Fun fact from Michael Schur on Twitter: Mike O'Malley was nearly cast as Ron Swanson. Imagine the alternate universe implications of THAT decision, if you dare.

It's not just small-timers that aren't in the ironically named "TV Everywhere" authentication package. My one and only local cableco is Time-Warner Cable—totally spun off from regular Time-Warner, but still pulling in billions a year from 14.6 millions subscribers, so it's not like they don't have pull—and they're not…

Don't you dare touch that grade, Todd. The Starburns death is out-of-nowhere startling, but note perfect for a Dick Wolf parody.

Brandon Hardesty belongs to the world now. The world of having explosive diarrhea over the side of a moving boat on national television.

Didn't Russo himself win the win the WCW world championship once? Presumably to prove that belts don't matter? Not when you're booking the show, Vinnie…

Arquette winning the title was the first time I ever cursed out loud at something I read on the Internet.  But to bring this full circle, Will Sasso wrestled Bret Hart on a 2000 episode of WCW Nitro…until MAD TV castmate Deborah Wilson double-crossed Sasso, because hey, why the hell not. Those last few years of…

If one of the anticipated copycat projects is from an old script that the writer labeled "Spike Lee's Huckleberry Finn", it might all be worthwhile.

All this "ninja" talk and no "RIP ASS DAN!"?

The Jack Flanders stories have been produced since 1972 by the ZBS Foundation, and yep, you can buy Stars 'n' Stuff and all the rest of them directly from the ZBS website. They're very good about keeping it all in print. Marvelous production values and Firesign Theatre-influenced writing.

Looking at your blog, you could be right that availability figures into it. When we're talking about "old-time radio", we're usually talking about vintage American radio just because there's so much of it and it's much easier to find outside of an institutional setting. The networks, local stations, sponsors (especiall…

I used to be all over PHC, but especially in the past few years (after the late period rally during the height of the whole hawk-vs-doves slapfight when he sang "We're All Republicans Now" on almost every show) it's gone all sentimental and goofy (the bad kind of goofy). Still a lot of great music, but sometimes the…

Believe it or not, Gildersleeve is one of the few old-radio sitcoms that works a little better when you listen to the episodes in order, mainly because once you get past the first year, the writers (including Joss Whedon's grandfather John Whedon) started doing multi-episode arcs, some of which ran through whole…

Narrated by the author, if I remember correctly.

It's easier to find individual Will Rogers segments than the full shows, which probably works out for the best if you're getting your feet wet, since the format was a quarter-hour of bands and singers in New York, then "we take you now to Will Rogers in Hollywood". Then he'd wind up his alarm clock and just give you…

I'm going to go out on a limb and say if you warm up to Orson Welles and his collaborators unleashing their full power on the air, it might also be worth your time to check out the Columbia Workshop and its 1950s follow-up The CBS Radio Workshop. Especially in the early years, that was the network's laboratory for…

The golden age of TV animation is seven.

The story I remember from back in the day is that when he first got his SAG card, there was already a "Jim Bullock", so that's why he came up with the "Jm" spelling.

The Beeb does offer themed IOT podcast archive feeds by topic (at least through the iTunes store) if one must stick to personal interests.

Being stupid about the movies isn't exactly a recent thing. When the film version of Evita debuted here ("here" being North Carolina), some of the local yokels demanded their money back because it took them 15 minutes to realize that it was a goddamn musical.  Not because  they finally figured out that Madonna sucks…

Scoff if ya likes. You're all just so lucky I didn't start with the Epistles of Nat Hiken.