[Music] bozo

no b-o-z-o sorry you’ve never heard of bozo the clown no

how could you not know who bozo the clown is i don’t know i just don’t how could you call yourself a clown and not

know who bozo is hey man what are you hassling me for this is just a gig it’s not my life

i don’t know who bozo is what is he a clown what is he a clown are you kidding me

well what is he yes he’s a clown all right so what’s the big deal

there’s millions of clowns all right all right just forget it forget me you should forget it you’re living in the

past man you’re hung up on some clown from the 60s man very good very good all

right go fold your little balloon animals eric eric ha what kind of name is that for a clown huh

some of you may recognize that exchange that happened between jason alexander as george costanza and john favreau as eric

the clown on seinfeld we opened with this since we will talk about my childhood clown collection

scary cabbage patch kids garbage pail kids and all the cool stuff

that happened in october of 1983 on this episode of latchkey dads with greg and

tim hey tim

what’s happening in october of 1983.

well greg in october of 1983 a phenomenon occurred a phenomenon yes yes

it’s a big deal because in october of 83 the cabbage patch kids

hit the american public in a way that would affect christmas

forever for dads and moms across the country it ruined many a kids

christmases because they were so disappointed right yeah yeah i mean it was incredible i think um you know we’ve

all probably heard the stories of you know stores saying they had some and then just mobs of people and riots would

break out and people get trampled and broken bones and people knocked

unconscious all in the effort to get a you know 30 dollar

little doll yeah for christmas um i think um from at least in my our

lifetime that was the first you know run on a toy i mean certainly later we saw the remember the tickle me elmo craze

and then i think the furbies was a little bit of a thing but this was definitely the first one that i can

recall yeah yeah and i think it did sort of set that precedent you know i think there probably were toys previously that

were you know really sought after but this was the one that just put people in a frenzy and

really uh you know i think it even you know it got played up in in pop culture and in television shows and everything

you know i i remember um there was a show i watched recently um called halt and catch fire that was this

show about you know the early days of uh computer programming and developing

computers and even in that there’s a scene where one of the programmers he’s obsessed with getting one of these dolls

for his kid and just the lengths that he goes through um you know and then in the end he actually gets suckered you know

somebody sells him a box that’s supposed to have the the doll in it and then he opens it and finds the

guy just took him for 200 bucks and there’s no doll in it anyway hopefully that didn’t happen to any of our listeners that they you know

got taken for a uh you know a couple hundred dollars and didn’t get their uh their cabbage badge

and i think with that um was this news sensationalism of things because you know on the news

it was oh yeah riot at this mall and you know experts you know this person got trampled and knocked down and hurt

and it was news not just you know uh family news but like national news yeah

yeah and i think it was in general it was pretty accurate you know i mean today with social media i mean stuff gets blown out of proportion and you

know we don’t know what’s true and what’s false anymore but i think back then a lot of those reports were actually pretty true of you know what

people are doing um and i don’t know you know i you know growing up with just a brother

your pr you and your brother probably weren’t really into the the cabbage patch dolls but no i i didn’t have

my uh my younger sister um she wanted one uh she was i guess she

would have been four in 83 so um we ended up my sister and i we got them in 84 a year later oh okay um and

uh mine was called nicholas frederick and

uh i don’t remember playing with it a whole lot yeah but you know i still have it i’ll you know on the episode page on

our website latchkeydads.com uh there will be uh photos of my cabbage patch

doll on there you can all check that out um do you still have it yeah you do yeah

and what about um didn’t they come with a birth certificate yeah yeah and they all were you know signed uh on the butt

by uh the the guy who originally created xavier roberts okay um and

you know going back to the the origination of the the product itself that guy

uh xavier roberts he would hand make each one of these dolls before

coleco bought them and started mass producing them wow so you know he would hand sign each one of them back then

okay um and then obviously when they were mass produced they would just stamp them

but i think after the first year or so they started putting a date inside of his signature so people would know that

it was a an 80 an 85 model you know

so like you know you’re buying a car you know what model year is this uh cabbage patch

um so along with that when i was um a kid we you know we me and my brother

and his sister we had you know collections and things like that and um clowns were one of the things that

you know my family had sort of dubbed the thing that i was going to be collecting and so i have a second

cabbage patch that came in a clown costume and he has an 86 on his butt so

that explains so much tim it explains so much yeah i i always wear a smile but inside

i’m just a sad sad clown [Laughter] we’ll have to talk a little more about

this uh this cabbage patch clown do you still have that one i also have that one yeah yeah

