Dear John, (Hour 2)

Good morning, Wisconsin.

Morning, world.

It's a new day.

Thanks for kicking it off with us at 975 FM, WFHR.

Take it, Marvin.

Got your host, James, behind the mic, joined by Seth, good morning, and the best listeners

and radio.

Thanks for joining us, everybody.

We're going to have some fun this hour.

Not only do we got Brewer ticket Friday going on, we're going to be mentioning a keyword

for you to text us, get some Brewer tickets, be listening for that, but we're also going

to be giving away some circus tickets.

Yes, the circus is coming to town.

Got that one coming up for you as well, be listening for all of that.

We're going to get in some entertainment in the moment, talk about local things going

on in our area.

We got our schedule to touch.

I don't want to talk about our weekend line up a little bit, and I'm going to let Seth

choose the topic a little bit later, either celebrities who left Hollywood at the height

of their fame, interesting list, or 1090s TV shows that changed the world.

That is a tough decision, but I will have one for you in just a little bit here.

All that coming up, we begin with entertainment news, and door of the Explorer turned 25.

Wow.

You know because her back hurts.

Yes.

All of that back back around for 25 years.

I like the idea of the character aging.

You like it like that, like a door at 25, and she's just sitting there, you know, it's

she's been worn out a little bit.

Yeah, she's got tired of the exploring game, and now she works at a gas station or something

like that.

Mappy, Mappy's all twitchy, Mappy's not enrolling the same as he used to, he's got a bad

back.

Yeah, it's a good tool for this.

Here's something that may have come as a surprise, a door turning 25.

I know it took me by surprise, my daughter was into that character and really loved that

show, and I know that many young kids have.

And not the show originally debuted on Nickelodeon back on August 14th, 2020.

Wow.

Back then she was introduced as a seven year old Latin girl who likes sports family and

exploring the world and her friends and other iterations, of course, they changed it

up a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

I always thought, now when my daughter first started watching the show, I didn't hear

the character's name or see the title sequence or anything.

Right.

I honestly thought that this show was Carmen San Diego as a kid.

I genuinely thought that.

Oh, that's funny.

And when they called her Dora, I was like, wait, like, oh, they're not calling her Carmen

and then I realized, oh, it's a whole cook of all the other thing, yeah, I'm an idiot.

But I loved Carmen San Diego, my daughter, my sister loved that show.

So I kind of just assumed it, but I made a very bad assumption there and stuff.

That's all right.

And I was really happy to be wrong because it was a fun, cool show.

Absolutely.

My daughter, this is the time of Blues Clues.

This is the time of kids interacting with characters a little bit more.

And us kind of like where we would go with tablets and all of that, where all of the kids

shows now do that kind of stuff.

But those shows were great for kids.

They made kids feel engaged with like they were a part of things and they were solving

things and stuff.

So, but she wasn't going to be a girl originally.

The plan was for her to be a bunny in the woods.

Oh, really?

Wow.

That was the early incarnation of her was a bunny in the woods in every other early ideas

included Dora as a cat.

And she almost was a little mouse that lived in her pot or had a little mouse that she was

going to be a cat that had a little mouse that lived in her pocket.

Okay.

Boy, that's weird.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was Nickelodeon's idea to make her a Latin girl.

The creators loved it and brought in Latino writers and supervisors as well as experts

in Latin culture to help them.

And they even traveled to Latin America themselves to learn first hand more about it.

Wow.

You mean back in 2000?

They could they they did that way back then.

Back in 2020.

Okay.

Yeah.

And it's and it's come on now.

Yeah.

It's it's.

I miss me.

People.

Look at how easy it is to do.

Yes.

Yes.

Good grief.

Like well, for one, not only could we have been doing this back in the 1980s and 1990s

and all of that.

But yes, to your point, this is animators get this more than anybody else.

They are going way back to Bambi and you had animators going up into the woods to study

deer to be able to draw them better and everything animators understand writer animating writers

understand.

Well, I can't write about Bambi if I don't go to the woods and understand what it is

and everything.

So they do the work and whatever the characters are.

Oh, we have a young Latin girl.

Well, we're going to go to Latin America and understand it and everything.

Why movie and TV, especially TV producers don't understand this and how in this in 2025,

we still have like, oh, we have a we're going to write a black show, but we're not going

to have black writers like what do we do?

Why?

It doesn't make any sense.

It took Will Smith in many ways to really push that boundary with all things, right?

Yeah.

And I know it sounds really weird to say and everything, but go back and look and him

like kind of putting his foot down and being like, hey, we need black writers over here.

Tracy Morgan on SNL and Tracy Lauren Michaels love Tracy Morgan thought he was a once in

a lifetime talent.

