The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show

Special: This Is The End May 13, 2024

It's the last episode ever! Boo hoo, etc!
We invited three of our favorite contestants back for one last go. Monty shows up in a top hat. Larra wore three tiaras. Ilan was there too. In this special episode we show you how the sausage was made with a largely unedited and unadorned episode. Taylor sings! Dan scores! Dave is just happy he didn't have to properly edit this one! Thank you all for listening over the years, it's been a fun ride and we all learned a lot about The Thin Man, and really isn't that what's it all about?
NOTES

💼 Glowing Briefcase is a WIP daily online pop culture quiz thingee we have been working on for a bit. If you'd like to get in on the next beta or the launch please drop us your email address in our notification form.
🦋 Ilan is on Bluesky

🐘 Ilan is on Mastodon

🤖 Monty can be heard on the Incomparable Network

🎥 And on Monty and Rhias vs Movies

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E13: Good Night Oppy Apr 29, 2024

Doo doo DOO doo. Doo doo DOO doo doo. Doo doo DOO doo. Doo doo DOO doo doo doo DOO doo doo DOO doo doo DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOOOOOOOOO do do do do DOOOOOOOO!
It’s the final countdown here in season ten! Tripp, Bonnie, and Paul have arrived to see which will become the tenth season’s super-mondo champion of champions, but only the ninth person to bear that distinction, thanks to Ilan "Glover Cleveland" Muskat. Still, for our season finale, we’ve got a patented* silly title mash-up game to honor our most recent Oscar best picture winner, plus a game that combines movies AND TV together in a way only TGAPCQS knows how. Plus a lightning round!
NOTES

🎧 Tripp hosts the “Tripp Through Comedy” podcast.

🤔 Paul can be found at QuizFix

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E12: The First Annual Fantasy Poseidon Adventure Team Draft Apr 15, 2024

In this, the last playoff round of season ten, we challenge Eleanor, Steve, and Paul to create new pope culture properties via adding an E to ones that already exist. It’s very silly, and Dan Cassino is unsurprisingly very proud of how silly it is. Then in round two, it’s boats! I mean, who cares? And then, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau show up for an Enlightening Round! What a world! Can you tell Taylor has been rewatching Lost recently?
NOTES

🦋 Steve is on the less bad website, BlueSky

🥌 ‌And encourages you all to try curling

🤔 Paul can be found at QuizFix

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E11: Bathroom Reading Apr 01, 2024

HEYYYYYY, the Diceman Cometh to The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show this week, and the Diceman bringeth all kinds of trivia for Eric, Cate, and Bonnie. First we’ll shoehorn Andrew Dice Clay into other pop culture properties, before a VERY uppity round two about movies that started life as pieces in The New Yorker. Some wild swings in content this week, lemme tell ya. And of course, our customary lightning round. Hickory Dickory Dock!
NOTES
📚 Cate encourages you to support local libraries and get out the vote!

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E10: Subjected to Predication Mar 18, 2024

The playoffs have arrived! Previous winners Tripp, Levi, and Conor grab their subjects and verbs and get grammatical as they are challenged to name actors and musicians whose names are complete sentences. THEN, they’ll take a tripp through time as they trace the development of movies adapted from musicals adapted from movies (that may also be adapted from novels or real life or based on prizes Cracker Jack boxes). And it wouldn’t be an episode of TGAPCQS without a lightning round! So guess what: there’s a lightning round!
NOTES
🫥 Dan forgot to do show notes.

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E09: Where You Going? Mar 04, 2024

Look here, film snobs. Perhaps you’ve already looked ahead to round two and seen that the topic is pop culture depictions of the afterlife. I’m gonna disappoint you right now and tell you that we do not get to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 1999 masterpiece After Life. That’s just a thing you’ll have to contend with as you trudge through the lowbrow muck we’ve provided you. But it makes for a great game nonetheless! Adam, Chloe, and Paul have a great time talking piracy, jamming out to songs sung by characters in cars, and (you guessed it) exploring pop culture depictions of what happens after we die. Despite all that, this episode is not morbid at all, and hews to the light tone you’ve come to expect of this show by this point.
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NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎓 Paul can be found at QuizFix

📖 And can be heard on the Shall We Compare Thee? podcast

📸 Chloe is on Instagram

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E08: Dude, Where's My Tár? Feb 19, 2024

Lydia, oh Lydia, oh have you met Lydia?
Lydia, the round one topic!
Though she’s done with her recitals,
Her name fits in other titles.
Lydia, oh Lydia, the subject of trivia;
Less so once we hit round two.
Benito and Bonnie and Sean will see
Just how gosh darn silly this game show can be
With Lightning Round topics you’ll find in round three!
Cov’ring many types of media!
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NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💰 Bonnie encourages listeners to support abortion access funds

🤩 Benito has some amazing stuff on his Patreon

📜 And can be heard on the Apocrypals podcast

🦋 And has left the Twitters for the Bluesky

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E07: Who's Afraid? Feb 05, 2024

But anything can still happen here in…THE LIGHTING ROUND! This week on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show, John, Conor, and Jeff test their knowledge of properties that start in media res, showing a dramatic moment near the end of the story, before flashing back to the beginning. It’s a tried and true device that works great for hooking people in so they know there’s something exciting coming down the pike. Later, they’ll see how well they remember season-long villains from various TV shows, and then play the lightning round. But you already knew that last part.
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NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

⁉️ Jeff hosts Questionable Company Trivia at Shuffles Board Game Café on Tuesdays at 7.

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E06: Dracula La Land Jan 15, 2024

Bleh! It’s me, Dracula! You know, from Dracula 2000? I’m here to tell you about this week’s episode, featuring Anna, Steve, and Derek competing in a game that features so much of me! But none of my actual movies. Which is fine because I’d rather be popping up in The Land Before Time than have to sit through Renfield. Then, I send our players on a cross-national road trip, driving only at night of course. Like Tilda Swinton requesting only night flights in Only Lovers Left Alive. Speaking of which, how has Taylor not asked a million questions over the years about Only Lovers Left Alive. Feels like a Babylonesque “Taylor won’t shut up about this one movie” type of pick. And Tom Hiddelston is just as sexy as William Conrad in it! Anyways, the lightning round is a blood bath, which means I absolutely loved it.
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NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐦 Derek is on the bad website formerly known as Twitter

📺 Derek can also be found at Super Trashed TV

🌤️ Steve is on the less bad website, BlueSky

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E05: Everything Very Old is New Again Jan 01, 2024

Hey Taylor, just putting this placeholder here so you don't forget to write the copy for the episode if you don't do it, I'll just run it through ChatGPT.
In a typical episode of The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show, contestants embark on a lively and entertaining journey through the vast landscape of American popular culture. Hosted by a charismatic quizmaster, the show features rounds that challenge participants with a diverse range of questions covering music, movies, television, literature, and more. Contestants showcase their knowledge and quick thinking as they compete in various rounds, such as lightning-fast buzzer rounds and thematic challenges. The atmosphere is filled with laughter, camaraderie, and friendly competition as the contestants strive to prove their expertise in all things pop culture. With each episode, The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show not only tests the contestants' knowledge but also celebrates the vibrant and ever-evolving world of American pop culture, making it a must-watch for trivia enthusiasts and entertainment aficionados alike.
In an unexpected twist, the latest episode of The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show concludes with the surprising news that the beloved host, Taylor, has been fired. The revelation adds a dramatic element to the show's usual lighthearted tone, leaving viewers curious about the reasons behind the decision and speculating on who might step into Taylor's shoes for future episodes. As the contestants bid farewell to their charismatic quizmaster, the show's future becomes uncertain, adding an intriguing layer of suspense to this episode of The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show.
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NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌈 Cate encourages listeners to contribute to Rainbow Railroad, helping at-risk LGBTQI+ individuals get to safety around the world.

💰 And to local abortion funds

🤴 Thomas can be found at King Trivia

🐦 And on the website formerly known as Twitter

🐦 Trip is also on the formerly Twitters

🧩 And has quizzes on Sporcle

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E04: The Blue Dog of Happiness Dec 11, 2023

Dan, Taylor, and Dave dance around to a jaunty acoustic guitar, percussion, and melodica tune. The music stops, and so do they. They all shout “DAN!” They dance again before pausing to shout “DAVE!” Once more before shouting “TAYLOR!” If that gets you in the mood for Bluey-inspired pop culture trivia, you’re in luck! Monty, Levi, and Diedra find some very cute Bluey mash-ups in round one, but also some kind of weird ones let’s not talk about it. Instead, we’ll get very meta in round two when we see if our players can identify times on TV where an actor slyly referenced their previous onscreen work. Honestly, we wish Dan would do this more on our show by coyly dropping in direct quotes from his political TV appearances into the score updates. Will he do it? Obviously no. Taylor tried to have round three this week be a game of keepy-uppy, but his request was denied in lieu of a regular old lightning round. Sigh.
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NOTES

🎬 Monty can be heard on Monty and Rhias versus movies! They versus movies! And really like Street Dance of China!

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E03: Diacopes & Epizeuxis Dec 04, 2023

It’s 100 years in the future. Human civilization has fallen. The only survivors are you, and the following three co-stars: Eleanor, Tim, and Jesse. Will they be enough to help you survive the post-apocalyptic trivia wasteland? Find out as we quiz our survivors on apocalyptic casts as well as titles that contain the same same word word multiple times. All this, a lightning round, and probably something else!
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NOTES
🙂 Jesse posts on Good Stuff Happened Today on Tumblr

🌤️ Tim is on BlueSky

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E02: Extraordinary Extras Nov 20, 2023

Taylor didn't forget to do the copy this week but he did put elements in the text that would have broken your browser, podcast app and possibly the whole internet as we know it. So here is the quickest, shortest version of it we could manage: fast quotes, LXGs.
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NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎬 Courtney is on Cult Cinema Catacombs Podcast

📸 She is also Robomakinstuff on Instagram

🐦 Miranda is on the Twitters slash exes

⛅️ And is on the Bluesky as well!

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S10.E01: International Relations Nov 06, 2023

A new season commences! Three returning players in Tripp, Tarn, and Neil kick things off in style as they flex their knowledge of American remakes of foreign films, as well as theoretical musicals adapted properties who already have musicalistic exclamation points in their titles. All this before a plethora of categories to close out the competition with the lightning round.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎭 Tripp is on the "A Tripp Through Comedy" Podcast

🐦 He is also on the website formerly known as Twitter:

⭐️ Neil can be seen in Off Off Hollywood Productions

5️⃣ And heard on the 3 Guys Top 5s Podcast

🎞️ And has a website for his films

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

Special: Burn, Baby, Birnbaum Oct 16, 2023

We may not have just won the Super Bowl, but we’re going to Disney World nonetheless! Grab your ears and your magic bands, and get ready for a special episode all about the rides, shows, and ephemera of Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. With us, we’ve got three bona fide Disney Parks experts in Julie (Double Your WDW), Katie (Ropedrop & Parkhop Podcast), and Dane (Chasing Chalamet Podcast). We’ll quiz them on the music from various rides, cryptic excerpts from a notorious Disney travel guide, and so much more! Is this our most specific special yet? Probably!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌈 Katie’s website is Dream with Katie

🪢 Katie can be heard on the Rope Drop/Park Hop Podcast

📷 Katie’s Instagram can be found at Dream with Katie

🏃 Dane’s Timothee Chalamet podcast, Chasing Chalamet, comes out whenever Chalamet has a new project out

🐦 Dane is also on the website formerly known as Twitter

🎞️ Dane is also on Letterboxd

📍 Julie can help you plan your Disney World trip at Double Your WDW

🎧 Double Your WDW is also available as a podcast

📷 Double Your WDW is also on Instagram

📘 Double Your WDW is also also on Facebook

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

Special: That's Who's Who Oct 02, 2023

This week, we were pleased to welcome three very special guests from The Doctor Who podcast Verity. Grab your sonic screwdriver and join Hosts Erika Ensign, Lizbeth Myles, and Katrina Griffiths for pop culture trivia immediately adjacent to (or sometimes right within) their Whovian area of expertise. We’ll look at other pop culture portrayals of real historical figures portrayed on Doctor Who, as well as other roles of various Doctors from throughout the run of the show. Plus, a VERITable cornucopia of lightning round topics to determine our ultimate winner.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎧 All of our guests can be heard on the Verity Podcast

🤖 Erika and Lizbeth can be heard all over the Incomparable Podcast network

📻 Kat can be heard on Radio Free Skaro

🎺 Kat is also on the Start the Music podcast

🔨 Lizbeth co-hosts the Hammer House of Podcast with Paul Cornell

🏁 Lizbeth has also written for Big Finish audio dramas

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S09.E13: Damn Fine Coffee Sep 18, 2023

I’m always forgetting to write the episode descriptions until it’s time to publish, so I’m gonna try an experiment where I write it a few hours in advance of even recording this episode.
Woah! What a crazy twist this season finale takes at the end. I never saw THAT ONE SPECIFIC THING coming, and I bet you won’t either as Larra, Kari, and Ben compete for the crown! An asthmatic game of my champion filled with some of the greatest arguments we’ve ever heard left our players huffing and puffing all the way into the red room for round one. A game of “name that Twin Peaks reference” where our players actually learned to speak their answers backwards [fact check this later] flows right into a round two game where we all tore our ears off listening to the tired cliché of somber covers and remixes that seem to adorn every movie trailer nowadays. And I can almost certainly promise you: there will be both right and wrong answers present in this round. That’s the Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show likely guarantee!
And then, of course, it all comes down to a lightning so full of crazy surprises, I can’t even begin to describe them here!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎧 Kari can be heard on Hey, Remember the 80s

📻 And on Charlie’s 80s Attic

💶 Listen to Ben's Eurovision podcast The Eurowhat?
🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle answer

S09.E12: Rave Reviews Sep 11, 2023

After a couple of years of doing rounds about recent movies when ‘recent movies’ weren’t really a thing, we finally have a recent movies round where our players were more than up to the challenge! Kari, J-Mo, and JK (a veritable Venn diagram of middle-of-the-alphabet letters) tackle a classic before-and-after challenge of recent movies before being asked to recall critically panned comedies. ‘Cause we’re nice. And as per uzhe, it all comes down to the Lightning Round. This episode description brought to you by Taylor, while he was watching the opening car scene of The Client (1994). Take from that what you will.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎞️ J-Mo is on Letterboxd

🥳 Kari can be heard on Hey, Remember the 80s

📻 And on Charlie’s 80s Attic

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E11: It's A Mash-Up Special, Charlie Brown Sep 04, 2023

Good grief! The season playoffs rage on as returning victors Ben, Cate and Joel tackle one of our silliest (aka dumbest) challenges yet--concocting titles of new Peanuts specials inspired by other pop culture properties. Then in round two, it’s a whole new batch of questions about various pop culture-inspired Monopoly boards. Just when we thought the concepts for that game couldn’t get any wilder, we found some truly ridiculous iterations. All this, plus the lightning round decide which player will compete in the championship match. The stakes have been higher. They've been lower too. We're just being honest here.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

📚 Cate urges you to donate to local libraries

❌ Ben is on the Twitters, because X gonna give it to ya.

🇪🇺 Ben also has a long-running Eurovision podcast

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E10: Hate The Player Aug 21, 2023

When Productionmaster Dave announced were gonna have a round of layoffs this season, I was a little hurt. As I gathered my composure to brace myself for the worst possible implications of such an announcement, I realized that he had actually said we were going to have a round of PLAYOFFS this season, and I felt like a fool for ever thinking otherwise. Thus, we were pleased to welcome back the uneliminated Larra, Ben and Elenore for a game about Beatles music in movies, and then made up our own rules for a round about fictional games and sports. All this and more (a normal, but nonetheless exciting, lightning round).
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎞️ You can follow Ben on Letterboxd

💵 Ben is also encouraging donations to the Lilith Fund

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E09: Ready Player One Aug 14, 2023

Will Cory and Courtney make JK lol? We’ll find out as we piece together mashed up acronyms from pop culture. Mashcronyms, I believe they’re called. Yup, that’s a real term that is in the dictionary. The OED probably, they’re fancy! Jury’s still out on Webster, but we KNOW those goons at American Heritage are too big of cowards to put a word like ‘mashcronym’ in their venerated publication. It’s so like them to just ignore the future of language like that, and they should frankly be appalled not only at their behavior, but at the fact that their reputation has made said behavior so predictable. Anyhoo, we got this acronym game! We got a game about video games. A video game game, if you will. Haha, we said game twice in a row. Hey, that gets us thinking, would the dead birds in ‘Duck Hunt’ be called ‘video game game?’ Makes you think, doesn’t it?
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👨🏻 The full quote from Zardoz gets even more bonkers.

👽 The story about James Cameron pitching Alien$ is apparently true.

📷 Courtney is on Instagram

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E08: Barry Bad Songs Aug 07, 2023

Say word! D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-dilbert! Doink de doink! Sorry, dad! Dinky nuts! Squirrel jam! Hats! Balancing my checkbook! Zerbert in the sherbert! Twerk! One-hundred gift baskets! You’re now rocking with the Tesla boys! Baby Banjamin Franklin! Watch me veg! D.J. Tanner! Swanky pups! M-m-m-m-moped music! Costco samples like a m**********r! Uh! Crank up the mids! Patrick Stewart money! All these catchphrases are better, musically, than the comically awful musical dreck we forced Joel, Dan, and Steve to wade through in round one, inspired by non other than Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry. But our players pull themselves out of the Rock Bottom Remainder of round one into a second round all about pop culture-inspired theme park attractions (aka ‘who’s been to Carowinds in Charlotte?'). All this and more*!
NOTES
🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E07: Predicated On What? Jul 17, 2023

The characters team up to kill the Giantess in “Into the Woods.” Not the witch. If you read this before listening and keep that detail in mind, what follows will make a bit more sense. But after a rocky start (which is also due to Taylor’s deep character flaws re: season two of The Wire), Ben, Michael, and John make a strong showing in this competition, identifying movies whose titles are complete sentences, as well as movies that contain elements that use both colorful and monochromatic palettes. And of course, it all comes down to how each will fare in the lightning round.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🔤 A to Z is a pretty shameless rip-off of How I Met Your Mother, but points for having Katey Segal as the narrator.

🥋 No, the five point palm exploding heart technique from Kill Bill isn’t real, even if it was in Bloodsport, too.

🍣 Jiro, from Jiro Dreams of Sushi, lost his Michelin stars not because of a drop in quality, but because he stopped accepting reservations from the general public.

🐰 The Samurai Warrior: The Battles of Usagi Yojimbo scorebreak. Samurai Warrior: The Battles of Usagi Yojimbo any chance we can get this 80s classic on Steam? Please? [8/10 There’s an Usagi Yojimbo video game?]
🎨 Jamie Foxx was on four seasons of In Living Color, but not all five.

😈 In the comics, Sin City does occasionally use colors other than black and white. In addition to “That Yellow Bastard” there were pops of red and blue in places.

🐟 Contrary to common misconception, while Rumble Fish is written by S.E. Hinton, it has no story or character connections to The Outsiders.

🪽 In Wings of Desire, the use of color is also used to comment on the division between East and West Berlin.

👱🏻‍♀️ It’s not just Taylor – the director of Blonde says that there isn’t a story reason for the shifts between black and white and color.

🏥 The Kingdom Hospital scorebreak. Kingdom Hospital 345 medical dramas on TV, and this is the one that gets canned right away? [3/10 It was different than other doctor shows, but how many episodes did you expect from the US version of a Lars Von Trier TV series?]
🎭 After its 25 year run on Bravo, Inside the Actors Studio moved to Ovation, where it’s still running.

⛳️ Dorf on Golf and the rest of the series were released direct-to-video, for $29.95 a shot, and sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

🎙️ Aline is technically not about Celine Dion, except it totally is.

🪶 The Decameron was a major influence on The Canterbury Tales.

🎞️ You can follow Ben on Letterboxd

🐦 John is on Twitter

🐦 And also as Angry Sondheim

🎶 Michael has a Spotify playlist of "Eighties Ladies: Beyond Thunderdome”

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E06: You Can't Keep A Good Renaissance Man Down Jul 10, 2023

As a result of this episode, we are now calling our Scorekeeper “Renaissance Dan.” Why? Cause he loves Leonardo Da Vinci, and included all sorts of pop culture representations of the previously most popular “Leonardo D.” But how well with our contestants Matt, Maxwell, and J-Mo fare? Almost as well as the bananas round two in which they’re tasked with identifying each half of a comic book crossover between a superhero and a real life person. Will Da Vinci pop up again? Who knows?!? Well, we know. We wrote the questions. But you can know by listening to all that, plus our customary lightning round. Enjoy!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏆 Joseph of Arimathea is a real saint, and Monty Python is in good company in linking him with the resting place of the Holy Grail in England.

👀 Do you read and enjoy episode show notes? If so, please click this link so we know people really read these.

🛡️ In addition to an absolutely cut Da Vinci, Marvel’s SHIELD has historical figures like Galileo fighting Galactus.

🖖 A holographic Da Vinci shows up on Star Trek: Voyager, and Captain Janeway comments that Kirk met the real Da Vinci at one point.

🐍 Blackadder: Back and Forth has Dan’s absolute favorite Blackadder quote.

😬 Grandma Betsy’s Biscuit Powder scorebreak - Grandma Betsy’s Biscuit Powder. You know, most of Mr. Show has aged pretty well. [1/10 wooof]
🫡 Stan Lee’s appearance on Eureka in that same time frame is close – he plays a character named “Lee,” but he’s a general, and, to our knowledge, Stan Lee was not in the military after his WWII service.

🦸🏻‍♂️ Orson Welles turned up in 1949’s Superman #62.

🦆 If you missed him the first time around, Count Duckula is a cartoon duck who’s a vegetarian, like Bunnicula.

🤷‍♂️ Techcorp systems scorebreak. Techcorp systems – OK, I don’t know how to pronounce typewriter symbols. Sorry. [5/10 Yeah, amusing, but this is a family program]
🤔 Will Ferrell’s Casa de mi Padre is not quite a spoof, but exists most because Ferrell thought it would be funny to do a Spanish language telenovela.

🇲🇽 The US remake of Miss Bala reads very differently than the 2011 Mexican remake.

🔨 When it started in the 1930s, Hammer Films made historical films about British royalty.

🍿 The woman in the poster for Rochelle, Rochelle looks a lot like Lena Headey, but it’s an actress named Chela Holton.

🐦 Maxwell is on Twitter

📷 And on Instagram

🎶 And has a podcast called Musically Wright

✏️ Matt does crosswords for alternative newsweeklies

🌎 And puts everything he does on his website

🐦 He can also be found on Twitter

📷 And Instagram

📼 And even on YouTube

🎞️ J. Mo is on Letterboxd

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E05: Shining Examples Jul 03, 2023

As competition in the Gizmonic Institute division ramps up, Ben, Mike and Matthew first have to journey to the Overlook hotel to see where other pop culture properties have appropriated elements of The Shining, then try to wrap their brains around what passes for children’s lit in another round all about Little Golden Books. But as it so often does, it really all comes down to the lightning round.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌫️ Matt Damon did, indeed, want the Bourne video games to be more like Myst.

🍍 The Psych episode in question is season 6, episode 11, “Heeeeere's Lassie.”

🥚 There are, of course, Easter eggs that everyone is looking for in Ready Player One.

🥁 The BGC-19 drum machine scorebreak. The BGC-19 drum machine: for when you have to fight the alien queen but want to lay down some beats while you’re at it. [6/10 I’ll buy the action figure, but marked down for Rocketship X-M]
🎢 There are shockingly few Little Golden Books based on Disney Rides. Get on that!

🪴 It’s not really clear from the movie, but ET was a botanist.

🤡 Ronald McDonald has a weird backstory, but nothing about a perm.

🤷‍♂️ The Johnny Long Torso - The Man Who Comes In Pieces scorebreak. Johnny Longtorso - The Man Who Comes In Pieces: He's long! [5/10 I probably made my parents buy this for me as a child]
🐻 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is a result of the original falling out of copyright protection.

🦈 The first question on Google about Big Shark is “What is Big Shark about?” which betrays a shocking lack of imagination.

🇩🇰 Hamlet is performed more in Germany than in England.

🐦 Ben is on Twitter

🇪🇺 Ben talks Eurovision on his podcast

💻 His website with all of his online stuff is at Good At Internet

🎞️ Matthew podcasts at Second Screening

🤔 Submit your At-Home Riddle or Harmonic Mean answer

S09.E04: The Royal Them Jun 19, 2023

We’re back in the Veridian Dynamics Division as newcomers Adam and Siobhan take on seasoned vet Larra! I mean…Adam and Siobhan are also taking on each other, I suppose. It’s still a 1v1v1 competition. They’re not teaming up AGAINST Larra, unless they did so under the radar and none of us noticed their devious plot. Regardless of whatever intentions or secret alliances there may be or not be (alliances that have been purely conjectured by the author of this copy, based on the dicey syntax of the first sentence that could have just been edited, but instead spun off into whatever this paragraph has become), our three players drop knowledge of film scores, pop music, and the place where their titles meet. Then things really heat up in round two when we talk about the non-royal performances of actors who’ve played kings and queens of England.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🚀 Star Wars might be the only movie that hasn’t featured All Star.

💎 Vicki Sue Robinson might only have had one big hit, but she sang back-up on some songs you know and was the singing voice of characters on the cartoon Jem.

🏁 Jinkx Monsoon is a winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

🐓 The Octo-Chicken scorebreak. The octo-chicken: it’ll solve the wings shortage, if we can get it out of that web. And fix the venom issue. [7/10 Not sure this isn’t a thing already]
👸 The play The Audience had Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II.

🪓 Eric Bana was Henry VIII in The Other Boleyn Girl.

🤖 Yes, the Destroyer from Thor is a robot.

📏 Edward I was called “longshanks” ‘cause he was real tall.

🥵 The Solar powered ovens scorebreak. Solar powered ovens: Sure, the sun causes the plastic to leach toxic chemicals into the food, but how big a deal is that? [4/10 Uncomfortably close to reality]
🪶 Alan Moore is now sometimes credited as “The Original Writer.”

🗼 Barad-dûr is not, actually, the good tower, no matter what Dan says.

📚 Jane Eyre is by Charlotte Brontë.

🔥 Hadestown also tells the story of Hades and Persephone

🌸 Chrysanthemum did eventually come to the US, but was undercut by Thoroughly Modern Millie

🧱 Adam runs Bricks & Minifigs in Kalamazoo

😔 Which is on Facebook

📷 And on Instagram

S09.E03: Marge Excitable's Entomological Specimens Jun 12, 2023

As Bono Vox said in the 1988 film classic “Rattle and Hum,” “I don’t mean to bug ya.” Well guess what, we’re BUGGING you today as we kick off the Globo-Chem Division. Returning players Kari, Joel, and Susannah will have to contend with the return of Marge Excitable as she raves about pop culture properties whose titles employ the names of insects, arachnids, and other creepy crawlies. But she won’t make you groan as much as our recently fired intern Robert, who has completely bungled our audio archives. So our players will hep us to sort through the detritus of the misfiled clips (and we’ll give them some points for doing so).
Also, I guess a lightning round happened!
GUESS WHAT! If you’re listening to this on the day it comes out, you have TWO DAYS to join the TGAPCQS Club! If you do, you can attend Taylor’s music trivia night live on zoom. It’s Wednesday June 14th at 9pm/8pmCT! Hit up Taylor on Discord to suggest songs and categories for full-contact Name That Tune!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤔 Never had to this for the intros before, but “good old William Claude” is WC Fields, who co-starred with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy in You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man. Do I have to explain the Philadelphia thing?

📈 The Mr. Show sketch being referenced is “Commercials of the Future,” from Season 1, Episode 2, though Globochem shows up in several sketches.

🔥 Tatsuya Gashuin was the voice of Calcifer in the Japanese version of Howl’s Moving Castle.

👨🏻‍🦳 All the actors playing Britt Reid on the radio, and in the serials, was very, very white.

🐝 There was also a 2005 movie of Bee Season, starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.

🐞 The Grouchy Ladybug, aka The Very Grouchy Ladybug, is a 1977 Eric Carle book.

⚽️ The company Rodney Dangerfield’s character works for in Ladybugs is Mullen Industries. If you’re wondering why their soccer team is “the ladybugs,” you’re thinking about it too much.

🛍️ The bags bags bags bags hutch scorebreak. The bags bags bags bags hutch is specially made for bags and holds up to 12 bags. [8/10 Would buy]
😚 Confusingly, Rumor Has It, which presents itself as being based on a true story that inspired a fictional story, is not even remotely based on a true story.

😀 The comic Happy is based on is by Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson (co-creator of Nightman and The Boys).

🪃 Unlike the Eddie Murphy movie, the Jojo Siwa song Boomerang has a positive social message.

🍔 The ding dong king kong sing song burger scorebreak. The ding dong king kong sing song burger put it in your face you – oh, we’re going to have to bleep that. [3/10 That burger has mayo on it, so no thank you]
🏨 Stephen King liked the 1997 The Shining TV miniseries better than the Kubrick movie.

