Mark starts the podcast off by complaining about guys who complain-brag about stuff that they think makes them look better. Later the guys talk about autographs, designing a signature and how many girls Derek Jeter has had sex with. The guys also talk about Lifestyles of the Rich And Famous and an episode of the old cartoon version of Alvin And the Chipmunks that parodied the show. The guys also talk about Mister ED and wonder how a horse aquired so much knowlege. The later argue over Mark’s refusal to do impressions at Cline’s request. Later the guys talk about Ghostbusters III and Cline complains about how boring and somewhat bad he thinks Walking Dead is now.
This week we are back in the world of 80’s TV and watch the series finale of what was one of our favorite shows when we were kids, Knight Rider. Looking back now, it seems we had horrible taste in television, but that car was and is so cool. As was the case with Murder She Wrote, which we did a commentary for a few weeks ago, the finale was pretty much just a normal episode. The producers and actors knew that the show had a declining audience and the end was near so they wrote an episode titled The Scent Of Roses where Michael’s fiancé was killed, that was supposed to be a finale but instead the network put that episode in the middle of the season and ended the series with the episode we watch, called Voo Doo Knight. So, get you Netflix of DVD ready and listen to our commentary of the series finale of the 1980’s hit Knight Rider.
In 1995 after twelve glorious seasons of Murder, She Wrote, the favorite show of senior citizens everywhere, came to a close. After being moved to Thursdays in direct competition with NBCs historically successful Must See TV line up the show lost the good majority of its ratings. At the end of its eleventh season it enjoyed being the eighth most watched television show but would fall to the fifty-eighth in the final season. At this point CBS decided that they were sick of all their viewers dying of natural causes and wanted to start to skew the demographics of the network to the younger crowd and would cancel the show at the end of the 1995-1996 season. In the series finale the shows story line would coincidentally or maybe not so coincidentally cover that same topic. It is clear when you watch the finale that the writers and producers were not planning on this being the finale episode of the series. It runs just as every other episode of the program did throughout the twelve years of being on the air. There would be a murder, Angela Lansbury would sniff around the crime scene and eventually solve the case for the seemingly clueless police detectives. This episode was much of the same and could be the worst series finale in the history of television with the motive of the killer being questionable at best. Luckily for us CBS put out a few made for TV movies of Murder She Wrote in the late nineties and early two thousands so we could all get our Jessica Fletcher fix. Angela Lansbury is still kicking around as I type this so we might luck out and get one more taste of everyone’s favorite whodunit series before she leaves this earth. So get your Netflix ready, call your Grandma and get ready to hit play! From May 16th 1996 here is the series finale of Murder She Wrote with an episode called “Death By Demographics” (Season 12, Episode 24).
I’m not a regular viewer of the numerous reality shows on cable TV that highlight the lives of the swamp people, Honey Boo Boo or some guy catching cat fish with his bare hands, but I do occasionally flip through the channels and the other day I landed on an interesting program. When I turned it on I saw a couple ZZ Top looking characters walking through the woods hunting for beaver. Evidently one of the guys was the patriarch of the Robertson family who have a multimillion dollar turkey call business in Louisiana. The show is your typical cable reality show which is less reality and more a scripted show with average to bad actors. It’s always clear that the situations and dialog have been punched up by a team of writers who are probably standing behind the camera. I found the show particularly interesting because I worked in a local turkey call place for over six years so I could sort of relate, although the place I worked at had considerably less facial hair and southern twang. If you are unfamiliar with what a duck or a deer call is I don’t blame you. When I first started working there I had no idea what any of the stuff even was. I have never hunted nor do I have any interest in hunting which made it interesting when people at the place tried to have hunting conversations with me. Basically a hunting call is used in the woods to attract the duck, deer or whatever it is you are trying to shoot and kill. Sometimes the calls are made to sound like a sexy lady deer or turkey while others replicate the sound of a dying rabbit or something, which attracts coyotes and stuff. I would sit around all day building and blowing on the calls for quality assurance even though I had no idea how to use the silly things or how a sexy doe even sounded like in the first place. Hunters have a lot of tools in their bag which sometimes includes urine. Apparently when the sexy deer call isn’t attracting the deer you will have to take extreme measures. It turns out they sell little bottles of sexy female deer urine which evidently attracts big bucks over to you. They can’t resist the stuff. The hunter then puts some of the urine all over their gear like perfume and then wait in hiding for all the boy deers to come running. One time as a gag a guy I worked with thought it would be hilarious to spread this deer urine all over the place at work. The smell was as vile as you would expect aged deer urine to be.
If you are not a fan of murdering and eating animals such as squirrels, beavers and ducks then this show probably isn’t for you. If you are a blood thirsty carnivore like me then you will enjoy the show and all of the delicious meals they hunt, kill and eat. Each male cast member has a glorious beard and a southern belle of a wife which makes you wonder if growing a insanely long beard is the way to go in life. All in all I give the one and a half episodes I’ve watched three stars and that means it is almost worth watching.
The show Duck Dynasty reminds me of my days at the Turkey call factory so I will probably watch when it returns for the third season on Monday February, 27th on A&E. Maybe one day if nothing else works out I can move down there and get me a job at their headquarters.
In the 80’s action shows with pseudo violence were the king of the hill. Shows like A-Team were #1 in their time slot for years. The cartoonish violence was a trademark of 80’s action shows where thousands of bullets and hundreds of explosions accounted for very few serious injuries or deaths.
This week we watch one of the most infamous episodes of the series which featured a cameo by androgynous pop star Boy George. The cameo made little to no sense but the A-team were looking for ratings and Boy George and Culture Club were trying to keep their careers alive as the late 80’s approached. Get your Netflix, Hulu or DVD ready* and enjoy the A-Team Commentary Podcast! Season 4: Episode 16- “Cowboy George”
*Line our audio up with the playback online or your DVD.