His first season is horrible because it's nothing but white writers writing for him.

And Lauren sent some down and he's like, look, we got to figure this out.

I'm not giving up on you, but we can't have another season like this.

And Tracy's like, you got to bring back writers and man, they look, they're good writers.

It's not that white writers can't be good writers.

No, they have been for a millennium.

They're incredible.

It's just you need people that can write for the audience, can write for the birds, certain

to the culture that they understand that the other people have not experienced it wouldn't

understand.

That's the thing.

It's one of the easiest things that entertainment could have laid out for you.

Think about how hard it is to reinvent the wheel to write a new TV show or come up with

a new concept that is going to bring people in.

That's not easy.

I don't take that lightly.

But one of the easiest parts of this is, hey, I have a Latin actor, I'm going to have

a Latin writer.

Yeah.

It seems to make perfect some sense.

It couldn't be easier for you.

It's just laid out there.

But that's really cool to hear Dora turning 25 and how long it's awesome.

And the reincarnations of that show since then and the movie that just came out a little

while ago.

I mean, still relevant.

It's pretty cool.

The Adam's family is one of my all-time favorite TV shows.

I love the show.

And I really enjoyed seeing the movies come out over the years, seeing Raul Julian and

Angelica Houston and those characters and everything.

It's fun.

Incredible work.

And speaking of reincarnations and everything, having the cartoon, it did very well as a cartoon.

Oscar Isaac did a great job as Go Man.

He sure did.

And then the TV show that has come up with it with Wednesday.

With Wednesday.

Yeah.

Incredible.

One of their most popular shows.

They just premiered their second season and everything.

My mom and dad, they loved it.

I haven't seen it.

I haven't gotten to see it.

But my mom and dad love it.

It's really interesting.

Yeah.

I really like the casting of Luis Guzman as Go Man's.

Right.

I would have loved.

Another good one.

Yeah.

I would have liked it 10 years ago.

A little bit more.

But it's still good.

He's still great.

You have some great actors in that series.

Fred Armason as Uncle Fester is fantastic.

Fantastic.

I, the thing, it's the hand thing, everything I've been saying about like crypto and the

new Superman movie and everything, very similar with the hand.

It's incredible the way they do it.

Although to be fair, I thought one of the best things in the old TV show was the old

hand.

The way they did it there with the technology that they have.

That's a really good job.

Oh, and it did a great job.

It's very simple when you realize what they're doing.

But to a kid, it's fantastic.

It's really good stuff.

Well Tim Burton, of course, has been a part of the Wednesday series.

He's one of the executive producers.

Not surprising to anybody if you didn't know already.

Like if you didn't know that, it would be like, oh, yeah, of course he is.

Of course he is.

Well Tim Burton went back to stop motion animation routes for a 90 second sequence in the

first episode of Wednesday season two.

Back to his old nightmare before Christmas roots and other thing.

Okay.

Certainly, if you don't know the history of the making of that movie, man, it's one of

the greatest behind the scenes things you'll ever read or see.

It's awesome.

It's amazing what they did to make that movie.

It's part of the reason I love that movie so much.

Makes sense.

Cool characters and all that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I love Halloween.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

The fact that in the 90s, they did that, that they made something like that in the 1990s,

something that you would think in the 60s was a stretch to make.

Right.

And it was successful.

Right.

You can't, like, that doesn't work on paper.

Right.

It shouldn't have been a hit.

There we are.

Celebrating it.

And he goes back to those roots to make this.

For those unfamiliar with the animation style, it's a very time consuming process.

It requires hand-built sets and puppets that are manipulated, framed by frame, so, you

know, just to make it all work.

Yep.

That is the boy.

You can't get more old school than that.

I mean, that's the one of the one of the great tech quote unquote technologies of filmmaking.

He spent eight months on this to make it for 90 seconds.

Yep.

Eight months for 90 seconds.

Eight months.

Tim brought on the team who worked on Corpse Bride to bring this idea to life.

The scene shows...

I'm not going to give up the scene because I don't want to spoil it.

Yeah.

I don't want to spoil it.

It almost made me do it there.

Now, for those also that don't know, Tim Burton's very first work was not, you know, Edward

Sissorhands or anything.

It was actually a little movie called Vincent.

Yes.

That is beautiful.

It's incredible.

Yeah.

It's wonderful work.

It's narrated by Vincent Price.

One of his heroes.

Yeah.

By the way, yes.

It was back in 1981, 1982, something like that that he did it.

And I encourage people to look that one up.

It's online.

You can find it.

That's a really cool edit.

It's one more chance to hear Vincent Price.

Yeah.

I mean, why wouldn't you want to do that?

