A few weeks ago Mav and Monica did a very special show where three of Mav's current students from his "Introduction to Popular Culture" class where the students joined us to explain their view of one of their favorite movies, Disney's Teen Beach Movie and both its cultural relevance and its usefulness as an academic text. That was a result of the students challenging Mav to watch the film and then him using it as a text for his class. It was a fun show and you should certainly go listen to it. But, now we have a follow-up of sorts. As a result of that episode, Mav and Monica now sit down with one of the creators screenwriters of Teen Beach Movie, Mark Landry, to talk about his experiences...
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- Monday, March 16, 2026
e412. The 2026 Oscars Prediction Special
By Christopher "Mav" Maverick, Hannah Lee Rogers, Josh Stroud, AJ Ortega, A. David Lewis and Peter Cullen Bryan
/ March 9, 2026
The time comes but once a year... Hollywood's biggest night! Or so they say. Actually, for as long as we have been doing this show, almost every year Hannah and Mav have to beg people to come and talk about the Oscars because almost no one is ever interested. Well, this year is different, we had people excited to come and share in their predictions. And so Mav and Hannah cordially invite you to join us with out returning guests: Josh Stroud, A.J. Ortega, A. David Lewis and Peter Cullen Bryan for our annual Oscars Special. Join us as we recap the entire slate and give you our picks for who the winners are going to be. Play along and see if you can beat us, OR use our picks...
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e411. Is The Cannonball Run a Bad Movie? (Ok, we know it is… but does it have to be?)
By Christopher "Mav" Maverick, Wayne Wise, Stephanie Siler, Nathan Scoll and Dan Grote
/ March 2, 2026
So every once in a while we like to do an episode of the show called "is this a bad movie?" The funny part is that usually when we pick movie for that series, we know it's a movie that many consider good, but that we feel like we have a chance to convince people it's not. This is not one of those episodes. See, we know 1981's The Cannonball Run is a bad movie. It's actually pretty obvious that it's a bad movie. But somehow, it's beloved nonetheless. At least by some people. So on today's episode Mav and Wayne invite returning guest Stephanie Siler as well as new guests Dan Grote and Nathan Scoll to work through a film that against all odds seems to be a cinematic...
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e410. Teen Beach Movie: Metaphor, Methodology, Memories, and Millennials vs. GenZ
By Christopher "Mav" Maverick and Monica Geraffo
/ February 23, 2026
Sometimes an episode idea comes out of nowhere. Recently, Mav overheard several of his students discussing a movie from their childhood before his morning class. After he laughed at their description, the students challenged Mav to do some "homework" and watch the movie. He agreed, and incorporated the movie into his lesson the following week. He also mentioned it in passing on Facebook only to have a wave of people of all ages wax nostalgic about having watching the movie as children or with their children. Others, like Monica, were less convinced, feeling it pales in comparison to teen musicals like the Grease and High School Musical series that came before it. And yet, Mav had never actually heard of the film before. But everyone wanted to know how it...
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e409. Tommy Westphall’s Snowglobe: Exploring Fiction’s Largest Shared Universe
By Christopher "Mav" Maverick, Wayne Wise and Will Careri
/ February 16, 2026
Most TV, movies, books... fiction in general don't exist. This is obvious. That's sort of the point of fiction. but what if it didn't exist beyond the obvious fact that we imagined it. What if all we didn't even imagine it... or maybe most of us didn't. What if the vast majority of fiction ever produced actually happened in th daydream of one single autistic boy on a single evening in the Spring of 1988. This is the Tommy Westphall hypothesis, based on the finale of a mostly otherwise forgotten (but critically acclaimed) dramedy, St. Elsewhere. This is actually a well known theory amongst hardcore television geekdom and we've eluded to it in passing before, but we thought it was time we dove into it. So on today's episode, Wayne...
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Call For Comments: Superhero Origins (and ours!)
March 26, 2018
From Mav: One of my most favorite things to do as an academic is presenting at conferences. Part of this is just because being an academic means presenting your research. That’s a big part of the job. But for me, conferences are the most fun because it means linking up with other people with similar…