🥞 It’s easy to get Steve Carell movies mixed up, but Dan in Real Life is the one with the pancakes and Dane Cook.

👰‍♀️ Why Did I Get Married Two came out about the right time (2010), but stars Janet Jackson.

💰 Today, The Passion of the Christ is generally considered the highest grossing independent movie, though some argue that The Lord of the Rings movies are indies, which is wild.

🏃‍♀️ Susanna encourages listeners to support the Chiditarod (which has nothing to do with dog sleds, we checked)

🐦 Joel is on Twitter

🎞️ And you can join Taylor in following him on Letterboxd

👨🏻‍💻 And he writes for Lifehacker.

📷 Kari is on Instagram

🎧 And is on the Hey, Remember the 80s? podcast

📻 And on Charlie’s 80s Attic

S09.E02: The Answers Are In The Cards Jun 05, 2023

The streak of returning players continues as the Gizmonic Institute Division kicks off with Fanny, Cate, and Kiiva. A quotable round one messes with some iconic movie lines before we take a mystical dive into round two with trivia about pop culture-inspired Tarot card decks. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of real weird ones. It’s all capped off with a lightning round.
Don’t forget to join the TGAPCQS Club! Taylor is hosting a live zoom music trivia event next week! Wednesday June 14th at 9/8ct!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🧙‍♂️ Real fans of Super Mario Bros 3 will know that finding the magic flute in World One shouldn’t actually get the protagonist any points.

🩸 “You’ve got Red on You,” is also the title of the oral history book of Shaun of the Dead.

🐌 Snails are gastropods, not cephalopods.

🧀 Wensleydale is best known not as a local UK cheese, but from Monty Python and Wallace and Gromit.

🚨 The fridge alert scorebreak: The fridge alert. It’ll let you know if William Conrad is stealing your food. Who’s going to need this thing, Quinn Martin? And he’s dead! [8/10: I get it. Cause of the First Alert commercials.]
🏈 Everyone was surprised when NFL place kicker Rolf Benirschke was selected as the host of the daytime Wheel of Fortune , especially Rolf Benirschke.

🥵 Betty White character on Hot in Cleveland is Elka Ostrovsky.

🥶 Loki is turning blue on his tarot card because he’s actually a frost giant.

⏲️ Miss Minutes from Loki is based on Mr. DNA from the first Jurassic Park movie.

🗑️ The Buddha-looking Garbage Pail Kids tarot card is of (sigh) Rob Slob aka Dirty Harry.

🔮 The officially licensed Britney Spears tarot set only has 40 cards, so is referred to as an oracle deck, rather than a “tarot” deck.

🖖 The Daktari Stool scorebreak. The Daktari stool: Somehow not the most befuddling thing about Mitchell. [4/10: Is a Daktari one of those black and white guys from Star Trek? What the heck is this?]
👮🏻‍♂️ The theme to Hill Street Blues did hit the top 10 in the US, and charted for more than five months.

💔 Aside from the songs, the most notable difference between the movie and stage versions of The Gay Divorcee is that the stage version had a different name: it was just The Gay Divorce.

😈 The 1936 Tod Browning filmDevil-Doll, in which a shrink ray developed to combat overpopulation is used in a revenge ploy, is very different from the 1964 William Sylvester Devil Doll which is just a rip-off of Michael Redgrave’s segment of 1945’s Dead of Night.

🐦 Cate is on Twitter

💰 And asks you to consider supporting the Georgia Equality Fund.

🥫 Kiiva encourages you to support local food banks, especially in areas suffering from storm damage.

📺 Fanny can be heard with Justin Hartung on The Nix podcast.

🐦 She is also on Twitter

S09.E01: Isosceles Romance May 15, 2023

[Copy from Taylor to follow]
[I'm sure he'll do it]
[This is the season that he definitely won't forget!]
[This is bad for SEO]
[Chik-chikk. Chikkaaaaa.]
[That was like the final fade out in the post credits sequence in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I hope you enjoyed it]
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🧥 There’s some controversy about Lt. Columbo’s first name, so “Eleanor” isn’t entirely out of the running.

9️⃣ “Nine” is “nove” in Italian.

💥 “Bang a Gong” was only part of the T. Rex song in the US; in the original UK release, there was no subtitle.

🚗 The TV version of Waylon Jenning’s theme for The Dukes of Hazzard isn’t quite the same as the released version: it doesn’t have the “Yee-Haws” at the end. Even though there are two voices, it’s just John Schneider’s voice twice.

🪑 The Focus Master scorebreak: The Focus Master, the office chair that makes people work better by being very uncomfortable and eventually driving the worker mad. I thought these were supposed to be fictional – that’s the chairs we used to have in my department. [6/10: the banality of evil]
🤯 A “bi-angle” is a thing, so we don’t want to hear it.

🤠 Etta Place is a real person

⚖️ The actual “old” Perry Mason would be the CBS radio show, which started in 1943, was slightly retooled in a move to TV in 1956, and continued, under the title Edge of Night until 1984.

🇩🇰 Splitting up Together was a short-lived 2018 ABC sitcom with Jenna Fischer, based on a Danish show.

🦫 The probably not Macaroni and Cheese scorebreak: Probably not Macaroni and Cheese never gets hot AND causes blindness. Still better than Kraft dinner. [5/10 shots fired on Canada]
🐒 The fight with a feral space baboon in Ad Astra was a bit of a departure for the otherwise slow, thoughtful movie about daddy issues.

🥳 Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon aired just three episodes on Spike TV.

🎸 Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah sounds like a person, but it was a trio composed of Mitch Aliotta, Skip Haynes and John Jeremiah. Before Jeremiah joined, it was just “Aliotta Haynes.”

🏢 According to Season 1, Episode 4 of Only Murders in the Building, Brazzos ran for nine seasons on PBS.

👨🏻‍🎤 Kyle sings with the Metropolitan Chorale

🦣 She is also on Mastodon (that’s a first for us!)

📸 And on Instagram

Special: They Cancelled Gym Class For This May 08, 2023

In a special crossover episode, we rope Dan McCoy of The Flop House, his brother John McCoy of Sophomore Lit and their brother Rob McCoy for questions about the sort of things you would read in high school. We start off by finding out what the kids are getting at the Scholastic Book Fair, then blink in amazement at sequels to classic books that probably shouldn’t have them. It all leads to the lightning round, where our players go outside their comfort zones and finally establish trivia dominance over their brothers!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💂🏻‍♂️ Rumpole of the Bailey was a British Legal drama of the late 70s.

🚗 The Netflix animated series Fast and Furious Spy Racers was anchored by Tyler Posey, voicing Dom Toretto’s cousin Tony Toretto and ran from 2019 to 2021, over which time it had 6 seasons.

⚒️ The first official Mojang Minecraft novel was Minecraft: The Island, by Max Brooks, released in 2017.

🙊 Animorphs has a notorious downer ending, in which the heroes win the war, and most of them survive, but they’re also mentally and emotionally shattered by it.

🟰 The Equals scorebreak: Equals, um, I think I liked this movie better when it was called Equilibrium and had kick ass swordfights. [3/10: No one liked Equilibrium better than anything. OK, maybe Ultraviolet.]
🐸 Neither of the books adapted in Ichabod and Mr. Toad were feature length, and the compilation of them (which ran 68 minutes) came out in 1949.

✈️ Victory Through Air Power, Disney’s 1943 propaganda movie, is unique in the Disney canon in a lot of ways, not least the use of limited animation.

🏝️ Daniel DeFoe wrote two sequels to Robinson Crusoe, one of which is a little-read book of moral and religious essays.

🥖 There have been a bunch of sequels and prequels to Les Miserables, including two different sequel novels called Cosette (1995 and 2001). The most intriguing is A Court of Miracles (2020) which is a loose retelling of both Les Miserables and The Jungle Book.

👖 The best-selling Captain Underpants series is by Dav Pilkey.

👸 There was also a Shirley Temple version of A Little Princess, but not until 1939.

🍝 The Fiona Volpe scorebreak: Fiona Volpe. Is that a double entendre in Italian or something? Am I missing it? I’m so confused. [5/10: Answer the question, please!]
🤠 In Young Guns, Dermot Mulroney played Dirty Steve Stephens.

🌅 The released film Dying of the Light was such a heavily edited version of Paul Shrader’s movie that he and the cast campaigned against its release. A version closer to his vision is available at a few museums, and via methods online.

🚀 Love and Rockets has been published almost continuously for more than 40 years.

🗑️ Art Spigelman may now be best known for the Holocaust drama Maus, but he did co-create the Garbage Pail Kids as well.

📚 John hosts Sophomore Lit on the Incomparable Network

🎬 Dan is a co-host of The Flop House on the Maximum Fun Network, where they pick a bad movie, and talk about it. Also Topeka, Kansas, some times.

S08.E13: The Origin Of This Round Of Trivia May 01, 2023

Once again, we’re arrived at the season finale. Will Ilan take his second crown, or will Keegan or Abhi upset the returning champion? To answer that, we’ll need to start at the beginning, so it makes sense that we start round one with a game all about TV and movie prequels, put through the lens of a certain iconic butler. Then, it’s the big game in round two where we’ll identify not only some TV theme songs, but the other works of the iconic musicians responsible for them. And course, a lightning round!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤠 1923 is also a prequel to Yellowstone, but it debuted in 2022.

📰 Carrie’s newspaper, The New York Star has been a real newspaper at least three times.

🐲 In the early novel Red Dragon, Lecter’s hospital was called The Chesapeake Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

🦚 The Mother Pheasant Plucker Scorebreak. I'm a mother pheasant plucker. I pluck mother pheasants. I'm the most Pleasant mother pheasant plucker that's ever plucked mother pheasants. [2/10: Are we back to this again?]
🌃 Gil Mellé wrote the music for the original Kolchak series, but the theme song to the Kolchak remake was by Philip Glass.

🚌 90s kids who had never heard of Little Richard were apparently shocked to discover that he did the theme song to The Magic School Bus.

🦀 The theme song to The Big C is "The Game Called Life" by The Leftover Cuties.

🤪 TLC recorded the theme song to All That during the recording sessions for "CrazySexyChool."

🚧 The Cheap Trick version of "In The Street" got the parenthetical title "That 70s Song" and was released on their greatest hits album.

🍗 The theme song to King of the Hill is called "Yahoos and Triangles." The Refreshments broke up in 1998, but the core of the band still tours under the name Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers.

🍩 Bowling for donuts is a joke from Garfield that Dan somehow internalized.

🦁 The Roar scorebreak: Roar: the Shaun Cassidy series that’s the Achilles heel of anyone doing a complete Heath Ledger watch through. Did we ever find out what the "roar" actually was? [7/10: Never heard of this, somehow, but it also has Keri Russell and Vera Farmigia. Huh.]
📍 According to an article in National Geographic, Lake Wobegon is in central Minnesota. Also: fictional.

🔫 1993’s Point of No Return is one of several remakes of Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita.

🔺 Cleopatra 2525 was from the creators of Xena, and very much an attempt to do a sci-fi version of that show. It has the same basic premise as Futurama and is best remembered for it’s use of "2525" as a theme song.

⚔️ Mythic Quest was known as Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet in season one.

🐶 The live action version of Lady And The Tramp went straight to streaming in 2019.

🦑 You can hear Ilan on his podcast Squideye and The Bitter Guy.

🎞️ He also thinks you should check out the Canadian indie movie, I Like Movies.

S08.E12: Who Dealt It? Apr 17, 2023

Eww! You smell that? It must be this week’s new episode. Sure, Bailey, Keegan, and Dave (not THAT Dave) may start out thinking that it’s a normal episode with a piece of silly wordplay surrounding an iconic title. But slowly, a creeping odor drifts in from the distance. It’s not pleasant. It’s downright vile. It’s deadly, but it’s anything by silent. Brace yourselves, listeners. Brace yourselves. Also, we guess there’s a lightning round that’s slightly more normal.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🖖 Kirk’s eulogy for Spock ends with "of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... human."

🍻 Dr. Lilith Sternin Crane is actually, according to a 1986 episode of Cheers, it’s "Dr. Lilith Sternin, M.D., Ph.D., Ed.D., A.P.A." Though I don’t know who would actually put "A.P.A." in their title.

🧠 "The Logical Song" is the one where the singer asks, “please tell me who I am.”

🍼 The Goo Goo Dolls are still releasing albums, even if it’s basically a one man band at this point.

🤴 Goldfinger won an Oscar not for the Shirley Bassey theme song, but for sound effects.

🌰 The Silky Nutmeg Ganache scorebreak. Munch munch. Crunch crunch. The Lipsync Assassin is here to eat the lunch! [3/10: I have no idea what I just said.]
🎹 The relationship between Mozart and Salieri presented in Amadeus was almost entirely fictional.

🐭 In addition to voicing Yakko Warner on Animaniacs, Rob Paulsen has played various Ninja Turtles, and has more than 500 other voice credits on IMDB, even if they misspelled his name on Stripperella.

🐕 James Gunn is still salty about the watering down of his more adult Scooby Doo scripts (the original cut of the first movie got an R rating from the MPAA).

👑 The Good King Wenceslas Scorebreak. Good King Wenceslas: LOOK OUT! [5/10: My least favorite Christmas carol]
🚪 The Monty Hall Problem is a classic of Bayesian statistical reasoning.

🌝 In the comics, Moon Knight was originally a mercenary hired to hunt Jack Russell, Marvel’s Werewolf by Night. The connection to Egyptian mythology came later, and the dissociative identity disorder even later than that.

🦅 Stakar Ogord, the character played by Sylvester Stallone in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, has basically nothing in common with the cosmic powered Starhawk of the comics.

🗽 Liberty’s Kids was a PBS animated series in which kid reporters cover the events of the Revolutionary War for Ben Franklin’s newspaper. All of the historical figures were played by well known celebrities.

🎮 Dave can be found speedrunning Shadow of the Colossus on Twitch.

🔪 Also on Twitch he's playing social deduction games every Tuesday on Traitor Tuesdays.

🐦 Follow Bailey on Twitter

🎞️ Bailey is also on Letterboxd

🎬 The Film Rewind is Bailey's blog

S08.E11: Title Bouts Apr 10, 2023

The season eight playoffs continue with the final match in the Altair IV Division. We love us some adaptations, so we start round one by quizzing our returning players Ilan, Gal, and Mike about book-to-screen adaptations that changed their titles. Then, things get wild in round two as we return to the world of very real, but thankfully forgotten movie sequels. The lightning round caps it all off, as one player heads to the season finale!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💜 Violet Evergarden is a weird mixture of Ghost in the Machine and Hallmark’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

🗣️ Turns out that typing "Dietfried Bougainvillea" is almost as fun as saying it.

📬 The novel Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was based on was unpublished until after the movie was made.

😱 The other adaptations of The Boy Cried Murder are The Window (1949) and Eyewitness (1970).

🦊 Russ Meyer’s Vixen scorebreak. Russ Meyer’s Vixen: I don’t care what Roger Ebert thinks, that is not appropriate behavior for a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. [7/10: Agreed.]
✈️ The number two movie on that list of sequels with improved box office is, no surprise, 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.

🩸 The death of General Patton is not exactly heroic: a car accident and a blood clot.

👽 We don’t understand the whole “Niece” thing from Species: The Awakening, either.

🧛🏻‍♂️ In a rare instance of trading up leads for the sequel, Vampires: Los Muertos replaced James Woods with Jon Bon Jovi.

💰 The Joe Millionaire season 3 scorebreak. Joe Millionaire season 3: Look, I know we’re bringing back every moderately successful show from 20 years ago, but do we have to bring back every moderately successful show from 20 years ago? [2/10: Downgraded for alerting me to the existence of Joe Millionaire season 3.]
🚀 Zorii Bliss, played by Keri Russell in The Rise of Skywalker is distinct from Zarah Bliss. Definitely not supposed to be the same character at all.

💎 Emerald Cove was a teen soap that started off as a serial aired during “The Mickey Mouse Club,” that was supposed to be a throwback to Annette Funicello style teen beach movies. It also ran as a stand-alone series, reaching 70 episodes.

💪 Seems a little strange that the crew of The Fugitive never cleaned up the train/bus wreck from the movie, but they did, indeed, just leave it there.

🎃 While set in upstate New York, Sleepy Hollow filmed in Charlotte, right by Under the Dome.

🤔 Unforgettable was cancelled by CBS twice, moved to A&E, and somehow managed to eke out 61 episodes between 2011 and 2016.

🕹️ You can find video games Mike has developed under the username Birwards.

🐦 Gal is on Twitter

🔀 Gal's website Random On Purpose

🦑 You can hear Ilan on Squideye and The Bitter Guy

S08.E10: Illegitimate Theater Apr 03, 2023

No doubt lots of stuff happens in this episode. Maybe someone cops to murdering someone having just been fooled that they have an incurable rash. Maybe a new delicious drink involving yams is pitched, patented and sold within the runtime of this episode. Who's to say? Not Taylor, who forgot to write the copy for this episode, that's for sure.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎵 Diane Warren is very much the Susan Lucci of “Best Original Song” Oscars. Fourteen nominations, no wins.

🥃 Chelsea Handler has written several memoirs, including Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea and My Horizontal Life.

🥜 We’re counting Misty Copeland as an actor because of her over the line billing in The Nutcracker And The Four Realms.

📈 MYOB (Mind Your Own Business) was a very short-lived NBC sitcom that starred Lauren Graham, and was cancelled as Gilmore Girls got picked up.

🚨 Turning on the News at the Exact Moment the Plot-Relevant Story Begins. Turning on the News at the Exact Moment the Plot-Relevant Story Begins— keeping exposition streamlined since 1926! [7/10: Wait, there’s one of these from 1926? And I haven’t seen it?]
👂 Do I Hear A Waltz? was based on the same play as the Katharine Hepburn film Summertime.

🦍 How could there not be a Vulture oral history of Stop The Planet Of The Apes, I Want To Get Off!

🌃 As devoted TGAPCQS fans know, Nightman is really Johnny Domino, jazz saxophonist extraordinaire.

🍔 Gene Belcher, voiced by Eugene Mirman, is the doctor who serves the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He has the same name as the Bob’s Burgers character, but this has never been mentioned on the show, just by the creators elsewhere.

💋 The best thing about Kiss Me, Kate? It was originally filmed in 3D (which is why characters are always throwing stuff at the screen).

🏝️ On the musical episode of Gilligan’s Island, a producer played by Phil Silvers crash lands on the island, and Ginger is trying to impress him.

🏫 No one is quite sure what the musical from High School Musical is about, but Buzzfeed did try to piece it together.

🎮 The Nintendo GameCube score break. The Nintendo GameCube: Nintendo's hot new console in stores now! Due to scheduling conflicts, this message was delayed by 21 years. Our apologies. [2/10: Sega Saturn forever.]
🏆 Mike Nichols’ Closer was nominated for two Best Acting Awards, both supporting, for Clive Owen and Natalie Portman.

👩‍🦯 The blind saxophonist from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is named Ton Ton Tattoo. His job is to serve as Aunty Entity’s personal soundtrack.

🎷 The gag of “Sax Man,” the fifth track on The Lonely Island’s debut album, is that the titular sax man can’t actually play the sax at all.

🏛️ While it seems staid now, I, Claudius was controversial at the time. The New York Times wrote that it would “test the boundaries of public broadcasting.”

🐦 Chelsea is on Twitter

📷 Maxwell is on Instagram

🎧 And has a podcast, Musically Wright

S08.E09: Alastair Cookie Presents Mar 27, 2023

The 90s are back or whatever! At least they are in round one as Bobby, Bailey, and Jen attempt to identify classic jams from the 90s from one-second clips of their instrumental interludes. Sound difficult? It is! Things take a turn in round two as we tell our players how to get to Sesame Street, quizzing them on properties that have been parodied in the show's "Monsterpiece Theater" segment. And of course, anything can happen (and we can confirm that anything DOES happen) in the lightning round. With this episode, the lineup for the season eight playoffs are set, so the competition only gets hotter from here!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💯 You can get the whole list of VH1’s top 100 songs of the 90s here

👨‍⚕️ The Spin Doctors have a surprisingly healthy relationship with having been famous in the 90s.
🏒 The Letterkenny scorebreak. [Please read like the Law and Order intro] Letterkenny: There is a small town of 5000 people in midwestern Ontario called Letterkenny. It consists of hicks, skids, hockey players, and Christians. These are their problems. Duh Duh. [10/10: No notes.]
🪶 The David Finch Muppet looks appropriately creepy.

🐁 It’s a truth widely acknowledged that Taming of the Shrew is problematic.

📼 There are some really weird entries in The Criterion Collection.

🤡 Not for nothing, Spawn is number two on John Leguizamo’s "Known For" listing on IMDB.

🎁 Both Monster in a Box and Swimming to Cambodia had filmed versions as well.

🚗 The New Kirby Game Scorebreak: The New Kirby Game. I don’t trust that boy. You see what he done did? That boy done ate a car. Can’t trust no one what done ate a car. [3/10: This is a meme or something, right?]
🏫 There are a bunch of cameos in the video for "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard". Probably the only media to ever feature John Madden and Biz Markie.

🎻 Britten Young person’s Guide to the Orchestra is actually a composition based on some Purcell work

🎞️ Kubrick’s First color movie was only recently re-released.

🎃 The Plot of Cinderella 3: A Twist in Time is fully buck wild. It’s got time travel AND body swapping.

✍️ Bobby's website with links to his published poetry.

📸 Bobby on Instagram

🐦 Bailey is on Twitter

🎬 Bailey does Letterboxd

🎥 The Film Rewind, Bailey's blog

S08.E08: Frasier Crane, Heal Thyself Mar 13, 2023

Scramble your eggs and toss your salads for another week here on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show! Three returning contestants from seasons and specials past face off in challenges about young and old portrayals of the same character in round one, before seeing how well they can remember who played Frasier Crane's love interests across the run of the series (with a NEAR special guests appearance on the show from one of the actresses in a question!). Will season one champion Ilan continue his streak? Will season one returner (and genuine TV star) Sarah Baker advance to the next round? Or will our newest librarian friend Kendal (from our bookish special) turn the page to victory?
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👵🏻 Lynnie Greene was not only the young Dorothy Zbornak, but was also in the original cast of Assassins.

👨‍⚕️ A Young Doctor's Notebook ran for eight episodes over two seasons, which is a lot for a British show.

👽 Josh Brolin is eerily similar to a young Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black III.

🦈 The Last Shark Scorebreak. The Last Shark: it’s like Jaws, but Italian, with a windsurfing regatta! And Vic Morrow! [6/10: Mamma Mia!]
🎄 Rita Wilson has opinions about Jingle All the Way. So much so that she likes Mixed Nuts better.

💪 Sela Ward wasn’t well known yet when she played the dead wife in The Fugitive.

👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 The family in The Fosters that fosters children is called the Fosters.

🧠 Jean Smart’s character on Frasier went by both Lorna Lynley and Lana Gardner. They changed the name to avoid referencing a real person named Lorna Lynley.

🍖 The Green Eggs and Ham Netflix show involved spies and evil organizations, because of course it does. Season Two is mostly an adaptation of The Butter Battle Book.

🧟‍♀️ The Tomb of Horrors scorebreak. The Tomb of Horrors: no, Mr. Bard, I expect you to die. [7/10: Niche content, but I’m here for it.]
🎭 The other Edmond Rostand play you might have heard of is 1900’s L’Aiglon.

🌶️ There’s a lot of people on the cover of Sgt Pepper.

🪦 WC Fields actually has a very simply headstone, with no references to Philadelphia.

🦑 You can hear Ilan on his podcast Squideye and The Bitter Guy.

🐦 Kendal is on Twitter

▶️ Sarah is on The Kominsky Method on Netflix

🎞️ Sarah's profile on IMdB

📷 Sarah on Instagram

S08.E07: It's A Living Feb 27, 2023

in an effort to appeal to a younger crowd, this episode description is being presented without capital letters, since it seems like every musician under the age of twenty-seven refuses to use capital letters in their song or album titles. bully for them. in this episode, we've got a pop culture trivia challenge about instances where character changed jobs from one instance of a pop culture property to another before we get really multiversal in round two. but it's only in this timeline that we arrive at the lightning round in which a new winner is crowned for another week.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🧁 You can find all of the superhero-based Hostess Cupcake ads here. The Daredevil ones are best, the Harvey comics ones are the pits.

🪠 Mario was originally a carpenter mostly because he was at a construction site; now, Nintendo says that he “used to be a plumber.”

🪦 Zack Snyder has his reasons for the whole Jimmy Olsen bit in Batman v Superman.

🤖 The Westworld 2000 Scorebreak. Westworld 2000: How does a first person shooter from 1996 have a plot that makes more sense than a TV show? [5/10 Where do you people find these things?]
✈️ Flight of the Navigator is pretty well regarded these days, but it wasn’t very successful financially, grossing just $18M against a $9M budget.

👮‍♂️ Police Story is best know for its absolutely wild stunt work.

☠️ The first Happy Death Day movie was written by 90s X-Men writer Scott Lobdell, who had a long run that’s not terribly well regarded these days.

🦌 And the “J” in “Bullwinkle J. Moose” stands for “Jay” as in “Jay Ward.”

🙀 The Drama Scorebreak: Drama does anyone else really want to actually see Moon over Mississippi? [7/10: Hey, Drama! The kids love that one!]
🐬 Seaquest was a very different show from Sealab, but got similarly absurd as it went on.

🪵 Todd Haynes’ Barbie Doll based Karen Carpenter biopic is real weird.

👌 Producer Martin Hannett is often credited as Martin Zero.

✊ Ben says, “I don’t have an online plug or socials to send people, but I'd like to plug everyone to join or form a union at their workplace!”
📷 Maxwell is on Instagram

🎧 Listen to Maxwell's podcast Musically Wright.

🙋 Read Myron's trivia blog They Call It Trivia.

S08.E06: Get To The Choppa Feb 13, 2023

Click click click! Heat that sound?!? It can only be one thing: the ominous, predator clicking of the Yautja. What's a Yautja, you ask? It's the fancy name for the deadly alien species known to moviegoers as the Predator! Yeah, you probably thought you were cool for knowing the term Xenomorph, didn't you? Well now the Yautja has come to let you know your pop culture vocabulary isn't QUITE as good as you thought it was. Anyhoo, Dan cooked up some VERY silly ideas for ways in which Predators could end up in other pop culture properties, then Dave (no, not that Dave), Jess, and Nick had a good time coming up with their very silly titles. Round two is an audio extravaganza that looks at the vanity cartoon projects of several celebrities over the years, in case you were worried that that Predator game wasn't dumb enough. Also, there's a lightning round, as though that would surprise any of you.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🥗 Souplantation was supposed to be coming back, but there have been just a series of problems.

❤️‍🔥 Castiel is the angel from Supernatural who saved Dean from hell, and eventually declared his love for him, launching a thousand fanfics.

👨🏻‍🦰 None of our match-ups are as wild as the actual comics of Archie vs Predator.

📖 The name “Yautja” comes from a novelization of some Predator comic books. Because that’s a thing.

😈 The Clash at Demonhead Scorebreak. The Clash at Demonhead: I have a jetpack, and can swim in lava? This is amazing! Wait, what do you mean that the solutions to puzzles are all randomly generated? Why would Scott Pilgrim like this game? [8/10 Did not realize that this was an actual game]
🪲 The Beatles cartoon is mostly forgotten, but it ran from 1965 until just before the band broke up.

🕵🏻‍♀️ Mary Kate and Ashley in Action had them, of course, as super-spies.

🔫 Barb Wire was a Pamela Anderson action movie based on a comic series, with a plot stolen from Casablanca.

🏒 Pro-Stars just assumed that kids wanted to see athletes as super heroes.

😳 Kelli O’Hara might be a little embarrassed by having been on As the Wrench Turns, but she was also in Sex and the City 2.

⚔️ The Drizzt Do’Urden. Drizzt Do’Urden: He’s a ranger, and like all dark and cool and stuff, and he has two swords and a panther and all the girls like him, but he’s just too dark and in book 16, he, wait where is everyone going? [1/10: Why you trying to get people mad at me?]
👩‍⚖️ Law and Order: Trial by Jury really did have a great cast: Bebe Neuwirth! Candace Bergen!

🚊 Chuggington has been on “hiatus” for some time.

🦖 Yes, there are briefly pterodactyls in Citizen Kane.

🎮 Dave can be found speed running on Twitch.

🤔 You can also find him playing social deduction games on Traitor Tuesdays on Twitch.

🎧 Jess is on The Cas Cast, a podcast covering the Supernatural episodes Castiel appears in. Find it wherever you get your podcasts or visit the show page at The Cas Cast.

🐦 Nick is on Twitter.

🕵️‍♂️ Nick can also be found at Spy Brunch.

