In this episode:

• The Night Before Christmas Troll Read-Along Classics audio book featuring a psychotic Santa Claus,
• Courtney Love,
• Michael J. Fox,
• George Takei and Christian Slater audio from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,
• listener comments (the NYC public transit strike),
• a get-rich-quick scheme (MTA bus drivers),
• our movie review of Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) starring Jack Black and Naomi Watts,
• Ellis Island (www.ellisisland.org),
• Creepshow (1982) starring Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson,
• and Kevin McCarthy.

Happy holidays!

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We first saw Dr. Miller’s exploits during 12th grade Physics class on old PBS taped episodes of his show. He often attempted crazy experiments which went awry, leaving his studio, props, students, or Professor Miller himself busted up!

Here at the Paunch Show, we have a running skit where we re-enact his experiments on the show, resulting in his lab assistant getting injured. Visit www.abc.net.au/science/features/whyisitso/ to watch original Why Is It So? videos!

About the Professor from the Why Is It So? homepage…

Julius Sumner Miller, as he started making the Why Is It So? series for broadcast, gained much positive response from the public and much outcry from academics. The Professor was in high demand across the globe, appearing in Australia twenty-six times, and eventually had a question posted everyday in The Australian newspaper in 1966.

To finish up, who better than the man himself, who gave his bold goal in the preface to a book of Q & A’s, Millergrams which were taken from The Australian‘s questions.

“The hope I have here is simply summed up: To stir your imagination, awaken your interest, arouse your curiosity, enliven your spirit – all with the purpose of bringing you to ask, as young Maxwell put it, ‘What’s the go of it?’ – or, as Kepler had it, ‘why things are as they are and not otherwise.’ Or, more simply in my own phrase, why is it so?”

Martial-arts champion and actor Jean-Claude Van Damme has had four ex-wives and a mullet. He can do splits, too.

Kevin Federline is the winner of The Paunch Stevenson Show Lame Idiot of 2005 Award.

Britney Spears asked Kevin Federline to get a job, so he wants to divorce her. Lame. Britney Spears will marry anyone. Equally lame.

(click photo to enlarge)

In 1987, Mel Gibson played the crazy, reckless LAPD Detective Sergeant Martin Riggs in the movie Lethal Weapon. Now, he enjoys spending time with his cat.

In this episode:

• the Lame Idiot of 2005 (Kevin Federline),
• a get-rich-quick-scheme (marry Britney Spears),
• a raw sewage geyser in David and Jeanie Hansen’s basement in Council Bluffs, IA,
• Cyborg (1989) starring Jean-Claude Van Damme,
• celebrity deaths (Richard Pryor),
• “Grandpa” Al Lewis,
• Mel Gibson for governor of California,
• a Mr. T update,
• Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org),
• and a physics experiment with the fake Julius Sumner Miller.

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In 1982, Ted Danson starred alongside Leslie Nielsen in the “Something to Tide You Over” segment of Creepshow, written by Stephen King and directed by George Romero.

On October 8, 1993, Ted Danson appeared in blackface at a Friars Club roast for his girlfriend at the time, Whoopi Goldberg. He performed a mock minstral routine, repeatedly blurted the n-word, and made fun of her private parts.

In this episode:

• a phone call with the fake Michael Jackson,
• Ted Danson’s blackface in 1993,
• celebrity deaths (Pat Morita),
• Collision Course (1989) starring Jay Leno and Pat Morita,
• sci-fi disaster movies,
• TV Guide‘s new larger format,
• the CBS made-for-TV movie Category 7: The End of the World (2005) starring Shannen Doherty and Randy Quaid
• Independence Day (1996) starring Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum,
• a super-strong toilet bowl,
• Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin,
• and a get-rich-quick scheme (eliminate shaving).

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24 minute MP3 file – 11 MB (right-click to save)

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“Uncle Floyd” Vivino, pictured here with his puppet Oogie, had a popular comedy/variety TV show in the late 1970s and early 1980s called The Uncle Floyd Show. He also performed the jingle for Wild West City, a western heritage theme park and frontier town re-creation in Netcong, NJ. He still performs live in NJ almost every night of the year.

Two cultural icons from the mid 1980s: Boy George, a gay singer, and Mr. T, a tough, jive-talking actor.

Boy George had several hit songs with his band Culture Club. Mr. T starred in the hit TV show The A-Team and a cartoon about children who do gymnastics. He also had his own cereal and pitied many fools.