The SomethingSomethingCast

First – this is not, I repeat, not a RetroSomething… this is an all-new, all-special, all-Friday, all-Yuletide festive party.  Since it’s Christmas Eve, we thought we would let you unwrap a gift first – and it is the gift of Something!  

This year, we gathered with Rick & Sarah from Awesome Talk TV – we got Jeof Vita from Kung-fu Drive-In – and we got Becky & Matt from Pre-Rec Live all hanging out and talking about how the year 2021 has gone, the entertainment we ingest every holiday season, and how we, as a people, are all doomed….  You know, the sort of light stuff you can tinsel your tree with. 

So please, settle in with some nog and your newly unwrapped certificate to the jelly-o-the-month club (it’s the gift that keeps on giving, Clark) and celebrate your festivus spirit with the rest of us for this Somethingcast Traditional Christmas Roundtable, 2021 Edition!

Ok, here we go Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen…

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Sometimes the holidays are about gathering those that you care about and sharing in the festive season of giving… sometimes it’s about getting a bunch of your idiot friends together and throwing potshots while your one weird Uncle won’t shut up about how his E-Meter has discovered a record number of Thetans…. you get to decide what happened to us back in 2016 with our ‘Inside Joke: Outside Voice’ podcast party. 

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♫ Oh you better watch out..
You better not cry…
You better listen to this episode
Or not.. whatever, I’m not your HR Rep ♫

Joining us from the IJOV – we have Marcus from Deadpan Fury, we have Eric from Two-Legged Tie, and we have Tony from Nyrdcast – and we decide to have ourselves a little Christmas Party.  What goes on from there is… well.. I would love to say it is an episode about our favorite Christmas memories and shows and movies, but it isn’t… it’s almost better.  It’s a bunch of idiots getting together and spreading some holiday buffoonery.

So enjoy everyone – and from Rob & Hatton, have a happy holidays.

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We’re on our third Friday in December – and that means it is another RetroSomething! 

This time we are jumping back to 2015.. a year from a land between studios, which is why the sound quality is so iffy.  I do apologize for that.. but that said, we are delving into the television shows that we may not apologize for – but we totally don’t talk about.  It’s Episode 45, Guilty Pleasure TV!

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How many times have you found yourself, maybe late at night, flipping through channels and you end up on a show you would never really admit that you watched?  

Now how many of those shows have you gone back for seconds on?  Nobody in the SomethingStudio is going to judge that you know the price of everything down the meat aisle because you’ve watched Supermarket Sweep.  We can’t mock you because you have invested a notable portion of your life to seeing every episode of Cleopatra 2525.

Why?  Because we have lists just like that. So join us won’t you and discover a wonderful world of what the Somethings do when nobody’s looking… WE MEAN TV, WEIRDOS!

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Of course if we’re doing some of our favorite episodes – we couldn’t leave out the King of the Schmoes, Viewaskew’in, voice-acting, Ralph Garman!  So please settle in as we spend an hour talking with Ralph about his career and try not to sound like gushing fanboys.

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After our Anniversary.
After our 100th Episode.

How could we put icing on that cake?

Oh, we got ourselves a badass guest to hangout with for a little while. Who, you may ask? Why Ralph Garman, co-host of the Hollywood Babble-On with Kevin Smith, actor in a lot of stuff you’ve seen, as well as the host of one of our personal favorite shows, The Joe Schmo Show!

So settle in and enjoy the conversation, and do yourself a favor and follow @RalphGarman on Twitter and Instagram to continue following his adventures and all of the big life changes in store for him now that we’ve hijacked his brain. And be sure to look out for him on Seth MacFarlane’s new sci-fi show, The Orville.

Ok, here we go!

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It’s Friday – and you know what that means.. another RetroSomething, and this episode takes us back to talking about well… the people in this world that got the worst possible end, but damn is it funny.  So join us as we revisit: The Snopes List!

We originally said:

Note: If you share this post, Mark Zuckerberg will bake you a turkey dinner.

