Today I am joined by my other Shooting the poo podcast show host from days gone by Ian Mond and we head to Colorado to to celebrate a non-denominational character who visits everyone each Christmas whose maintained a balanced high fibre diet throughout the year, and the 1995 AFL Grand Final.

Today I am joined by 3 very special guests, my 2 children, Jax, & Gee and our cat Maxwell Paws and they share their opinions on Christmas...well the kids do, Max became tight lipped as soon as we pushed record.

Massive Attack returns for its annual Christmas tradition of annoying you with daily podcasts about Christmas.

Mitch couldn't do it alone so put the call out for help And Mitch's co-host from Hey Hey it's the podcast and WrestleRock Commentator Christmas tragic Criss Fresh stepped up to the plate to talk about one of his favorite childhood films, Santa Claus: the movie.

In what is now becoming a bit of a tradition, as the dust settles on another year and another 12 Days of Christmas countdown, we start off the new year by looking back at the old one and going over some of our favourite things including comics, gaming, TV, Movies and new podcasts we’ve started listening to in 2018.

There may be couple of spoilers in there, especially when we discuss the DC Injustice Vs Masters Of The Universe cross-over comic, and “Bohemian Rhapsody”, but other than that we’re pretty safe.

After hoping for a big finish for the 12 days we gave up on our original choice and went back to animations with the 1959 Russian short "A Christmas Visit", which is sometimes also known as "A Christmas Tree" just to be confusing.

It's the story of a young Russian boy who is sad that his weatherman father in Antarctica will miss out on having a tree for Christmas, so with the help of Santa and his magical plane, and some friendly animals, tries to get one there.

There a few versions of this online, unfortunately they all seem a little washed-out as far as colour goes, but you can watch it here on Youtube.

And just for a special Christmas treat, make sure you stick around for the song!

Today we go all educational again with this strange little doco featuring a school teacher, aptly named Mrs. White, taking her class through some Christmas traditions from around the world.

Other than a Riftrax version we couldn't find much online about this, no links on Youtube or other streaming sights, and couldn't even find out what year it actually was made, but we're assuming it was somewhere in the late fifties.

We're getting closer to Christmas and it into the final three days of our countdown, so today for Day 10 we watched the 1936 short, "Christmas Comes But Once A Year". Produced by the Fleischer Studios, this beautifully animated short tells the story of Professor Grampy visiting some sad orphans to brighten up their Christmas day by creating some nifty toys out of household bits and pieces.

There is a very nicely restored version available to watch on YouTube as well.

Christmas is a time for celebrations and having fun, yet today for Day 9 we picked something a little bit more depressing in the 1954 adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" from Castle Films. Freaky Icemen, interpretive dance, a reggae loving Santa and heartless street kids stealing shoes. It's all here in this crazy short film.

And if you don't have Amazon Prime, don't fret, it's all here on Daily Motion.

While some of the picks for this year's 12 days have been entertaining, today for Day 8 it's time to get educated too as we bring you this informative short from 1953 called "Silent Night: A Story Of A Christmas Carol". The title kinda gives it away, as we go back to Austria in 1818 when the song was first composed.

If you are watching along at home, its not just on Amazon Prime, but can also be found here on YouTube.

For Day 7 we head back to the 1940's with this charming little short called "A Christmas Dream", which we think is either from 1946 or 1949 depending on who you believe.

Originally made by Czech brothers Karel and Borivoj Zeman, but then dubbed into English by Castle Films, it features a nice mix of stop motion, 2D animation and live action, and was a pleasure to watch after some of the crap we've seen over the last few days.

This one is all over the internet, but you can find a pretty clear copy over on YouTube.

Today we dive into another of the Amazon Prime Omnibus collections, Classic Christmas Favourites, and watch not one, but two shorts.

First it's a happy tale of a family singing carols and opening their gifts on Christmas morning in the 1950 Caste Film short "Merry Christmas", but then things take a turn for the bizarre with the truly amazing bad puppetry and even worse story telling in 1948's "Santa in Animal Land".