Which names are most commonly used in song titles?

Ooh.

Before we get to our new on small screen, new on big screen segment and everything that

we do every week, I had this one here.

And it comes up because of Taylor Swift as a song called the Elizabeth Taylor on her

upcoming album.

Okay.

And so with her being on the podcast and all that, this came up.

But what really caught up, what I really thought of with this was Seth Faces of the Music.

Of course.

It's like, right.

It's right on my alley, man.

How many years have you been doing this show?

August 29th will be four years.

I've done some of the face of the music.

Yes.

I was a little off.

I was hoping I was timing this up perfectly with the universe.

We're very close.

Very close.

Very close.

I've only since you on four years.

I know.

Yeah.

Like, you know, directors play us was for me.

This is a, you know, it was a dream project.

It was.

It was.

And the fact that I've been able to do it now for four years, I mean, I have nothing to

say.

It's an amazing thing to be able to do.

Not to nitpick.

Four years and one of the best commercials we've ever done.

That's an incredible commercial.

There was no award winning.

It wasn't award winning from all of it.

I love it.

I love that.

I love that work.

You would Melissa fantastic that one.

It's great work by both of you.

And with that, you've covered a lot of topics.

Oh my goodness.

Now, for those that don't know, let's say there's somebody new out there, we want to get

him into the show.

Sure.

Suffice the music is on every Sunday from six to eight.

Basically, I pick a theme or a word or something that peaks my interest.

And then all of the songs I play for the two hours are related to that theme or word.

Interestingly, just my next show.

And I'm not sure.

Well, hopefully I should be able to get it done for this, for this weekend is

words.

Nice.

Actually, I didn't do that on purpose, it just kind of happened.

No idea.

That's us.

It's gone to the point now where I have to look at my list every week to see if I've

done something before because it's I've four years well over a hundred shows.

It's like, oh my gosh, I can't even, I got to remember all these anymore.

It's impressive to keep him going.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really, really is, man.

I met like 30 episodes of unlabeled.

Right.

I'm like, oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's fantastic.

It's impressive.

Well, maybe we'll be able to help you out.

I'll take it.

I'll take it another four years.

Yeah.

We'll see what happens.

But again, congratulations.

That's awesome.

Well, thank you.

So it got people thinking which names are most commonly used in song titles?

A study found, a study from 2023 looked at more than two million song titles and determined

that the names that appear in the most songs we have for you here.

Okay.

All right.

Let's do it.

This is exciting.

So maybe this will give you some ideas or maybe some, maybe it will or something.

I could just steal the idea wholesale.

Maybe.

Yeah.

There's 20 of them.

That's true.

Some of these.

Yeah.

But I just want to get some interesting ones.

Like at number 20, Paloma, 419 song titles, like Paloma by We Are Wolves or something like

that.

Wouldn't have guessed that.

Paloma Blanca.

Okay.

Carolina comes in at number 19, a little lower than I would have expected.

Oh, really?

Carolina.

Okay.

439 song titles.

Carolina by Harry Styles is one of the newer ones.

Wow.

Okay.

That's interesting.

Wow.

That's a little surprising.

I had a song for my flashback Fridays and W.I.R.I. today was tonight, Carmen by Marty

Robbins.

Nice.

There you go.

You got Juliet, Mike, Alex, Mike.

Mike is in there.

Interesting.

Mike and it's low at 16.

Yeah.

533 song titles.

Okay.

We have 533 song titles.

Okay.

Let's see.

Emanuel comes in at number 14.

Oh.

See.

That's because of religious songs and stuff like that.

That would make sense.

That would be a good one.

Yeah.

Linda at 13 with 579.

Really?

Linda.

Oh, wow.

Ah.

Bella at 580.

That's a lot.

That's a good one.

That just makes me feel better.

Of course.

If they're going through the world, I can see that one.

Yes.

It's an Italian name.

So you're going to get a lot of, yeah.

Yeah.

Paul and Michael hit the number 11 and 10 spots or actually, sorry, at 910 and 11, Peter

Michael and Paul.

Yeah.

Again, there's religious songs in there too, because those are all, you know, important

names in the Bible.

So that would make sense.

That's pretty good.

But Paul, yeah, that would make sense.

Michael, of course, boy, there's a name that's been used a lot, my goodness.

At number 8, Jane, 659 song titles with Jane and the title.

Sweet Jane.

Oh, man, the song.

The underground sweet Jane is one of my favorite songs.

It's got the top one.

Of that song.

It probably is.

At number 7, Georgia, cheating a little bit, cheating a little bit.

Yeah.

And that's mostly, yeah, because of the state, but yeah, I will certainly allow it because

of Georgia on my mind.

Yes.