Every day of every social media person’s life, you are hit with a thousand different pictures, memes, captions, and at least half of them are filled with bad information.  Well, the Somethings are going to inform you of a little website called Snopes. Now, what this site does is… I know.. it’s crazy.. it debunks internet urban legends.

Every year they also do their best to tell you what the most popular b.s. was from the prior year.  So we’re going down the list and talking a little bit of the internet urban legends of 2015.  We go from Something to Serious to Seriously Creepy and back to Something.. this is a long strange journey. Buckle up!

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Did you listen last Friday? Well if you didn’t – you may be wondering what’s up? For December, the Somethings are taking their holiday, but to keep your brain hijacked, we are giving you two retro episodes a week as selected by the Somethings!

So join us as we picked our ‘Zombie Kill Team’

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The Somethings decided that since it is the scaaaarrriest of holidays, we would go and give you a treat and not a trick this year, by releasing tomorrow’s episode for you today.  That way you can enjoy our spooooooky conversation while you are out haunting around. So what is this episode about?  Well – take your top four fictional characters that you want by your side during the zombie apocalypse.  We take one from movies. One from television. One from book fiction. One wildcard.  And then we decide who would survive. Now, you have to figure that James and Podcast Rob are both going to think their team is the strongest, so they got themselves a judge to solve who’s team is the best of the best.  None other than friend of the show, horror afficienado, from the Supernatural Department at Head Over Feels, Dawn!

So we know you are going to disagree with us… which means you should start a discussion below! Ok, here we boo! (get it? ..because it’s… right.. you get it.. nevermind)

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Happy Holidays everyone!

To give the Somethings a breather, and to give you twice the listening pleasure, for the month of December you get to roll back the clock with us as we look back at some of our favorite episodes of yore.

This week, travel with us to 2015 as we talk – Bad Movie Movie Posters!

Here’s what we said back then….

There is a little bit of movies that we sometimes overlook. No, it isn’t that your date keeps trying the hole in the popcorn trick and that you are starting to get worried about her.  It’s the poster. The first thing you sometimes see about a movie. The thing that is supposed to emblazen upon your mind that this movie will be here eventually.

Some are amazing. Some are horrible. Some things are repeated ovvver and ovvver… so join in with the Somethings as we talk about movie poster tropes and themes that we have just seen too much.

Ok, here we go.

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Oh my… wait… didn’t we say last week was the last episode? I mean, it was The End — but, there are 5 Tuesdays in November this year!?  What do we do?

We do a Free-For-All, that’s what.  If you’ve never been here when this happens, it is where we don’t set up a list or a show or a guest… we just hang out and talk, which, as this is the last official Something of the year, feels like it’s precisely what it should be.

So please, settle in and hang out with the Somethings for an hour, as we talk about the world we’re living in, the things we’re digging into, and what the plans are for the future.

Ok, here we go!

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Happy Holidays friends – as this is our last week of new material.. with one secret exception you will only know about if you are subscribed, I thought I should go back and look at some of my favorite things of the year.  Living in a bubble, I absorb a lot of garbage. Television. Books. Games. Comics. Alcohol… it really is a cavalcade of ignoring the outside world in this brain of mine. So, why not take a few minutes and look at the last year and talk about some of the things I’ve really enjoyed.

Books – Sadly, this year was not a big reading year for me. I wish I’d gotten through more books and as I’m currently reading, albeit slowly, Grady Hendrix’s Final Girl Support Group (and if you’ve never read Hendrix, he’s a horror treat) I am at least doing my best to keep books in my life.  So what was my favorite this year? That was a title that felt like it was from ten or twenty years ago with kids going to a magical school where magical things happen.  It doesn’t hold a candle to my favorite of the genre (and top favorite books of all time) in Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, but Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education, which the sequel just released recently, was so much fun.

The school is deadly and alive. Magic attracts all sorts of beasties. The politicks of the students is in every conversation.. it is all very interestingly political, and where the main character could easily turn into an ‘all too powerful Mary Sue’ type – she’s so enjoyably grumpy, I kinda don’t mind.