We couldn't find "Merry Christmas" online, but really it's not worth the effort, but here is Santa In Animal Land on Youtube in all it's glory!

Hopefully you have taken the right drugs to enjoy today’s pick, as we go back to 1957 for “Gumby’s Christmas Capers”. It’s a collection of vaguely Christmas themed episodes clumped together, featuring some stories that go nowhere staring everybody’s favourtie clay boy and his pet pony.

We weren't able to find the full show on Youtube, but you can watch one story, Santa-Witch here.

Sherman is an elf that can’t seem to do anything right, and the star of today’s TV special, “Santa’s Magic Toy Bag” from 1984. Created by Paul Fusco, who went on to make the puppet ALF, this poor man’s Muppet Show really made us earn our explicit tag!

We couldn't find it on youtube, but there is a pretty good rip you can watch here on Vimeo - Santa's Magic Toy Bag.

Massive attack is back! Well, sort of.

Mitch is back and he's flying solo and by the seats of his pants.

the first episode back is a short one.  It's all about He-Man and a couple of other cartoons that may sound a little familiar.

thanks for sticking by and checking it out and welcome to any new listeners.

Hope you like it.

Please send any feedback to the Facebook page or to themapodcast@gmail.com and don't forget to review and rate us wherever you can.

It’s a crazy one today, as we look at a short from 1964 called “Santa’s Enchanted Village”. Filmed around the Santa’s Village theme parks in Detroit and California, and featuring some of the worst animal costumes we’ve seen in a long time, this is a sight to behold. On top of that there is a strange intro section that feels very tacked on hosted by a familiar face.

If you are playing along at home and don't have Prime, or if you do but can't face the search function, here it is on YouTube - Santa's Enchanted Village.  Although it is missing the added intro sequence.

We skip forward a decade from yesterday for Day 2, and another animated cartoon today called “Santa’s Surprise” from 1947, which just so happens was the first appearance of Lil Audrey, as her group of other children for around the world sneak into Santa’s house to tidy up and say thanks for all  the presents.

Can you say casual racism anyone?

Also, for those non-Prime listeners, you can find it here on Youtube.

This year for the 12 day countdown we thought we’d try something different and pick all of our TV shows we watch from Amazon Prime. And, once we navigated the shitful search function, we did find quite a lot of Christmas content.

So, for Day 1 we go way back to 1937 for “Gifts From The Air”, a very nicely animated short featuring a poor young boy who dreams of magical wind-up toys and has some ingenious ways of making a tree on the cheap.

And for those of you playing along at home that don't have Amazon Prime, you can find it on Youtube here - Gifts From The Air

In our final Welcome to My World mini ep for the year, we continue with our 80’s fantasy film saga and look at the 1987 film, “The Barbarians” staring everybody’s favourite set of bodybuilding twins, David and Peter Paul, AKA The Barbarian Brothers.

Does it still hold up? Was it actually any good in the first place? And just how 80’s New York can a sword and sorcery film really be?

We start off this month with a little chat about Mitch’s recent redundancy, and the adventures our children had for Halloween, before a very brief discuss of what it’s like playing multiplayer games with kids under 10.

Then it’s TV with Joe being a little disappointed with the new seasons of “American Horror Story” and “Making A Murderer”, and the re-boot “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” but really enjoying the Netflix original, “Atypical”, while Mitch adds another streaming service to his list, so he can watch “Titans”.

We then wrap up the show by watching two bio-pics, Joe with the story of a white trash ice skater in “I, Tonya” and Mitch with the greatest front man in the history of rock in “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

For the mini ep this month we continue our journey through the fantasy films of our youth, with “The Beast Master” from 1982. We, especially Joe, were really looking forward to re-watching this, but as it turns out it is much longer and drawn out than we remembered, and in places not really what we remembered at all.

In our disappointment we even go on a little tangent about the final Blockbuster Video closing in Greensborough recently.