S08.E05: Warmed Over And Dubbed Over Jan 30, 2023

これは、グレートアメリカンポップカルチャークイズショーのシーズン 8、エピソード 5 のエピソードコピーです。このエピソードの第 1 ラウンドのゲームのうぬぼれは、日本語版とアメリカのポップカルチャープロパティの模造品を扱っているため、日本語で表示されています。このテキストを Google 翻訳で実行することに決めた人にとっては、かなり良いことです。私は実際に日本語を話せないので、Google 翻訳を使用して生成したので、Google 翻訳を使用して元に戻した人が、私が入力した内容をかなり正確に表現していることを願っています. とにかくエピソードを楽しんでください！ブランドン、ギャル、ケイティが超かっこいい！まだ Patreon に参加していない場合、Gal は今月の終わりにドロップする Thunder Round でとても楽しいです.
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌭 Currywurst is amazing, and rarely available in the US.

👹 There’s a whole story behind Alec Baldwin’s feature directorial debut The Devil and Daniel Webster aka Shortcut to Happiness.

🕷️ Japanese Spider-Man is fully buck wild

👧🏻 Powerpuff Girls Z features Hyper Blossom, Rolling Bubbles and Powered Buttercup. It’s… something.

🧵 The Japanese version of Lilo and Stitch was fully wild.

🐢 The Japanese TMNT Superman Legend series only lasted two episodes.

👎 The HP Lovecraft Scorebreak. HP Lovecraft: Why it gotta be white? And racist? And misogynistic? And anti-semitic? [7/10: Sad but true]
🤦🏻‍♂️ "D'oh" has its earliest references as Diana's catchphrase on the WWII era BBC radio sitcom It's that Man Again.

🪓 Axe Cop was indeed co-created by a kindergartener.

😽 The choice to make the villain in Catwoman a cosmetics magnate seems more than a little sexist.

👎 The HP Lovecraft, Part II scorebreak: Let’s continue that HP Lovecraft rant: Seriously, there are so many diverse creators making amazing Lovecraft-inspired work these days, can’t we just put ol’ HP in the bin where he belongs? Did I mention the racism? [8/10: Going Hard. But I cannot argue with it.]
🚲 Bicycle Thieves is Italian.

🎶 That Lady Gaga/Elton John song isn’t Sign of Above, but Sine from Above.

🦈 There isn’t a Spy Kids movie with the shark; that would be the Taylor Lautner starring The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl in 3D.

📸 Brandon is on Instagram.

🐈 Katie is hyping Project Meow, helping stray and feral cats in Philadelphia.

🐦 Gal is on Twitter.

🎼 Gal blogs about music.

S08.E04: Antonyms Attract Jan 16, 2023

Look, we were going to burn all record of this episode of this episode ever having existed, but then we decided to make like George Costanza and do the opposite. But instead of a job at the Yankees, we ended up with a very fun pop culture trivia challenge for Brennan, Chelsea, and Darren! We'll see how sharp their ears are with another round of Skip Intro'd TV themes, before really getting our antonym on with a quiz on pairs movies and TV show with opposite titles. We hope you hate it! (That means we hope you love it, cuz you know...opposite stuff.)
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐩 For a kid’s book, Dogman has a shockingly Cronenberg-ian origin story.

🪶 Chelsea’s answer in the My Champion round was, of course, an oblique reference to poet Elizabeth Jenning’s poem A Game of Chess. Maybe the best female theological British poet of the 20th Century? Can you name another one?

🕵🏻‍♀️ That very catchy song from Veronica Mars is We Used to be Friends from the Dandy Warhols’ second album Welcome to the Monkey House (yes, the name is from the Vonnegut story).

🔫 The Tracer Bullet scorebreak: Bullet. Tracer Bullet. What people call me is something else again. I’m a private eye. It says so on the door. [8/10: Tracer Bullet is no Spaceman Spiff, but it’s high-quality content anyway.]
😼 Yes, there was an MC Skat Kat album. There’s a surprising amount of controversy around it, as well, centering on Romany Malco’s role in the production.

🦅 The movie Chelsea was thinking of was, deep breath, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.

📹 The Joaquin Phoenix mockumentary I’m Still Here posits that he’s given up acting to become a rapper, thereby shedding light on the vagaries of celebrity culture. In theory.

🌅 After the Sunset is a mostly forgotten Pierce Brosnan heist movie.

🗣️ The koff koff scorebreak. Koff koff I’m sure that doesn’t forebode anything. [6/10: Getting meta, are we?]
🎸 Wayne’s World's Stairway to Heaven gag has led to tons of real world instances of guitar stores banning the song.

👻 A Ghost is Born got rave reviews from sites like Pitchfork, but baffled fans who thought Wilco always sounded like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

🥣 The serial/cereal confusion was used to great effect in the Sandman, both in comics and on TV.

🐦 Darren is on Twitter.

🐦 Chelsea is on Twitter.

S08.E03: Rolling The Dice Jan 02, 2023

Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out! The third matchup of the season brings in a new crop of players to test their knowledge of pop culture past, present, and future! Ok, we're not asking about any unreleased properties, but we ARE getting nerdy with Adal, Keegan, and Lucy as we quiz on pop culture representations of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as delving into the nooks and crannies of the multitude of weird ways that Fortnite has pulled in other movies and TV. All this, plus a lightning round!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👨🏾‍💻 Maurice Moss (often mispronounced “Mozz”) is the Richard Ayoade character on The IT Crowd. Not to be confused with British Columbian colonist Morris Moss.

🌳 Arbor Day is actually two movies: a little-seen horror spoof from 2019, and an Our Gang short from 1936. That’s the one with future Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel!

🧌 If you’re interested, you can buy an actual version of Orges and Oubliettes for the My Little Pony role playing game.

🚢 The Super 3D Noah’s Ark Scorebreak. Super 3D Noah’s Ark: Sure, grandma, this is a first person shooter for the SNES. [7/10 Never played it, but I love the idea of knock-off Christian bookstore only videogames.]
🎞️ Gothika has an amazing cast (Halle Berry! Robert Downey Jr! Penelope Cruz!), and made $140M worldwide in 2003.

👆 Kid Cudi had a song with Ariana Grande in “Don’t Look Up.”

⚡️ System Shock has the players on a space station, going up against a malevolent AI. There are no zombies involved.

🥱 The Portishead scorebreak: Portishead. Turns out the folks from To Kill a Dead Man have a band, too! [4/10 You all are getting obscure, even for me. But “Portishead” is fun to say.]
😢 Joan Cusack got fired from SNL after one season, but a whole bunch of the cast got fired that year.

🍺 They didn’t do Duff Beer as a Simpsons Movie tie-in, but you can get it at either Universal Studios Theme Park in the US.

🗼 George Orwell did indeed write a book called Down and Out in Paris and London. But we’re generally trying to be more obvious than that.

🤔 Adal does a bunch of great podcasts, including Hey Riddle Riddle

🐰 And Hello from the Magic Tavern.

👹 And The Monster Line.

🎭 Lucy is the Chair of the Board of Trustees and an actor with Advice to the Players, bringing Shakespeare to New Hampshire.

🗣️ And she recommends that Through Methods Discord server (where you can find your beloved hosts as well).

S08.E02: Having A Ball Dec 19, 2022

We're moving on to the Altair IV Division here in season 8 as Mike, Aaron, and Tarn enter the ring to secure a spot in the playoffs. Round one is a fairy tale beginning for this episode, as we quiz our players about different actresses who've played "Cinderella" or some version thereof. Round two takes a turn towards violence as we look at pop culture characters who've popped up as playable characters in various fighting video games. All this, plus an electrifying lighting round to cap it all off.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

❤️‍🔥 Dusa is a disembodied Gorgon head that you can romance in the game Hades. Wild.

🕛 Billy Wilder’s Midnight is an amazing screwball comedy.

👠 Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella was originally written for TV, and was only later put on stage.

🏀 The Bulbasaur scorebreak: Bulbasaur – is anyone picking Mudkip as their starter? Anyone?

💥 “Birdboy beatdown” is a reference to the time the Joker beat Robin to death with a crowbar.

⛓️ Comedic actor John Laroquette was indeed the narrator of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

🤖 Harlan Ellison got a credit in Terminator because it was real close to one of his stories.

🐢 The ninja turtle Michelangelo doesn’t have nunchucks in the UK version, where it was replaced with a “turtle line.”

👻 Jeffrey Dean Morgan did indeed play a maybe-ghost on Grey’s Anatomy. It is not fondly remembered.

💦 The Many Waters scorebreak: Many Waters: in case you thought the religious content in the rest of the Wrinkle in Time series was too subtle.

🪶 The e.e. cummings poem from In Her Shoes was called [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

⚠️ Oddly for a kid’s show, Gravity Falls was heavily inspired by Twin Peaks

🕹️ Mike develops short video games!

🐦 As of recording, Tarn is still on Twitter

S08.E01: Pinball Wizardry Dec 05, 2022

We're back for another season! That's right: season eight has arrived, with new players (along with some old favorites) returning to claim all the pop culture trivia glory. Abhi, Alexa, and Ethan kick off proceedings with a snooty, French round of My Champion, before pivoting hard back towards the absolute trash bag nadir of American society: New Jersey. With a quiz about all the horrible things that movie and TV characters do when they're there, we'll lighten things up with a round all about pop culture-themed pinball machines. All that, plus the venerated lightning round!
NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💃 Amber Atkins is the Kristin Dunst character from Drop Dead Gorgeous.

🧶 There have been attempts to codify the rules of “Calvinball,” which seems to go against the spirit of Calvinball.

🦈 Julia Child worked for the OSS, but was not a spy. She mostly worked developing shark repellant.

🪴 According to Dan’s research, 40% of people in New Jersey don’t know why it’s called “The Garden State.”

👽 The second season episode of The X-Files which introduced the Flukeman of Newark isn’t in every top 10 list of best episodes, which is a travesty.

🗺️ According to some DC comics materials, Gotham City is in New Jersey.

🍟 The McDonald’s Happy Meal for Adults Scorebreak: The only thing dumber is the fact that you can re-sell them on eBay. [2/10 Going to choose to believe that’s not a thing.]
🥵 The pinball machine from The Thing is Heat Wave from 1964

🏫 Ingolstadt is where Victor Frankenstein studied, as it had a famously modern medical school.

🦖 Anguirus is a big old ankylosaurus kaiju who first appeared in 1955’s Godzilla Raids Again.

📖 The People Magazine Scorebreak. People Magazine: Did you used to get Entertainment Weekly? Now you get People. Did you used to get InStyle? Now you get People. Everyone gets People! [5/10 Sad but true.]
🎩 Deception on ABC centered on a “consulting illusionist” who would help the FBI solve crimes.

🗞️ Paper Girls was loved by critics, but didn’t get the audience numbers needed to pay for such an expensive series.

🕵️‍♂️ The Middleman was also loved by critics, but really did not fit on ABC Family at the time.

Special: Movie Movie, Title’s Groovy Nov 21, 2022

We're on a break between seasons for a special episode featuring three fine folks from Letterboxd.com, the social media site for people who love watching movies. Mitchell Beaupre, Mia Vicino, and the inimitable Slim joined us for some games celebrating the few movies of 2022 that don't have rhymes in their titles, and lightning rounds in the coolest*, hippest†, movie categories you can think of. Are these movie-savvy Letterboxers up to the challenge? Listen and find out! *not cool †not hip

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐊 The 2022 Lyle, Lyle Crocodile is actually the second animated adaptation of the book: it was also the first episode of HBO Storybook Musicals in 1987.

🧟‍♂️ Aside from Return of the Living Dead James Karen had memorable roles in Mulholland Drive and Poltergeist.

🇺🇸 The Myra Breckinridge Scorebreak. Myra Breckinridge: so that’s why we didn’t get any more Gore Vidal adaptations. [4/10: I guess we’re just forgetting about Caligula? Sounds like a plan.]

📼 The issue of the last movie released on VHS (not via wide release retail, as in the question) is complicated by the Disney Movie Club, which was sending out VHS copies until late 2006, and the recent vogue for releasing horror movies on VHS (like V/H/S).

👮‍♂️ The title of the documentary on the Shawshank DVD comes from the original story. The Shawshank Redemption was published in a seasonally themed short story collection, in which Shawshank was the Spring entry, subtitled Hope Springs Eternal.

🕷️ Alternate universe mode from Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse is an unfinished completely different cut of the movie, based on earlier versions of the script.

🌹 The Dainty June and Louise scorebreak. Dainty June and Louise because Momma gets married, and married, and married, and never gets carried away. [2/10: Love the show, just wish it had a different title.]

🥤 Is Uncle Drew great cinema? No, but it does have made the best performance of Nick Kroll’s career, which everyone missed because it was in a movie derived from a Pepsi commercial.

📕 The Book of Henry is a buck wild story, largely driven by a tween’s posthumous assassination plot, but that hasn’t stopped some people from thinking that it’s a true story.

🧠 Psychiatrist Carl Jung’s name is pronounced more like “yuung” than “young.”

🎧 All the guests from this episode can be heard every week on Letterboxd’s Weekend Watchlist podcast.

🎞️ Slim is on Letterboxd

🎥 He’s also on the 70mm podcast

🐦 And can be found on Twitter

🎞️ Mia is, shockingly, on Letterboxd

🐦 And on Twitter as well

🎞️ Not surprisingly, Mitchell is on Letterboxd

🧴 But they also writes for Paste

🎬 And for The Film Stage

🐦 And they’re on Twitter as well

Special: For The Books Nov 07, 2022

Where does literature rub up against the rest of pop culture? This episode, of course! Liz is back for the third episode in a row alongside returning player Amy Brundle and newcomer Kendal for a bookish extravaganza! We'll talk frequently adapted authors in round one before a mashup round two game that somehow both confirms our biases and stretch our horizons. But in which direction? Find out, plus experience the customary round of lightning on this week's episode!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

📖 Dave’s greeting is Historica Canada’s Heritage Minutes: Rural Teacher

⏳ The joke of Dan’s intro is that Brandon Sanderson writes a whole lot of very long books.

📰 Yes, Tina Brown’s news website The Daily Beast got its name from Evelyn Waugh.

🏹 We should be clear that we’re specifically asking about the 2020 Quibi version of The Most Dangerous Game.

🟥 We’re not the only ones who thought Red Band Society was a John Green rip-off

🏰 The original Castle Freak is only loosely based on Lovecraft’s “The Outsider,” but the 2020 remake is a more direct Lovecraft riff.

🎲 The You Don't Know Jack Facebook Game Scorebreak. The You Don't Know Jack Facebook Game Scorebreak is sponsored by Whiney Wine, the wine made for kids! [6/10 I used to love You Don’t Know Jack but have only a vague idea what a “Facebook Game” is? Is it in the Metaverse? Do you have feet now?]

📚 Quirk books now publishes more sincere, but still pop culture-oriented fare

🔍 The whole series of Proust in current translations is called In Search of Lost Time, though earlier translations were released as Remembrance of Things Past. This question brought to you by Dan and his wife recently re-reading the whole thing.

🧂 A Man for all Seasons is Thomas More, not Thomas Cromwell.

👤 The Jeff Schwartz Scorebreak. Jeff Schwartz, the contestant whose appearance on this show is what prompted me to listen. [7.5/10 I hope he hears this. Thanks, Jeff!]

🧌 The original Shrek is nothing like the movie version.

🧑‍🏭 The Ted Hughes book The Iron Man, which was adapted into The Iron Giant is much, much weirder the movie is (and not nearly as effective).

🧛🏻‍♂️ Caroline is a werewolf, Meredith is a vampire slayer – the books of The Vampire Diaries are very different from the TV show.

✍️ Liz writes for Consequence

🐦 Liz is on Twitter

🎬 Liz is on Letterboxd

💿 Liz also also also has a website

🐦 Kendal is on Twitter

S07.E13: As Seen On TV Oct 24, 2022

We've arrived! It's the season seven finale to determine the next super mondo champion of champions! Sure, this game opens with a round based on sweaty wordplay, with round two building into a series metatextual mashup clues that combine multiple mediums. And yes, it culminates in a lightning round where the leaderboard is constantly shifting. But this is the finals, darnit, so returning champs Liz, Derek, and Matthew are all operating at a very high level, so the competition cannot be more tense. I had to stop writing this episode description to go pat myself down with a cool wet towel just from recalling how intense everything got. And I'm working from home today, so I forgot to put on Old Spice, so now the sweat has really cooked up a nasty stench in my general vicinity. And when it comes to straight up B.O., I wouldn't necessarily say that everyone loves their own brand 🤢. So I'm gonna go take a shower and let you listen to this incredible season finale on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🦸🏻‍♂️ Yes, Steven Tyler did a gig with Valiant (that would be the Bloodshot company) superhero Shadowman. Who is not cool enough to be Nightman.

⚖️ Can’t use it in the My Champion round, but when Nick and Nora actually did have a family reunion in The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), people got murdered. And the later Thin Man movies really weren’t fun for anyone.

🌹 We want to assure our Listen To Sassy fans that we would accept "W. Axl Rose" as the correct form of his name.

🛳 If you’re not sure about the connection between Tom Cruise and boat-based servitude, you might be happier for it.

🏃🏻‍♂️ Farrah Fawcett didn’t have a big role in Logan’s Run, but she was in there, as Holly 13. You know, the girl at the New You Shop.

💞 The Rebound scorebreak. The Rebound: hey, remember when Justin Bartha could be the lead in a romcom? [7/10. No. I don’t remember that. Wait, is that Catherine Zeta-Jones?]

🏆 Janet Jackson has 10 Video Music Awards; Lauryn Hill has 8 (four of them from 1999).

🪗 The Weird Al song with "I Touch Myself" is 1992’s "Polka Your Eyes Out".

👄 Oh, boy. We’re going to get more email about the correct pronunciation of Constantine.

📇 Tarsem Singh is known professionally as just Tarsem.

💊 The Matwix scorebreak. The Matwix: Yeah, no one needs to see Elmer Fudd waking up in a Matrix pod -we’re all kind of OK with this one getting memory holed. [5/10. Warner is memory-holing a lot these days. Yes, The Matwix is real, and really memory-holed.]

🔫 Man, we don’t ask enough questions about Lorenzo Lamas and Renegade.

🦅 Falcon Crest isn’t a spin-off of anything: it was envisioned as the inverse of The Waltons. But it does have Lorenzo Lamas!

✍️ Liz writes for Consequence

🐦 Liz is on Twitter

👩‍💻 Liz has a website!

🎞 Derek does movie riffing at Down in Front.

🔇 And you can see him live with Forgot to Mute.

🎙 See him live at Logan Square Improv.

S07.E12: Tunes For Tots Oct 10, 2022

It's the last of our divisional finals! Who will be the third contestant to advance to the season championship match? Will it be Rob? Or Scott? Or Liz? Or maybe a fourth contestant will crash the record, chloroform the other contestants and stroll to a leisurely, unfulfilling victory leading to record low ratings that will, in short order, doom the podcast? Only one way to find out; ask a friend who listens.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🪐 The OST is the subject of a lot of controversy, especially over the extent to which it covers private individuals and corporations.

👅 According to Dave Barry, “Yummy Yummy Yummy” is the second worst song ever, beaten out by Richard Harris’ “MacArthur Park.”

🧊 While not in the original credits, Bowie and the members of Queen were later added as composers on the official credits to “Ice Ice Baby.”

🦈 “Baby Shark” is successful enough that there’s a fight over who wrote it.

🐯 The RRR Scorebreak: RRR: The only movie with the courage to defeat colonialism with a dance off. And a tiger. [8/10. And an elk-based murder. Would be higher, but we record these far enough in advance that no one will remember a Netflix movie from the Summer.]

🎩 Note that Kipling poem is Gentlemen RANKERS. Get your mind out of the gutter.

🦇 In the Tim Burton Batman movies, Billy Dee Williams played Harvey Dent.

🏰 The Netflix Castlevania series had four seasons, running until 2022, and has a spin-off/continuation on the way.

🧑‍🍳 The Iron Chef scorebreak. Iron Chef: In the words of my uncle, “Allez Cuisine!”[6.5/10. Would be 9/10, but none of the new versions have really captured the magic.]

🌈 Rainbow Six is a Tom Clancy videogame franchise.

👯‍♂️ The Coen Brothers editing pseudonym is a whole thing.

✍️ Liz writes for Consequence

🐦 Liz is on Twitter

🖥 Liz even has a personal site

🐦 Rob’s research group is on Twitter

🎥 Scott can be found on his movie podcast, Some Like it Scott. They do trivia there, too.

🎞 Scott’s also on Letterboxd

🐦 Scott posts on Twitter

S07.E11: Oh, Einstein! Sep 26, 2022

The season seven playoffs roll on as Ross, Jon, and Derek square off to determine the winner of the Monster Division. We'll take a trip back in time to the community sports programs of our youths before going even further back in time to quiz about pop culture portrayals of Albert Einstein. They'll make you say "Yahoo!" Seriously. Round two asks our players to name pop culture properties based on the titles of the fictional books found within them. All of that, plus the customary but nonetheless vibrant and exciting, lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

⚽️ Ladybugs is also a rare movie role for legendary Dodger’s coach Tommy Lasorda. But he was on Arli$$ multiple times!

🧠 The “Einstein” in Farscape is played by long time British character actor and “that guy” John Bach.

🧫 The Weird Science TV series ran on USA for five seasons.

🏆 Another Period might be the winner in the “unlikely actor playing Einstein” race, with comedian Matt Gourley in the role.

🖐 The Persona Five scorebreak: Persona Five. By the time you’re shooting the concept of apathy in the face, it seems like there might be a metaphor going on here.

🌏 As Taylor promised, here’s that Joe Biden appearance on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

🐹 There’s a surprisingly deep backstory to “Hamster Huey” that is, mostly, unrevealed.

🪵 Yes, the Junior Woodchuck’s Guidebook has all the information of the library of Alexandria. It’s a whole thing.

🥷 The Clandestine scorebreak: The Clandestine. The Clandestine. And you thought Rocket Raccoon was a deep cut.

👼 The Heavenly Kid is really weird.

🩸 Bloodshot is good, actually. (No, it's not - Dave)

🎮 Yes, Mikhail Gorbachev was in one of the endings of the original Street Fighter II.

🐦 Ross is on Twitter!

🎞 Derek does movie riffing at Down in Front.

😆 Or see him live at Logan Square Improv.

S07.E10: Story Checks Out Sep 12, 2022

After last episode's delightful diversion, we have arrived at the season seven playoffs. This week, Matthew, Dan, and Tim are all keen to become the winner of the Chronic Town division, but only ONE can do so, and advance to the season finale. In round one, we'll look at famous non-fiction books that have been adapted into scripted Hollywood movies, before going in the television wayback machine to mashup famous shows' pilot episodes that aired on the same day. And of course, it all comes down to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🥁 Major General Stanley from Pirates of Penzance was widely seen as a parody of British Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley.

🚀 The various versions of Captain Christopher Pike really very rather different.

🍁 Want to watch The Fall? Too bad. It doesn’t stream anywhere.

🪖 According to the people who should know, Charlie Wilson’s War actually downplayed the extent to which Wilson helped the mujahadeen fight the Soviets.

🥸 The Dana Carvey Master of Disguise was… not well regarded.

🌡 The Death Valley scorebreak: Death Valley, like Wellington Paranormal, but not, you know, funny.

🥖 Chalamet is in about 20 minutes of The French Dispatch, in the segment "Revisions to a Manifesto."

🚚 By the end of its run, Ice Road Truckers weren’t driving on ice, or to diamond mines, but they were in the pilot!

🧑‍🍳 Restaurant: Impossible with Robert Irvine premiered in 2011, and somehow has 19 seasons so far.

✳️ Community bounced around to Yahoo!, somehow, where it cost the company a shocking amount of money.

🤷‍♂️ The Tom Wolfe scorebreak: Tom Wolfe – No, there’s nothing creepy about a septuagenarian dandy hanging around sorority girls for I am Charlotte Simmons. Why would you even think that?

🌱 Tom Waits has some great lines in Ironweed.

🎻 Shamisens are really cool instruments.

🪅 Viva Variety was real strange.

🕸 You can find out all about Dan Moren’s books and other online activities at his homepage

🐦 Dan’s Twitter is on Twitter.

🎙 Dan is on loads of shows over on the Incomparable Network.

⚙️ Dan also hosts a rapid-fire discussion of tech topics on the Clockwise podcast

🎸 Tim is encouraging everyone to go see live performances! You can also find Tim’s music and photography on his website

🐭 Tim has also blogs about Disney World

Special: Origin Stories Aug 29, 2022

We're taking a break before the season seven playoffs for some very nerdy trivia with some special guests from the iFanboy podcast network! We were lucky enough to be joined by Josh Flanagan, Conor Kilpatrick, and their recurring guest and science-expert Dr. Ryan Haupt for a match tailored just for them! After a trip to Amity for a game of My Champion, we'll quiz about the history of the use of the famous 'morphing' effect across the history of movies and TV. In round two, we'll go DEEP into comic book lore with a round about early versions of superheroes we know from movies and TV. All this, plus an epic lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👾 The Aliens vs. Predator laser tag arena in Australia is the best thing to come out of those movies

🕛 There were three made for TV movies based on Midnight Run.

🗳 Benson ended on a cliffhanger, without viewers ever finding out who won the election.

🚁 The Helicopters following me around scorebreak: The Helicopters following me around: you can all see those, right? Right? [8/10. Goodfellas is a classic.]

❌ Pryde of the X-Men was a pilot for an X-Men cartoon that never happened. It used to be billed as “The Only X-Men Animated Adventure Ever Created!”

🕹 The X-Men Arcade Game did get a re-release around 2010 on Xbox, but it’s fallen out of availability again. Is it good? It’s fine – but 6 players at once is amazing.

👹 In addition to Kingpin, Daredevil was in Trial of the Incredible Hulk. It’s… not great.

⛴ The U.S.S. Flagg playset was more than seven feet long, but if it were to scale, it would have to have been more than 100 feet long (those planes were big).

🪦 Duke somehow survived the animated G.I. Joe movie, but got killed in the second live action Joe movie.

😬 Leisure Suit Larry is a relic of a lost time, and should probably stay that way.

🦸🏻‍♂️ Josh and Conor are mainstays on iFanboy, which has a more than weekly podcast

📹 iFanboy is also on YouTube (mostly old stuff that they've been re-uploading, but if you haven't seen it, it's new to you).

🔬 In addition to regular appearances on iFanboy, you can hear Ryan on the Science, Sort Of podcast.

S07.E09: Get ‘Em While They’re Young Aug 15, 2022

The last regulation episode of the season is upon us! This week, Scott, Seth, and Diana compete for the last spot in the season seven playoffs in the third elimination match of the Vancouver Rehearsal Tapes division. On the docket this week are games about real life commercial products popping up in pop culture, as well as telling us how to get to Sesame Street with a quiz about the parodies they've employed. All this, plus a lightning round! Our next episode is a special with three special guests from the iFanboy podcast network, and we'll be back two Mondays after that for the season seven playoffs!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🍨 Don’t get Mother mixed-up with mother! Very different films.

🔍 Yes, people were actually upset about nerd Peter Parker using “Bing.”

🔎 And he switched to Google for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

🥤 There were a number of 7 Up Spot videogames. The best, Spot Goes to Hollywood was initially released for the Sega Megadrive. But no one had a MegaDrive, so they also released it for the Saturn. It did eventually wind up on the Playstation.

🚛 The writers of The Expanse have said that the FedEx logos weren’t product placement. They just thought it was funny, and FedEx was OK with it.

🐶 The Astro City Scorebreak. Astro City: Why did you have to kill the Good Dog? Why? [8/10 G-Dog, we hardly knew ye. We all knew it was coming, but still.]

🦁 We were all hurt by the Mountain Lion subplot in 24, but Elisha Cuthbert was literally hurt.

🪴 The hunky gardener on Desperate Houseplants is basically just Guy Smiley with a sleeveless shirt

🔪 Ted Allen is now closing in on 700 episodes of Chopped.

📯 The musical instrument you wish you'd never stopped playing after high school score break. The musical instrument you wish you'd never stopped playing after high school: Mine's the tuba! Did I actually think I'd keep up my chops stumbling across tubas in the wild after graduation day's 'Pomp and Circumstance'? [6/10 Wordy, but Elgar is always going to get you some points.]

🦶 Zendaya is Mee-Chee was a whole meme and a thing.

⚡️ Zapped is really bad. But it has nothing to do with the 2014 Zendaya movie of the same name.

🧍‍♂️ Last Man Standing ran for a long time, but it wasn’t cancelled because of politics.

🍿 Scott can be found on his movie podcast, “Some Like it Scott.” They do trivia there, too.

🎞 Scott’s also on Letterboxd

🐦 And he posts on Twitter

📷 Seth is on the insta (we understand that’s what the kids call it)

🐦 Diana is on the Twitter

S07.E08: Carb Loading Aug 01, 2022

Deb, Derek, and last minute fill-in, returning player Adam are ready to flex their pop culture knowledge this week! Round one is a carbo-loaded extravaganza of pop culture properties that have all been breadified, before round two dives into the unnecessary backstories of iconic characters. And it's all capped off with an exciting lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤖 Alan Tudyk was K-2SO in Rogue One. And has been a voice in every Disney Animated film since 2012.