The greatest of all these songs.

Great song, great song.

Standard.

You will never get me to say it otherwise.

Yeah.

I don't care.

Oh, my favorite artist in the world comes out with a song named Georgia.

Or how about one of, you know, when you were kids, maybe, I don't know if you're with me

on this one, James, when you heard a certain song, oh, yeah.

The car and low-chotters theme song, Sweet Georgia Brown.

Sweet Georgia Brown.

Great reference.

And yes.

Yes.

A close second for me.

Yeah.

I love that.

It's going to be my head all day and I won't be happy with it.

I like that.

At number 6, James.

Oh, yes.

863 song titles with the name James in it.

There's a biblical connection with that one as well.

So yeah.

We jump from Georgia at 698 to James at 863.

Whoa.

That's a big jump.

Yeah.

That's a big name, James.

Yes, there is.

Got that one.

David at number 5, 876 song titles.

Wow.

Wow.

Big one.

And I'm a little nitpicky about the top four here.

So at number four, Johnny, with 1071 songs, of course, Johnny be good.

Maybe the most famous of them.

Oh, Johnny be good.

Johnny getting.

Oh, there's lots of Johnny.

I just realized that.

My gosh.

And I know several of them.

Okay.

At number three, Maria.

7,742 songs, of course, Maria, Maria by Santana.

How about West Side Story?

Yeah.

This is on called Maria.

Does Ave Maria count?

I think it would.

I think it does.

I think the way this is set up, I'm thinking this is like an internet search kind of thing

where you try to find maybe it's AI used or something, but to figure out where these

titles are.

But Maria, I mean, that makes sense because of, I mean, think of how many, again, Italian,

like operas and songs that would have Maria in it.

I mean, woo.

Yeah.

I'm surprised it's not more here.

Yeah.

Mary at number two totally makes sense.

1,803 song titles.

Yes.

And at number one, John.

Yes.

2014 titles.

Whoa.

Oh.

Oh.

John is that.

Wow.

So we had at number 20, Paloma with 419, and at number one, John with 2040, that's incredible.

Oh.

Oh, man.

But now when I think about it, I can think of just so many songs off the top of my head that

have John in it, and a lot of different versions and varieties and stuff.

See now, there we go.

That might end up being a set face of the music topic.

John songs, because there's so many of them out there.

Yeah.

Interestingly, they excluded song titles where it wasn't clear that the name was a proper

noun, like Madonna's Ray of Light.

So they didn't have Ray.

That didn't count for Ray.

That didn't, you know, that kind of thing.

Who the guy named Ray?

Wait.

What?

Get out of here.

I'm coming.

I'm going to race on.

I'm going to crack the top 20.

It's an interesting list.

That is fascinating.

You can find the entire list at the whnt.com whnt.com.

All right.

All right.

Oh, everybody.

We'll come back and have some more fun on the morning show at WFHR.

Welcome back, everybody.

Morning show here at WFHR, locally grown radio.

Ethan James hanging out with you.

Thanks so much for hanging out with us.

Got some local events going on.

I want to touch on.

And of course, we've got some local things happening, but I do want to take a quick look

at our small screen and big screen set.

Let people know what's going on on their TVs.

Big one going on tonight at 7 o'clock on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, HBO, Disney Plus, and Hulu.

The Stand of the Cancer 2025 event.

Oh, very cool.

Always a big event, a lot of big names coming to that one, and certainly most importantly,

a lot of great attention, a great awareness, and funds raised, fighting cancer.

It's one of those big events that hopefully will raise lots of money.

While we continue to bicker and fight these diseases to continue to run game around us,

let's fight the real enemy cancer of these diseases, that's what we do.

You know, funny thing.

They don't care about race and class and all those other things.

They don't really care about that.

It don't matter who you vote for to cancer.

Nope.

Or what your bank account is to cancer.

We all need to be fighting against this.

I wish them a good well with that tonight.

Hopefully that goes well.

You've got a limitless with Chris Hemsworth.

The second season premiere.

That's on Disney Plus tonight.

Okay.

A lot of people enjoy that show.

Okay.

Night always comes a new TV, a new movie on Netflix starring Vanessa Kirby.

Who's having a moment?

Oh, she is.

Tonight on Apple TV Plus.

Snoopy presents a summer musical with original music from Ben Foltz.

Oh, really?

That's a cool combination.

Oh, I think you do a good job with that.

Preseason football on Sunday at seven o'clock on Fox.

The Chicago Bears take on the Buffalo Bills.

Oh, just stop it.

Give it to me.

Give it to me.

Can't wait.

It's going to be good.

That's what's new on your small screen this weekend.

Big screen.

Not a ton of new movies coming out.