We start the show this month with a bit of a chat about gaming, including Mitch deleting “Toy Blast”, Joe’s kids going “Pokemon Go” crazy while on holiday in Tasmania, The “Fire Pro Wrestling World” New Japan DLC, and going old school with original Xbox games.

We both had trips to the movies, so we discuss “The House With A Clock In It’s Walls”, “Venom” and why “Predator” is no way near as good as the original one.

In TV Mitch wraps up “Castlerock”, Joe watches the ABC sci-fi drama “Glitch” on Netflix, and we go down two massive rabbitholes, firstly with toy trains and demolition derby on Amazon Prime, then with Insane Clown Posse and the Gathering of the Juggalos on YouTube.

Plus we have just a little bit of time left to wrap up this past weekend’s wrestling events.

This month we continue with our 80's Sci-Fi Fantasy theme by watching "The Sword And The Sorcerer".

A slight stuff-up with where we thought it was streaming did mean we ended up watching the RiffTrax version on Amazon Prime, but I think we still got the idea that this 1982 "classic" may not have been as good as we remembered it being.

Still, a Barry Gibb lookalike in a fur coat with a three-pronged sword can't be all bad, can it?

Both Mitch and Joe were big fans of Burt Reynolds. Over the course of our show he is the only person we've dedicated a whole episode to, so we we're saddened by his recent death. 

As a special tribute we are reposting episode 77 from our A to Z specials that originally posted in September 2017.

After a month and a bit away from the show, Joe has got his head back together (even if we did get the episode number wrong), so we sat down and had a chat about what we’ve been up to since we last recorded.

Joe has got a new PC, so has been dabbling in streaming his Xbox One to it via Windows 10 and Mitch has finished “Far Cry 5” and is looking for a new game, but after reading the Box Brown graphic novel “Tetris: The Games People Play” we fall back down that familiar rabbit hole.

In movies Joe was disappointed with “Ready Player One” and down-right angry with “A Wrinkle In Time” while Mitch loved “Mission Impossible: Fall Out” but thought “Skyscraper” was stupid.

After that it’s TV time, as Joe also really liked the Masters of The Universe doco on Netflix “The Power of Greyskull”, and Mitch dove in deep into “Castle Rock”.

As we kick off 2022 we look back to the dumpster fire of a year that was 2021. There were some shining lights though, so in this first part of our double header we look at our favourite gaming and television moments.

Be warned, as there may be a couple of spoilers in there as we discuss Tiger King 2, Clickbait, Squid Game and Ted Lasso. Plus Mitch tackles the plethora of Marvel related shows on Disney+.

This month for the mini we go back to 1983, when Joe was 12 and Mitch 10, for a movie that was right in our wheelhouse, the sci-fi fantasy "Krull".

We have fond memories of this from when we were younger, especially for Joe, but does it hold up in 2018? Probably not. It still has some pretty cool concepts though, plus an awesome signature weapon.

We start off the show this month re-capping our big weekend at Continuum Con 14, including DJ’ing the costume ball and hosting the movie trailer panel, then we jump into TV with Joe getting his Netflix True Crime fix with “Evil Genius” and “Making A Murderer” and Mitch binging the new season of “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” as well as a dose of trash TV for the both of us with “100% Hotter”.

After that we jump into the two biggest nerdy movies showing at the moment, with a spoiler free “Deadpool 2” chat, and a slightly spoilery “Solo: A Star Wars Story” conversation, plus we manage to sneak in a little wrestling chat at the end with news that New Japan star Tetsuya Naito will be here in August for Melbourne City Wrestling.

35 years ago a little known actor, Nicolas Cage, had his first starring role in the teen comedy-romance, “Valley Girl” so to celebrate this milestone we went back and watched it for this month’s mini ep.

Joe had fond memories of this from back in the day, especially the soundtrack, but turns out Mitch remembered it more for the trailer than the film itself.

Does it still hold up after all this time? Did it ever? And what the hell is going on with Cage’s chest hair?