✂️ His direction of Dead Again led Roger Ebert to compare Kenneth Branagh to Orson Welles, Hitchcock and Olivier.

🙈 Ready or Not is funnier than you think and has a great turn from Andie McDowell (who doesn’t show up in a lot of horror movies).

🛞 For a show based on a major movie franchise, Treadstone didn’t make much of an impact.

🤷‍♂️ The Liberty League Scorebreak. The Liberty League: No, we're not in NESCAC, we're actually in the Liberty League. [1/10 No idea what this is about.]

📵 Nokia did a bunch of DC Comics movies tie-ins and product placements. All with Windows phones. Which is why you’ve never seen them.

🤷 Luke Evans is the one from Fast and Furious 6 and The Hobbit series.

🤢 There was also a backstory for Slimer from the Paul Feig Ghostbusters, but it didn’t make it into the film.

☠️ Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures goes real dark. The ghosts are actually dead people!

🔫 There was a Sopranos video game, but it wasn’t an open world game. It was also, you know, not very good.

🐈 The Cat Party Scorebreak. The Cat Party: Hey Boris! You're not invited! [2/10 I like cats, and Boris is a funny name, but what in the world are you people doing with these today?]

🧛🏾‍♂️ There’s a Blacula reboot in the works, because of course there is.

🎄 The Pee-Wee Christmas Special was really something.

⚓️ Charo was on The Love Boat a lot. But not as much as Florence Henderson.

📷 Deb is on Instagram

🐸 Adam can be found on the Muppeturgy podcast.

🐦 Adam is on Twitter

🎬 Derek does movie riffing at Down in Front.

🔇 You can see Derek live with Forgot to Mute.

😆 Derek is also found live at Logan Square Improv.

S07.E07: Better Call Someone Jul 18, 2022

Rhyming words and mashed up names take center stage this week as Tim, Jeff, and Eleanor compete for the last spot in the Chronic Town Division finals! Round one looks at theoretical spinoff/prequels in the vein of "Better Call Saul," while round two explores possible collaborations between actors and musicians with complimentary names. All that, plus a lightning round to determine this week's champ!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎎 Doll & Em is a lot of fun, and chronically unseen in the US.

🍁 The quarantine version of "Let’s Go to the Mall" is not quite up to the level of the original.

🐊 Crawl earned almost $100 million! It won a Fangoria award for Best Wide Release!

🤖 In Alien: Resurrection Winona Ryder’s character is mostly just called "Call" but Call calls herself "Annalee" as well.

🐿 The Chipmunk Hunk Scorebreak: Chipmunk Hunk, Chipmunk Hunk, he fights crime and other junk. Is he strong? Listen, punk, something something -unk.

🎶 Pretty much all the main cast of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl have their own theme song, all to the tune of the classic “Spider-Man” cartoon.

👎 Pitchfork did not like Steve Buscemi’s Rub Out the Word. And, from their description, it does sound terrible. To wit: “Steve Buscemi reads the cut-up passages of William Burroughs while backed by the drones of Elliott Sharp.”

🎙 If you’re trying to look up the Ricky Martin track, it’s “Vente Pa’ Ca.” It won Song of the Year at the Latin Grammys.

👩‍🍳 Bea Arthur’s role on The Star Wars Holiday Special raises a lot of questions.

💉 Tim was referencing Evangeline Lilly’s outspoken anti-vaccine views.

📚 The Jocaste Nu Scorebreak: Jocaste Nu...wait never mind. This scorebreak doesn't appear in the archives, so therefore it doesn't exist.

🤐 Not only did John Krasinski fire someone else to put Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place, he had her do the firing.

☄️ As Roger Ebert pointed out, Dodgeball never claims to be a “true” story, but a “true underdog” story.

📸 Tim does music and photography.

🐭 Tim also written about Disney World.

🐦 Jeffrey is on Twitter.

📷 Eleanor in on Instagram.

S07.E06: Fall Guys Jul 04, 2022

We're back in the Vancouver Rehearsal Tapes Division this week where Coleen, Liz, and returning player Glenn will duke it out across three round of pop culture trivia. After a social game of My Champion, we'll celebrate the practical stunts that make us gasp at the movies before diving into the Best Supporting Actress category at the Academy Awards. Then, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find it, maybe you can hire…The Lightning Round! All this and more, this week on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🦴 Sadly, “Yakima Canutt” was not his birth name – it’s just from an early photo caption that identified him as a “cowboy from Yakima.” But it’s way better than “Enos.”

🏍 While Steve McQueen has often been credited for the big jump in The Great Escape, it was actually his stunt double, Bud Ekins.

🤖 The wingsuits are just about the only thing in Transformers: Dark of the Moon that aren’t CGI.

🏠 If you haven’t seen the falling house scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr., you owe it to yourself to check it out.

💯 The Ubbi Dubbi scorebreak: Ubbi Dubbi Rubbemubbembubber Ububbubi Dububbubi? Frubom Zuboom? [1/10. I never watched this show, and had to write it out phonetically.]

🙊 You can try putting things into Ubbi Dubbi yourself, if you want to for some reason.

🏆 Yes, Judi Dench got an Oscar for only 8 minutes of screen time.

🤨 The conspiracy theories about Marisa Tomei not winning her Oscar are false (and kind of insulting).

🧙 The TGAPCQS Cognoscenti: We know Production Master Dave is the straw that stirs the drink. [2/10 It’s really Taylor]

🥩 Raw pushes a bit past foregoing vegetarianism for a feminist horror parable.

🏰 No actual wolves are in Wolf Hall.

🐺 In the Rampage movie, the wolf can fly, because why not?

💻 Glenn has a blog!

🐦 Glenn is also on Twitter

📖 Buy Glenn's book: Six Centuries Of Type & Printing

🔬 Coleen would push listeners to the Mass General Research Institute blog

✍️ Liz writes for Consequence

🐦 Liz is also on Twitter

💻 Check out Liz's personal website

S07.E05: You’ve Been Punked! Jun 20, 2022

Our seventh season loops back around to the Monster division for another exciting matchup! Returning contender Jon takes on new challengers Mark and Josh. We'll start with some classic popular popular music presented in an unconventional way, then head out into the wild wilderness to go a pop culture hunt for Bigfoot (and his cousins Sasquatch, the Yeti, and the abominable snowman). All this, plus a lightning round! Bzzzzz

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👠 Even Adrien Grenier knows that Nate was the real villain of The Devil Wears Prada.

🎸 “Me First and the Gimme Gimmes” is a great band that deserves your patronage. They’re currently touring Europe, have lots of merch on their webpage, and can be heard on just about any music streaming service.

🐥 The Chicks’ video for “Goodbye Earl” does indeed include Jane Krakowski, Lauren Holly, Dennis Franz, and, in a cameo, Adrian Pasdar.

🌙 PJ Masks Scorebreak: PJ Masks: Because nighttime is the right time to fight crime. I can't think of a rhyme! PJ Masks...It's time to be a hero! [7/10 I liked that show, but I have overarching logistical concerns about it. Definitely sub “Octonauts.”]

🐕 Laurel and Hardy showed up on Scooby Doo largely as a tie-in to their then just about current Hanna Barbara cartoon.

🦶🏾 The Bigfoot episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man are maybe best remembered for the rotating ice tunnel on the Universal Studios Tour.

🤖 Also, the Bigfoot on The Six Million Dollar Man was a robot. Controlled by aliens. Because an actual Bigfoot would have been ridiculous.

💈 Hirsute means hairy.

🦆 “Larry, I’m on Ducktales.”

⚖️ The Ketanji Brown Jackson Break. Ketanji Brown Jackson: It only took 232 years! [x/10 I’m not allowed to express political opinions publicly. Tiny American Flags for some!]

🐳 Dale the Whale on Monk was played by Adam Arkin, Tim Curry and Ray Porter

🪡 We’re far from the only ones who thought that Needle in a Timestack was a dumb name.

✝️ Assassins 33 AD is indeed, a real movie.

🔭 In Destination Moon, a Woody Woodpecker Cartoon was used to explain space travel. It did a good enough job that NASA just repurposed it to that end officially.

S07.E04: Return Of The Vennding Machine Jun 06, 2022

Season seven rolls on as we make our way back to the Chronic Town division. Brendan, Dan, and Jeff will all battle it out to advance to the playoffs by showing off their knowledge of TV shows and popular songs that share a title. Then, they'll blending properties from the highest and lowest of brows: pinpointing the crossover stars between superhero films and Oscar best picture winners. And as (almost) always, it all comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌎 Check out all of Dan's great works at his website.

🐦 Dan tweets on Twitter.

🤖 You can find Dan podcasting on various shows on The Incomparable network.

🕰 Dan is also host of the Clockwise podcast.

🧛🏻‍♂️ And because he doesn't sleep, he's also on The Rebound podcast.

🐦 Jeff's on Twitter.

🧩 Jeff is part of the National Puzzlers' League!

S07.E03: Who Let The Dogs Out? May 23, 2022

Bark bark! We're back for our next episode, with a canine twist! Rob, Chloe, and Thom are here to test their knowledge of dog, dog-adjacent, and dogified pop culture as we kick off season seven's Vancouver Rehearsal Tapes Division. We'll put puppy-based puns into existing pop culture titles, before quizzing on actual pop culture pooches. And of course, it all comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐶 Doogs are the best.

🐦 Rob's research group is on Twitter!

📷 Chloe makes an Instagram about making a musical!

S07.E02: Not A Word About Bruno May 16, 2022

Season seven continues this week with all-new players Ross, Drew, and Amy. After a Marvel-ous round of My Champion, round one takes a cue from Encanto" to explore all the characters we DON'T talk about. Round two celebrates the actresses who played Jerry's many (many many) girlfriends on Seinfeld, before it all comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

📰 Ed Asner played Lou Grant on two different shows: one a comedy, one a drama.

🧜‍♀️ Ponyo was inspired by The Little Mermaid.

🇺🇸 Pogo is an American classic.

🤯 The Project 863 Scorebreak. The Scorebreak that;s better than anything Netflix puts out. [1/10. Have no idea what this is, feel like I might have been punk’d.]

🍉 Note that we didn’t say which “Gallagher” we were talking about. It gets weird.

🤖 Yes, Lance Henriksen is on The Blacklist.

🦆 Daffy Duck was Robin Hood, not Friar Tuck, in that cartoon.

🦸🏼‍♀️ That Helen Slater Supergirl movie is really weird.

🤴 The Kings Scorebreak: Have you ever wondered what Succession would be like if it was full of painfully earnest biblical references, starred Ian McShane, and aired on NBC in 2009? If so, watch Kings! [4/10. I watched that show, but comparisons to Succession are highly misleading.]

👍 The Fonz wound up as a school teacher, because reasons.

😾 Garfield dolls sticking to glass was a huge deal.

🐈 Luna was just a doll in most of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.

🐞 The French cartoon Miraculous is real popular with the kids.

🎞 Drew has a YouTube Channel of his music

⏰ Drew can also be found on TikTok

🌧 Amy would like to plug the charity Rain for the Sahel and Sahara

🐦 Ross can be found on Twitter.

🎥 Ross is also on Letterboxd, like all the cool kids.

S07.E01: Setting The Stage May 09, 2022

Season seven begins! A whole new bracket of 27 combatants kicks off in the Chronic Town Division with Sarah, Conrado, and Matthew. They'll gut some fish (so to speak) before quizzing on iconic intro text and narration from movies and TV (appropriate to introduce a new season). Then, they'll sharpen their musical ears in round two by identifying 80s songs from short snippets of their instrumental interludes. And of course, there's a lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

📝 Dan usually does these and as you can tell when listening to the podcast, Dan was absolutely in attendance so it is weird that he didn't do any show notes. A personal failing, no doubt.

🪱 Watch Conrado in season two of Wormholes.

🐦 Follow Conrado on Twitter.

🥝 Matthew wants you all to know he's from New Zealand and kiwi is the bird and kiwi fruit is the fruit. GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE MATT.

Special: Darth Foley May 02, 2022

This episode comes to you from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…it's a Star Wars trivia special! We have three enthusiasts in the studio to try their hand at their knowledge of the settings and sounds of the Star Wars universe, plus all sorts of other tidbits, nooks, and crannies to quiz on. We'll be back next week for season seven!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🧹 You remember Broom Boy, aka Temiri Blagg, from Episode VIII? A plot point that totally wasn't abandoned in Episode IX?

🔋 The "cult of the power droids," led by a Gonk, is a thing.

🦎 The Trandoshans aren't all bad: they also kill Gungans.

🚬 Elan Sel'Sabagno, aka Sleazebaggano, was selling "death sticks," in the prequels, but we mostly remember them from (now Legend) Cade Skywalker.

👩🏻‍🍳 The Chef Gormaanda Scorebreak: Just a bit of stirrin', whippin', beatin', and tastin', and you have yourself a masterpiece.

😱 Star Wars did, eventually, abandon the Wilhelm Scream in the sequel series, replacing it with the Wall-E scream.

🗡 Yes, the "darksaber" is, officially, a lightsaber.

🏅 The full story of the R5-D4 droid.

🖐 The Invisible Hand Scorebreak: Sure, it aligns the interests of buyers and sellers to make the free market function, but, more importantly, it ferries General Grievous around.

👨‍🎤 Sy Snootles is a singer AND a part time bounty hunter.

🛕 Jedi Temple Challenge was definitely just a reskinned Legends of the Hidden Temple, but much more Jar-Jar-tastic.

👹 Simone's podcast is Black Mass Appeal.

🐦 Simone is on Twitter too!

📚 Andy recommends the Star Wars Technical Commentaries

Special: Cousin Movies Apr 25, 2022

We're between seasons this week, so we are welcoming three special guests from the Maximum Film podcast on the Maximum Fun network. Comedian Ify Nwadiwe, festival programmer Drea Clark, and critic Alonso Duralde join us for movie trivia about titles appearing in dialogue, and an exploration of the shared DNA of "cousin movies" with a salute to the hyper-specific movie lists from all the weirdo-geniuses on letterboxd. And as always, it all comes down to the lightning round! Thanks again to our special guests! Have a podcast whose hosts you'd love to see compete on our show? Check out our Dream Team page to make a suggestion and forge a connection!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👒 Lena Headey's version of Lady Catherine de Bourgh was rather more physically oriented than other versions (played by Judi Dench, among others), but she doesn't actually have a fight scene.

🪶 Yes, we're going to take any chance we can get to link to the poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope.

👪 Who was Fred MacMurray, aside from one of the best, most underrated actors of his generation?

👍 The Wisdom of Ted Lasso Scorebreak. The Wisdom of Ted Lasso: 'Early drinkin’ means quick drunken’ [I love the Tad Lasso, but feels incomplete. 5/10]

👯‍♂️ The whole "twin movie" thing is actually really common.

🪚 Lots of people (have chosen to?) forget about Hacksaw Ridge; maybe Mel Gibson directing has something to do with that.

👎 The backlash to the Wisdom of Ted Lasso Scorebreak Scorebreak. This was inevitable, guys. [There it is. 8/10]

🚨 It seems as though Ify meant to refer to The Happytime Murders, which would be the first time someone thought about that movie.

😱 You really should check out The Wages of Fear.

🎞 All of our players would encourage you to listen to their show, Maximum Film! We do too!

🎊 Drea is helping to put together the Bentonville Film Festival.

🐦 You can follow Drea on Twitter.

🍷 Ify encourages you to watch Grand Crew on Hulu or Peacock.

🐦 Ify can be found on Twitter

🐦 Alonso is on Twitter too!

👓 Read Alonso’s writing at The Wrap.

🔪 Listen to Alonso on the podcast Linoleum Knife

🍳 Alonso is also on the Breakfast All Day podcast

📖 You can also get Alonso's book about Hallmark Christmas movies, I'll Be Home For Christmas Movies.

S06.E13: Another Brick in the Wall Apr 19, 2022

This is it, y'all! We have made it to the season six finale with three absolute tanks ready to duke it out to become our next super mondo champion of champions. Look out for odd premises in round one where we insert the surnames of actors into unrelated properties that have their first name. But keep your eyes on the floor for round two so that you don't step on the bricks from the pop culture Lego sets we'll be quizzing our players about. Then an absolutely FAB lightning round caps off another exciting season! See you next week for something special!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🦸‍♂️ Note that we're talking about the 2011 show called The Cape, not the 1996 Adam Baldwin/Corbin Bernsen astronaut drama by the same name.

🔨 Kenneth Branagh wasn't in Thor, but he did direct it.

👊 Henry Cavill cocking his fists in Mission: Impossible Fallout, is an amazing scene, just try to ignore all of the continuity errors that show up halfway through.

💬 It's actually "Ah-Melee Blunt in Par-ee"

🤼‍♂️ For those in the know, the reference to Rhonda Rousey's signature armbar is a dead giveaway.

📺 The DuMont Network Scorebreak. The DuMont Network: Gone before I was born, but still a reliable punchline in the right crowd. [10/10, no notes.]

🪞 The "Yaaas Queen" sign is nice, but the Queer Eye Lego set also has a mirror, which is very cool.

🤴 The Prince of Persia Lego sets are pretty cool looking actually. And calling it "Alamut" makes it a low-key Assassin's Creed Crossover!

🏮 There are several Green Lantern lego sets, under the DC Comics Superheroes Line.

🐶 The Dogs Scorebreak. Dogs: The fuzzy weirdos who live in your house. They follow you to the bathroom, lick the sofa, refuse to go outside when it’s cold, snore really loudly, and take over most of the bed. Dogs. They’re the best. [7/10. We all love dogs. Pleasant, but needs some pizazz.]

🚕 George Carlin did, indeed, have a 90s sitcom. He played a cab driver.

🪦 Kevin Costner was much younger than the rest of the cast of The Big Chill, but it makes sense, as he would only have been seen in flashbacks.

🤿 If you want a deep dive into "The Worst Toilet in Scotland," here you go.

🌏 Ian is putting in a plug for Global Giving.

🚽 Sean would like to plug toilets. Or at least toilet puns. And Frankie's Fishnets.

🗑 Listen to Paul on the Trash Art and the Movies podcast

S06.E12: The Great American Pop Culture Dinner Party Apr 11, 2022

Here we are, the last playoff match of season before next week's championship bout! Returning victors Ian, Megan, and Danny test their knowledge of a thing we do not talk about. Round one will throw a dinner party for our favorite title characters before round two dives into the byzantine logic behind the titling of movie sequels. A customary lightning round caps off a tense match. See you next week for the season finale!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👊 If you were in college, you definitely saw the Fight Club rules on a poster, but for everyone else...

🚗 Apparently, you all remember the 1983 John Carpenter Christine, rather than the 1958 Pierre Gaspard-Huit Christine, about the doomed love of the Baroness von Eggersdorf.

💾 The distinction between Tron the movie and "Tron" the character in Tron the movie is a little difficult if you weren't paying close attention to the mostly nonsensical plot.

🍆 The Mahna Mahna scorebreak: Mahna Mahna - The song Jim Henson discovered after it was used over footage of young women in a sauna in a "documentary" about sex in Sweden called Sweden: Heaven or Hell. [7/10: informative, but a little on the wordy side]

🏔 Whatever else you want to say about 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, you've never seen Jim Varney like this (with a sword, trying to kill some children).

👮‍♂️ Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol was the last in the franchise to feature Steve Guttenberg. They made three more.

🧛🏻‍♂️ The Lost Boys sequels are The Tribe and The Thirst.

🪩 Unfortunately, we had to take out the oddest game in the Castlevania franchise: the pachinko version of Rondo of Night that advertises "graphic violence."

🤔 The Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Scorebreak. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr: I'm sure Dan will have something for this. The Imperial Presidency is both presicent and the most scathing imaginable rebuke of Nixon, and I love that they wound up as neighbors later in life. [8/10 straight pandering, but I'm not above that.]

😵 Sean Bean really does get killed on screen a lot.

🧌 Karnak is one of The Inhumans! Everyone loves The Inhumans!

💭 Alternately, Carnac was a bit on Johnny Carson.

📚 Megan wants listeners to support local public and school libraries.

💰 Danny wants them to support their local Planned Parenthood

😶‍🌫️ Ian doesn't have anything to plug himself, but he seconds what Megan and Danny said.

S06.E11: The Ate American Pop Culture Quiz Show Apr 04, 2022

The divisional finals continue as Paul, Chris and Larra fight it out for Ubu bragging rights. Round one will make you hungry as we visited pop culture-ified chain restaurants and round two will feed that juicy chess club brain of yours with etymological clues to movies, TV, actors and more. Plus we got the lightning round, The Threequalizer and we even find time to slam evil like all good phantoms.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🕺 The Roger Ebert review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is classic from top to the famous bottom.

🌶 The Margaritas at Chilis get really unpleasant.

🏆 Hey! That's two Rob Schneider movies in one episode - a new record for us!

🍟 Ordering In-N-Out Fries animal style is generally a bad idea.

🌯 The Quesarito is worse than you think.

🪶 Poetry questions in two consecutive episodes: that's how you know we're all classy and educational. We're going to pretend that outweighs the Rob Schneider questions.

🐩 The Kitbull scorebreak. Kitbull: Oh, it's just like those old Looney Tunes cartoons, right? Right? Right? (3/10 I don't need to get reminded of that)

🔎 The "compact" OED really does come with magnifying glass.

🦶 In case you don't know what the whole "Zendaya is Meechee!" thing is about.

🏹 The other archer on Once Upon a Time was Merida, from Brave, but that would have been a stretch for Tom Ellis.

🥧 The Hostess Fruit Pies scorebreak: Hostess Fruit Pies: MMM - Golden Sponge Cake! Creamed Filling! Capable of defeating any comic book bad guy in a single page! (8.5/10 Hits Dan where he lives. Well done.)

🎵 Apparently, the rest of the Doors didn't know what "Mr. Mojo Risin" meant at first.

⚓️ The Untouchables is far from the only movie to visually reference Battleship Potemkin.

🎸 Larra's parents recently put out an album of ukelele covers of Philip Glass songs, which sounds amazing.

🗑 Listen to Paul on Trash Art in the Movies.

S06.E10: I’m Blue Mar 28, 2022

The season six playoffs have arrived, where our three returning victors battle it out for a spot in the finals! Some quick musical deciphering of TV themes heats things up in round one, before a second round about characters who are both literally and figuratively blue. But will it be Colin, Sean, or Adam who can pull off the strongest lightning round and advance to the championship match?

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🔕 The odd juxtaposition of the content of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and it's theme song is pretty much just an accident.

👂 The theme song to the Pretty Little Liars spin-off The Perfectionists isn't exactly the same as the PLL theme, but it's pretty close.

🤠 The Deadwood Score Break! Deadwood! What if The Wire and also The Sopranos and Tombstone but make it Shakespeare? Welcome to bleep sound effect Deadwood! [7/10 Nice thought, and I like the "what if.. but" construction]

🟦 Of the "Blue" albums, only Joni Mitchell's is considered a transcendent masterpiece (as much as we might like Third Eye Blind)

🪲 The Beatles "blue" album is a compilation of their 1967-1970 hits, issued in response to a popular bootleg compilation.

🎷 You will be shocked - shocked! - to find out that people have been having fun with "jizz" and the related, more old fashioned genre of "jatz."

🚊 John Frankenheimer is the replacement director of the trainwreck that was the 90s version of The Island of Doctor Moreau.

⛵️ "Ridge" from The Bold and the Beautiful has a dumb name, but the producers got it from the name of a friend from Lake Geneva.

👩 The "Adults from Charlie Brown" Scorebreak. The Adults from Charlie Brown: (Wah wah noises for 10 seconds or so) [6/10 Saw it coming, but a muted trombone is always appreciated]

🚪 For anyone worried about the "room on the door" clue, the Mythbusters proved that Jack and Rose could have both survived on the door - but only if Rose had thought to use her life jacket to increase the buoyancy.

🪶 The Alexander Pope poem "Eloisa to Abelard" is one of his better ones: worth revisiting!

🏮 Since John Stewart was Green Lantern in the Justice League cartoons, many people regard him as the real Green Lantern from Earth.

👀 Adam thinks folks should revisit things they like to see what they're going to like in the future.

🐕‍🦺 Colin thinks you should get a dog

🐦 Sean thinks you should follow him on Twitter.

Special: Great Acceptations Mar 21, 2022

It's Oscars-week, listeners! So we're taking a break before the season six playoffs for an Academy Awards trivia special with three very special guests. Joe Reid and Chris Feil (This Had Oscar Buzz) and Katey Rich (Vanity Fair / Little Gold Men) will have their awards season historical acumen tested with a tougher-than-usual Oscar speech game, and puzzles about long term Oscar narratives. Some crazy title-deciphering makes for an excellent lightning round where our true champion takes home that Oscar gold.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👑 David Byrne got his Oscar for The Last Emperor and has come this close to getting his EGOT.

❄️ Peter Capaldi's Oscar is for a short film, Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life, starring Richard Grant.

👨‍👦 The Nepotism scorebreak. Nepotism: Hi mom! [You know I like the meta. 8/10]

🎥 The "L" in cinematographer Conrad L. Hall's name is for Greek-Japanese writer Koizumi Yakumo, who was born Lafcadio Hearn. His first name is for Joseph Conrad.

🎼 Other composers beside Alexandre Desplat have gotten multiple nominations in the same category in the same year: John Williams was nominated for both Tintin and War Horse in 2011.

💯 The Sacheen Littlefeather scorebreak. Satcheen Littlefeather: This is a very long scorebreak, which I cannot share with you presently because of time but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that I very regretfully cannot accept. [Keep the 70s in the 70s. 4/10]

⛔️ George Scott refused his Oscar on the grounds that he did not see himself as being in competition with other actors.

✅ Paul Hogan actually got pretty good reviews for his turn as Oscar co-host. If nothing else, he's now better regarded than the writer who beat him for the Oscar he was nominated for.

🏆 Listen to Katey on Little Gold Men

🔖 Read Katey's coverage at Vanity Fair's Awards Insider

💥 Listen to Katey on Fighting in the War Room

🐦 Keep tabs on Katey on Twitter

🐝 Check out Joe and Chris on This Had Oscar Buzz

🐦 Chris tweets on Twitter

🎞 Chris writes movie reviews on Letterboxd

🐦 Joe is also on Twitter

📺 Joe is the managing editor at Primetimer.com

S06.E09: They Call Me Mad?! Mar 14, 2022

The first eliminations of season six come to a close with a tight match between Amy, Cheyenne, and Ian. It's gerunds on parade in round one as we add an 'i-n-g' to some of our favorite titles. Then, we take a trip to the lab to explore the madness behind some pop culture mad scientists. It all wraps up with the lightning round, which completes the lineup for the Mark VII Division finals! Join us next week for an off-season Oscar special before the season six playoffs!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👨🏼‍⚕️ If "Mark Sloan" doesn't sound familiar as a Grey's Anatomy character, maybe you remember him as "McSteamy."

🚀 Of course, That 70s Show did an actual episode where they go and see Star Wars.

🎯 The Hawkeye scorebreak. Hawkeye: just fine, but next time, let's just cut out Renner altogether, maybe [Correct. 7.5/10]

🧟 Igor/Ygor first appeared in Son of Frankenstein, though there was a similar character, named "Fritz" in the original movie, a role taken from the stage play, not the book.

🪰 Seth Brundle from The Fly is more of an engineer, and admits to not really understanding how the teleportation device works. No relation to Amy.

🤖 The test for androids from Blade Runner isn't the Turing test, but the Voight-Kampff test, which is rather different (even if it has a similar aim).

🖖 The 3D Chess Scorebreak: 3D chess. Super smart people just play chess: it's already complicated enough! And 4D chess would just be doing the same thing, but over time, which is how linear time works, anyway. [Nice sentiment, but could be read as a knock on Star Trek. 5/10]

👑 The pronunciation of Ghidorah is unexpectedly contentious.

🪖 The TV show with Sgt. Bilko was The Phil Silvers Show, though the much later movie was called Sgt. Bilko.

📷 Amy can be found on Instagram!

📷 Cheyenne would point listeners towards the instagram of her Laundry Room Freecycle

🐦 Ian claims to be funny sometimes on Twitter. Find out for yourself.

S06.E08: 135 Lives Mar 07, 2022

If The Matrix: Resurrections reminded us of anything, it's that cat-based content will always be appealing online. We're putting that to the test this week as Jessi, Larra, and Eric compete for a spot in the Ubu Division finals. Round one looks at the catification of the names and content of some of our favorite pop culture properties, before taking a hard turn from the silly to to the hoity toity with a round two that's sure to scratch all your high-minded itches. But if academic writing on pop culture stumps you TOO much, there's always room for redemption in the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👃 Tilda Swinton's description of her signature scent is... something.

🏙 The actor who was in both Spin City and Ferris Bueller is Alan Ruck. Also Charlie Sheen, actually.

