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The Cracked Podcast

11 TV Shows That Secretly Gave Themselves Baffling Canon

The Cracked Podcast

Literally Media

Comedy Interviews, Comedy

4.63.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2020

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Alex Schmidt is joined by Siobhan Thompson (Rick and Morty, Dimension 20) and Andrew Ti (Mixed-ish, Yo Is This Racist?) for a trip through the strangest canon ever grafted onto a TV show. They’ll turn up late-season canon decisions that broke entire television universes. Also be sure to listen for strange network promos and a stranger talk show appearance that make your favorite science fiction worlds too bizarre to comprehend.


Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/11-tv-shows-that-secretly-gave-themselves-insane-canon/

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for today's show comes from Squarespace who want to support you. They want to set you up with a website on the internet

0:06.5

So you're a person who is searchable and Googleable and sharing your writing photography life anything else you want to put out there

0:13.5

If you want to get online, they're the best way to do it

0:16.0

So head to squarespace.com slash cracked for a free trial

0:19.2

And when you're ready to launch use the offer code cracked to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain

0:30.0

Hey there, folks. Welcome to another episode of the cracked podcast. The podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt. I'm also known as Shmidi the Clam. I'm also known as Shmidi the Champ. And I am also also thinking about the Harlem Globetrotters and Scooby-Doo.

0:52.0

And in particular Scooby-Doo is our door into that story because that is a universe on TV where they would have a lot of random guest stars come through and there was kind of no particular internal logic to it. There would be this just kind of rural village town that they solved Scooby-Doo

1:07.8

And then people like the entire Harlem Globetrotters starting lineup would come through and help children they just met solve a mystery. For example that happened in an episode called The Ghostly Creep from the Deep aired November 25th 1972 on CBS and I saw it in repeats on Cartoon Network as a child and was very confused because number one the Harlem Globetrotters are cool live. It's really neat to see them do basketball in real life. If you're looking at a drawing of what that might be like, it's a great idea.

1:37.6

It's not as cool. Not exciting. It's like a cardboard cut out of the Olympics. I'm not into it. But the other confusing thing was that they just kind of threw together some canon. You know canon like the universe of a show. They just kind of slapped together a situation where Shaggy and the main Globetrotter at the time are hanging out and doing stuff together. And I think that's pretty silly. And that brings us to today's topic.

2:01.1

We're talking about insane canon that somehow got added to TV universes. One more time that is insane canon that somehow got added to TV universes.

2:10.7

Because one way being alive is more interesting than people think it is is that the history of television, especially right before the internet came around, is littered with episodes of TV that people just kind of made without taking any responsibility for what that meant for the broader canon of shows.

2:27.8

We have a lot of crazy stories here. We have a lot of like occult magic stories here coming up. So there's going to be a lot to enjoy and discover as you listen.

2:37.7

And we've got two fantastic guests for that enjoying and discovering and listening. Both returning favorites to the show.

2:43.5

One of them is Shavan Thompson, who is a very, very funny comedian and comedy writer. You've seen her work on shows like Rick and Morty.

2:50.6

You can also watch her on Dimension 20. That is a tabletop RPG comedy show from College Humor. It's on their service dropout.

2:58.6

We're really rooting for College Humor. And I hope you'll check that out.

3:01.6

I'm also joined today by Andrew T who is a fantastic comedian and comedy writer. He writes for shows like Mixed Ish on television.

3:09.0

Also is the co-host of the podcast Yo is this racist, which is one of my favorite shows around.

3:14.1

They're both a TV comedy writing people. So they have a lot of expertise and insight here to say,

3:19.4

hey, this is maybe how a TV writer's room operated when they made boy meets world also set in a universe where hell is real.

3:27.4

You know, that's a fun thing. And that's I think all the setup you need also a preview of one of the stories.

3:32.8

So please sit back or again, remind yourself there's hell boy meets world stuff coming really neat.

...

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