It's the August low.

I think it's what they call it.

Yes.

Two movies though that I really do want to see.

Okay.

One of the lowest Denzel Washington and Spike Lee team up together one more time.

Denzel plays a record producer who's plans to buy a back control of his label

are disrupted when Asop Rocky tries to kidnap his son.

Jeffrey Wright is in it as well.

I believe it's based on a book.

Okay.

Spike Lee hasn't been writing a lot of movies lately.

He's been doing a lot more of book right movies and everything.

And by lately, I mean, like it's like five six movies and everything.

It would have been that way.

Interesting.

It's about De Niro and Pacino.

The only people that compete with that argument for me are Denzel and Spike.

Like the movies they have put together.

Yep.

They don't have a fantastic movies.

Yes.

They don't have a bad one, man.

No.

A lot of people would consider more better.

Blue is a bad one.

That may be the best one to me.

No, absolutely.

That's a good one.

I love, love, love that movie.

Yeah.

And I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Denzel looks.

Man, he's still at the top of his game.

He's still one of the greatest actors in the world.

An absolute pro.

Yeah.

Absolute pro.

But nobody too.

Sequel.

Bob Odenkirk returns as Hugh Mansell.

Sharon Stone, Colin Hanks, are in this one as well.

Along with Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd also shows up in it.

The most interesting cast.

You and I are huge Bob Odenkirk fans.

Yes.

And the original long time, yes.

The first nobody I wanted to watch because of him, I admit.

I didn't know it was going to be good.

I didn't know it was going to look.

I didn't realize it was going to be so popular.

It exploded.

Yeah.

I couldn't not be happier for him.

Oh, absolutely.

Better call Saul or it's this.

I never saw this coming with his career.

I mean, he never saw it coming.

Yeah.

Being an action star.

Yeah.

But if he started out as a writer, yes.

I don't think he was ever expected to be a performer.

No.

So I just, for him to end up like this, it's really crazy.

Whether being a part of SNL or the Ben Stiller show back in the day or any of those things.

It's really cool.

Mr. Show, of course, is where we first saw.

Yes.

That's the height first new one was from that.

Oh, yeah.

Top three greatest comedy shows of all time.

Fantastic.

And other things going on this weekend like the South of Connie, YMCA's bridge to bridge

run.

It is happening, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow morning.

Now, you can still register online.

If you wish, you can do that up to today, I believe.

So register at their website at SWCYMCA.org.

You can also call 715-818-9622.

Now, here's the nuts and bolts.

The race starts at about 830, but they'll be registering people.

I believe starting at 730.

Awards begin at about 930 for the first one mile.

The first, the 1K fund run.

But it starts at Witterfield, everyone.

I'll come join in.

This is for all ages.

It's a matter who you are.

All this is about supporting the Southwood County YMCA and some of the fantastic programs that they have for all community members.

So please, if you are able, check it out tomorrow morning, bridge to bridge.

The 5K race and 1K fund run walk.

And of course, we're going to be there at WIRI.

James will be setting up shop and talking a couple of times.

So hopefully get some good interviews with people and just give you the atmosphere.

What it's like doing what's happening tomorrow.

We're going to cross our fingers about the weather.

Yeah.

It's not looking great right now, but here's open.

Here's open.

You cannot wait to be out and about.

Come on by, say hi.

And of course, if you feel like running or walking or being a part of this event,

you're putting back into your community.

You're helping the Y not only bring in new members, but to keep members and keep people that may not be able to afford the membership.

Exactly.

But they're able to work with the Y because of things like this.

Exactly.

We appreciate our friends at the South of kind of YMCA.

Yep.

I'm going to have a good time down there.

Absolutely.

I'll be there on seven in the morning.

I'll start setting up and everything.

Oh, that's nothing for you, right?

Nothing, nothing.

Nothing, nothing.

I'll be well into my day by then.

We encourage you to get your register right now by going to SWCYMCA.org, SWCYMCA.org.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

We'll take a quick time out.

We'll come back after our new sports and partner break with a topic that Seth chooses.

Okay, good.

What do you want?

Coming up on the morning stuff.

Welcome back, everyone.

Morning show at WFHR.

Seth and James hanging out with you.

We hope you're having a great one out there.

And how would you like to see the brewers for free?

I would love to see the brewers for free, but I'm not eligible.

No, that's right, darn it.

I was just going to hand it to you.

Okay, well, we got four pack of brewers tickets for an upcoming set game.

One coming up right here.

Let me get this Saturday, August 23rd.

Brewers taking on San Fran.

That's going to be a fun one.

Yeah, that's going to be a good one.

Gigantes.

Pull out the Civic Media app and text us the keyword run.