🐈 We are definitely aware of that someone already did a whole video of "Downton Abbey but cats."

👻 Fruit Brute Scorebreak. Fruit Brute: The forgotten monster cereal, and maybe the best. Chew on that, Boo-Berry! [Obscure, but recognizeable. Good work. 7/10.]

🎓 Richard Castle was actually a professor at good ol' Hudson U, home of the murder victims.

🦿 The Bionic Woman was from 1977, with the remake in 2007. Close!

🖤 It is, indeed, the "Red Room of Pain" in 50 Shades of Grey.

😘 The Great Gildersleeve Scorebreak. The Great Gildersleeve: I just wanted to let Dan read something that he would enjoy. Go ahead and do that Gildersleeve catchphrase, Dan! [You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee] [Kindness is always appreciated. 8/10]

🎵 As you might have guessed, "Gilbert O'Sullivan" isn't his real name.

🕺 Kenny Wormald had the Kevin Bacon role in the Footloose remake.

👺 We should note that Anne Bronte's male characters weren't quite as bad as those of her sisters.

🐦 Eric's would point listeners to his Twitter!

🐶 Jessy encourages everyone to volunteer at their local shelter, and you can see pics of her doing so at her Instagram

😎 Larra thinks you're all great already.

S06.E07: Country Music Feb 28, 2022

The last batch of elimination matches in each division kick off this week as the Nelvana division finds its third contender. Will it be Lynn? Will it be Bob? Will it be Colin? Listen as they musically globetrot through a round about songs with countries in their titles, then get physical-physical with another DVD extras round, perusing the special features of second installments in mega movie franchises. It all caps off with one shell of a lightning round, and our next winner is crowned!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌧 In Spanish, "The rain in Spain" is rendered as "La lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla," or "The rain in Seville is a true marvel."

🎲 Sadly, we didn't get to hear Dave's Tom Waits impression, so we don't get to hear him croon, "The captain is a one-armed dwarf. He's throwing dice along the wharf."

🇮🇹 Postcards from Italy is Beirut's biggest hit, but don't take that to mean it's actually a big hit. Still, pretty good for a band with a genre described as "Balkan folk, world, indie folk, electronica and baroque pop."

🥨 It's time for the Blake Bohr's Lakeshore Shake Store scorebreak! Blake Bohr's Lakeshore Shake Store: Take our Lakeshore Shake Store Floor Tour and slake your ache for shakes when Blake Bohr's Shake Pour Corps makes your Corn Flake S'more Shake! [I will not encourage this behavior. 3/10]

🤖 Avengers: Age of Ultron would have made the cut, but while it is the second Avengers movie, it's not called Avengers II.

🦖 The other deleted scene from Toy Story 2 is called "Godzilla Rex," which sounds much cooler than "Crossing the Street."

🚙 The "Turbo-Charged Prelude" to 2 Fast 2 Furious, weirdly, has Minka Kelly in an uncredited role.

💰 The fictional in-movie sequel to Spaceballs is actually called, Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.

🦇 The release of Face to Face was highly contentious, as there was a fight over who had the rights to the release outside of the Batman Returns soundtrack, and the promo videos, which the studio didn't like.

🍷 The TCM wineclub scorebreak. The TCM wine club, because who doesn't want a bottle of Burt Reynolds red? Mmmm... hints of Deliverance. [Wine clubs are all scams, so mocking them is a good thing. 6/10]

👨🏻 The TCM wine club really does sell a "Burt Reynolds" branded wine.

📈 In Wall Street "Blue Horseshoe Love Anacott Steel" is a codeword for insider trading.

🔫 William Sadler plays the evil Senator Vernon Trent in Hard to Kill.

🎧 Bob is a panelist on The Great Pop Culture Debate.

📺 Lynn thinks our listeners might enjoy the ATX Festival.

🎟 Colin works with the charity Vet Tix.

S06.E06: Don’t Pigeonhole Sir Mix-a-Lot Feb 21, 2022

“Oh. My. God. Becky. Look at this episode. It is so big.” A first-time, last minute fill-in contestant doesn't slow the momentum down for this week's new episode. Daniel, Morgan, and Megan face off in three rounds of pop culture trivia to determine who will head to the playoffs. First, one of the silliest games we've played attempts to give Sir Mix-A-Lot the depth and dimensionality he's always deserved. Then, things stay musical as we head to karaoke night, where our players identify movies and TV shows from the sounds of their iconic karaoke scenes.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💸 The plot of Brewster's Millions (1985) is that Richard Pryor will inherit $300 million, if and only if he successfully spends $30 million in thirty days and winds up with nothing. It was based on a movie by the same name that came out in 1921 and only required the titular Brewster to spend $1 million. If it were made today, it would probably require a billion dollars in Bitcoin or something.

🧙‍♀️ Bewitched replaced "Original Darren" Dick York with "New Darren" Dick Sargent after York became too ill to continue filming the series. His back was so bad that some of his later episodes were written to justify him being in bed or lying down on the couch for the entire episode.

🩺 The Ken Jeong Scorebreak. Ken Jeong: He's no Anders Danielsen Lie

💿 Hal David and Burt Bacharach wrote a ton of memorable songs together. In addition to I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself, they collaborated on such hits as Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, What's New Pussycat? Moonraker, What the World Needs Now Is Love, and the musical Promises, Promises, which is where the song Turkey Lurkey Time comes from. The song is pretty bad (we said it!) but the choreography is, if nothing else, high-energy.

🎙 The Pips didn't have a lot to do but dance behind Gladys Knight, look good, and occasionally go "Woo woo!"

🍊 "This score break is sponsored by fruit cups. Because as we all know, 'those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.'"

🐳 Contrary to what Ron Burgundy might think, San Diego is named for the Catholic Saint Didacus, a Spaniard more commonly known as San Diego de Alcalá. Although the man who named it that, Sebastián Vizcaino, sailed there on a ship also named "San Diego," so it's possible that he just couldn't think of another saint.

🍼 The TV version of Baby Boom may have been bad (it was) but the cast was pretty good! In addition to Kate Jackson coming off of Charlie's Angels and Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Joy Behar and Susie Essman were both regulars.

🎶 Listen to Morgan in Megafluff

🍸 Taylor's wife likes G&T with Greta and Taylor

🐦 Follow Danny on Twitter

S06.E05: Shopping Spree Feb 14, 2022

Letters and numbers each get their moment in the spotlight on this week's new episode. The Ubu Division rages on with Jac, Paul, and David squaring off in three rounds of pop culture games and trivia. They'll start with a patented "One Letter Off" game, this time with the titles of action movies. Then, we'll peruse the extravagant prices of iconic (and not so iconic) props from movies and TV. A game with info you can use in your real life.* The lightning round caps it all off and sends one of three players to the next round! *for people with money or whatever.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🇺🇸 Rogers The Musical Scorebreak. Rogers The Musical: We're just going to pretend that this is a sequel to Smash.

🔵 Haterworld is an appropriate twist on Waterworld, a movie that, regardless of what you might have heard, made $265 million on a budget of $175 million. It did fine!

🐂 Ferdinand The Bull Scorebreak. Ferdinand The Bull: along with The Grinch, making the case that no one should make features out of old cartoons.

🌽 Korn appeared in the South Park episode "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery," which was about Scooby-Doo.

👀 Those props from Turn look pretty cool, but we still think they're pretty expensive considering they're from a show watched by ten people in the world, maximum.

S06.E04: Give A Little Whistle Feb 07, 2022

Just put your lips together and blow on in to another week at The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show! Eric, Michelle, and Adam begin their face-off as their champions struggle to enjoy a Pink Floyd concert. Later, they'll identify famous pop culture whistling, before coming to answers that seem to be right on the tips of their tongues. It's all wrapped up in the lightning round, as the Nelvana division gets its second playoff contender.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🥣 The clue this week was a combination of an 1970s Campbell's Soup ad and Brad Pitt from Fight Club. FINALLY.

🔥 Replace your smoke alarm batteries every six months because editing out 10,000 smoke alarm chirps isn't fun. Apropos of nothing we give this info to have a think about.

🏀 Read Eric's sports 'n' gamblin' articles

💸 Listen to Eric's Gamble On podcast

🥊 Listen to Eric's Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney

🎲 Dicefunctional's DND Twitch stream

🐦 Dicefunctional is also on Twitter

▶️ Dicefunctional has a Youtube channel

🖥 Dicefunctional has a website, as promised

📚 Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

S06.E03: Who Wore It Best? Jan 31, 2022

It's another week here on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show, this time kicking off our Mark VII division with Megan, Keith, and Cornelius. These players will square off in three rounds of trivia about everything from Don LaFontaine voiceovers in 90s movie trailers to iconic pop culture fashion choices. Plus some other things in between you won't want to miss!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💯 Dave was doing double duty this week and forgot to actually give Megan's post-lightning round score total but you can see it on the page for this episode.

S06.E02: Choice Words Jan 24, 2022

Words! Words! Words! We got them and our three contestants Chris, Mieka, and Tara have to figure them all out. In round one we've over-redacted four letter words in the [blank] and TV titles of 2021 and in round two we challenge our players to name the pop culture properties various made-up words belong to. Blerg! And of course it all comes down to saying it comes down to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐎 Araminty Brown is very different between the book and the movie.

💰 We are far from the only ones to have noticed how bad the rhymes on "Take the Money and Run" are.

🦸 Blankman was a 1994 Damon Wayans superhero spoof.

🥤 The Sweet Tea Reynolds Scorebreak. The Sweet Tea Reynolds scorebreak: like "Sweet Dee Reynolds," but, you know, Southern? I guess? And ubiquitous down there?

🐘 Not only was there a Heffalump movie, but there was a sequel to said Heffalump movie.

🥘 The sidekick in The Black Cauldron is Gurgi.

🫒 The sexual politics of Popeye scorebreak. The sexual politics of Popeye: we're going to avoid thinking about it too much.

🐻‍❄️ The numbers from "Lost" are actually numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.

✈️ Dirk Blocker was 1st Lt. Jerome 'Jerry' Bragg in Black Sheep Squadron, and Hitchcock in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

📷 Tara is on Instagram at t.leaf

✍️ Mieka is a writer for Delisted

😎 Chris is too cool for plugs.

S06.E01: Having Reservations Jan 17, 2022

We're back, and kicking off season six! A brand new crop of 27 players enter the gauntlet for our most challenging season of pop culture trivia yet. This week, we'll enter the Nelvana Division as Michelle, Katherine, and Sean test their knowledge of times that actors portrayed other real life actors, before checking out some reviews of famous pop culture hotels. If you're up to it, don't forget to apply to play with us on a future season, and check out our new Dream Team page where you can suggest other podcasts you'd like to see come play with us.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🦊 In 1979, when he played Elvis in John Carpenter's Elvis, Kurt Russell was still mostly known for appearing in live-action Disney movies like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. A couple years later, when he appeared as Snake Plissken in Escape From New York, he also voiced Copper (the hound) in The Fox and the Hound. He revisited the role of Elvis in an uncredited voiceover in Forrest Gump.

🎼 The German Augmented Sixth Chords Scorebreak: German Augmented Sixth Chords: enharmonic spellings be darned! They're just flat six chords with a dominant seventh! Get over yourself, Beethoven.

🖊 Norman Mailer appeared on one episode of Gilmore Girls, the aptly titled "Norman Mailer, I'm pregnant!" He played himself. He appeared as a character named Stanford White in the Milos Forman movie Ragtime, and he looks pretty silly in it.

😡 The Mad Magazine Scorebreak: Mad Magazine: Gone but never forgotten.

📺 UHF was shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which not a lot of movies or television shows are. But the recent great show Reservation Dogs is one of them!

🧜‍♀️ The Little Mermaid TV show had a surprising number of voice actors reprising their roles from the movie, including Jodi Benson (Ariel), Samuel E. Wright (Sebastian), Kenneth Mars (King Triton), and Pat Carroll (Ursula)

💵 National Bail Fund Network

🐦 Sean says his Twitter account is boring

⏰ Sean says his TikTok account is also boring.

👍 Sean says his friend's TikTok account is much more lively. Way to sell it buddy!

Special: I’m Sorry Dave, But This Reference Is Getting Old Jan 10, 2022

It's an off-season special featuring three great contestants from The Incomparable podcast network. Incomparable founder Jason Snell goes up against tech reporter Glenn Fleishman and our pal Monty Ashley across three rounds of pop culture trivia. Round one looks at famous references to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and round two goes deep in the weeds on opening themes to some real kooky animated series adaptations. A back-and-forth lightning round leads to an exciting conclusion. Join us next week as we kick off season six!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤖 Also in Watto's junkyard: Robby the Robot

🥼 The episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 referenced, is one of the best regarded of the run, “Mitchell.”

🐸 If that episode of 1984 Muppet Babies sounds cool, and you’d like to stream it somewhere, you’re (still) out of luck.

🕒 Mel Brooks paid Orson Welles for a week’s working narrating, but Welles knocked it out in three hours.

🎺 The Euphonium Scorebreak. The Euphonium: The brass instrument that no one can identify but everyone loves when they hear it. No it's not a tuba. Not, it's not a saxophone. It's a Euphonium.

⛄️ Snowpiercer was a European comic before being a movie, but would hardly qualify as classic. It’s very different from the movie.

🍄 The Swamp Thing cartoon only lasted 5 episodes, but still was re-run for years.

🗣 The Wilhelm Scream Scorebreak. The Wilhelm Scream: [Dan does wilhelm scream].

⚓️ The name “Nausicaa,” from Homer, means “burner of ships,” which is kind of a spoiler for the anime.

🔫 Murderbot watches serialized "feed" programs that aren't exactly TV shows, but pretty close. They (the non-binary Murderbot itself) has also been optioned for their own TV series.

⚾️ Yes, The Natural is a riff on Camelot: the bat is Excalibur, the team is the Knights of the Round Table, etc.

🎧 Jason's podcast network, where you can find all of today's competitor's is The Incomparable

🔤 Glenn is a font of knowledge at the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule

👖 Listen to Glenn on the Pants In The Boot podcast

📚 Browse Glenn's Take Control series of tech books.

🐦 Monty can be found on Twitter

🎞 Monty does Letterboxd too!

S05.E13: U.S. City: The Musical Jan 03, 2022

This is it! Our fifth super mondo championship match has arrived, and some stiff competition is coming to close out the season. Aaron, Brigid, and Seth all bring their A-game to three rounds of pop culture trivia to test their mettle. Round one is our kookiest musical game yet, celebrating movies with U.S. cities in their titles, as well as the songs of Kander & Ebb. Then round two shifts over to TV for a "Characters Welcome" round about bosses and employees. And a great lightning round finishes up the season in style.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐲 Angel was supposed to have a Season 6 that we didn't see on TV, but based on the weirdness that was the official comic version of Season 6 - all of LA is in hell, and Angel is teaming up with a dragon - that might be for the best.

🛌 Rita Wilson's character does the work of directly connecting Sleepless in Seattle with An Affair to Remember, but (1) she improvised a bunch of that dialogue, and (2) she hadn't seen the original movie beforehand.

🦫 To be clear, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart is worried about a "dam" project, not a "damn" project.

💨 The Who Farted Scorebreak: Who farted? Dan's score: 8/10

⚖️ While Like a Boss was released by Lonely Planet, the origin of the track was rather controversial, leading to law suits over the rights to the song.

👮🏻‍♂️ Axe Cop is more than a little demented, but that's mostly because it was created by a 5 year old (with some help from his 20-something brother)

🐒 In addition to Robert Guillame, Rafiki has also been voiced by Khary Payton (The Lion Guard cartoon), and John Kani (2019 film)

🪙 The Adjudicator is the only John Wick bad guy not to get killed in the same movie that they're introduced.

🪶 The "Christopher Plummer in Star Trek VI" scorebreak. Christopher Plummer in Star Trek VI: who better to recite all the Shakespeare in the original Klingon? Dan's score: 7/10

🐱 Lucky the cat, from Alf, is, indeed, a male cat (we had to check, too)

🤔 On Benson, Benson's first name is... Benson. His last name is DuBois.

👶 Have Brigid be the first face your baby sees.

🏫 Seth wants you to support teachers and local public schools

💉 Aaron wants you all to know that our show is a lot of fun, so you should maybe sign up! Also, we all have to curl up under a blanket and watch Takashi Miike's Audition.

S05.E12: What Boy Island Dec 20, 2021

The last match of the season five playoffs has arrived! Jon, Brigid, and Joelle square off over three rounds to fight for a spot in the season five finals. First up, they'll see which pop culture 'boys' deserve their own island reality show in "What Boys Island," followed by a trip through the pop culture annals of the board game "Clue," and all the properties that have put their unique stamp on it. And don't forget the lightning round! It's all this week on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show. We're off for the holidays next week, but we'll see you for the season five finale in the new year!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐂 Ferdinand the Bull is based on a true story, which probably didn't end well for him. He might have been killed by Franco's soldiers?

🎥 We're also going to just come out and say that the 8 minute 1938 version with Don Wilson (you know, from The Jack Benny show?) is better than the John Cena version from 2017.

🚀 Astro Boy is a little dated at this point, but the manga update "Pluto" is one of the best comics ever made.

🤬 In the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty one, The Jerky Boys are still a thing, somehow.

✝️ The "Christian Alternative Third Wave Ska Punk" scorebreak. Christian Alternative Third Wave Ska Punk: The O.C. Supertones, The Insyderz, and Five Iron Frenzy are real bands, I promise!

🎲 There's at least one version of Clue/Cluedo that was too nonsensical even for us, the "Juicy Couture" edition. where you can play as "Cal I. Freakinfornia"

🐴 Horcelain, is, of course, a porcelain figure of a horse.

💸 There is no Stranger Things Clue, but there is a Stranger Things Monopoly.

👴🏻 The "Larry 'Bud' Melman" scorebreak. Larry "Bud" Melman: official sponsor of a future "Kenny The Gardener" scorebreak.

🇺🇸 Jerry Springer got his start on the RFK campaign, and has a long history in Ohio politics.

👩‍❤️‍👨 Our listeners may notice that we've now asked about Melissa and Joey twice this season, which is more than anyone has talked about it in years, but it did run for four seasons.

🍇 Stanley Tucci has even improved on his Negroni recipe, with local balsamic vinegar.

🦝 Listen to Joelle talk Animal Crossing on the PocketPod Podcast.

🗣 Joelle is also podcasting on The Great Pop Culture Debate Podcast.

🐦 Joelle doth tweet.

👶 Brigid will delivery your baby on time and on budget.

💵 Donate to The National Network of Abortion Funds

S05.E11: Don’t Trust The B Dec 13, 2021

The season five playoffs roll on with the San Dimas High division finals! Returning winners Aaron, R. Mike, and Dylan open the face off with their knowledge of title characters who start with B. But the stakes elevate when we identify remade properties on the big and small screens from the scantest details about them. And of course, the lightning round decides it all!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

😡 Hank Azaria played "Hank Landsberg" in 2018's Maniac.

🚀 The band Duran Duran got their name from the evil scientist in Barbarella - they used to play in a club called Barbarella's, and later featured the actor who played Durand in a music video.

🐿 The movie of the Beastmaster is weird, but it isn't anywhere near as wild as the original Andre Norton book.

🦆 The Ducktales Theme Song Scorebreak. The Ducktales Theme Song: when someone says Ducktales, you have to say "woo-hoo." I don't make the rules.

👧🏻 Bernadette Peters would make a fantastic Miss Hannigan, but she actually played Lily in the 1982 John Huston version.

📺 Don't tell Dave, but The Thin Man TV series ran for two seasons on NBC in the 50s, starring Peter Lawford.

🎹 Weirdly, not everyone hates the Casablanca TV show

🪠 The Lighthouse Score Break. The Lighthouse: it's in black and white mostly to ensure that you don't notice that Robert Pattinson is doing Mario cosplay.

🤰 The first Big Bad Mama movie co-starred Tom Skerrit and William Shatner.

🎧 Dylan's Plugs: His podcast, Straight People Movies is on Spotify

🐦 Follow Dylan on Twitter

S05.E10: Get Your La Las Out Dec 06, 2021

The season five playoffs begin as James, Paul, and Seth duke it out for the North Shore High division title and a spot in the finals. Round one looks at songs with memorable uses of the note to follow sol before round two shakes up the before-and-after answer style with names instead of titles. But only one player can advance, and it all comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐊 Elton John has defended the... less than original sound of "Crocodile Rock" saying in the notes of the '95 re-issue, "Of course it's a rip-off, it's derivative in every sense of the word."

🧙‍♀️ Thankfully, we didn't use the modified version of "Popular" Chenoweth sang about Anthony Weiner.

🥃 If "la la" doesn't sound like something Tom Waits would normally sing, he has said that "Jersey Girl" was his "experiment with Sha La La."

☘️ The Uncanny Valley Scorebreak. The Uncanny Valley: I don't care how much it cost! The faces in The Irishman might as well have been Tom Hanks in The Polar Express.

🌅 For Before Sunrise, we say "mostly" in Vienna, Austria, because it starts on the train, so they might still have been in Hungary.

🌃 We could have used Stuart Townsend's role in the Kolchak remake, but we don't want to be predictable.

😵‍💫 The Stop making Dan say stupid things scorebreak. Stop making Dan say stupid things. So what if he likes old movies? TCM is great!

💵 Hey, remember when a show like Thanks a Million on Quibi could get a season two renewal announcement?

🕵️‍♀️ Kim Possible: So The Drama was actually the second Kim Possible animated movie.

🐦 You can follow James on Twitter

🎞 Track what James in watching on Letterboxd

🍻 If you're in Seattle you can play in Paul's Quiz Fix trivia nights.

🐦 You can tell Seth he has a great beard on Twitter

Special: Have it Yule Way Nov 29, 2021

Two returning faves and one new challenger join us for our first ever December holiday special episode! Amanda, Gerald, and Megan have decked our halls with holiday trivia goodness. Round one kicks it off with identifying fictional holidays from TV shows and specials, before we pile on the legal jargon for our favorite big Christmas movies, inspired by the mumbo jumbo in The Santa Clause. Then we really ring in the season with a fun crop of lightning round topics!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏳 In case you need a refresher for Dan's awful Christo joke

🌌 Bizarrely, they made another Star Wars Holiday special about Rey celebrating Life Day in 2020

🤮 And you can get the official "Life Day" cookbook, so you can make your own mudhorn eggnog.

💦 The Alf holiday Fappiano makes more sense when you realize that they were just naming if after one of the show's puppeteers.

🦵 The Hackensack Kicky Sack Socko Sack Kicker Scorebreak. The Hackensack Kicky Sack Socko Sack Kicker: Co makers of Khaki Kicky Sacks! Now hiring six sitting sheet slitters for sheer synthetic sheepskin!

🐭 Brain, from Animaniacs originated the Hackensack Kicky Sack tongue twister. Now, it's used as practice for voice actors.

🐸 The song "The Love is Gone" was originally cut from A Muppet Christmas Carol for being too emotionally sophisticated.

🗿 Dan is pretty much contractually obligated to note that they filmed parts of The Family Stone at the University he teaches at.

🛸 The Pia Zadora scorebreak. Pia Zadora: she was in Santa Claus conquers the Martians, and she must have been great in at least one movie, or they definitely wouldn't have given her a Golden Globe, right?

🎸 I don't think we really want a Springsteen Christmas album, given his track record on holiday songs.

🔔 John Pierpont wrote "Jingle Bells," originally called "The One Horse Open Sleigh," from his home in... Georgia?

S05.E09: History’s Greatest Acting Robots Nov 22, 2021

Here it is, the last regular elimination of the season! Brand new contenders Thom, Marina, and Joelle show their stuff in an all-out brawl of pop culture knowledge! In round one, our players prove their moral and spiritual virtue by identifying recent movies from their content warnings on an intensely Christian website. Next, they'll launch into the future for some assessments of history's greatest acting robots, all before wrapping it all up in the lightning round. Come back for our first even Holiday Special next week!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏴‍☠️ The actual death of Blackbeard the Pirate is rather different than the better known one from the manga and anime One Piece.

⛪️ The Christ metaphor for Jesus in Justice League was definitely intentional on Snyder's part.

🎵 The "Mambo Number 5 Scorebreak." "Mambo Number Five:" my favorite song of all time. That's right: my name is Dan Cassino and I think the greatest musical achievement of the last seventy five years is Lou Bega's 1999 hit song "Mambo Number Five. No one told me to say this, least of all one of the Home Version riddle winners who won the chance to make me read whatever they wanted as part of a scorebreak. No, I am telling you all of my own volition, fueled by unreproachable passion, that "Mambo Number Five" brings joyful tears to my eyes every time I hear it. Shout out to Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary and Jessica. I love a little bit of you all.

👠 The frame segments of Red Shoe Diaries actually have a tragic backstory involving a construction worker slash shoe salesman and a suicide, because reasons.

🤖 Bender is from Mexico. His full name is Bender Bending Rodriguez.

🦾 Why is Vision a "synthezoid" rather than a robot or android? Because he's just got synthetic versions of human organs, rather than real robot parts.

🚘 In the 1997 Bruce Campbell Herbie movie, the car was, indeed, possessed by a dead man's spirit. In the original movies, there's no real explanation.

☕️ The Rick's Cafe scorebreak. Rick's Cafe: the one from the 1983 TV series with David Soul and Hector Elizondo. You know, the definitve iteration of Rick's Cafe!

🦝 Listen to Joelle talk about pop culture, video games, animals and the crossover of all three: Animal Crossing!

🗝 Solve Thom's escape room at Murphy's Law Office

📷 Marina on Instagram

🐦 Marina is also on Twitter

S05.E08: Get Stuffed Nov 15, 2021

New players Dylan, Andy, and Kiiva join us for another round of pop culture trivia this week as we make our way through season five. We'll kick things off in round one with a game about pop culture properties and pop culture people who share an exact name, before heading to one of our most commercially crass games ever. It's a trip to the mall to identify the pop culture origins of animals you can get at the Build-A-Bear Workshop. And there's still some surprises in store as we make it to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🪶 Unfortunately, there does not seem to have been an English language TV or movie version of Aristophanes' The Birds, but he is credited as a writer on Spike Lee's Chi-Raq.

🥚 The 1927 film Almost Human sounds weird, but the movie's tag line only makes it worse: "An unusual, novel, absorbing photo-play with a love theme exquisitely developed, and as full of action as an egg is of meat."

🥧 The Rhubarb Pie Score Break. Rhubarb pie: a top three all-time pie.

🧸 The One Direction Build a Bears had a terrifying number of accessories available.

👺 There are actually two different Deadpool Build-a-Bears, and the Panda one is cuter.

🦝 Is Tom Nook from Animal Crossing evil? When there are hot takes in national newspapers saying he's not, I think we have our answer.

🛠 The Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor scorebreak. Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor: [GRUNT]

🎞 Listen to Dylan on The Straight People Movies podcast

🐦 Follow Dylan on Twitter

🗽 Andy was on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show! We'd put a link to it, but we have a feeling you already have it.

💗 Public libraries, teachers, Support your local arts community, Life Lessons from Mr. Rogers - We are neighbors. Let's be kinder to each other.

🏳️‍🌈 Dallas Hope’s Transitional Living Center for LGBTQ+ youth

S05.E07: First Names First Nov 08, 2021

Things are extra tuneful on this week's new episode! Jim, James, and Gerald all face off for pop culture games and trivia that really test their musical minds. A cello-themed round of My Champion gives way to a round one filled with some unexpected movie-singing (though some of these examples are VERY expected if you have been tracking the types of movies Taylor likes to put in games). Gears shift in round two where players try to un-confuse pop culture properties that each have characters who share a first name. And as always, it's not over until everyone gets a crack at the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👰 The iconic "I Say a Little Prayer for You" scene from My Best Friend's Wedding was apparently a last minute addition to the film.

🔙 That wasn't actually Michael J. Fox singing in Back to the Future.

🎙 But years later, he did later perform it live on stage with Coldplay.

📺 The "Whoever is sitting in the top right spot on Match Game" scorebreak. "Whoever is sitting in the top right spot on Match Game." Charles Nelson Reilly or get the funk out.

🎶 How recent is the stardom of Olivia Rodrigo? She did her first live concert the day before we recorded this episode.

🧠 We should note that the wonderful cartoonist Ryan Dunlavey actually did the Charlie Brown/Prof X joke as a cartoon strip.

👔 Suits ended earlier this year after nine seasons.

🕺 The "misheard song lyrics" scorebreak. Misheard Song Lyrics: maybe Tony Danza doesn't WANT to be held.

🐦 Follow James on Twitter

📭 Leave Jim the hell alone.