he’s kept in a closet in a bag in a box so

i will put up a photo of the clown one as well so and the clown’s name

uh conrad was the clown’s name yeah not a very clowny name no

and he was not funny [Laughter] um but yeah i mean uh you know that that

whole just world that they created it was pretty incredible i mean i i looked up

the numbers and i think over the course of like 10 years you know while they were at their height um i think it was over

two billion dollars that you know generated revenue from the cabbage patch line and they still i mean they still

make them today if you knew it’s not obviously as big of a craze as it was back in 83 but

pretty amazing you know really i think it was in 96 they were like the official mascot of

the olympics oh wow um and i think it was an 04 they created

the first uh presidential versions of uh uh cabbage patch dolls so there was an

obama and a george w bush wow cabbage patch doll so or cabbage patch kid i keep calling them dolls they were right

stretch kids yeah yeah yeah i think probably the the thing that

made them unusual was that up until that point every mass-produced toy you know you were getting the same toy right and

this was the first one where they were individualized you know with that whole birth certificate and you were adopting

it the name was individual the hair color was different the skin color everything was

unique to that doll and uh yeah they created something that i guess the american public was really uh really

looking for and pretty cool yeah it makes sense i mean if uh if if you’re looking for a doll

why wouldn’t you why would you want the same one your your friend across the street has let’s get you know one with

red hair and pigtails yeah whatever yeah yeah and i think you know my my daughter when

she was younger the american doll i think they kind of they probably modeled

some of that off of the same thing where it was very individualized and you could you know make it look like your kid or

you know whatever you wanted and i think that company has done pretty well too so

that was um you know obviously i just had boys um so they didn’t ask for american dolls but i do remember hearing

very expensive yeah yeah there’s they’re making their money

well you know um the with every good product there has to be you know the american

uh bandwagon let’s make some money off of this uh and uh you know um

tops just killed it with the cabbage i’m sorry the garbage pail kids right

do you remember those cards oh yeah yeah yeah we we love collecting them uh we

had a well i think at the time my brother was really into the line that sort of

preceded it which was the um the wacky packages

okay which were actually produced the the guy who created the wacky packages was an artist

um by the name of art spiegelman and so on the heels of wacky packages

being pretty popular he was going to kind of spin it off as like a you know a similar line

and or part of the same line i should say and then tops was like no no we’re going to separate this out and it’s gonna be

its own separate thing and in the end it turned into a bigger phenomenon i think than the wacky packages so

i think i had a few wacky packages like or or my brother did and i just kind of inherited them i kind of

remember that um yeah my brother was weighing you know way more into wacky packages than he was

the garbage pill it could have just been an age thing yeah that him being three years older he could care less about the you know the

garbage pail kids but yeah you know me and my friends we were oh we’re so into them so if you’re if you’re not familiar with

a garbage pail kid it’s an uh a trading card but it was a sticker um and it it

looked like a i mean the face was round with the eyes so it looked like a uh i keep mixing them up a cabbage patch kid

but they were um i don’t know how would you say that tim well i think you know it was all you

know some sort of an abnormality or you know some sort of terrible pain or death or something that made it funny and then

they’d pair that with the the name that they would give the card so you know as an example the the card i think that’s

the most associated with them is atom bomb whereas you know the top of his head is blowing off like he’s exploding

and um and they always made two versions of every card so with adam bomb there was

blasted billy and you know so there was always an a and a b card you know for everyone

um i think mine was tongue-tied timmy if i’m not mistaken and i don’t think yours might have been

gross greg i think you’re right i think you’re right yes and somewhere in a box my stack of cards

is is waiting for me to find them i haven’t yet tracked them down so at some point i’ll put some photos up

but it may not be in time for this episode i didn’t um i i wasn’t allowed to start collecting

them when they first came out oh yeah my parents said no that’s too vulgar um but i just wore them down i’m like every kid

has gone up there and so by the time the second edition came out i was allowed to start getting them and

i think you know about five years ago i just i just gave them away oh yeah yeah

i didn’t keep them i had them in a box and then um i should have kept them

but yeah we had a lot of the like entire second series because that’s when it was it was a big deal for us anyway yeah

yeah well it’s funny you say your parents wouldn’t allow you to get to get them because um

i saw that in mexico they were banned oh really yeah that they because of that

sort of degrading vulgar violence everything you know associated

with kids that they were like this is they use the garbage pail line as a like

a sighted example of the kind of material that they do not want coming into the country which i thought was