Are you in?

Text that to us and get a chance to run to American Family Field.

What's called Miller Park?

I did too.

I did too.

See if you can get yourself these brewers tickets.

Again, text us through the Civic Media app run.

Get yourself a chance to win that four pack of brewers tickets.

It's a big shout out to our friends over at the Milwaukee Brewers.

Yeah.

Getting us a chance to do this.

It's a lot of fun.

We love doing this.

Run.

Text it to us and run to your app and text it to us.

Yes.

Seth, which topic would you like to get into?

Okay, it's another both to me very intriguing topics.

But I got to, okay, 90 shows that change.

I mean, I got to hear this.

I'm just curious about how they changed the world first of all.

Great topic.

It's a great topic.

It's right in our wheelhouse.

Yes, it is.

So take a look at this.

A list of 90s TV shows that changed the world.

People refer to the 2000s as the start of a new golden age of TV.

But some important stuff was happening in the 90s to kind of pave the way for those things.

Yeah, nothing happens in a vacuum.

There's always steps beforehand.

There are plenty of shows and plenty of things we can point to and say,

well, that's cancelable now or something like that.

Sure.

But it was so much of that material that paved the way for us.

Yeah.

More times than not for entertainment.

In order to figure out where the bar is, we have to go too far.

Yeah.

That's true.

That's true.

Entertainment has been doing this since Vodville.

Oh, you don't want women.

You don't want to see women's legs.

What about belly dancers?

Yeah.

We can do that.

We can't see these words.

What about these words?

Right.

And then radio and then TV and all the stuff.

And for every show that walks the line, there are shows that push the envelope and maybe go too far.

But that's how we figure out where we need to find that line.

Exactly.

In the sand.

Okay.

This is too far for people.

Oh, this is just the right spot.

There you go.

That's how we do it.

And so looking at these, here are 10 shows from that decade that really changed things.

We'll start, of course, at number 10.

Let's do it.

Quote, blurred the lines between television and art in a way no show had done before.

Hmm.

Two things.

A couple of real quick James before you say anything on this one.

This might take on Twin Peaks.

I like the show.

I really did.

The first season was, you've never seen it on TV before.

It was actually, you know, absolutely amazing.

The things, but you see David Lynch's little things in there like the soap opera.

There's a very soap opera that, you know, that's part of it.

There is a soap opera that happens within the show that kind of parallels what's happening,

which is really cool.

And I got to talk about the soundtrack.

Yeah.

David Lynch, always a big fan of three Beatles rock and roll.

Some of my favorite music of all time.

And his use of music in that show was spot on.

Yeah.

I would say with every David Lynch production, the music.

Yeah.

Him and Mark Frost.

I got to get Mark Frost credit too, of course.

Great stuff.

I do like the show.

I do think it was a game changer in many ways.

I agree with all that.

What I didn't like and what I get confused a little bit.

And I would love to talk with David Lynch about this is the idea.

I write this incredible mystery or concept or anything like that.

And I don't really give answers.

And while I love the idea of leaving and opening up for the audience to use their imagination.

And security, right?

I also feel like it's sometimes lazy storytelling.

Oh.

All I got to do was come up with the beginning in the middle.

I don't have to worry about how this ends.

I don't have to wrap everything up.

It led away to no country for old men.

And many, many of the Cohen Brothers movies and a lot of that.

Which are incredible works.

But I also find them to be a little bit kind of lazy in some ways.

And I don't have a better word for it.

So I apologize.

I mean, no insult to these great incredible people.

Right.

But I think that's really, that's really easy to do.

Yeah, right.

It's a lot harder to come up with an ending that works.

Right.

Well, and, you know, this great point and maybe they'll tie it in here a little bit.

The ending of the sopranos was very polarizing for people.

But here's the thing.

I think that with a show like, you know, well, Twin Peaks never got a chance to really end because it was canceled and all that kind of stuff.

But with a show like the sopranos, you've watched the whole series.

You know, you, you should by then have an idea of a possible ending.

Yeah.

And I think that's, for me, personally, that's fine.

Yeah.

You can come up with your own idea.

But you have to do it in a way that's not, you know, that's not, if you do it too open-ended, then I think, yeah, you're going into that realm of like, well, what's going on here?

You know, couldn't write an ending, you know, kind of thing.

Yeah.

But if you do it in a way that, you know, that people can have a, a choices about what it is.

And I think you've done a good job.

Well said.

Yeah, great.

At number nine, Beverly Hills 90210 made T-Dramas a serious and widely popular TV genre.

They totally did.

And along with that, really, one of the big things that helped a young network get established.

Yeah, Fox, I mean, 100%.

You think of the shows that came after it in a lot of different ways.