Shows – The family finished the many seasons of our dinner time Parks & Rec – which was my second time around, and that show… dammit, I miss it. Maybe even more than I miss The Good Place.. but my favorite show of the year comes from an entirely different side of things. I know we had some amazong Mando action and WandaVision was a real front runner to be my favorite, just because of its amazing meta-ness — my favorite is going to Netflix’s Midnight Mass.

I know some people don’t enjoy the genre of gothic horror that Mike Flanagan has brought to the Netflix table with Hill House and Bly Manor – but I really enjoyed them.  That said, Midnight Mass is going to be a hard show to top. Every actor is acting their ass off. Every little flinch or nod means something. It’s a masterclass in telling a tight story with a satisfying finish.

Games – My year of video games has been one of massive amounts of Executive Dysfunction.  In my giant Steam game list.. I go and play a handful of garbage roguelikes and roguelites – decide to play something meaty – get distacted – forget what I was playing – go back to roguelites… so yeah, there’s a lot of time spent in fun popcorn like SNKRX, Curse of the Dead Gods, and SKUL.. there’s also an inordinate amount of time spent playing Dead By Daylight with Rob & friends.  So what game can I put at the top? 

First, an honorable mention has to go to Inscryption which, I won’t lie, will probably take the #1 spot by the time the ball drops for 2022… it is just fantastic in every way – and after Rob had played an hour of it, bought it for me because he knew I would fall in love with it.. and it really is a VERY particular James-sized-itch it scratches. That said, my top spot for the year is going to go to Enderall: Forgotten Stories – which, if you haven’t seen.. is free, and worth it. It’s a complete repaint of Skyrim. A new world. New voices. New quests. New magic. Harder, but not brutal… it made me fall in love with Skyrim again, and it’s kinda not even Skyrim.

Movies – I feel like this is ‘the big one’ but, honestly, this wasn’t as much of a year for big movies as it was big television.  I could do a list of just my favorite shows and list them off easily… when it comes to movies, I have watched so many ‘webcam party’ horror movies and nose-stuffed-up-their-butt art-horror this year that I really am frustrated with most of the genre. I also, as if there is any surprise, watch a lot of garbage movies with the full knowledge that they’re going to be bad… but dammit I love seeing actors clip through green screen monsters.

So, what was the best of the best?  Based on my ratings at Letterboxd, there are only three movies I gave above a 4.. and only one got a 5. The three movies that sit in the 4-star area are Malignant, which I know is a divisive opinion, but James Wan speaks my horror language – Coherence, which.. honestly, is the most interesting budget science fiction movie I’ve seen in years – and Spontaneous, which has flown under everyone’s radar and I legitimately think it could be this generation’s Heathers.

That leaves my one 5 star… the one movie I saw that made me tear up with how beautiful and beautiful sounding it was.  It’s a cliche from a living cartoon like me, but it is Pixar’s Soul. I don’t speak in Jazz.  I have an ear for music, but I don’t have an ear for any genre of music that includes ‘single-serving noodling’ … but Soul .. man, it was just synesthesia come to life.

So what were your favorite things? You know where to find us and let us know – and if we don’t talk, we hope that you and yours have a wonderful rest of 2021 and thank you for being here and letting us hijack your brain.

♫ Baby – have you ever wondered?  Wondered whatever became of me? 

I’m working on my podcast in NJ – ♫ and the rest of it really takes some effort to fit the rhyme scheme.

… ♫ something something c-a-s-teeeeee…. ♫ (It’s not that hard – PCR)

It’s Thanksgiving time, and there aren’t a lot of famous Thanksgiving shows, but one comes to mind. To that, we decided to take that show, watch its last episode and see if it sticks the test of time as well as the infamous Turkey Drop.  So do the gang at WKRP end their run with a cheer or a whimper?  Well, this is where you find out, on THE END: WKRP.

And from us to you – from our family to yours – we hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Ok, here we radio!

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