddie hijinks and deadly police drama just might have to stay after class.  Then, Arnold teams back up with Reitman and Danny DeVito for JUNIOR (1994), a movie about how becoming a single parent affects a man’s love life, friendships, and career - because he has inseminated his new work crush Emma Thompson's secretly stolen ovum, implanted it in his own abdomen, and become pregnant himself. Junior is notorious for pushing high concept star vehicles to their extreme, subverting Schwarzenegger’s tough guy persona as he contends with morning sickness and kooky cravings instead of the usual cyborg nuclear attack. But nearly 30 years later, does Junior fill our bellies with laughter as easily as it fills Arnold’s belly with a viable infant? Grab some forceps, because the chuckles may not come so easily this time around! Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Arnold Schwarzenegger became world famous in the 1980s as the jacked-up star of macho blockbusters like CONAN THE BARBARIAN, PREDATOR, COMMANDO, and THE TERMINATOR. But in the late 80s and early 90s, he teamed up with GHOSTBUSTERS director Ivan Reitman for a trio of family-friendly comedies, starting with 1988’s TWINS. Schwarzenegger’s comic chemistry with Danny DeVito drove this broad, fairly inexpensive studio comedy to rake in over $200 million and become the fifth-biggest earner at the box office that year, proving Arnold’s ability to draw big crowds outside the action genre and paving the way for several more seminal turns in blockbuster comedies. In this episode of the podcast, we look back at Arnold’s austere Austrian childhood and the 1977 documentary PUMPING IRON, which chronicles the bodybuilding championships that first catapulted him to worldwide renown (and also chronicles his orgasmic workouts). Then, we check back in on TWINS and see whether this beloved 80s comedy still has us laughing for two. (One blue line means we didn’t like the movie. Two blue lines means we did.) So join us for the conception of our “Schwarzepreggers” lineup and see if Ahnuld’s comic chops have held up as well as that hulking body — or if he should’ve just stuck to his day jobs as world-class athlete, popular governor, and unparalleled action hero instead. Along the way, we discuss Schwarzenegger’s big screen sex appeal (or lack thereof?), marvel at his unique combination of himbo charm and tireless ambition, ogle his out-of-this-world physique, and debate whether Arnold can still tickle our funnybones as effortlessly as he could break all of our other bones. Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

If you were a '90s kid, chances are you wanted just two things in life: for Nick to take over your school, and a spot saved for you on the big orange couch synonymous with SNICK. Nickelodeon's Saturday night programming block for pre-teens launched in 1992 and became an instant hit with the demographic who was still awake at 8pm but had nowhere to go. Now that we're all grown up, is there anything worth revisiting in any of the many shows that graced the SNICK lineup? Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, we take a look back at CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL, ALL THAT, ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?, THE SECRET WORLD OF ALEX MACK, ROUNDHOUSE, THE ADVENTURES OF PETE & PETE, and some of the other shows that made us feel like we finally had something to do on a Saturday night. Plus, we try and figure out why Super Soakers had such a monopoly on children's advertising in the '90s. Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

You know the score. You know the quotes. You know the poster. Forty years ago, a wrinkly alien with a magic touch waddled into moviegoers’ hearts and made E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL one of the most beloved family films ever made. Steven Spielberg’s alien opus surpassed STAR WARS as the #1 film of all time and remained the biggest hit in a decade that also saw the release of GHOSTBUSTERS, BACK TO THE FUTURE, the INDIANA JONES trilogy, and BATMAN. It also delighted critics and audiences alike, spawning toys, video games, and one of Universal Studios’ most memorable rides. In short, E.T. was everywhere in the 80s.  In this episode of the podcast, When We Were Young takes you back to Spielberg’s childhood, chronicling his rise from suburban nerd to world’s most popular filmmaker. Then we chat about CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, Spielberg’s first foray to the friendly skies, which offers a surprisingly dark vision of one man’s life-shattering obsession with the unknown. Then it’s on to “the Summer of Spielberg,” when both E.T. and the Spielberg-shepherded POLTERGEIST entered theaters in June 1982, each becoming instant classics of suburban childhood interrupted by paranormal events. What is it like coming back to such a monumental movie as adults? Are we still over the moon for this film, or merely silhouetted against it? Grab a bag of Reese’s Pieces and join us for an episode that’s well worth phoning home about! Follow When We Were Young on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email episode suggestions to [email protected]. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (or wherever you get your podcasts) so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include recording remotely, purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung