The Irredeemable Shag and comic’s professional David Gallaher sing their way down memory lane and celebrate one of their favorite 1980s shows, MISFITS OF SCIENCE!
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It’s a shame Dean Paul Martin didn’t live longer. He did have some success in the mid 1960s rock trio Dino, Desi, & Billy (alongside Desi Arnaz Jr and Billy Hinsche. He was also married to actress Olivia Hussey and skater Dorothy Hamill. In an odd bit of coincidence, Martin’s jet crashed in the same mountain range where Frank Sinatra’s mother was killed 10 years earlier in a plane crash.
I vaguely recall watching Misfits of Science in first run, but I don’t believe it ever hit syndication in my area. My key memory is the one dude shrinking and jumping around on a Simon Says, and also the bit about his not being into basketball. I better remember and favor every other movie and TV show you guys mentioned more than this one, but it was a fun podcast.
Thank you SOOO much for this. I am right there with you with your enthusiasm and passion for MoS!! Plus the mention of Voyagers! And so many of the wonderful quirky shows of the ’80s. Misfits is one of the reasons I wrote two years worth of articles on those types of shows on my website, and how I had originally found the scienceofmisfits site as well. Great job on the podcast, and I want to read that spec script!!! Thanks again!
Fans of old TV may want to check out 2 non-FW podcasts:
1. Forgotten TV
2.Eventually Supertrain
There are non-FW podcasts?
Thank you, Charles! (I do the Eventually Supertrain podcast. I’m not a madman randomly thanking people for things on the internet.)
Since you basically mentioned Voyagers! and Doctor Who in the same breath is it just me or Does anyone else think Captain Jack has aspects of Phineas Bogg when they created him? I mean Omni device/ vortex manipulator, voyagers / time agency, both womanisers (along with everything for Captain Jack), one was a pirate the other a con man…
Not a bad comparison, but given that time patrol stuff and rogue characters have been around for a long while, I somehow doubt either Davies or Moffat were directly inspired by Voyagers! Remember, the vortex manipulator only came later. Jack initially used a time ship.
Well yes I get that. And, the first mention of time agents was from the talons of weng chiang, and in Genesis of the Daleks the Time Lords are shown to have smaller time travel technology like time rings, and if I remember correctly there was a teleportation device in The Keys of Marinus that kinda had a watch type look. However Captain Jack had a VM in the Empty Child but he used a Chula ship because he could take bigger things like the Hospital ship and he was using it for the con.
I stand corrected.
Now let me just set my Omni back a couple days so I can post a corrected version of my comment…POP
Thanks for doing this episode. I have fond (if faint) memories of the show, watching it when it first came out. It certainly helped that Courtney Cox was mega-cute.
I’m glad that David mentioned that this reminded him of the Legion because it did for me as well, even back then. While I would have watched it regardless (there just weren’t super-hero shows back then), it helped that these were versions of Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Shrinking Violet. Back then I thought ‘this is the closest I will ever get to a live action Legion.’
There is one scene I remember and I hope I remember it right. In it Johnny has absorbed a ton of electricity and is hopping around like he really needs to pee. Finally, the team tells him to go into an alley to ‘relieve himself’. He walks in. We hear the lightning bolt. Then he walks out contentedly. I thought that was hilarious.
Well, I made it–I listened to almost two whole hours of a podcast on a topic I care nothing about. Not sure who deserves more credit, me or Shag and David.
I remembered watching the MOS pilot when it aired, for the reasons David specified–it was the closest thing to a superhero TV show I could get at the time. And while I *think* I remember Larry Linville being on it, I don’t remember Edward Winter (who was COLONEL Flagg, BTW) at all, That’s a fun little bit o’MASH trivia, thanks guys.
So while I did watch the pilot, I found the show so uninvolving that I bailed pretty quickly into it, maybe watching the second episode. I had no idea there was this cult around it, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since the show did find some life in syndication. I hope Courtney Cox has a sense of humor about it, sitting atop her giant pile of FRIENDS money.
All in all an entertaining show, though I was disturbed by David’s descent into madness at the end.
I remember the Misfits very fondly, though I haven’t seen them since. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Another science/superhero show from this era, also with a shrinking hero, was Small & Frye, starring Jack Blessing and Darren McGavin. Fed into my life-long love of shrinking heroes. Anyone else remember that?
I remember this show, but at the time it aired, unfortunately, most ‘superhero’ shows got shuffled until cancelled.
This episode goosed my memories of this show more than I thought it would. First of all, I’m with David, I could never understand what the theme song singer was saying beyond the occasional “science” and “misfits”, but it was memorable, and indeed, VERY 80s.
I recalled the characters a bit as you mentioned them, but I don’t think I’ve seen this SINCE the 80s. I knew Courtney Cox from the Springsteen video, and this show deflated my balloon that she was “just an actress”, and not really a fan from the crowd in that famous video.
I can’t say I have any of the deep nostalgia you two have for it, but I enjoyed listening to you gushing about it for 2 plus hours. David’s laughing, chuckling, snorting at the end was priceless. Good stuff.
Chris
Thank you for this blast from the past. I haven’t seen this show since it first aired, but I remember watching it religiously at the time. I actually just scared myself when I found that I was able to sing the theme song (just the bit with piano accompaniment at the beginning) before even listening to the episode.
Now, I’m looking forward to your coverage of Voyagers!
>> I was disturbed by David’s descent into madness at the end. >>
Thank you all for listening.
>Now, I’m looking forward to your coverage of Voyagers!>>
Omni’s green kid!
Hell yes to Misfits of Science! I didn’t find out about this show until like 1996 or 1997 when they were showing re-runs on the Sci-Fi Channel. It was kind of like a live action X-Men for me…kind of. What kept me coming back though? The theme song! I LOVE the theme song! I would put it on just to see the opening sometimes.
Well, I’m about to dive into the episode itself. Thanks for doing this, guys!
In the Philippines, we got to watch this… on rented bootleg videotape! And only the first episode, over and over. Never knew there were other episodes.
But we loved it! Johnny B. was cool, and Courtney Cox WAS mega-cute. But i didn’t understand what that meant at the time.
Great show! Thank you, guys. I’m right there alongside you with the Misfits of Science love. I re-watched it about four years ago and it Remains A Hoot. I plan on covering it (along with Powers of Matthew Star, The Master and Automan) for my Eventually Supertrain podcast some time in the future. We just finished talking Voyagers! and are right near the end of Manimal. What a strange and wonderful time for completely weird-ass shows this period in the 1980s was. Thanks again, guys!
Quick shout-out for this show! I remember the MoS pilot fondly, but don’t remember why I never watched the other episodes. I’ll have to revisit it on the tube of yous. Thank you, and good night bunnies!