🎞 Close Ties to Home Country by Akanksha Cruczynski

🐦 Gerald on Twitter

🕰 Gerald on TikTok

S05.E06: J-School Dropouts Nov 01, 2021

Brides and reporters take the front seat in this week's contest! Returning from our summer Blockbusters episode, Vandy takes on newcomers Seraphina and Brigid in three rounds of pop culture trivia. Round one allows us to reminisce on our favorite pop culture weddings, before a decidedly less celebratory round two, where we take unethical pop culture journalists to task. A tense lightning round caps it all off!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💍 There was a whole lot going on in Alex and Izzie's wedding from Grey's Anatomy, but all you need to know about Alex is that he gives a heartfelt speech that he stole from a patient

🪖 When Monica and Chandler got married, Joey was wearing his costume from a WWI movie he was filming.

💯 The Confirmation Bias scorebreak. Confirmation Bias: the reason the Paw Patrol movie has an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.

🐾 As of recording, Paw Patrol is down to 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, but has a 97% audience score.

🔫 There's some controversy about why Melinda Cullea, who played Amy Amanda "Triple A" Allen from The A-Team left the show, but she landed on her feet.

🌃 You could be forgiven for not remembering the 2005 Night Stalker remake: it lasted all of 6 weeks on the air.

👄 The Dan has to read whatever I say here? Anything? Scorebreak. Hi, I'm Dan, and I'm a hundred and five years old. Fred Allen! Lillian Gish! The Bickersons!

👩‍❤️‍👨 Dan says that The Bickersons, starring Don Ameche, is unfairly forgotten, as a comedy classic and an influence on later domestic sitcoms. When DuMont+ becomes a thing, the TV version will get its just deserts!

🏐 In case you're not familiar with the Mr. Belvedere incident mentioned on the show.

🐣 Bring your baby into the world with Brigid's perinatal support business Doula Craft

✊ Seraphina says all eyeballs on World to Win, International Socialist TV

🎬 Watch Vandy's short film, Wild HR.

S05.E05: Paper Movies Oct 25, 2021

Another week on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show continues our fifth season with first time players Ryan, Rage, and R. Mike! Writing takes center stage with a journalism-themed round of My Champion and trivia about literary adaptations for round one. Then, round two situates us in time to talk Christmas Day movie releases, and determining how to appease everyone on your family trip to the theater. And as always, it all comes together in the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐩 I regret to inform you that Dog with a Blog has gone through some critical re-evaluation.

🏈 The Ben Affleck Friday Night Lights show was called Against the Grain.

🦴 When Bones was on the air, there were fewer Temperance Brennan novels - as of this record, Kathy Reichs has written 23.

💀 The Punisher's creator, Gerry Conway, has been pretty open about the influence of Don Pendelton's books.

🎶 The Secondary Dominants Scorebreak. Secondary Dominants: I give THIS scorebreak a five of five.

👶 Cheaper by the Dozen was remade with Steve Martin in 2003, but the original starred Clifton Webb.

🔄 It's time for the Temporal Pincer Movement Scorebreak Scorebreak Movement Pincer Temporal the for time it's.

👊🏽 Dhalsim was largely unrecognizeable, but was in "Street Fighter," played by Roshan Seth.

🌎 Read R. Mike's stuff on Tropics of Meta.

🎧 Listen to Ryan on the Damage Control podcast.

🎄 Rage's YouTube channel which, as we all know, is UC1IxJTPwXzkbUgCpFuiXq2w.

S05.E04: Best Supporting Actor Support Oct 18, 2021

It’s all about supportive partners on this week’s new episode! Newcomers Chris and Karenna square off against season three returner Paul. Round one will test our players’ knowledge of which actors have been onscreen-married to other actors, while round two asks about the cast that supported several Best Supporting Actor contenders to their Oscar wins. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to making the right choices in the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💣 Don't tell Taylor, but bomb fuses can go off underwater.

🐀 In The Abyss, the rat really was breathing oxygenated fluid (and was fine), but Ed Harris wasn't.

🎭 John Kani had a fairly small role as T'Chaka, T'Challa's father in the MCU, but he's mostly a high end Shakesperean actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company

☄️ The movie Armageddon does, in fact, end in Liv Tyler getting married to Ben Affleck.

🕵️‍♂️ The Morse Code Scorebreak. Morse Code: dash dash/ dash dash dash/ dot dash dot/ dot dot dot/dot [That spells Morse, in homage to Inspector Morse]

🪄 The Prestige was two years earlier than The Dark Knight, in 2006.

👓 Charles Martin Smith is a "that guy!" supporting actor with a very distinctive look.

🦋 According to IMDB, Don Ameche is actually the lead role in "Cocoon," but the Academy disagreed.

🤷‍♀️ It's time for the "I'm not really sure how to do a scorebreak sponsorship." I'm not really sure how to do a scorebreak sponsorship. I just answered the riddle for fun and never expected to win" scorebreak.

🤔 QUIZ PEEPS UNITE! Check out Paul's quiz outfit Quizfix.

🩸 Donate blood, you got lots.

S05.E03: Spaceballs: The Flamethrower Oct 11, 2021

Season five continues with old friends and new faces! Don comes back from season one! Regular game night decathlon participant Jon makes his main show debut! And new face Elana jumps into the fray for the opening match in the season five Rancho Carne High division. Round one highlights some very strange pop culture merchandise, while round two gets into some goofy semantics with some theoretical prequels to notable romantic comedies. And of course, it all comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🍦 The short history of Lunar Cheesecake ice cream.

🦖 Wayne Dinosaur.

🥣 Urkel-Os are part of a balanced breakfast.

👨🏻‍🌾 Directions from NYC to the shooting location of the farmhouse in Christmas In Connecticut.

🛫 The Fiumicino International Airport in Rome is also known as the Leonardo da Vinci airport.

🎧 Listen to Don on the Even The Score Podcast.

🐦 Follow Elana on Twitter

📷 Check out Elana's pics on Instagram.

🚌 School On Wheels Indianapolis

S05.E02: Little Golden Sellouts Oct 04, 2021

Season two continues with a special guest appearance! New players Aaron and Claire face off against returning player and somtimes-acting-scoremaster Tara Ariano! A decidedly adult round of My Champion gives way to a very kid-oriented round one, with players guessing a pop culture property from an excerpt of a Little Golden Book associated with it. Round two gets sinister and complicated with a quiz about movie conspiracy theories, before we take it home with the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🖖 Other Star Trek: TOS Little Golden Books include Too Many Tribbles and I am Mr. Spock.

🛳 Weirdly, "Albert" is not the name of the Skipper character played by Dwayne Johnson in the recent movie version. He's "Frank."

🐴 There are, in fact, My Little Pony Little Golden Books.

📏 The Five Cadam Scorebreak. The Five Cadam Scorebreak: We took one cadam off to honour the Hebrew God whose scorebreak this is.

👽 If our version of The X-Files mythology doesn't make a lot of sense, well, neither does the mythology of the X-Files.

🤷‍♀️ Unfortunately, the movie The Parallax View is not at all related to the Slavoj Žižek book of the same name. No rehabilitation of dialectical materialism here!

🧬 This score break is brought to you by … The Science Guy Exposition Dump! The Science Guy Exposition Dump! Be it a professor, an animated DNA strand or some kook in a lab coat, the Science Guy is here to help, standing by to lecture important plot points while gobsmacked characters stare into space and ask all the questions the audience has. No plot contrivance is too outlandish when you have the Science Guy to explain everything and get your story moving.

🦹🏻‍♀️ Wait, how do you pronounce the name of Batman villain "Ra's Al Ghul"?

💣 Lindsey Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me is considered a debacle of the first order (9% on Rotten Tomatoes), but there have been some attempts at reconsideration.

📈 Blumhouse's low cost business model has received a lot of attention in the industry and financial press.

📷 Follow Claire on Instagram

🎬 See what Aaron is watch on Letterboxd

💵 The National Network Of Abortion Funds

S05.E01: Just Plane Crazy Sep 27, 2021

Season five has begun! A brand new cabal of 27 pop culture know-it-alls have thrown their hats into the ring, and are ready to show their stuff! We'll kick off the bracket with new players Nate and Seth, playing alongside Sean (returning from season one, and our music theatre special). We've got a tribute to the great trailer voiceover artist Don LaFontaine in round one before taking to the skies in round two as we test our players' memories of movies and tv set on airplanes. And as (almost) always, it all comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🛹 Sean didn't mention it, but in Marc Webb's Spider-Man movies, Peter Parker actually is a skateboarder.

🎥 This week's round one is only a small sample: Don LaFontaine recorded more than 5,000 trailers (including basically every movie in the 90s).

🥷 The biggest question about the "Street Fighter" movie is how they got Raul Julia to agree to do it in one of his last screen roles.

🐔 The "Sacrificial Chicken In The Market In The Counter-Strike Map 'Italy'" Scorebreak. The sacrificial chicken in the market in the Counter-Strike map 'Italy: Bock! Bock!

✈️ Oceanic Airlines has also been featured in many shows, in the form of re-used footage from "Executive Decision," including episodes of "Diagnosis: Murder" and "JAG."

🐍 It's a common trope, but reptile vision isn't actually based on movement.

🪦 The plane crash in "Final Destination" is especially gruesome because it was based on the real life crash of TWA Flight 800, and even uses footage from that real life crash, as well as the detail of a high school French club being on board.

☀️ The pilot episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is called "The Gang Gets Racist," though some argue that a earlier short film should be considered as a pilot.

📅 The "Du Jour" Scorebreak. Appropriate, because Du Jour means scorebreak.

📺 The story behind the Quibi show Dummy is was more interesting than the actual show, Dummy.

🐦 Follow Nate on Twitter

🐦 If you can handle two follows, Seth's on Twitter too

🎶 Catch Sean being all fancy at the Kennedy Center

Special: Spot The Sassy Sep 20, 2021

The last of our three inter-season specials is a special crossover with our friends at the Listen to Sassy podcast. In addition to guest Scoremaster Tara Ariano and guest Production Master Pamela Ribon, Megan, Maggie, and Jill will duke it out to show off their knowledge of the pop culture of the Sassy Era (and also a surprising amount of Sex and the City content, I guess?) We'll quiz about Sassy headlines, ABC After School Specials, cute boys from the cover, and so much more! Minimal Star Logs will experience jammage.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎧 Listen To Sassy with Tara, Pam and Dave

🐦 Follow Tara on Twitter for TV and pinko stuff

🌺 Hire Pam to write your next Hollywood blockbuster. She's got a few under her belt already.

🐦 Follow Maggie on Twitter

✍️ Megan's personal website

🏫 The 20th anniversary editions of Sloppy Firsts and the rest of the Jessica Darling series by Megan.

🛍 Megan's The Mall, a novel set entirely in a fictional New Jersey mall in the summer of 1991

📷 Follow Jill on Instagram

🧶 Jill's store on Etsy is GiftedCrafty

Special: The Erratum of Algorithmical Alphabets Sep 13, 2021

The interseason mayhem continues with our first ever all-streaming special, in which our prodigal children return. Season one contestants Anna and Amanda are joined by season four contender Neil for a quiz all about content you'll find on Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max and anything with a 'plus' in its name. Cinematic poetry, mashed up TV shows, and a tight lightning round make this episode a can't-miss!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤖 Other robot voices in Mitchells versus the Machines include Olivia Colman and Conan O'Brien

🦸‍♂️ Zack Snyder's Justice League winds up at 4 hours and 2 minutes, but has zero minutes of joy.

🍪 This oatmeal raisin cookies scorebreak. Oatmeal Raisin cookies: while they may give chocoholics trust issues, they’re great cookies, and can conceivably called good for you.

🦚 Yes, Peacock had more subscribers than Hulu in July 2021, just barely, and maybe just because of the Olympics.

👴🏻 The "Vin Diesel is the same age as Paul Giamatti" scorebreak. Vin Diesel is the same age as Paul Giamatti. Look it up, it's true.

👹 Peter Serafinowicz actually recorded the Darth Maul voice for Solo, but the lines didn't make it into the movie for some reason.

🤠 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs got three Oscar nominations in the named categories, but didn't take any of the wins. Many were surprised that it was considered an "adapted" screenplay, but it was based on two early 1900s short stories, one of them by Jack London.

🚪 It's mostly forgotten, but the Doom Patrol did get a back door pilot in Season 1, Episode 4 of Titans.

🌍 Visit Neil's website

🎬 Check out Neil Off Off Hollywood Production YouTube channel

5️⃣ Listen to 3 Guys Top Fives

🐦 Follow Amanda on Twitter

📺 Read Amanda's recaps at Cape & Castle

💰 Donate to the Texas Equal Access Fund

Special: Mark & Sarah & Taylor Talk About Songs Sep 06, 2021

Before we start season 5 we've got a few special episodes for you starting with the hosts of the Mark & Sarah Talk About Songs podcast. Plus some other people. And some quizzes.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎧 Listen to MASTAS!

🔪 Get your true crime fix at Sarah's Exhibit B. Books store

👖 Dan wasn’t kidding about Kidz Bop changing "Ripped Jeans/Skin was showin’" to "Ripped Jeans/Smile was showing" in the pretty tame Call Me Maybe

🥤 “Stop, wait a minute / Fill my cup, put some water in it” is from the Kidz Bop version of Uptown Funk. Somehow, the reference to Skippy peanut butter is in both versions.

🦕 The Life Scorebreak… Life, it, uh, finds a way

💃 Wilson, Keppel and Betty (well, Bettys – they went through several) were famous for a sand dance (they threw sand on the stage) where they pretended to be Egyptian. That might sound a little thin for a famous act, but they were well known enough to have infuriated Goebbels.

🪶 Does Every Breath You Take actually draw from the 1836 Robert Browning Poem Porphyria's Lover? You be the judge!

🎞 The Last Guardian Scorebreak: The Last Guardian. That trailer was amazing, I just can’t wait until it finally comes out.

S04.E13: Two Sides Of The Same Record Aug 30, 2021

We made it! The season five finale. Shannon, Kari, and Erica are each two-time winners, but two of their perfect streaks end today. After hammering into My Champion and nailing The ½ Point, we'll start melting brains with an opposite songs game featuring backwards clips and all kinds of kooky wordplay. We'll follow that up with confused descriptions from our pal Old Man MacTavish, who is mixing up TV and movie properties starring the same actor. And, you guessed it, it all comes down to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💔 Tammy Wynette seems real sure that her 4 year old son, Joe, doesn't know what "J O E" and "T O Y" spell in her song, "D I V O R C E"?

🦖 Don't tell the people making knock-off Jurassic Park costumes that velociraptors are too small to ride.

⚽️ The Waka Waka song! Come, on the Waka Waka Song?

👄 This scorebreak is brought to you by Rocky Horror Shadowcasters. Rocky Horror Shadowcasters: We were cosplaying before it was cool, and we still put the 'cult' in cult movie.

🗣 For Deep Throat, we would also have accepted Liam Neeson ("Deep Throat: The Man who Brought Down the White House") or Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams ("Dick") or even Jerry Harden ("The X-Files").

🏆 Tatum O'Neal is the youngest person to win a competitive Oscar, but not the youngest to win any Oscar, as Shirley Temple got one when she was 6.

🌿 Yes, we know that "Day of the Triffids," is actually from 1962. Just be happy we remembered it at all.

🧠 The Universal Wisdom Scorebreak: it pretty much all boils down to Be Excellent To Each Other and Party On, Dudes!

S04.E12: Murders Of Mistaken Identity Aug 23, 2021

It's the final playoff match of the season, locking in the third contestant for the season finale next week. This week, we welcome back Susan, Jessica, and Erica for a pretty grisly episode. First, it's the horrors of capitalism with an audio round about notable product placement. We'll then tone things down in round two for a game all about famous movie murders, with all sorts of mistaken identities to give our players a bigger challenge. The biggest reveal of all comes in the lightning round! You won't wanna miss it!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💯 In Dave's note on the missing audio answer results, when he says they got two points he meant they got both questions right.

🕰 The Cleo from 5 to 7 scorebreak. Cleo from 5 to 7: I only nitpick the title because I genuinely want that additional 30 minutes please and thank you.

🪶 The Seagull on the Tire scorebreak. Seagull on the tire: can you hear my prayer?

S04.E11: Group Shot Aug 16, 2021

The Calisota Division finals have arrived! Returning players Dave, Kari, and Kevin have all brought their A-game to this playoff match. After stranding their champions on a desert island, we identify title groups from movies and TV by the actors who played their members. Then, in round two, we test the scientific accuracy of our favorite pop culture properties through the lens of which got the Mythbusters treatment. Another close lightning round closes out an absolute nail-biter!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🦛 We don't get enough Moomin content in the US, but they've been the subject of numerous television series, films and have two theme parks devoted to them.

🍒 The backstory of George Miller casting Cher in The Witches of Eastwick is... not great. Because at 40, in 1987, Jack Nicholson thought she was too old!?

🤢 The "Shrek is Bad" Scorebreak. Shrek is Bad: And we stand with Scott Tobias.

⏳ The Samuel Beckett Scorebreak. Samuel Beckett: The name that put Time Travel and "Endgame" together before it was cool.

S04.E10: Tom Honks! Aug 09, 2021

The season four playoffs commence! Lauryn, Dan, and Shannon are back for the Shermer Division finals —determining our first slot in the season four championship! We kick off round one with a tribute to everyone's favorite beloved also-ran Tom Honks, and his one-letter-changed knockoffs of Tom Hanks movies. Then round two brings back the DVD extras category, this time with top-grossing movies of the years they came out. A competitive game gets even MORE competitive in a tense lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🦮 The breed of Hooch, from Turner And Hooch is referred to as a Dogue de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Mastiff, French Mastiff or Bordeauxdog.

🎬 Joe Robert Cole should be better known: he was a producer and writer on American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson as well as Black Panther and had been tapped to write Marvel's War Machine movie before that one got pulled.

🔬 The Society For Accurate Depiction Of Science In Film And Tv Scorebreak: The Society For Accurate Depiction Of Science In Film And Tv: Magnets, they definitely do not work like that."

📰 The Mark Ruffalo In Spotlight Scorebreak. Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight: They knew.

S04.E09: What’s Opera, Doc? Aug 02, 2021

We might as well be called The Great American HIGH Culture Quiz Show this week! After we dispense with a childish but delightful round of My Champion, Stefanie, Jessica, and Andrew take on trivia rounds about swanky opera versions of popular movies, before kicking into some chronological arrangement of period pieces. Here, knowledge of history is just as important as pop culture recall, so it's all VERY serious. A strong lightning round closes out the regular season, and propels us into the playoffs, which kick off next week!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🪰 Yes, there's an opera of Cronenberg's The Fly...

🪓 ...and of The Shining.

🧙‍♀️ The Mimi and Elphaba Scorebreak: because we all know the show would be better if they died like in the original source material.

🎭 This scorebreak is brought to you by Ariadne auf Naxos. Ariadne auf Naxos: hey, you got your Commedia dell'arte in my opera seria! And you got your opera seria in my Commedia dell'arte!

S04.E08: Scooby Who? Jul 26, 2021

This week, we welcome Renee, Kevin, and David to the show for all manner of fanciful framing for pop culture trivia. First, the gnomes from season two return with even MORE groan-worthy titles to fill out their kooky cinematic universe. Then, the gang from Mysteries Inc. bring out their famous friends with an audio round about Scooby-Doo celebrity guest stars. All this, plus a lightning round seal up the playoff roster for the Calisota division.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏚 There is some controversy about whether Todd Phillip's movie Frat House is actually a documentary, which is why it was permanently shelved by HBO.

📹 While Home Movies started out in Squigglevision, later seasons were animated in Flash.

🐲 For a lot of people, Matthew Lilliard is now best known for his line of Dungeons & Dragons merchandise.

⏳ Yes, the Malcolm McDowell Scooby-doo episode was an extended riff on the 1979 movie Time After Time.

☄️ The Armageddon is a Disney Movie Scorebreak: apparently, Armageddon is a Disney Movie now.

🎼 This scorebreak is brought to you by fixed do. Fixed do: pitch arrangement for people who never bothered to just learn the alphabet.

S04.E07: The Town & The City Jul 19, 2021

A couple of old favorites resurface in new forms on this week's episode. Jeff, Dave (not that Dave) and Shannon have a few pop culture trivia challenges ahead of them this week, starting with the return of the Vennding Machine. Can they name the song name from the names of two artists who both have songs by that title? The answers may drive you insane. Then, we'll bust out our atlas of fictional locales and ask our players to ID some locations in it from some descriptive details. Then it all comes together for the lightning round. Don't miss it!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

4️⃣ The Fantastic Four was originally set in the fictional "Central City," but they moved to New York very quickly.

🧛🏻‍♂️ Shannon might be the only person who remembers 2014's Dracula Untold, the first attempt to make a Universal monster universe.

😩 It's time for the mid-budget studio dramas for adults scorebreak. Mid-budget studio dramas for adults: Scorebreak not found.

🦚 This scorebreak is brought to you by NBC. NBC: the network that will air 1000 crime procedurals but cancels Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist-its one show about love and music.

S04.E06: Vanjealousy Jul 12, 2021

This week, we welcome Josh, Tripp, and Erica to the show for trivia about dual performances and ambient electronica: a classic pairing of topics if there ever was one. We're seeing double in round one, when we talk movies and TV where one actor played multiple roles. After that, we welcome special guest Vangelis, the Academy Award-winning electronic composer to the show. He has reworked other Oscar-winning scores into his signature style, providing the basis for the today's round two. And as always, we close out with a rousing lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🪲 The din of the magicicada cassinii

👸🏽 "Nefertiri" from The Mummy Returns should not be confused with "Nefertari" from the Bible, Moses movies, and history or the historical "Nefertiti," for that matter.

🎙 There does not appear to be any videos of Brian Austin Green and Robin Thicke's rap duo online, but there are pictures, and they are wonderful.

💍 In Round two, we included a Vangelisized version of Howard Shore's score to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While we said the year of the movie for the answer was 2003, meaning the answer was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. We will note that the musical motif in our example also appears in Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring. But because we specified the year 2003, the correct answer is Return of the King.

🤷‍♀️ The "Asking for A Friend" Scorebreak: Asking for a friend -- will you be my friend?

🎭 It's time for the "time that they brought out past acting winners to make appreciative speeches about each of that year's acting nominees at the Oscars" scorebreak. The time that they brought out past acting winners to make appreciative speeches about each of that year's acting nominees at the Oscars: can we do that again?

📷 Erica on Instagram

S04.E05: Conclusions Of Contentment Jul 05, 2021

A last minute substitution doesn't faze our players one bit in this week's exciting match. Aaron and Kari are joined by returning contestant and friend of the show Tara Ariano for a highly competitive brawl. We begin at the end this week with a round one about the details of happy endings of movies and TV. Round two drives PAST the endings and into the world of misbegotten movie sequels. Spoiler alert: some of these movies are truly deranged. And as per uzhe, we close it out with an intense lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🗳 The ending to Election could have been much, much different.

🎨 The Knox Harrington Scorebreak. Knox Harrington: He’s a video artist [Dan laughs maniacally]

👔 This scorebreak is brought to you by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich: his name is already the punchline.

📻 Listen to Charlies 80s Attic Radio

🥷 Check out Kari on the Hey Remember the 80s podcast

🔥 Listen to Tara and Production Master Dave with Sarah D. Bunting on Extra Hot Great.

👚 Listen To Sassy is Tara, Dave and Pamela Ribon's deep dive into Sassy Magazine!

S04.E04: The Mirror Has Three More Faces Jun 28, 2021

Characters are VERY welcome in our games today as Dan, Ian, and Colin square off for trivia all revolving around overlapping personalities. In round one, we bring back "The Mirror Has Three Faces" for a game where they name the iconic character from three actors who have all played them. Then, in round two, we change it up a bit by merging famous movie quotes said by the same actor in different roles. All this, plus the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤑 If, like Dan, you don't know who Matthew Macfayden is, he's Tom Wambsgans on Succession.

🌏 Siam was the proper name for Thailand until 1939.

👗 No discussion of Scarlett O'Hara's dress in Gone with the Wind would be complete without a mention of Carol Burnett's version.

📉 The Robert California Clearly The Best Boss On The Office Scorebreak. Robert California, clearly the best boss on The Office: if they didn't want him to be magnetic, they wouldn't have cast James Spader.

🏠 The Robert California Clearly The Best Boss On The Office Scorebreak. Robert California, clearly the best boss on The Office: if they didn't want him to be magnetic, they wouldn't have cast James Spader.

⏱ Colin's podcast is The 4 Minute Trivia Podcast

🐦 Follow Colin on Twitter

👩‍🍳 Join Ian on the Pressipe Your Luck podcast

🔦 Dan on the Lost in Lists podcast

S04.E03: The Clothes Lineup Jun 21, 2021

This week, we kick off a new division with Susan, Laura, and Stephen! A surprisingly intimidating karaoke party in "My Champion" leads to an awful lot of fanfare for round one where players guess movie production companies from just the sound of their logos. Then, we'll keep the sequence going with "The Clothes Lineups" where contestants add one more name to those BLANK & BLANK & BLANK etc. shirts. And of course, it all gets decided in the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🧛🏻‍♂️ Adam Sandler is not in Hotel Transylvania 4 for good reasons, apparently

🤷‍♂️ Joe Besser was, indeed, the least memorable of the Stooges

🤷‍♂️ The one warm, red gatorade rolling around in the trunk of your car scorebreak. One warm red gatorade rolling around in the trunk of your car: don't pretend like you don't have one.

💍 The Siegfried and Roy scorebreak. Siegfried and Roy: Only one of them reforges Nothung and marries his aunt, and it sure ain't Roy.

🐦 Follow Laura on Twitter

🧓🏼 Folk Boom

S04.E02: Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead Jun 14, 2021

Things are absolutely wretched in the BEST way on this week's episode. Liz, Dave, and Matt get down with their bad selves for the most reviled characters and content. Round one will quiz them on the deaths of famous witches throughout pop culture, before round two goes deep on the taglines for winners of the Golden Raspberry Awards (aka the Razzies). The only non-dreadful thing about this episode is the players themselves!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌙 Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon has a... complicated back story that's not totally clear from the anime, but the Sailor Moon: Another Story game lays it all out?

📰 Maybe Newsies doesn't deserve a Razzie, but All About Steve definitely does.

👯‍♀️ The phrase "nocturnal twins" from Jack and Jill doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense, but if you watch the movie... it still doesn't make a lot of sense.

🧀 The Cheesy Blasters Scorebreak. Cheesy Blasters: You take a hot dog, stuff it with some jack cheese, fold it in a pizza. You've got Cheesy blasters. Thanks, Meat Cat!

🔍 This score break is brought to you by cozy mystery novels! Cozy mystery novels: they're like true crime, only the victim is usually a jerk who had it coming, and sometimes there are recipes at the end!

💉 Matt sez "get vaccinated." We agree.

S04.E01: Before And BAFTA Jun 07, 2021

Season four has begun! A brand new cabal of 27 contestants kicks off today with Neil, Jennifer, and Lauryn. A model game of My Champion gives way to trivia about some truly wild crossover events that you can ONLY find in the pages of comic books. Round two classes things up a bit with a mashup game about BAFTA winners. And, of course, it all comes down to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🚪 We're aware that The Twilight Zone didn't really say "picture if you will," but the writers of The Shadow/Twilight Zone did not, as they used it in the solicitation text.

🍝 Roma did win the BAFTA for best film, but lost at the Oscars.

🏰 If some of the old horror movies we mentioned sounded bonkers, thank schlock master William Castle.

🥯 The Bagel Bites Jingle scorebreak. The Bagel Bites Jingle: if 'the evening' and 'suppertime' are distinct from one another, when the hell are these people eating supper?

🤷‍♂️ The Chet Hanks scorebreak. Chet Hanks:....oh you know what, guys, there is NO way I am reading this on mic. I don't care how much he's paying us or WHO is father is, this is absolutely not happening.

💻 Neil's personal website

🎥 See Neil's videos at Off Off Hollywood Productions

🐦 3 Guys Top 5s on Twitter

🍼 Check out Lauryn's Baby-Sitters Club podcast Generation BSC

😙 The Stuttering Association for the Young

📆 Today in Conservation

🤕 Brain Injury Association of America

Special: I Know What You All Did Last Summer May 31, 2021

Summer is here! Before season four gets into full swing, we're celebrating the summertime movies season with an episode all about summer blockbusters. Returning season one champion Ilan takes on two eager new players, Lynn and Vandy, with some trivia about the big budget releases from May to August. Round one features excerpts of novelizations of big blockbusters, while round two has the players identify a movie from its deeper supporting cast. It all caps off with a time traveling lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤖 Robert Patrick was, indeed, in Wayne's World, but was not credited as the T-1000 (though that's definitely what they were going for).

🦁 Yes, there was a new version of the novelization of The Lion King to come out with the 2019 version of the movie. I guess they just describe the fur on the animals a bit more?