I would say Gilmore Girls, you know, different tone, but very similar in a lot of ways.

And then, you know, the OC and then we had all these other shows.

But yes, the Trailblazer.

Charmed comes in at number eight.

Quote proved female lead genre TV could be both magical and mainstream.

The popularity and success of that show, we had not had a lot of that before where you had a show that was three leading women.

Yep.

And with a different subject matter, it wasn't about, here's the thing about a show like that.

And I didn't watch it necessarily.

But I know people that did.

Being able to write TV where it's women and the leads, but the whole show is involved their men.

It's not about every conversation.

Here's a great technique that we learned back in school, back in college and everything about writing

and when it comes to writing for women or any of these things.

Can you as a male writer write a paragraph even about a woman and has nothing to do with her husband or her boyfriend or

her brother or father or whatever or something like that and writing material that has nothing to do with guys.

Just writing material for women and all that.

Again, going back to representation and some of the things we were talking about before.

Right.

Everything.

You put all of that in the context.

Yeah, it's a game-changing show.

I can see that.

I wouldn't have thought that on the surface.

Me neither.

But thinking about a point there, yeah.

At number seven, law and order.

Redefined procedural storytelling for the modern era.

100%.

I've watched darn near every single cop or a law show there's been.

And to this day, there's nothing like law and order.

Well, you get two TV shows.

Basically.

First half of the show, you're getting the cop drama.

Yes.

Second half.

You get that courtroom drama.

Yeah.

No show like it.

No, even.

Okay.

Let me.

I think Dick Wolf.

It was his excess to that point is the whole reason they were able to make the show.

Pitch this to me back in 1990 or whenever the show started to do an executive, right?

Okay.

What we're going to do.

We're going to have a police show.

Oh, right.

Cop shows.

Yeah.

We love cop shows.

Yeah.

It's going to be, you know, a couple of cops doing a procedure and then we're going to go to the courtroom and follow it there.

It's incredible.

Well, that's it.

Nothing about their personal lives.

Nope.

Yeah.

Nothing.

Yeah.

Nothing about their personal lives at all.

We're not talking Hill Street Blues.

We're not talking.

I know it came later.

N.Y.

PD Blue.

But none of that.

At all.

Yeah.

I'm surprised that he sold the show at all.

I can't.

Seriously.

When Loan, it's still running.

The fact that it's to end the end of the format has not changed.

Yeah.

It doesn't remain the same.

Amazing.

And all the spin-offs that he created.

So successful.

Including homicide life on the street.

And into that universe and everything.

And there are ways that you can look at this and say, you might not have NBC without law

and order.

But it's kept in a flow after many years and everything.

Very true.

Very true.

Maybe the biggest game changer of all like shows like that courtroom or very little violence.

You see very little violence in it as well.

And I would love to see more shows where the focus, the lead actors or the lead story is about

the people, the clients and all this stuff.

Right.

Not the actual characters you see every week.

Right.

It's really important.

It's a great note.

ER comes in at number six.

Turn medical dramas into high stakes.

Character-driven epics.

Yes.

Every drama, every medical show since ER has been a piggyback of ER.

Gray's anatomy should be kissing the feet of ER every day, considering how long and successful they've been.

Think of every medical and there's believe been an influx of medical dramas.

And they're all very similar to ER where before, here's another one where I would like to see it about the clients.

And not so much the doctors and main actors and everything.

Right.

Number five, the ex files.

Brought paranoia, science fiction and myth making into the mainstream.

Yes.

Oh, absolutely.

And maybe there's some bad things that came along with the ex files too.

Yeah.

Some people took it a little too seriously.

But again, something you never saw on TV.

Yeah.

It was brand new.

Should probably shouldn't have worked.

Kind of thing, but it sure did.

Man, when you get two stars, like Jillian Anderson and David Coveney, who carried the show.

They were the only regular characters, especially at the beginning.

I mean, you have to give them a lot of credit.

Yeah.

Chris Carter, yeah, the creator and everything like that.

But you have to give those two a lot of credit.

The only thing I didn't like about that show was it kind of like leaning way into conspiracy theory.

I agree.

I'm just not a conspiracy theory.

No.

And giving it a little, I think a little more, what's the word I'm looking for?

A little more than it deserved, you know.

Yeah.

Give me a little more.

Like a little too much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's pull back a little bit for that.

Life is stranger than fiction.

It is.

It is.

It is.

You know, but a game changer.

Yeah.

And for a guy who isn't really into sci-fi, I watched the first, I think.

I think I watched the whole thing.

Sign felled.

Comes in at number four.

Turn nothing into something and change TV comedy forever.

Um, I might, I'm not, this is not disparaging.