pretty wild that that is and and because you know not just myself but some other kids

weren’t allowed to have them there was this black market uh that that developed

in in grade school for garbage pail kids and and you know i would trade my lunch

for cards and and uh you know always asking my mom for a second pudding cup or whatever so that’s like i was getting

them one way or another one way or another so yeah yeah that’s funny were you your parent

you were good to go because you know yeah i i feel like at the time we were we were also collecting i think

it was football stickers and we had like a book that we put the football players in and i think we just would kind of be

like oh we’re gonna get like three packs of these but then oh can i get one of these other cards and we’d try to like play it off like it wasn’t you know oh

it’s just like you know cabbage patch kids or something you know and i don’t remember my my my parents giving us a

hard time about getting them but i think it’s crazy though how you know some of this stuff from our youth you

know you go on ebay and you know the value of it and so a pack that was probably 25 cents or 50 cents i don’t

remember exactly yeah you know an unopened pack is going for 25 30 or

something like that and then certain cards i think you had said the values were insane right yeah i decided to do a

quick ebay check uh and the the as you mentioned adam baum who’s like 1a the

first one uh twenty thousand dollars um and then his counterpart you know again

twenty thousand so it’s like the card one a one b and then two a and two b seem to be the most desirable anywhere

between you know twenty and thirty thousand dollars i did find somebody who had all four of those cards hundred and

twenty thousand dollars it really is it makes me want to find that box that’s mine are in digging see

if i can find them or maybe buy a couple of those 23 packs on ebay that are unopened in the hopes

that you know they’re in there maybe but yeah it’s it’s uh i don’t know i i

know i i still remember you know having them and really just thinking they were the

the funniest thing when i was a kid so funny right yeah although you know in in you know

looking through some of these listings on ebay and stuff it’s pretty wild like i thought i knew most of the cars but

there’s a lot of them that i did not recall at all and yeah just really like out there pretty

strange yeah it does seem like they also tried to re-establish them several times over the

past couple decades like here’s the you know the reissue platinum and you know here’s a new series making fun of you

know a former president like they they try different ways to maybe get back in into popularity but i don’t really think

it really took off yeah and i know they did it on anniversary years you know like the 20 year and 30 year and i do

remember this was i guess this was probably like maybe five or six years ago or something

like at the local dollar store yeah they had them you know they had wacky packages and they had the garbage pail

and at the time i was like ah you know i didn’t think anything of it to actually buy any but there was a moment where i

thought oh this this would be great and then i’m like yeah but why you’re eight yeah yeah i’m kind of wishing i had but

they were they were fun they were they were a cool toy and um i think this and then like we i mentioned with

the furby and the things led way to uh a christmas classic movie with arnold schwarzenegger uh jingle all the way i

don’t know if you’ve ever seen that one it’s not really a great movie but it’s exactly the concept here that there’s

this hot new toy that the dad has to get for his kid and and the chaos that

ensues

tim you know i’d like to circle back to something you had mentioned earlier um and that was the fact that you a had a

clown cabbage patch kid uh and b you collected clowns as a child well what’s

that about yeah so um you know growing up my my brother uh he

collected garfield stuff so he had all these garfield awesome yeah stuffed garfields and

anything you could imagine that had garfield’s face um you know stuck on it and when i was you know a couple years

later when i was you know in the picture uh it was a mix of snoopy and also clowns that were the things

that that you know my family members and extended family would get me as gifts and stuff so

you know over you know the better part of my you know pre-teen years i had

amassed a pretty healthy collection of clowns that would just you know there was this

shelf in my room that was just all these clowns how horrifying

but what was the was did you say you liked a clown when you were a kid or they just bestowed they said this one

will like like sounds probably pretty accurate i don’t know

i don’t remember any you know like moment where i you know made a proclamation you know

that from this day forth i shall collect clowns um but yeah you know so

it just sort of kept happening more clowns came into the mix it snowballed yeah

yeah so uh i i know i showed you this photo and i’ll put it up you know on our on the

web web page for our listeners to see but there was a christmas um where i got this

probably 24-inch tall clown um that was battery-operated uh and he

would laugh which was amazing and um so yeah so he went on the shelf

with all the other clowns with batteries in them in your bedroom in my bedroom yeah and apparently you know as batteries

would eventually they would fail and so one night while i’m sleeping mr laffy clown starts maniacally laughing in sort

of a low and after i

took my bed sheets off and put them in laundry put on some fresh underwear

i took the batteries out of the clown and it was like a yellow sleeve that was on

his arm and so i i shoved the batteries in there just thinking like you know i don’t know i was a kid i don’t know i

just didn’t worry if i put him in there and then proceeded to forget about it and then about a month or so later they

began to leak so it looked like his arm was bleeding so now the the weird clown that laughs

while i sleep is now got a bloody arm so not scary at all and you know to quote bart simpson

can’t sleep cleanly that is that is terrifying

that is absolutely terrifying but you know i don’t know as a kid i didn’t really

think it was that weird well clowns were kind of a big decorative motif in the

70s and 80s i remember my dentist as a little kid he had clowns decorating his

entire office which was horrible in and of itself but you know to

to have one you know like a collection in your bedroom it’s pretty intense yeah yeah

and there was there was a year for halloween that you know i was dressed up as a clown you know i remember it was i

think it was black and yellow polka dots on one side and like teal on the other side okay had a matching pair of uh teal

uh converse all stars to go along with it yeah very cool that was a pretty uh pretty rad looking clown

man that’s that’s rough that’s rough [Laughter] um i didn’t you know i i didn’t have any

sort of uh theme uh growing up like that but that’s interesting did your sister

have a theme uh i mean i think i mean i know she collected like barbies

and she collected like my little pony and care bears and different things but i don’t remember her having

you know a specific you know anything dubbed yeah i mean maybe it was just the uh the men of the

uh the family that were given a specific very specific thing that you shall collect

um well i did uh i did kind of you know look up and a little bit about clowns i remember you had mentioned to me about

your your love for clowns and uh the uh the correct term for fear of clowns is colder phobia

that’s a mouthful um so you know do you think you suffer from that did you have any long lasting

uh therapy sessions i think uh i did steer clear of any movies where

they tried to make clowns be really scary i think just because i was so close to them in my room i didn’t need

to uh put any more scary clown associations uh you know in my brain

did you see the uh stephen king it uh tv mini series i did not oh you

didn’t no and i have not seen the more recent uh you know

very uh from the previews i’ve seen extremely scary you know new version of it they did a great job in splitting it

up into the story telling us one is the one movie was his children and the next was adults instead of the flashbacks

the way the king king wrote the book but uh the first one was probably the scariest movie i’ve ever seen in my life

like the remake or the original one and i had super high expectations for the

second one but it was just kind of like a rehash of the first they didn’t really yeah but the first one was really really

good yeah yeah well and i do feel like that stirred up the whole phenomenon quite a bit where you’d see you know in

countries around the world and stuff where someone would be in a park and they’d turn around there’d be some clowns standing there with a balloon and

you’re like yeah that’s super frightening yeah how can i get out of this park as fast

as possible and even around here when the second clown it movie came out people were putting

uh balloons um tying them uh oh at the uh sewer drains yeah yeah

just to freak people out yeah yeah i think it works i don’t think there’s many people that don’t see that that are like i’m going nowhere near that

yeah and you know i think for you know as much as clowns like probably the generation even before our parents you

know like grandparents you know there was a lot of happy association with clowns and stuff like

that and it really wasn’t that evil element added to it until probably we were you know younger kids and you know it’d

be the you know killer clowns from outer space and you know various things like that yeah really play up the uh the

scary side of clowns yeah i don’t even think you know kids like clowns anymore i really feel that

they’re kind of out of i mean people know clowns of course but as far as culture goes yeah i don’t

remember any clown coming to any of my birthday my kids birthday parties you know things like that so yeah and i feel

like even in tv when they do have it has like an element of a sitcom or something like that it’s always sort of

it you know it’s they’re jabbing you know they’re poking at the clown aspect they’re not they’re not promoting it at

all the poor clown association is getting no respect yeah yeah and with ringling

brothers the circus closing you know i guess it’s a tough time to be a clown yeah yeah

my grandmother though she she was really into to clowns and she was part of like a troop you know it’s a bunch of you

know older women who would go around and they’d you know they’d entertain and you know try to cheer up kids and stuff like that

and i think they did it when it was still like kids still had a response that was positive but i’m sure like

i don’t think that’s gonna fly today i just think there’s too many negative associations with it that it probably

would be a tough sell i did see um uh there was a study done for children in the hospital

and ten out of a thousand children were afraid of the clowns that were brought in to cheer them up yeah so it’s

certainly uh a thing yeah yeah well i mean even you know like mcdonald’s you know we’re kids

like every commercial had ronald mcdonald in it and now i think i think it’s just the ronald mcdonald house is like the only

where the only place where there’s still that association with i think that character i agree but you know they’re

not using well i guess the whole the whole gang you know the hamburglar and everybody they’ve all got their uh their uh

their severance checks and they’re not in the commercials anymore i haven’t seen the hamburglar in a couple of decades so

the fry guys grimace yeah yeah i think he tried to get a deal with sesame street and it

fell through you know the muppets wouldn’t have him yeah i think he’s a he’s a stand-in stunt

double for barney you know did you ever

just finishing up on this did you ever tell your parents you know let’s put the clowns away or did you just suffer till you went off to college

i think yeah i mean there was like even at christmas like we would all have little christmas trees in our room like we’d have a big christmas tree as a

family but then in our rooms we’d have little you know little trees and i always had you know it was pretty

much all decorations of clowns that were on that and it was i want to say yeah when i moved out you know after college

that i kind of took the box of clown decorations and put a lot of tape on it and just kind of said that that’s over

that’s not happening anymore the phase is done with my life yeah sorry mom

hey tim so what were some of the current events going on around the world in october of 1983

on october 4th uh richard noble driving his um i’ll say car i assume it was a

car called thrust ii uh reached a new land speed record of

650.88 miles per hour at blackrock desert in nevada

i tried telling the cop that pulled me over for going 40 and a 25 that and he just wasn’t listening he just wasn’t

having it on october 11th the last hand-cranked

telephone in the united states went out of service as 444

440 telephone customers in bryant pond maine finally made the switch to direct

dial it’s kind of crazy i mean i know 83 is a bunch of years ago but still that seems

like hand crank yeah like like too late like that should happen a lot a lot sooner than it did do you

remember um when we had the rotary phones right that’s like a big thing everybody’s oh rotary phone you’d have to dial like

eight and you’d have to wait till it looked right um and then when the i guess

digital came and you we still had a rotary phone so even though it was a a rotary service so

even though it’s a digital buttons you would press the button and you would hear it

but that was in the mid 80s and now we’re bumping up the technology and there’s still you know some places using

hand cranks yeah yeah it’s it’s like i just said it just seems strange that it took that long you know for

the last of them to be uh out of service pretty well

uh so on october 19th uh the u.s senate uh declared that there be a national holiday each year in honor of martin

luther king jr awesome yeah on october of 25th processing system microsoft word

is first released uh though this was uh though the first version designed for the windows

operating system would not be released until 1989. yeah i kind of wish it never was

released no i mean i know it’s a great program and a lot of people rely on it but as a graphic designer the number of

times that i’m asked to take something that i’ve designed within the adobe suite and then redesign it into word or

powerpoint uh yeah cringe yeah [Laughter]

uh and then the the last day of the month october 31st ron grant completed a 217 day

uh 8 316 mile run around australia

i’ve got an issue with this of course i would but it’s not really a run if he’s stopping and sleeping

right isn’t that just like an extended like journey 217 runs

thank you thank you all right that’s all i wanted to say yeah well and i mean i can say i have

run a marathon i’ve you know i’ve run 26.2 miles wow uh and the idea of i mean

i didn’t do the math here but that’s a lot of miles a day that he’s running to get to 8316.

i can’t imagine like just doing that for one day you know 16 years ago or whatever it was i don’t

ever want to do that again so here’s to ron grant and your ridiculous amount of running yes i’m not

saying it’s not impressive it’s just not a run

so in addition obviously to current events we always like to talk about the movies that came out during the months

uh you know that we’re uh highlighting so in october of 83 uh what were some of the movies that

came out greg there wasn’t a lot of good ones to be quite honest um just a few here that will mention the dead zone uh

book by stephen king um with christopher walken everybody loves christopher walken and his dance moves

yeah i don’t think he danced in this one yeah maybe he might have you know behind the scenes and we didn’t get to see it but

yeah maybe more cowbell maybe that’s what he was asking for

um another movie uh rumblefish which was also um which was written by essie

hinton who also wrote the outsiders great movie a book yeah yeah and i always think it’s interesting you know

when you see some of these older movies sometimes the main characters the actors that portrayed them

their careers never really went anywhere but a lot of the secondary actors are the ones who had you know pretty phenomenal careers and you know i think

this is uh uh i’m thinking of um the movie you just referenced the

outsiders oh the outsiders that the main character didn’t really have a tremendous career but all the secondary actors yeah i mean that’s just a massive

list of who’s who’s uh in 80s and 90s movies but there were a number here in

rumblefish as well um dennis hopper nicholas cage even lawrence fishburne uh

you know as supporting characters to matt dillon mickey work and diane lane so those are some pretty pretty big

names yeah and really when you think about it matt dillon had an okay career but most of the others you know

secondary characters had much more substantial careers yeah so uh another movie that came out was

all the right moves with tom cruise and leah thompson nice i i don’t i didn’t see it you

no i don’t i don’t even recall the name honestly he was a football player i believe high school football player so

all right yeah we’ll get one of our interns to watch it again give us a review uh and then finally

never say never again james bond we mentioned him a couple shows ago uh this was the uh probably the best james bond

sean connery uh with i i this surprised me kim bassinger was in that and um

gotta love rowan atkinson who was a bit part but it’s still cool to think that mr bean exists in the james bond

universe and he plays like a straight man like the way that he talks and everything it’s it’s it’s still you know his voice

you know rowan atkinson has a very you know you know obviously as mr b he doesn’t say a whole lot right

you know to see him in a straight role it’s kind of it’s kind of fun and uh he’s had a few other roles like

that where he’s played more of a straight character yeah not being mr bean um

one of one of them that comes to mind is love actually i don’t know if you ever saw that no i did not uh he plays it’s

sort of like he’s he’s being funny but in a very sort of subtle way where he’s uh he’s packaging

up a gift at a department store and he’s doing all this elaborate like dumping flowers in it and all this stuff and the

whole time the guy who’s trying to get the gift is just like all right hurry up hurry up i gotta get out of here and he’s just taking forever and it’s pretty

funny he is a great physical uh you know comedic actor he you know you just laugh at him because he looks so you know he

does such a silly thing yeah yeah i think he has new a new series out on netflix right now

oh oh really yeah i’d tell you what it is but uh i’ll figure it out and tell you in the report card

nice so tim there was um october of 1983 was

a great time for music we’ve got lots of different types of music some great uh

some great uh things going on um you know we’ll start with albums and

talk about some of the albums that came out uh sure um cindy lauper put out her she’s so unusual

uh bob dylan put out his infidels uh genesis genesis came out that’s such

a good band yeah yeah genesis was definitely in heavy rotation and uh my dad’s mercury capricorn back in the 80s

yeah billy idol released his rebel yell album

uh he was just the biggest thing there for a couple years in the 80s oh yeah it was great to see him come back as a

wedding singer yeah definitely yeah that was nice um the smiths released the charming man

um this was probably the culture club’s biggest album you know color by numbers right yeah

um and it’s funny i i did a little you know just i was curious to see you know

that that particular album obviously there was a bunch of songs people know but i know they’ve continued to perform

over the years but you know how many albums have they put out and things like that and there’s a compilation you know most compilations maybe you’ll have like

15 or 20 songs on it one of their compilations is 74 songs

that’s more of a discography than yeah it’s pretty funny

uh and then uh coming back to you know our guide lionel richie uh can’t slow down uh was was put out then uh john

mellencamp uh uh-huh big album some really big songs on there authority song pink house yeah

yeah uh and before he got the uh moniker cougar true yeah yeah

not as many names or nicknames as uh prince but yeah he he jumped around a little bit

uh and then lastly the oak ridge boys album deliver all right do you remember the oak ridge

boys i know only by name i couldn’t tell you one song that they sing the good stuff uh i i mean i remember hearing

them i do remember they had a song called elvira oh yeah i know that song you know

it’s it’s kind of funny to listen to it now but i know as a kid i remember hearing that song yeah

was that about the the you know the tv host alright or was this coincidental you know i don’t

know maybe we’ll get that intern to research that for us too get on that

um uh the uh singles uh released uh many of them

coming off those albums we just mentioned right um the smiths with the the self-titled the charming man

single uh paul mccartney and michael jackson we had talked about that once before yeah they say

uh and then you know off of billy idol’s uh rebel yell the track came off of there

uh genesis that’s all i love that song yeah i could listen to that song like a thousand

times it doesn’t get old for me i don’t know a little pointer sisters action uh i

need you and wrapping it up john mellencamp released a single four pink houses right

yeah good songs right there and then uh the top ten um

this would have been on ten eight uh october but eighth of these things just doesn’t belong here

and now it’s time so the number 10 song

a little surprising here frank stallone far from over

i mean just listening to it now it’s just getting you know it’s great

way to go friday way to way to use the last name to get there

um the fix was number nine with one thing leads to another uh this one

i feel like in high school someone brought the song up and it was

we all would safety dance around i don’t know why but yeah this men without hats the safety dance uh number eight number

eight uh billy joel with tell her about it very classic billy joel song really good yeah uh number six uh islands in

the stream kenny rogers and dolly parton i remember you know we just talked about vacation and i talked about that yellow

dots and i can still remember driving in the car with my parents and they had dolly parton i don’t know if it was a

that this song was on that dolly parton album and i i i could probably you know know every time that song it’s a great

song too yeah it’s fun it’s a good song uh stray cats with uh she’s sexy and 17.

i don’t know if that would fly today’s uh environment probably not

um and then number four uh spandau ballet with true uh greg i don’t know if you remember

modern family they had a cameo with ed norton uh and in that role he played a

fictitious version of the bass player from ballet and uh

the whole the whole premise was that phil one of the main characters was a fan of spando ballet and they called

them the fandows yeah no i don’t know

anyway it was funny but that is yeah it’s great um a great song from the police king of

pain great sound number two air supply uh making love out

of nothing at all there you go and number one on the charts in october of

1983 is a great song total eclipse of the heart by bonnie tyler

there you go so greg i don’t know if you’ve ever seen this but there’s you know there’s

obviously people make parodies of you know songs and stuff like that there’s a video out there of a person

that took the all the strange things happening happening in that video that is a weird video and wrote literal

lyrics in the same melody as uh the song and it’s it’s it’s worth a

watch so uh we’ll put the link up you know on the website for it uh but it really is quite funny yeah so just as a

little sample some of the lyrics and the room random use of candles empty bottles and

cloth and can you see me through this fan very good nicely done

so yeah yeah it’s it’s funny it’s a really funny video i think i watched it like six times yeah

yeah so you’ll have to check that out

so um as we’ve kind of been doing now we’re actually uh there was some great tv in 1980s as well we’ve done a lot of

music and and uh and movies but um some some great television was happening at this at this

time and i was going through uh this website i found and they actually showed you the uh the tv guide for the for the

time period and you just click on the day and um uh before we talk about the regular monday you know the regular shows i

found some great specials just uh point this out yeah um there was a show um that uh

the disney channel which existed in 83 i didn’t know that yeah aired a show called hansel and gretel

which was some of you may know heard of this guy’s name tim burton his directorial debut of a film short uh

that combined live action and stop motion for like this creepy adventure into the woods huh so all the way back

in 83. tim burton made his debut that’s pretty awesome yeah i had no idea i’ve

never heard of it okay have you have you seen the stop action i have not but we should uh yeah probably google that and

track it down and put a link out to it i did know that tim burton was a employee of disney because he actually

was one of the grunt line artists for fox and the hound huh really cool yeah

um another one was uh garfield on the town uh your brother was excited about that definitely that was a that was a

whole family adventure for us to you know get out some gina gino’s pizza rolls and uh

make sure we were in front of the tv when it aired well that’s true because you know these shows you know way before

you know um recording tv shows and and streaming services it was on it was on you better

get your butt in front of the tv and everybody sat and watched uh you know these specials like garfield on the town

there was like seven or eight of those right garfield does something or other garfield goes to the vet i don’t know

he doesn’t come back the same and you know along those lines do you

remember sunday night the wonderful world of disney it was sunday right i think so it sounds right yeah and i think it was a it might even i don’t

know abc or whatever but they would always like show their shorts and and walt would be there and like in between

them um and one of uh the specials we were in october so was a disney

halloween so it was just uh you know hosted by the magic mirror and and stuff

and they did like different scenes and and all the disney characters got little you know promos and said come spend your

money that’s right cool yeah and then uh lastly there was high school

usa um i don’t i don’t remember you know any i didn’t either it was all it was like do

you remember in the early 80s they did a lot of tv show crossovers like they like olympics like are kind of like the stars

the circus of the stars yeah yeah i think so this was for all of the i guess the teenage people and they did like a

little movie and so it was michael j fox from family ties guys and all of these people

and it was like a who’s who todd bridges from different strokes and all the different people and it looks fantastic i think it

was so good that we should probably we could do a whole episode on high school usa i don’t know i haven’t seen it yet but look promising

cool yeah yeah want to check it out and then you know besides the the

specials we obviously had the regular programming that was on you know monday through friday and obviously the

saturday and sunday as well so um mondays scarecrow and mrs king watched

it yeah my mom liked that show so i watched it with her yeah and after mash okay

i i don’t know that one uh tuesdays one of the best shows to

come from the 80s the a team i love it when a plan comes again

oh i wish i could remember the intro right and then they had the overvoice and it’s