👨‍🍳 The Swedish Chef's Human Hands Scorebreak. The Swedish Chef's Human Hands: because you need that real human touch to murder sentient, talking vegetables

🦅 The Yippie-ki-Yay Mister Falcon scorebreak: For when you want to watch people being brutally gunned to death without offending your sensitive ears

🦑 Ilan's Squideye and the Bitter Guy podcast

📖 The Captive by Fiona King Foster

🐦 Follow Vandy on Twitter

📷 Check out Lynn's Insta

Special: The Threeclippy Opera May 24, 2021

Season four is on the way! But in the meantime, we pulled in some musical enthusiast friends for a special episode of trivia and games all about the world of music theatre. Adam, Sean, and Gabi will face an unusual My Champion challenge, wrestle with some rewritten "I Want" songs, and really rack up the points in an old fashioned audio round of "Name That Musical." Some high scoring lightning rounds make this one a real barn burner!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🕶 Despite what he said during round one, Dan did indeed make the rules. Just not the one about the round one jinx.

🎼 The 2004 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels music Sean was thinking of had music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a book by Jeffrey Lane.

🐶 The Puppies Dressed As Unicorns Scorebreak. Puppies dressed as unicorns: so much cuteness, your ovaries might just explode.

👨🏻‍🎤 The Symone Score Break. Symone: Winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13, Ebony Enchantress, and CEO of putting a "Wall fact’ry where a wall fact’ry ought to be!"

S03.E13: Say Hello To My Little Friend May 17, 2021

We've arrived at out third season finale! This week, our three divisional victors Kate, Mike, and Randy will all square off to become the next super mondo champion of champions. The game kicks off with a special round of My Champion that recalls another notable third season finale, before round one quizzes our players on movies that mash up characters from all kinds of other properties. The mashing up gets even brainier in round two when players name the family sitcom based on information about other characters played by those same actors. Related follow ups take our players in even more different directions, so breadth of knowledge is key for this episode. And in true Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show Fashion, it all comes down to the lightning round to truly determine the winner.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐸 It's not totally clear why, but Muppet Babies doesn't stream anywhere (at least the original; no one cares about the new one)

🤮 This scorebreak is brought to you by Coconut LaCroix. Coconut LaCroix: all the refreshing taste of pennies coated in sunscreen, with none of the visits to the ER after.

🚠 Somehow, this is the first time that we've referenced the X-Men character Cable. He has just about the most complex history of any of the X-Men, and that's saying something.

🤪 The Cary Fukunaga's Maniac Scorebreak. Cary Fukunaga's Maniac: it's been a hot minute since we referenced this Netflix series here on the show, so we figued we'd put it back into your brains because we're sure you've forgotten about it again by now.

S03.E12: Re-Highered Suits May 10, 2021

The final match of the season three playoffs has arrived! Returning players Julia, Eric, and Mike compete to claim the last spot on our season three championship match next week. The game kicks off with a musical challenge where faded audio clips from unlikely supergroups (e.g. Crowded House of Pain). Things get numerical in round two as players pick the pop culture property with the highest playing card in its title. After our kings and queens absolutely ace this challenge, a rousing lightning round determines the winner.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎩 The Mad Hatter's price of 10/6 is also half a guinea, because pre-decimalization British money was nonsense.

🪦 The Weekend at Bernie's Scorebreak. Weekend At Bernie's: deep down, we all like it better than Dangerous Liaisons.

🧍‍♀️ "Long, tall Sally, she's built for speed, she got everything that Uncle John need," is perhaps the most nonsensical set of lyrics to ever appear in a popular song.

😮 The Gene Hackman Trending On Twitter Scorebreak. Gene Hackman trending on Twitter: it's just his birthday, nothing to worry about

🎼 The Grace Jones lyric referenced in round three is, indeed, a double entendre. We apologize for any confusion.

S03.E11: A Passing Retrograde: Doug’s Revenge May 03, 2021

Small changes make big differences on this week's episode. The season three playoffs continue with a tense match to decide the winner of the Appellate Division. After Randy, Trip, and Will undertake a high society dinner challenge for their champions, round one asks them to name movies and TV shows whose titles have had one letter changed. In round two, we'll take a different tack to alter some movies by describing their plots in reverse. Can the players think backwards to come up with the answers? Then, we'll pull a temporal pincer movement to resume forward motion in the lightning round, where the next player in the season three championship will be decided.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🕹 Behind the scenes, we had disagreement about whether Doom counts as a supernatural concept, a sci-fi one, or both. It's both, darn it!

🖖 In case you're wondering why Ferengi are very problematic.

👽 The referenced Hynek Scale (which has six points, actually)

🎺 The Disney/Pixar's Sal Scorebreak. Winner of the Golden Globe for best original score: Sal!

🤮 The Getting Slimed on the Kids Choice Awards Scorebreak. Getting Slimed on the Kids choice awards: 100% not worth the orange blimp.

S03.E10: More Anything? More Everything! Apr 26, 2021

The season three playoffs have arrived! Today, returning victors Emma, Conrado, and Kate square off for a spot in the championship match. Round one tests their knowledge of movies and tv shows that are composed of characters from other pop culture properties, while round two asks them to identify recent best picture winners by their DVD extras. And as always, it all comes down to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐰 Apparently, Conrado was not aware of the Bugs Bunny fights a vampire cartoon, 1963's Transylvania 6-5000, or the videogame fight in 1999's Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters.

🤬 Q*Bert was indeed in Adam Sandler's Pixels, but the less said about that appearance, the better.

🧪 Sark from Alias played "Doctor" Frankenstein in Once Upon a Time, not the monster (who was played by Chad Michael Collins). Also, in OUAT, Frankenstein's origin involves Rumpelstiltskin, because reasons.

🕵️‍♂️ The Bosch scorebreak brought to you by the Bosch Booster Benevolent Society. If you already pay for Amazon Prime, if you feel like watching a perfectly acceptable police procedural with a compelling star and solid supporting cast, and if you have already watched The Closer and Major Crimes, you could do worse than Bosch.

🙃 Dermot Mulroney and Dylan McDermott Face Blindness Foundation: C’mon people, they don’t even look that much alike!

S03.E09: Johannes Bassoon’s 8-bit Wonders Apr 19, 2021

Ever wonder what the greatest one-hit wonders of all time would sound like if they were played by an old-school Nintendo? Of course you haven't! Why would you? Regardless, you'll find out on this week's episode with fierce competitors Paul, Mike, and Stephanie! After the "8-Bit Wonders" have concluded, we'll quiz the players on movies whose titles sound like they SHOULD be in a series, but aren't. You'll be left wishing that the sequel to 28 Days was actually 28 Days Later. Our players leave it all on the table, and a winner is crowned after a rousing lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏃‍♂️ Look, any questions you have about the Kessel Run; take them up with Wookiepedia

🍎 "The Other Kajagoogoo song" would probably be "Big Apple," which broke into the top 10 in the UK.

🤦🏻‍♂️ Chipmunks Actor David Cross likes the sequels about as much as you do

🏰 The Siege is perhaps best remembered for all the people who saw it just for the Phantom Menace trailer.

🚪 Fibber McGee's closet: I gotta get that cleaned out one of these days.

🛣 Road Show: Anyone saying it's Sondheim's worst musical hasn't seen Passion, and is happier for it.

S03.E08: The Great American Pop Culture Quiznos Apr 12, 2021

Somehow, we've stumbled into a bit of a family affair on this week's episode. Brothers Andre and Antonio will take on each other (as well as Will) in a pop culture battle of chain restaurants and calendars. In round one, our players will decipher the mashed up titles of movies or tv shows with popular American chain restaurants. Our players have a rocky start, but get a bit of a jumpstart once we flip open the calendar with a sequencing game: put the three movies or TV episodes in order of when they take place on a calendar. A stiff lightning round caps off a contentious game, but will the years of family beefs be squashed?

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎂 The original Carvel ads are beautiful and terrifying

💯 The Phonogram Scorebreak: Phonogram by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. You don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of 90s Britpop to enjoy it, but it sure helps.

💯 The Reelz Channel Scorebreak: Home quality programming like Branson Taxi, Hollywood Hillbillies, and Steven Seagal: Lawman. Are those real shows? No one will ever know.

🐱 The original Pokedex did, indeed, have just 150 creatures.

🚕 All three shows that Dan mentioned in the "Reelz Scorebreak" are, in fact, actual shows on Reelz. Yes, including Branson Taxi.

S03.E07: Whatever Floats Your Quote Apr 05, 2021

Frankly, my dear...it's a new episode! Shared surnames and classic movie quotes take center stage on this week's competition, where competitors Kate, Lauren, and Molly are ready for their close-ups. In round one, they'll call me Mister Tibbs as they identify the common surnames between notable characters and actors. Then, I'll be back to test their knowledge of quotes from the AFI's "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes" list, one word at a time. And while only one winner can be declared, this whole episode looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🥄 We didn't give his name in the game, but the spoon-bending (fake) psychic in round one is Uri Geller.

💃 A "Juke Joint" is a thing; it's an informal club with music, booze, dancing and often gambling, sometimes referred to as a "barrelhouse."

🚀 Another correct answer for who said "May the Force be with you" in Star Wars would be General Dodonna, played by Alex McCrindle (and Ian McElhinney in Rogue One)

💯 TC Tuggers: they're not a joke, you don't wear them to pub crawls like you do with the Snuggie.

💯 The Paris Review: because who else is going to publish an article called, "The Ontology of Circus Peanuts."

S03.E06: Save The Cat Mar 29, 2021

It's a barn-burner, this week! Will, Liz, and Julia all bring their A-games, but stay cool under pressure as they ponder how their champions would defuse a bomb. Once the wires are cut, they'll amp up the tension further in round one when they "save the cat." Literally. Microfragments of lyrics to title songs from popular movies make up round two. How few words will it take for our players to name that song? As always, it all comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

😢 The 1990 movie Cry-baby was produced by Universal, and had a budget of about $12 million. To date, no one has given John Waters a $200 million budget.

🐈 There maybe is something going on with the cat in Inside Llewyn Davis.

🧙🏻‍♂️ The "The Original Writer" scorebreak. The "Original Writer," because if you say it's Alan Moore, he'll sic a snake god or something on you.

🤔 The Douglas Hofstadter scorebreak. The Douglas Hofstadter scorebreak is a complete and consistent system, and therefore cannot exclude paradoxes.

S03.E05: Yippee-ki-yay, Mr Falcon! Mar 22, 2021

Get your bleep buttons ready, then throw them away for this week! That's because after Trip, Tanya, and Valerie figure out how their champions would deal with shenanigans from a mirror universe, they'll name movies by the sanitized-for-TV versions of iconic profane dialogue. Low culture yields to high culture in round two when we look at real-life, peer-reviewed academic studies of our favorite pop culture, and try to make sense of what those bigwigs in their ivory towers think they know about. Stick around for when it all comes down to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🧧 Patreon perks: 3 Empty Studio episodes a month, 1 Zoom Game Night plus Golden Ticket episodes and other wee tidbits!

🦕 The Flintstones comic scorebreak. The Flintstones comic: for when you want a story about a vacuum cleaner to make you cry.

🔎 For the record, there was a Moriarty in Sherlock Gnomes, voiced by Jamie Demetriou (but voice actors didn't count for the threequalizer)

😡 The Karl Ove Knausgard scorebreak. Karl Ove Knausgard: he's got issues with all you people, and now you're going to hear about them.

🏰 Yes, Jerry Zucker directed the King Arthur drama First Knight. No, we didn't know that, either.

🪆 The two Barbie comics that ran for most of the 90s were Barbie and Barbie Fashion.

🏈 Somehow, NFL Superpro is only the second-worst football-based comic Marvel ever published

S03.E04: Eat The Rich Mar 15, 2021

We're back in the Cellular Division this week with parentheticals and, meals for the wealthy. After Alexis, Dawn, and Emma's champions navigate the workday with a massive hangover, we identify songs and movies JUST from the parts of their titles that appear in parentheses. In round two, we'll flip the script on "eating the rich" with a quiz about the meals served to wealthy characters we love and love to hate. And as always, we'll cap it off with a cutthroat lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐛 You couldn't hear it in the episode, but upon mention of "Human Centipede," everyone on the episode simultaneously gagged a little.

💯 The "spontaneous Barrett's Privateers singalong" score break. The "spontaneous Barrett's Privateers singalong." Oh, Canada.

🌶 Virginia Potts is known as "Pepper" because basically, all Stan Lee characters have the same first and last initials.

🦤 The "rare songbirds" meal is a reference to Ortolan , the eating of which is considered so much a sin that diners cover their heads before consuming it to hide from the eyes of God.

😏 "Morgoth's Taint" is a real concept from "The Hobbit." Get your mind out of the gutter.

💯 The Fortnite Dances scorebreak. Fortnite Dances: it's what the children like! Wait, that was last year? It's sea shanties now? Is that what the last one was about?

S03.E03: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Present And Accounted For Mar 08, 2021

Welcome back! It's the third match of season three! We've got Eric, Guy, and Joel to face some games that deal with extra letters and alternate perspectives! Round one asks how movies would change if you added a letter to the front of one of the words, and things get a little kooky. Then, round two keeps those titles the same but asks our players to name the movie based on a plot summary from the point of view of a supporting character. Still, our players parse it all out and soldier on to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

😈 The Devil's Own is probably better remembered for being an early-era Brad Pitt role.

🤖 If you're confused about Peter Graves and the University of Minnesota, it's the focus of Crow T. Robot's unproduced script Just Plain Peter: The U of M Years about the early life of the famed actor.

💯 The Peter Graves scorebreak. Peter Graves did a lot of great work, but, most the important thing to know about him is that he attended the University of Minnesota.

👩‍👧 We make no apologies for referencing a "family man" in Chinatown.

💯 The Jared Leto in The Little Things scorebreak. Like his Golden Globe nomination, this scorebreak was bought and paid for by Jared Leto's publicist.

😬 If you're wondering if Neil Diamond did blackface in the "Jazz Singer" remake... yeah. He did.

🎧 Putting It Together, the music of Stephen Sondheim podcast

🐦 Joel is on Twitter

🎩 Joel is the managing editor over on Lifehacker

🎼 Keep tabs on Joel's upcoming podcast Josh Explains a Musical on Twitter

📷 Guy is delightful as @GuyIsDelightful on Instagram

🐦 Guy is okay as @GuyIsDelightful on Twitter

S03.E02: A Goofy Movie Mar 01, 2021

Season three continues as we move from the Cellular Division to the Appellate Division. Sean, Simone, and Randy have all brought their A-games for a brand new set of pop culture trivia challenges. The pedantic IMDb goofs section might not be for everyone, but it does provide the basis for today's first round where players identify a movie from its notable production mistakes. The search for inconsistencies continues in round two where players find movies from their casts, but one actor is out of place! Can they put the pieces of the puzzle together to reassemble them? The game's tension holds all the way through the lightning round for a real photo finish!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌠 The questions being referenced by Dan were about sumptuary laws, under-rated 2E lords of Ravenloft, and Tootsie Roll Pops.

⏳ Elaine May: for the love of God, please ensure that she gets the chance to finish "Crackpot" before it's too late.

🌎 If you know anything about Scientology, the evil aliens being called "Psychlos" is actually a great clue for Battlefield Earth.

🥁 If you really want a hard rock musical about the US Presidency, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is amazing.

⚖️ Sean. Is. The. LAW. (when it comes to patent stuff)

🐦 Randy is on Twitter

🔄 Slavoj Zizek: dialectical reversal means that, somehow, we're paying him for this?

🍵 Randy's Island Stoneware shop

🧙‍♀️ Simone's Black Mass Appeal podcast

🏙 Simone's Die Hard With a Podcast

🐦 Simone is on Twitter too

S03.E01: Whose Title is it Anyway? Feb 22, 2021

It's the first match of season three. For the next nine weeks, you'll hear from 27 brand new listener contestants battling it out for the next title. We'll kick it off this week with Andrew, Conrado, and Alison. Round one will test their melodic memories for songs from 80s movies, but played in a bit of an anachronistic style. Round two gets us into both movies and TV, with a quiz involving titles in the possessive, but puts the focus elsewhere. It all closes out with a lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🛡 Phil Coulson has not been attacked by mutants, as Agents of SHIELD couldn't have mutants, which is why they were trying so hard to make the Inhumans happen.

🕷 The CGI Version of Charlotte's Web may be mostly forgotten, but only because the CGI spider was just horrifying.

🚀 Dan vehemently denies having spoiled the ending of Serenity in the scorebreak.

🐘 We are aware that Operation Dumbo Drop is based on a true story of US Military heroism, but that doesn't make it a good movie.

🎟 We are on Patreon where you can get bonus episode and attend live trivia events!

Special: We Have The Meets Feb 15, 2021

We're taking a little break before we get into season three with a romantic comedies quiz for (the day after) Valentine's Day! We've got three rom-com heads Greta, Sarika, and Meredith to test the knowledge of the best and worst of the genre! Lovelorn confessions on airplanes, iconic (if a little bit modified) lovey-dovey quotes, and your favorite cinematic meet-cutes all pop up in today's game. We get into all the clichés, debate the best Nancy Meyers kitchen, and one of our players will be crowned champion after a fierce lightning round that truly runs the rom-com gamut.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤹‍♂️ That line delivery in Four Weddings And A Funeral is still supes turb.

💔 We couldn't actually include Blended, in this week's game, as it's actually a grueling horror flick, masquerading as a romantic comedy.

🧍‍♂️ The 1936 My Man Godfrey is just about the greatest screwball romantic comedy slash class warfare screed ever made.

🇬🇧 The Pointless Scorebreak. Pointless: The one UK show that does more than 8 episodes a year, whether Osman likes it or not.

💋 For the record, the quote from Sweet Home Alabama is "So I can kiss you any time I like," so get your mind out of the gutter.

☕️ The Empty Coffee Cups on Television Scorebreak. Empty coffee cups on television: just pretend everyone is drinking a bone-dry cappuccino.

🎧 You can listen to Greta and our host Taylor's podcast G&T with Greta & Taylor.

S02.E13: Opposites Attack Feb 08, 2021

Here it is! The season two championship match! Our three divisional champs have come a long way, but only one of them will be our next Super Mondo Champion of Champions! Chris Sims of War Rocket Ajax, Fug Girl Heather Cocks, and Margaret H. Willison from the Appointment Television podcast. In round one, players will decipher the sworn enemies of certain celebrities by who has an opposite name (e.g. Nia Long vs. Martin Short) before taking a trip to yesteryear by untangling mashups of the most successful movies, books, and songs of a particular year. And of course, it all comes down to the lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌽 Aw no, the corn!

💯 The Sickos at your window Scorebreak. Sickos: "Yes....ha ha ha....YES!"

⚾️ The "Barry Pepper baseball movie" referenced in Round 1 is 61* in which he played Roger Maris.

👑 Yes, The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy was a book, as well as a movie.

🦮 Chris "only happy dog movies" Sims could make good use of DoesTheDogDie.com

🪖 The Dirty Dozen was actually the 4th highest grossing movie of 1967

🧝‍♀️ Somehow, none of our players thought of the famously long The Return of the King, which is actually still playing somewhere, when asked about "long Best Picture Winners."

💯 The "Make Something Where Peter Capaldi and Shohreh Aghdashloo Get to Curse at One Another" Scorebreak: Come on, Hollywood, make something where Peter Capaldi and Shohreh Aghdashloo get to curse at one another!

👗 Join Heather with Jessica at Go Fug Yourself.

💂 The Fug Girls' books including The Royal We and The Heir Affair.

🚀 Check out Chris on War Rocket Ajax!

⚔️ Chris and War Rocket Ajax co-host Matt's podcast is Movie Fighters

🎲 Check out all of Chris Sims' stuff on his website

📰 Margaret's newsletter Two Bossy Dames

📺 Listen to Margaret on the Appointment Television podcast

🐦 Margaret is on Twitter

📷 Margaret's also on Instagram

S02.E12: Go Big Or Go Gnome Feb 01, 2021

The final round of the divisional finals has arrived! This week, we have return engagements by Dan Kois from Slate, David Roth from Defector, and Margaret H. Willison of the Appointment Television podcast. They'll pit their pop culture memories against one another to fight for the last slot in next week's championship match! After an Olympics-themed My Champion, our players will help build out a cinematic universe started by Gnomeo & Juliet and Sherlock Gnomes with a cabal of gnome-themed cinematic gems. Then, it's a trip down memory lane for a game surrounding Entertainment Weekly Cover Stories. Print media! As usual, we'll cap it all off with a tense lightning round.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🌠 We are aware that Paris Gellar isn't from Stars Hollow.

📏 Verne Troyer is not 4'4''; neither is Air Bud

🚚 Stephen King announced his retirement in 2002, but there were signs even then that his management wasn't taking it seriously, and, as of 2020, he has announced that he has no plans to retire.

🇺🇸 The most memorable thing about the 1990 Captain America movie is that it stars Matt Salinger, son of noted author J.D. Salinger, in the title role. Also, the Red Skull is Italian.

👫 Listen to Dan's parenting podcast Mom and Dad Are Fighting

📕 Dan's book How To Be A Family

🏈 Defector gets to ride in the front seat because it's a good site at sports.

📡 Defector is also on Twitch!

📰 Margaret's newsletter Two Bossy Dames

📺 Listen to Margaret on the Appointment Television podcast

🐦 Margaret is on Twitter

📷 Margaret's also on Instagram

S02.E11: Weather Or Not Jan 25, 2021

This week's playoff barn burner features Chris Sims from War Rocket Ajax, Tim Grierson from the Grierson & Leitch podcast, and Linda Holmes from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. After a trip to the world of school musicals for My Champion, the forecast calls for a quiz on movies with meteorological titles (weather they like it or not). Round two has an even wider spectrum of titles included in "Pigments of Your Imagination" where players will do some primary and secondary color math to find their favorite pop culture. And of course, a characteristically cutthroat lightning round caps it all off.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤟 Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon!

4️⃣ Toby Kebbell may not be a household name, but he's an all-star of bad recent superhero movies, with big parts in Bloodshot and the 2015 Fantastic Four.

📀 The Interactive DVD Menu: Still a Special Feature in our hearts.

🤦🏻‍♂️ Tom Hardy: ...wait, false alarm. It's just Logan Marshall Green.

😈 There is some confusion about the purple people eater, with the lyrics leaving it unclear about whether it is a purple creature that eats people, or a creature that eats purple people.

⛪️ "Historian helps police solve modern crimes that are based on historical crimes" might seem like a thin premise for a show, but Whitechapel ran for four seasons between 2009 and 2013, stretching the limits of the "cop/not a cop" genre.

🎥 Listen to Grierson & Leitch

🐦 Follow Linda on Twitter

🍸 Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour!

📘 Linda's book Evie Drake Starts Over

🚀 Check out War Rocket Ajax!

⚔️ Chris and War Rocket Ajax co-host Matt's podcast is Movie Fighters

🎲 Check out all of Chris Sims' stuff on his website

S02.E10: OSHA The Watcher Jan 18, 2021

The season 2 playoffs have arrived! Hot off their previous victories, Alan Sepinwall, Jeff Cannata, and Heather Cocks return for the Joy Luck Division Finals! After a sweet game of "My Champion," our players will name movies and tv shows based on their gross health and safety violations. OSHA is always watching! Then, you'll find yourself exclaiming "jinkies!" as we pivot to the realm of celebrity cameos and guest stars from the world of Scooby Doo. Then, a tense Lightning Round caps off the game. Make sure to join us next week for the returns of Grierson & Leitch's Tim Grierson, Chris Sims from War Rocket Ajax, and Pop Culture Happy Hour's Linda Holmes!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🚁 If you've never seen it "Rocket" Romano getting squished like Wile E. Coyote on ER is a sight to behold.

✂️ Dan Cassino, don't forget you get 10% off your next surgery by Dr. Heather Cocks.

⏰ This score break is brought to you by

🐕 Scooby-Doo has shown up on at least two different non-Scooby shows: on Supernatural in 2018, and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law in 2002.

💀 While Lou Costello died in 1959, William Alexander "Bud" Abbott was alive when The New Scooby Doo Mysteries was airing, despite our players seemingly wanting them dead. Among the memorials to them is a residence hall at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

💯 You may remember The Troy McClure Scorebreak from such podcasts as The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show!

🎞 Listen to Jeff along with his vanquished foes Devindra and Dave on the /Filmcast

🐺 Watch Jeff the Dungeon Master on Dungeon Run

😳 Jeff and Anthony Carboni talk about the personal philosophical concerns they find lurking inside everyday things on We Have Concerns

🎮 Jeff's long-running video game podcast DLC

👗 Join Heather with Jessica at Go Fug Yourself.

💂 The Fug Girls' books including The Royal We and The Heir Affair.

🎧 Alan's new podcast Too Long; Didn't Watch has started!

🎸 Read Alan's TV reviews at Rolling Stone.

📚 Alan has written a book or two about TV

🐦 Follow Alan on Twitter

⏰ ...procrastination.

S02.E09: One Letter Oaf Jan 11, 2021

After last week's Pop Culture Happy Hour match, it's only right that friend of that show Margaret H. Willison should play with us this week. She's here with her co-hosts of the Appointment Television podcast Kathryn VanArendonk and Andrew Cunningham. They'll kick off the competition with an audio quiz about TV production company logos before moving into a one-letter-off game with slightly modified versions of popular TV shows. And we can only hope they've boned up on the knowledge needed for this week's lightning round! This is it for regulation play for our season two Battle of the Podcasts! Next week, our returning champions from the season will come back for the playoffs!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👹 Watch The S From Hell.

🧠 Bloomsday: a celebration of stream of consciousness narration.

📃 Stephen J. Cannell was on 3 episodes of Castle, but 42 episodes of Renegade, as several different characters.

💇🏻‍♂️ The Face/Off 2 Scorebreak does not link to IMdB because, somehow, that sequel was never made.

🔨 There's only one real Bojack Norseman.

⚔️ Vercingetorix: important historical figure, and more important character in Asterix and Obelix.

🕹 🍒🍓🍊🥨🍎🍐🍌

🥔 Here are all 18 possible answers to the hot potato round: Ally McBeal, Big Little Lies, Big Sky, Boston Legal, Boston Public, The Brotherhood of Poland New Hampshire, Chicago Hope, The Crazy Ones, Doogie Howser M.D. Girls Club, Harry's Law, Mr. Mercedes, Nine Perfect Strangers, Picket Fences, The Practice, Snoops, The Undoing, The Wedding Bells.

📺 Make sure you listen to Appointment Television!

S02.E08: Regrettable Television Pop Quiz Jan 04, 2021

Something's making all of us happy this week: it's guest players Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, and Aisha Harris from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour! These three cohorts begin their face-off with our take on a PCHH favorite: The Regrettable Television [pops cheek] Pop Quiz — all about the worst and weirdest tv premieres of 2020. Then, it's the return deciphering groan-worthy wordplay via movie-food mashups in Apocalypse Chow Redux, with an all new set of culinary clues based on movies. It all wraps up with a set of Lightning Rounds that are truly tailor-made for today's contestants.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤢 Rhubarb not only tastes bad, the leaves are also mildly poisonous. So, really, there's no reason for anyone to eat it.

🦶 Putting your feet into a bath of water while an electrical current is run through you is a (fake) holistic medical treatment, just not one that showed up on Goop Lab.

🤠 If our description of 9-1-1 Lone Star made it sound bonkers, you don't know the half of it. "Exploding bull semen" comes to mind.

💯 The Stress Eating An Entire Loaf Of Focaccia In One Sitting Scorebreak: Eating an entire loaf of focaccia in one sitting — we've all been there.

💯 The Hovitos Scorebreak: If only you spoke Hovitos.

🍸 Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour!

🐦 Follow Aisha on Twitter

🌎 Aisha's official website

🐦 Follow Linda on Twitter

📘 Linda's book Evie Drake Starts Over

🐦 Glen on Twitter

📷 Peep Glen's pics on Instagram

🦇 Glen's book The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture

S02.E07: The Graduate Dec 14, 2020

When you're lucky enough to have The Fug Girls on your show, it only makes sense that you quiz your players on iconic movie fashions. So that's exactly what we did on this week's episode when GoFugYourself.com's Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan joined Ralph Breaks the Internet co-writer Pamela Ribon. After the fashion show, they'll pick out their favorite stars from teen movies from the last 30 years, and parse them out from what characters played by those actors have been up to in the intervening years.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

😻 Grover does, indeed, love Kittens.

🕍 Yentl isn't a novel - it's based on a play, which is based on a short story.

👹 Talk to your kids about GWAR. If you don't somebody else will.

🧜‍♂️ Chace Crawford is the breakout star of The Boys, playing the Aquaman analogue.

🇺🇸 Secret Life of the American Teenager is a deeply, deeply problematic show.

🌏 No, Japan can't attack Australia. Why would you think that? There's no dotted line there.

👗 Join Heather and Jessica at Go Fug Yourself.

💂 The Fug Girls' books including The Royal We and The Heir Affair.

🐻 Pam's graphic novel, My Boyfriend Is A Bear

💥 Slam! is Pam's roller derby comic series.

