Nostalgic G

We begin our 2008 edition of the Halloween countdown taking a look back at the making and impact of one of the most groundbreaking pieces of pop culture entertainment ever created: Michael Jackson's Thriller. The album Thriller, was released on November 30, 1982 reaching the number one spot both in the U.S. and the U.K. and selling one million copies world wide per week. Not just your typical album, song, or music video Thriller is a unique work of creativity which can not be categorized as easily. Thriller became a bonafide multimedia event, way before anyone had coined the term "multimedia". Certainly the music video was much more than your everyday promotional clip cheaply put together to sell records. In fact by the time the music video came along the album had sold so many copies worldwide that the executives at Columbia felt it unnecessary to make a video, the sales where that high. Why spend any money to promote something that literally sells itself. When John Lan...

Straight out of 1989's "All New Double Dare Game Book" we present a collection of facts and trivia regarding the making of the greatest game show in the history of television. - Marc, Harvey, and the producers of Double Dare have all run through the obstacle course. According to producer, Mike Klinghoffer, the Gumball Machine is the most fun. - When the first episode of Double Dare was made they had to stop and start the obstacle course four times. Multiple problems included contestants not being able to find the flag since Marc Summers thought the producers had put the flag in the obstacle, and the producers thought Marc had done it, so there was no flag. When they restarted after putting the flag a cameraman got in the way , and the kids ran into him. - Some obstacles are designed, but never make it to the show. For example, they tried to do an obstacle called the barber chair. The idea was, you'd pump yourself up high in the chair until you were high enough to rea...

We are only 10 days away from the official start of Halloween season here at the Nostalgia Factory. We will be celebrating the season with our 2008 countdown aptly titled: "It's the great Halloween countdown, Charlie Brown". Join us every night as we cover anything and everything Halloween. I'll be sharing some classic Halloween memories along with articles about some of my favorite Halloween related TV specials, movies, toys, books, and candy. Don't miss out!!!

It's 11:00 PM on Saturday night...this can only mean one thing. Time for USA's Up All Night. Unfortunately the show has been off the air for ten long years now. Back in the late 80s to the mid 90s "Up All Night" exposed my pre-teenage mind to such cult cinema classics as "Return of the Killer Tomatoes", "The Toxic Avenger", "Class of Nuke 'Em High", "Bikini Car Wash Company", and "Bufford's Beach Bunnies". The show was hosted by the one and only Gilbert Gottfried, one of my all time favorite comics. The combination of Gottfried plus all the campy B-movies aired on the show made for a perfect Saturday night recipe. On Friday nights the show was hosted by Rhonda Shear, who replaced Caroline Schlitt after the show's first two years. Rhonda annoyed the piss out of me, more than Gilbert's voice ever could. Gilbert was soothing compared to Rhonda in my opinion. The show first aired on June 6, 1986 and was fin...

The greatest daredevil of them all: Super Dave Osbourne just made another appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" this week with a hilarious video clip of his recent appearance at the democratic convention. This is one of the funniest skits I've seen on Kimmel in some time so check it out: The Super one also mentioned during the interview how there's a chance he'll return with another show of his own in the near future. It's been a long time since his last show; USA's "Super Dave Vegas Spectacular" back in 1995. In the meantime you can catch him as Marty Funkhouser during the new season of HBO's "Curb your enthusiasm" next spring. And stay tuned for our retrospective article on Super Dave coming soon.

Anyone who grew up with classic Nickelodeon programming during the 80s is very familiar with slime. It was, and still is one of the key elements of the Nick brand. Many of us will never forget our first introduction to the substance during Nick's "You Can't do that on Television". The show was a Canadian production which got picked up for US broadcasts by Nickelodeon during the early days of the network. When someone said "I don't know", green slime would pour on them from above. This became known as being "slimed." The first time in which "I don't know" was used as a trigger phrase for the green slime was one of the local episodes seen only in Canada and broadcast on March 17, 1979 - fittingly, St. Patrick's Day For many years, the slime consisted of a mixture of lime green gelatin powder and flour; eventually, oatmeal was added to the recipe, as was baby shampoo so that it would wash out of the actors' hair more easily. ...