like this special forces operation yeah that’s great have you seen any of

the movies or anything that they’ve made since now yeah i’ve actually recently watched the 18

movie again i had seen it when it came out no it was on one of the you know streaming services and i watched it

again and i mean it you know it’s got a nice throwback element to the original show and stuff so oh okay yeah

i think liam neeson plays hannibal oh that might be worse than if liam knows yeah

and then your show the one that you thought uh timothy dong was in uh remington steel wait he wasn’t

uh on wednesday we had a great couple of shows facts of life are all about you and family ties

nice uh and then thursdays thursdays was a healthy

you had a lot of options on the menu on thursday night there was magnum pi my dad was a star of that show if anyone

was no i’m just kidding my dad did have a spectacular mustache yeah um

simon and simon uh give me a break mama’s family cheers and hill street blues wow yeah

that’s a lot of decisions to make on a thursday night yeah yeah uh fridays though we had dukes of

hazzard yeah love dukes of hazzard yeah uh dallas was above my head but big big

show and falcon crest again also for the older crowd yeah and

then this show i just pointed out just because it’s kind of funny is manimal and manimal was a short-lived i think

eight episode run of the show about uh this character jonathan chase

uh who’s a shape-shifting man who can turn into animals and of course uses his

powers to aid the police of course makes sense right yeah and i think the police ended up putting out a better album that

year because of the helpful chat no no not those people i got it yeah

and then saturday nights uh tj hooker uh the love boat

uh fantasy island fantasy island yes although fantasy island

when it first like came on i don’t know why it used to scare me really yeah like

something about the like the weird stuff that would happen yeah like it just it

as soon as the the show would start and you know the opening credits i would like i

remember hiding underneath like the coffee table or something like i wanted to watch it but didn’t and i felt safe

if i was under something you know um anyway how long did you run around you know

when you were that young age going deep all the time all the time right

um also different strokes and silver spoons were on saturday night nice and wrapping up the week sunday was hard castle in

mccormick alice one day at a time the jeffersons and we

saved the best for last a little night rider there you go

starred david hasselhoff who would go on to 90s fame in baywatch baywatch thank you i almost

forgot that good old david hasselhoff yeah it was a great show it was

hey greg i think it’s time for us to do that thing we do at the end of every episode our report card all right let’s

get into it thrust 2 was in fact a car albeit jet propelled and held the world

land speed record from october 4th 1983 all the way until september 25th 1997.

the thrust 2 was powered by a single rolls-royce avon jet engine pretty cool

very cool very um we did mention the uh run by ron

grant in australia and since i said i didn’t want to do the math just then i i did do the math and

it was 38.32 miles per day he would have had to average to complete his 8

316 miles in 217 days that’s like a marathon and a half every

day that’s that’s intense makes me look lame for not wanting to get up and get get the uh

soda from the fridge uh rowan atkinson mr bean uh is in a

show called man verse b on netflix cool

we talked about the opening monologue from the a-team and so for

anyone who doesn’t remember went a little something like this in 1972 a crack commando unit was sent

to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit these men promptly escaped from a

maximum security stockade to the los angeles underground today still wanted by the government they survive as

soldiers of fortune if you have a problem if no one else can help and if you can find them maybe you

can hire the a-team just give me shivers tim i love that show um

you talked about the oakridge boy the oak ridge boys released an album and you had mentioned the song elvira and i had

wondered is that about that uh halloween tv host but uh the story of the title was that the songwriter dallas fraser

was driving with ray baker in nashville when rey almost ran a red light at an intersection of gelatin road and elvira

street so while they were sitting there the dallas looked up and noticed the street sign and just immediately on the

spot came up with the chorus that would eventually be the song elvira

it was so funny after we recorded that i heard that song on the radio like later that day i was like oh my gosh that’s it

facebook was listening one other small correction when we talk

about the garbage pail kids i mentioned that your card was gross greg which

although there was a gross greg later on the first issue

where tongue-tied tim happened to be out your card was greaser greg nice

well so if you guys noticed any uh egregious errors that we missed or just want to

say hi you can always reach out to us at dads latchkeydads.com or go to our website for additional

photos and extended content at latchkeydads.com don’t want to give us an a plus again i

think we’re doing pretty well yeah good wings

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tim did you know that listeners should like review and subscribe to the latchkey dad’s podcast

no but now i know

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