S02.E06: Speaking In Tongues Dec 07, 2020

Recurring uses of songs in movies and TV, along with fictional languages are the main focus of the games this week. And while that content doesn't sound particularly sporty, our players certainly are! We are pleased to welcome David Roth, Luis Paez-Pumar, and Dan McQuade from the new website Defector.com (risen from the ashes of Deadspin). They'll test their knowledge of songs included in movies as needle drops, and then move into nerdier territory when they identify various pop culture properties based on clips of the fictional languages created for them. And it's always a good game when it comes down to the lightning round!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐴 My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic isn't new. It premiered in 2010.

🔮 The scene in Mystery Men with All-Star is... rough to watch in 2020.

🔨 Thor: Ragnarok is the Marvel movie for people who don't like Marvel movies, and the Immigrant Song sequence is a highlight.

🥃 Tequila!

🌍 The fictional country of "Qumar" lept from the West Wing and other shows to later volumes of Alan Moore's pastiche comic The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

🇺🇳 The Dag Hammarskjöld score break. Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, but number one in our hearts.

💸 Dan McQuade's story about Trump-Minions merchandise.

🏈 Defector gets to ride in the front seat because it's a good site at sports.

📡 Defector is also on Twitch!

S02.E05: Check Your Local Listings And Your Math Nov 30, 2020

90s nostalgia and failed superhero movies take center stage on this week's contest! That's appropriate, given the presence of comic experts Matt Wilson, Chris Sims, and Benito Cereno from the world's most destructive comic book and pop culture podcast: War Rocket Ajax. After a brief discussion of several characters' Zoom skills, they'll take a trivia dive into the dark recesses of syndicated TV shows from the 1990s. The competition heats up even further when they are quizzed on the worst superhero movies ever made. You won't believe some of the disasters that this game will drudge up! With some tailor-made categories for round three, it all comes down to the lightning round where our players really get a chance to show their stuff!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤟 Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon!

🦹‍♀️ Chris Sims on comic's greatest villain: Lucy Lane

🦕 That time Fred and Barney committed a genocide

🚤 The most remembered things about Thunder in Paradise: The Simpsons parody Knightboat, the crime solving boat

🦸‍♀️ Yes, Pamela Anderson vehicle Barb Wire has the same plot as Casablanca

🦷 Lemming of the BDA

📖 Listen to Benito and Chris on Apocrypals

👀 Read Benito's stuff on Grunge

⛽️ Read Matt's comic Everything Will Be Okay

🤖 Then read Copernicus Jones: Robot Detective

🕵️‍♂️ All things Matt D. Wilson can be found on his website

⚔️ Chris and Matt's podcast is Movie Fighters

🎲 Check out all of Chris Sims' stuff on his website

S02.E04: Extra Special Editions Nov 23, 2020

DVD Box Sets and franchise chronologies are at the center of our games this week with three contestants from the /Filmcast! We are pleased to welcome David Chen, Devindra Hardawar, and Jeff Cannata for a week of movie trivia. They'll identify movies from descriptions of their extravagant DVD box sets (some of which are pretty wild) before testing their math skills alongside their memories of where movies fall within their particular long-running franchises. They'll top it all off with a lightning round that's intense as they come!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

⚡️ The Amazing Spider-Man 2 DVD set is really terrifying

👵🏽 This Your 30s Scorebreak: Why is everything so sore now?

🦒 Escape 2 Africa did, in fact, have a digit in its title

🍊 The Pogs Scorebreak: They're back, and why not? They're at least as fun as Among Us

✝️ The God's Not Dead franchise does have three movies in it, but when the Catholic World Report is bagging on your faith-based sequel, you've got problems.

🎞 Listen to Jeff, Devindra and Dave on the /Filmcast

🎧 Dave Chen's Culturally Relevant podcast

🐦 Follow Devindra on Twitter

💻 Find Devindra's writing and tech podcastery on Engadget

🐺 Watch Jeff the Dungeon Master on Dungeon Run

😳 Jeff and Anthony Carboni talk about the personal philosophical concerns they find lurking inside everyday things on We Have Concerns

🎮 Jeff's long-running video game podcast DLC

S02.E03: The Rent Is Too Damn High Nov 16, 2020

Dan Kois, June Thomas and Sam Adams duke it out to see who will move on and represent Slate in the Hired Goons divisional finals. Extra! Extra! We start things off in news publication-style by having our contestants identify movies and TV shows from those in-universe newspaper headlines that spin at you (and why do they do that, BTW?). Then we relax with fifteen consecutive rounds of special edition Monopoly where tokens, properties and rules give hints to which pop culture edition of Monopoly we're playing. Tears are shed! Records are broken! Riddles are given! It's all happening right now.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐞 Do you know there's debate over how quickly you need to say "Betelgeuse" in succession in order to summon him?

🥤 Diet Coke is brown coin water.

🚀 Newspapers in Battlestar Galactica have clipped edges because of course they do. As creator Ronald Moore explained, "These people just hate right angles."

🦎 The UNGCC is about as effective at protecting the world from kaiju as the UN is at everything else.

🌎 Dan, June and Sam all work at Slate.

🐦 Follow Sam Adams on Twitter

📕 Dan's book How To Be A Family

👫 Listen to Dan's parenting podcast Mom and Dad Are Fighting

💼 Listen to June on Slate's Working podcast

S02.E02: Marge Excitable’s The A.V.-ary Club Nov 09, 2020

We're quizzing on bird puns and director filmographies this week with none other than Grierson & Leitch! Joined by Tribune News Service critic Katie Walsh, they all soar through a test of their knowledge of pop culture with bird names in their titles (think One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). After that, they'll stretch their chronological memories to remember the orders in which notable directors released their movies. They'll cap it all off with some tailor-made lightning rounds featuring action cinema, computer whizzes, and a certain Chicago rock outfit.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏹 Disney's Robin Hood is a fox by multiple definitions, which has led to some confusion among viewers.

📺 WOW Presents Plus

🏎 The Wachowski's Speed Racer is good, actually.

🧨 Katie's Women Of Action series at Mel Magazine.

💿 For "which Wilco album was the first to feature Mikael Jorgensen," we would have also accepted The Wilco Book. Although the supplemental CD that came with Wilco's book about themselves was produced by and includes performances by Jorgensen, it is not really a proper studio album, and was made before Jorgensen joined the band officially for the recording of A Ghost if Born.

🎥 Listen to Grierson & Leitch

📰 Subscribe to Will's newsletter

🍅 Links to Katie's reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Special: The Extra Hot Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show Nov 04, 2020

We are delighted to welcome our friends from the Extra Hot Great podcast for a special crossover episode outside the bracket of the regular season. Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting, and Mark Blankenship (of the Blankenship Chair) join us for TV trivia modelled after a typical Extra Hot Great episode! We'll open with a new release for the week, go Around the Dial with a game about shows that change networks, and play The Canon where our contestants must separate great works of literature from TV favorites. It all comes down to a contentious lightning round to determine the Winner and Losers of the week!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🔙 The Back to the Future Ride at Universal Studios was the best thing at the park. RIP.

😴 The Laura Laudenberg's favorite things are dark chocolate, 80s music and naps

💀 Bizarrely, Scooby-Doo/Hamlet is a crossover that's actually happened in the cartoon.

🎬 RIP Alfred Hitchcock, slain by space trash cans.

📎 There was Microsoft Bob, and there was Clippy the Paper Clip but there's no Bob The Paper Clip.

🚨 Mark tries the unplayed lightning round category in the after-show.

🔥 Listen to Extra Hot Great

🌴 Buy Tara and Sarah book: A Very Special 90210 Book

📰 Subscribe to Best Evidence, Sarah's true crime newsletter

🎭 Subscribe to The Flashpaper, Mark's print-only journal that raises funds for theatre artists laid off during the pandemic

👨🏻‍🎤 Listen to Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs

🐦 Mark on Twitter

🐦 Sarah on Twitter

🐦 Tara on Twitter

S02.E01: Johannes Bassoon’s Songs in the Key of Westworld Nov 02, 2020

This week, we kick off our season two Battle of the Podcasts with special guests from Rolling Stone, Uproxx, and The Hollywood Reporter for our TV Critics Powerhouse match! Alan Sepinwall, Daniel Fienberg, and Brian Grubb will compete in some TV trivia games to identify Westworld player piano versions of HBO theme songs, and name TV shows based on descriptions of their comic book continuations.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏄‍♂️ It's easy to bag on John from Cincinnati, but the critical re-evaluation has been that, yep, it's nonsense.

🧙🏻‍♀️ Shannen Doherty's character in the Charmed comics doesn't actually look like her, because they were too cheap to pay her for likeness rights.

🖖 The Star Trek comics referenced in round two are way better than the ones from the 60s, which were often written by people who had never actually seen the show, and had no idea what the characters looked like!

⏱ Daniel didn't get points for his last lightning round question because you must wait until the question is fully read before answering and time ran out. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

🤔 Remember, you only have 2 days to answer this episode's At Home Version riddle due to a bonus Wednesday episode drop.

✒️ Read Brian's stuff at Uproxx

🏀 Brian wanted us to say "go Sixers" which were are reasonable sure is about basketball

🐦 Follow Brian on Twitter

🎧 Listen to Dan's TV's Top 5 Podcast

🔍 Read The Fien Print blog at The Hollywood Reporter

🎸 Read Alan's TV reviews at Rolling Stone

📚 Alan has written a book or two about TV

🐦 Follow Alan on Twitter

Special: On The Podcast, With The Microphone, By The Host Oct 26, 2020

It's an all Halloween and horror episode for Spooky Season here at The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show! We've got Garon Cockrell from Never Not Funny, Kate Sanchez from But Why, Tho? and Joe Reid from This Had Oscar Buzz testing their knowledge about classic and contemporary spooky entertainments! After a debate about exorcisms, we'll test recognition of pop culture murders, recount the career of Mike Flanagan, and and parse out confusion with some horror movie mash ups!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🎹 Our Halloweenized theme is from the nimble fingers of our host Taylor Cole

🤫 Both Kate and Joe independently chose Scream's Gale Weathers as their pop culture champion so we asked them both to pick another character.

🏰 Wait, why are there armadillos in Castle Dracula?

🕵️‍♂️ Weird, dark versions of Clue are a real thing

🧠 Why so many abandoned mental hospitals?

⚾️ The little league coach being attacked by a soda machine isn't even the craziest thing in "Maximum Overdrive"

⚡️ Is it mean to keep bringing the great Max von Sydow's campy role in "Flash Gordon"?

👹 Check out Garon's site Pop Culture Beast

🎧 Listen to Garon on the Never Not Funny podcast

📚 Read Garon's books Demonic And Other Tales and The Darkest Hours

🐦 Garon is on Twitter @MyNameIsGaron

🎮 Watch Garon live on Twitch

🤙 Support Garon on Patreon

🎧 Kate's podcast, website and community But Why Tho?

🤕 But Why Tho? is also raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital this month (so hurry up to donate!)

🐦 Follow Kate on Twitter @OhMyMithrandir

🎞 Don't miss Joe's podcast This Had Oscar Buzz

📺 Joe is the managing editor at Primetimer.com

Special: Tales To Astonish Oct 19, 2020

With the first season of The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show complete, we celebrate with our first of many theme matches to come — Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Join us as Ben, Darren and Tim test their knowledge of all things Marvel including a Marvel Cinematic Universe invasion of the rest of pop culture and a trip through some of Marvel’s weirdest storylines. We’ve got werewolves and time travel shenanigans aplenty for you to enjoy!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👊 Remember Iron Fist? No, really. Think about it. Do you actually remember it?

👀 Uatu The Watcher is watching us from a distance

🎷 Since Marvel's acquisition of the Ultraverse line of comics, "Nightman" is technically a Marvel show.

👛 What's in the pouches? Only Rob Liefeld knows for sure.

🐺 The 90s "Capwolf" storyline is good, actually

🛣 We managed to work in two references to The Crossing, maybe the most reviled Avengers storyline of the past 30 years...

🍼 ...and one reference to the very icky Avengers #200, which is the most revolved Avengers storyline of the 30 years before that.

🌎 The "Ego the Loving Planet" story, in which Ego is a pick-up artist trying to get with Earth, only to be put off when he sees that she's just covered in yucky people, is wonderfully silly.

🧠 Remember: standing offer from Darren to learn math. Thanks Darren?

🐦 Follow Ben on Twitter and be judged worthy of a follow

📷 Ben is also on Instagram where he posts pictures of him judging things

🐦 You can read Tim complaining about Renner's Hawkeye on Twitter

🗳 Apply to be a contestant on season three

S01.E13: An American Trail: We Will Go West Oct 12, 2020

Derek, Ilan, and Monty complete the running of the trivia gauntlet first by getting into contrarian pop music. How many songs that have "don't" in the imperative can our players identify? Then, it's a test of pop culture settings and U.S. geography as our players arrange movie and TV settings from east to west. After 12 matchups of pop culture knowledge display, 24 contestants eliminated, and 36 lightning rounds played, it all comes down to this: the season one finale to determine our first Super-Mondo Champion of Champions! A mythic lightning round category finally sees its day in the sun before we crown our winner. Remember to solve the riddle, because season two is right around the corner.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🚫 Taylor's Don't Songs Spotify playlist

🐍 Nothing beats freshly-squeezed snake

🗑 Canadians generally don't have garbage disposals but when they do they call them garburators and Americans think that's hilarious

🪓 All camp murders happen in New Jersey

🤖 Gort Bothers Congress ★★☆☆☆

✏️ Apply for season three now!

🌋 Check out the Monty and Rhias vs. Movies: Postapocalyptic Podcast

🐦 Monty on Twitter

🦑 Ilan's Squideye and the Bitter Guy podcast

🐦 Ilan on Twitter

📷 Derek on Instagram

S01.E12: Bad Romance Oct 05, 2020

Trivia! Playoffs! Musicals! Exclamation Points! The last round of the playoffs is here! Prior champions Joe, Monty, and Kevin duke it out, pop culture trivia-style, for the last slot in the season one championship match. After a round of trivia about pop culture romances that don’t exactly hold up to scrutiny, players will test their knowledge of stage musicals based on other pop culture properties (you know, the kind where you just add an exclamation point to the title, and suddenly it’s a musical). On top off of all that, we’ve got an all-timer of a Lightning Round and a savage at-home riddle at the end!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐘 Elephant! The Musical from The Tall Guy

🐁 It's Taming of the Shrew that doesn't hold up. I mean, when your title is calling a woman a "shrew," it's not a good sign.

🍕 Why do Americans like to eat cold pizza?

🌝 We're talking a lot about The Honeymooners. Even though it ran for just one (39 episode) season, it was hugely important as an early example of a sitcom based in a lower middle class household, dealing with social issues. It would probably be more fondly remembered if it didn't have all those threats of spousal abuse.

📣 When we say "10-4, good buddy," the good buddy we are referring to is you!

🛶 The match Monty won after Tara's DQ

🐦 Kevin on Twitter

🐝 This Had Oscar Buzz podcast

📺 Joe at Primetimer

🐦 Joe on Twitter

🌋 Check out the Monty and Rhias vs. Movies: Postapocalyptic Podcast

🐦 Monty on Twitter

S01.E11: FarmFork Presents Faking The Band Sep 28, 2020

Filmed books and fictional bands abound this week on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show! The playoffs continue as returning victors Alex, Ilan, and Nick tackle trivia about what happens when a movie or TV version of a book is better than the original. Then, our contestants become armchair rock critics for our favorite fictional bands, identifying them based on clips from their music, and interviews with the band members. All this, plus a Lightning Round, determines who will venture on to the season finale championship matchup. And don't forget the at-home riddle challenge for you, the listener!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👶 No one is too young to have seen The Thin Man. TCM is a thing that exists, and you really don't have to watch Friends for the 8th time, do you?

🎸 The Traveling Wilburys are up there with ABBA as bands your parents liked that slap, actually.

🔍 Google results for "Paul Dylan"

👴🏼 For our older listeners, The Sandlot is Stand By Me for 90s kids. Hmm - we're not too old to know about it. Weird how that works, huh?

🐦 Alex on Twitter

🍳 Nick's immersive theatre company Spybrunch

🐦 Nick on Twitter

📷 Nick on Instagram

🦑 Ilan's Squideye and the Bitter Guy podcast

🐦 Ilan on Twitter

S01.E10: And Where The Hell Was I? Sep 21, 2020

The playoffs begin with Oscar acceptance speeches and mysterious locations! Returning champions Derek, Anna, and Bobby battle it out by touting all their pop culture knowledge. But only ONE will continue on to the championship match! Our first game this week asks players to identify the Hollywood figure by listening to their Oscar acceptance speeches, while also challenging them on additional Oscar trivia! After that, the contestants will identify some notable locations from pop culture-based off descriptions given by people travelling there. Stick around for an exciting Lightning Round plus a challenge for listeners at home!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🧫 You might have noticed some tweaks to the presentation this week. Based on your feedback, we moved our contestant chat to after round one and there is less "exit through the gift shop" at the end of the show.

🛋 Maybe the best lamp from pop culture is actually the one from the Ikea commercial?

⚔️ If you're a contestant, and you call something "Swordly Town," you know that we're going to make fun of you, right?

🏆 Justice for Rhea Seahorn!

🐦 Anna on Twitter

📷 Anna on Instagram

📷 Derek on Instagram

💻 Bobby's website says his name is Robert? Weird.

📕 Bobby's book The Now Dark Sky, Setting Us All On Fire

📷 Bobby on Instagram

S01.E09: From A Different Perspective Sep 14, 2020

This week on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show, contestants Don, Cate, and Kevin "consider the alternative" about some favorite TV shows, naming shows based on plot descriptions from the point-of-view of secondary characters. Then, we'll switch gears to movies with a deep dive on the IMDb Top 100 movies. Players will aim low to score high, one-upping each other to guess the "worst of the best." It's as much about movies as it is about knowing who even votes on the IMDb Top 100, so we let the sociological assumptions fly. As always, it all comes down to the Lightning Round! And stick around for an at-home riddle challenge for you, the listener at home!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👩‍👧 We don't want to imply that anyone should sympathize with Christopher on Gilmore Girls. He's trash, and we all know it.

🎂 The ice cream cake grift from The Best Friends Gang on 30 Rock

💊 The real life Best Friends Gang were a little tougher.

🎞 The IMDb list is constantly updated - the verison referenced on the show is from mid-July, 2020.

🤡 2019's Joker is on the IMDB Top 100 list, but the movies that it's an inferior version of: Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy aren't. SMH.

S01.E08: Disney Minus Sep 07, 2020

This week, it's Disney minus the weird, dark and creepy stuff they left out of their animated adaptations. Before that however, our players will speculate on the birthing techniques of their favorite characters, and then try to name the common character from a list of three different actors who have played them. Then as promised, it's on to "Disney Minus," where players identify the differences between their favorite Disney classics and the less-wholesome stories that inspired them. Absentee fathers! Shootings! Death! Death! Death! As always, there's a Lightning Round, and a special challenge for the listeners at home!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🤪 Before playing Richard Nixon, John Cusack got to know him not by reading books or anything, but by talking to Hunter S. Thompson.

🧹 Nature Valley Crumb Bars

🧜‍♀️ The original Little Mermaid is rough: "Well, have you lost your courage? Stick out your little tongue and I shall cut it off. I'll have my price, and you shall have the potent draught." ¶ "Go ahead," said the little mermaid.

🐭 We know: the full name of the organization Ms. Bianca works for in The Rescuers is the "Rescue Aid Society."

📰 Play Veronica's Vertex puzzle at The New York Times

🐦 Veronica on Twitter

📷 Veronica on Instagram

🎬 Watch Sarah Baker in The Kominsky Method on Netflix

🐦 Sarah on Twitter

📷 Sarah on Instagram

🕵️‍♀️ Follow Nick's Immersive Theatre company on Twitter

🕵️‍♂️ Nick's Spybrunch is also on Instagram

🐦 Nick on Twitter

📷 Nick on Instagram

🎹 Our host Taylor S. Cole is on Twitter talking music and pop culture

🎰 Dan is on Twitter doing Dan Things™ on Twitter (warning, includes some grown-up stuff like politics)

🐶 If you like pictures of dogs and weird supermarket stuff, Dave has you covered on Instagram

S01.E07: Half & Halftones Aug 31, 2020

It's a cavalcade of comic book crossovers and pop culture rhymes in this week's competition! After a rousing round of My Champion, Bobby, Stephen and Susanna test their knowledge of crazy comic book crossover events that brought together unlikely characters and properties. Then, it's on to a rhyming game, where from a mashed up description, players parse out the two rhyming TV show and movie titles that have been combined. All that plus a Lightning Round and the At-home Version riddle for you to solve!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

💥 The crossover comic book Batman/Elmer Fudd is pretty great, actually

🤺 Django/Zorro was co-written by Quentin Tarantino, and is under development as filmed sequel to Django Unchained

🥜 Knowledge is power! Learn and protect yourself from circus peanuts!

😴 The plot of The Big Sleep is confusing enough that screenwriter William Faulkner (!) had questions about it, but reports have been exaggerated over time

⛽️ Gasoline Alley is the longest running comic strip in the US, and since its characters age in real time, the lead character, Walt, is now 116 years old.

💻 We call him Bobby but his fancy name is Robert Krut

📕 Even though nothing rhymes in it, it's a good idea to order Bobby's latest book, The Now Dark Sky, Setting Us All On Fire direct from the publisher

📷 Bobby on Instagram

🐦 Susanna on Twitter

🇺🇸 Susanna didn't have a website to plug so she asked us to put (and we quote): "please god register to vote and then actually vote this fall."

🐦 Stephen on Twitter

🎧 Stephen on The Film Pigs podcast

🧠 Ready to play? Fill out the Contestant Application!

S01.E06: Old Man MacTavish’s Confused Direction Aug 24, 2020

Valiant efforts are put forth all around as our players navigate the confused ramblings of an elderly cinephile before getting a look behind the scenes at the lesson plans of some favorite pop culture teachers. A last-minute substitution makes for an unusual, but nonetheless exciting game on this week’s episode of The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show. Sean and Monty are taken by surprise by the sudden inclusion of one of Extra Hot Great's pop culture teachers, Tara Ariano in the third spot! Make sure to stick around to the end for a SHOCKING TWIST ENDING that you won’t wanna miss!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👩🏼‍🏫 Dangerous Minds is based on a real person, Luanne Johnson. In reality, she used rap lyrics to illustrate concepts to her class, but that was too edgy for the movie, so they changed it to Bob Dylan, a singer that young people are famous for liking.

🎬 Please do not mix up Waking Life and Waking Ned Devine. These are very different movies.

🤠 Technically, the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise has been re-titled Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, but since we were asking for franchise names, "Indiana Jones" works just fine.

🤠 If it had been a scoring question, we would have accepted River Phoenix, Corey Carrier, George Hall or Sean Patrick Flanery as actors who had played Indiana Jones.

🌋 Check out the Monty and Rhias vs. Movies: Postapocalyptic Podcast

🐦 Monty on Twitter

🐦 Sean on Twitter

🔥 Listen to Tara on the Extra Hot Great podcast

🌴 She's also talking Melrose Place and BH 90210 on Again With This

🐦 Tara on Twitter

👔 Want to be on the show? Apply today for the next season!

S01.E05: Johannes Bassoon’s Minor Quibbles, Major Qualms Aug 17, 2020

It's time to identify the altered TV show themes our resident composer has created when he confused his major and his minor keys up. After that, it's time to browse some very silly pieces of very real pop culture merch — and pay all the respect to the vociferous fans of a certain animated series. Our talented combatants Elenore, Mark, and Ilan have a bit of a fishy start, but all's well that ends well... and the ending? Well, we'll leave that to y'all to discover. Speaking about endings, don't forget to stick around at the tail end for the At-Home Version riddle for your chance to name a score break!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

☎️ Believe it not or, George isn't at home...

🏕 Parks & Rec with Jabba The Hutt

🎲 If they were guessing randomly, our players would have gotten 5 of the 15 follow-up questions in round 2 correct. They got 3.

💸 All the pop culture merch from 'The Price Is Correct'

🚘 BADCATS, the Aaron Spelling produced TV series with Michelle Pfeiffer, is an acronym for "Burglary Auto Detail, Commercial Auto Thefts." It also featured Jimmie Walker and Vic Morrow, and was cancelled with 4 of its 10 episodes left unaired. Of those, we'd really like to see Episode 9, "Death Car."

🦑 Ilan's Squideye and The Bitter Guy podcast

🐦 Ilan on Twitter

👩🏻‍🎤 The Mark & Sarah Talk About Songs podcast

🐦 Mark on Twitter

S01.E04: The Titles Of Dr. Moreau Aug 10, 2020

This week we invite you to listen to our contestants defend their favorite characters from deadly sharks, and test their knowledge of forgotten movie sequels, before piecing together some mashed up TV and movie titles à la The King and I, Tonya. Yes it's the return to the Sabor de Soledad Division, where Anna, Chip, and Eileen engage in fierce pop culture trivia competition! Make sure to stick around for the lightning round! There may be a surprise or two in store!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐦 We're @USAQuizShow on Twitter

📷 We're also @USAQuizShow on Instagram

✈️ There's no such thing as being too young to know about a show: we've all seen Casablanca and read Shakespeare, right?

🩸 How quickly we've all forgotten about Bloodshot, the top grossing superhero film of 2020

🧛🏻‍♂️ We're doing our part to make sure that Joel Schumacher's Lost Boys gets the respect it deserves. The original, not the sequels. They're getting all the respect they deserve.

🐦 Anna on Twitter

📷 Anna on Instagram

🐦 Chip on Twitter

✏️ We're accepting contestant applications for season two!

S01.E03: The Vennding Machine Aug 03, 2020

After defending the sandwich skills of their favorite characters in "My Champion," Amanda, Lea, and Joe will test their memories of movies that share their titles with popular songs. Later, the stakes will rise as they combine their pop culture knowledge with their understanding of a deck of playing cards. Will they go all in or fold before the turn? Listen and find out!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

👨‍🦳 But In The Latin Alphabet Jehovah Begins With An I

🥪 Make an Exotic Sandwich from Taskmaster

🎹 While the song played on the big keyboard is "Heart And Soul" there's a hint of "Chopsticks" at the end so we're giving Joe an extra 10 points.

🎧 This Had Oscar Buzz podcast

📺 Joe at Primetimer

🐦 Joe on Twitter

📷 Lea on Instagram

🐦 Lea on Twitter

✊🏾 One Struggle KC

👮🏻‍♂️ Kansas City Bail Fund

🐦 Amanda on Twitter

S01.E02: Marge Excitable’s Periodical Table Of Elements Jul 27, 2020

Season one of The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show continues onward with three players who are more than up to a challenge. Adam, Alex, and Kelly-marie brave some terrible wordplay combining their pop culture knowledge with their memory of high school chemistry in "Periodical Table of the Elements" before honing their musical ears while identifying famous backwards film scores.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🏦 Learn more about the U.S. Mint

🤮 Monty Python's Mr. Creosote scene

🔬 The Periodic Table Of Elements

😈 The Neon Demon is real, damnit

🥈 Ron Silver played a campaign manager on The West Wing, not a lawyer. Our host temporarily confused him in his mind with Oliver Platt.

🔫 His Name Is James Bond

🎷 The Jizz-wailers of Star Wars

💘 Andy Williams's Speak Softly Love

🪐 The 2001 Theme Adam wanted to hear

S01.E01: I’d Buy That For A Dollar Jul 20, 2020

The inaugural season of The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show kicks off with our first three official eye-of-the-tiger competitive players. Marvel as Lynsey, Derek and Rachel navigate the storied history of special guest stars and cameos. Then get ready to buy ! buy! buy! when we visit those fun and fake in-universe advertisements. No need to open your wallet to listen to our show so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If you want to throw your hat into the ring to be a contestant in season two, you can apply right now.

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐦 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show on Twitter

📷 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show on Instagram

💯 The Will Leitch Free Weekly Newsletter

🕷 That Slagging Of Starship Troopers Will Not Stand

💯 Breakfast Tacos

🧝‍♀️ Australia was not accepted as the correct answer during The Lightning Round because the contestant gave two answers. Only one answer is allowed.

Special: Apocalypse Chow Jul 13, 2020

Our three contestants deal with bovine justice, answering questions posed by film, television and song titles and a 27-course trip through pop culture food mashup madness. And not just anyone either! For our first episode, we called on three of our friends to kick the tires here at The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show. In this non-regulation special episode, sportswriter Will Leitch is joined by Fug Girl Jessica Morgan and the Jeb part of Dave And Jeb Aren't Mean, Jeb Lund. Our first season — where the listeners are the contestants — starts with the next episode!

NOTES

⚠️ Inline notes below may be truncated due to podcast feed character limits. Full notes are always on the episode page.

🐦 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show on Twitter

📷 The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show on Instagram

👗 Go Fug Yourself

👑 The Heir Affair by The Fug Girls

👩‍👧 The Fug Girls on Twitter

📰 Will Leitch's This Here Newsletter

🐦 Will Leitch on Twitter

📷 Will Leitch on Instagram

🎧 Dave And Jeb Aren’t Mean podcast

🎧 Quaid In Full podcast