Sign felled at all.

I watched it very regularly.

Other than, you know, curb your enthusiasm, which is like a direct, you know, it's not

a sequel, but it's kind of, it's a direct, you know, offsprings like a spin-off.

Because it's Larry David, who worked on Sign felled.

That was his show.

Right.

Is there anything like it?

Yeah.

There's, there's no.

No.

I, I cannot think of anything that's similar.

I, I, I know.

Maybe are we sunny and filled up, but that still has a different, oh, yeah, feel to it

that Sign felled.

So I don't know.

I don't think there's ever been and there never will be another show like Sign felled.

No.

It's very singular.

Especially because nowadays they don't give you weeks to, hey, we're going to let

you, the writers figure out these characters and, you know, build up a, you know, build

up to something or anything like that.

The ratings that Sign felled had its first couple months.

It'd be gone.

Yeah.

They would have stuck with it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it wasn't even in the top 10 or I believe or whatever it was.

They were in the dumps.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's also, it, maybe the last example we have of patients with TV and patients from producers

and everything.

Not anymore.

At number three, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh.

Way higher on the list than I would have thought.

That's surprising, but when you think about it, elevated team, team TV and provided a genre

could be emotional and profound.

So you've got basically, and this is, I mean, kind of, it's a very broadly speaking,

you got 90210 with the ex files, in a sense, right?

You're kind of blending too.

At the time that were very far apart, you know, you got the teens and the, but they blended

it and they did a fantastic job with it.

You, a important part of that, what you said there at the time, at the time.

Now we've seen a hundred shows like this, Blonder band, that's, and we got to attribute

it to Buffy.

Absolutely.

A popular one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually, a few myself, but yeah, I'm sorry, I always do this to you.

I mix it up with Sabrina, the teenage, I do that every time.

I understand.

That's fine.

But you're right.

Great points, man.

And then at number two, another one I have no idea about, but I agree with this list,

friends.

Yeah.

The global phenomenon that redefined a modern sitcom.

That I would give them because they did.

They did.

The length, how long it lasted, you know, the adding, so much of the soap opera now, I

mean, sitcoms after that would never be the same.

Yeah.

They would never, they, they saw the formula and they're like, whoa, cool.

We can make money.

Speaking of NBC, it really helped NBC at a time it really needed a hit.

It changed TV theme songs.

They did.

They've never been the same since.

No.

And now, one of the last that was like a big hit too, right?

They will either take a popular song that fits the theme of the movie or TV show, I mean,

or they will make up a little instrumental and that's it or not even have one.

Yeah.

Does that matter?

It was, it almost took it so far that it couldn't go come back to like, you know, the

cheer's theme songs or something like that, that had gone away.

And at number one, the Simpsons, now I know why he chose this, no, I'm just kidding.

Re-shaped comedy animation and pop culture as we know it.

Like, no other TV show ever has.

Yes.

There is, there is nothing but bias for me on this one is my favorite show of all time.

I've seen everything go second of the Simpsons multiple times.

Does it, does it mean that you're wrong?

No.

Does it mean you're wrong?

No.

There is a book that just came out called Stupid TV Be More Funny.

And it's, it's about this, about the cultural influence of the Simpsons in the 90s.

I mean, they've written a whole book about it, so it, yeah, totally.

It changed the face of television in a lot of ways.

Not only do you get, of course, South Park and adult swim, like, like all these different

animated shows, all, every network has had an animated show, every streaming services

had an animated show.

Which police?

Nice good, good reference, brother, good reference.

But adult animated shows, not for kids, right, that kind of, but also, Seth McFarland would

not have a career, like, period, like, he's incredibly talented and probably got him discovered

at some point or another one, family guy, the Cleveland show, the American dad, all these

things.

Like, it doesn't happen without the Simpsons.

There is no Fox Network without the Simpsons.

So many of these shows on Fox, because they were the ones that had to, and I'm not saying

willing to, they had to take chances in order to get in on the networks to actually become

the fourth network.

And you see that what happened, they were smart about it.

If the Simpsons doesn't happen, then you do not have the X-Files, you don't have Charm,

you don't have Beverly Hills 902, no, you don't have any of the shows that Fox premieres

or anything.

It is easily, I could, man, I love to battle people of this one, because there is no

show that has been more influential than this.

I'm trying to find people who would, like, disagree with that.

That's weird.

But anyway.

I think they do just the best with me.

I think we're pretty much, pretty much, but, uh, yep, that family of the Simpsons may

have changed TV.

We will take a quick time out.

We'll come back and wrap up the show for the week, Morning Show on WFHR.

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Uh, I'm going to have a good conversation with him in just a little minute here.

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