This month Joe has started a new mobile game called “The Muscle Hustle” and binge watched the street racing reality series “Fastest Car” and the coming-of-age cartoon “Big Mouth” on Netflix, as well as starting the Karate Kid spin-off “Cobra Kai” and the classic sit-com “The Golden Girls”. We even managed to start season 2 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Westworld” too.

For movies Mitch goes in-depth, but spoiler free for “Avengers: Infinity War” and Joe raves about “The Greatest Showman” and “Peter Rabbit” before we wrap up the show with a chat about our adventures at Free Comic Book Day.

This month, inspired by the new graphic novel "Is This Guy For Real? The Incredible Andy Kaufman" by cartoonist Box Brown, for our not-so-mini mini episode we go down a crazy rabbit hole.

We discuss the life of Andy, as depicted in the book, including his early years, Elvis impersonations, Foreign Man, his role on the sitcom "Taxi", his alter-ego Tony Clifton, and,  more close to our wheel houses, his foray into the world of professional wrestling for his feud with Jerry "The King" Lawler.

We also discuss the 1999 Jim Carey film "Man On The Moon", dive into the very strange "My Breakfast with Blassie" and watch a lot of YouTube clips of the man himself.

We start off this episode with a little bit of co-op gaming chat, then Mitch talks about his new release purchase, "Far Cry 5" before moving on to reality TV at it's worst in "Age Gap Love" and it's best with "Nailed It". Then Mitch was disappointed with the new series "Rise" and the re-boot of "Reboot", but we both dig the new animated "Corner Gas".

In movies, Mitch goes to the cinema to see "Pacific Rim: Uprising", is impressed with "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri" and Joe and his wife have differing opinions on "Annihilation" and "Spiderman: Homecoming" before both enjoying "Hurricane Bianca".

Then for our topic, seeing as it was Wrestlemania week, we talk about how we became wrestling fans growing up, meeting each other at the Prince Pat’s, how we got involved in the local scene, our thoughts on the actual Wrestlemania 34 event, and Joe gets emotional watching the new Andre The Giant HBO doco.

Inspired by our chat about bands and gigs on our last episode, for the mini this month we decided to look at our favourite made-up band movies.

Mitch goes with the classic mockumentory metal band Spinal Tap, from "This Is Spinal Tap" and Joe goes with the Oneders from the 1996 Tom Hanks written and directed "That Thing You Do!"

On the show this month Joe plays some "Viva Piñata: Party Animals" with his kids, and finishes off the some more "Borderlands 2" DLC before making the most of his new Netflix subscription and mainlining all of the new season of "Black Mirror" and the 90's themed "Everything Sucks". We also look at Joel McHale's new show "The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale" and Mitch finally uses his Amazon Prime to watch "The Tick".

In movies we briefly talk Marvel's "Black Panther" and Oscar winner "The Shape of Water", go a little bit spoilery on "Get Out", look at docos "Saving Bankys" and "Jiro Dreams of Sushi", and dive into 70's custom van culture with the unimaginatively titled "The Van".

The for our topic, inspired by our recent outing to see Pop Will Eat Itself, and Mitch's experience at Queen + Adam Lambert, we discuss our favourite concerts, as well as some tips on concert etiquette, Mitch's mosh related injuries, and the bizarre world of the Juggalos.

For this month’s mini we get passionate, maybe a little bit too passionate in some cases, about the new Netflix series, "Queer Eye".

It's an in-depth chat about the contestants, the make-overs, the new Fab 5, a breakdown of who we love and who we don't,  and how they compare to the original hosts of the 2003 version.

It is pretty spoiler heavy, so if you may want to watch the show before listening to this episode.

It's back to our old format this episode, so we start off by having a bit of a chat about gaming with more "Tekken 7" and "Oddworld: New & Tasty" for Joe, and the Hot Wheels expansion pack for "Forza Horizon 3" for Mitch before moving on TV where Joe has become a streaming service machine, signing up of both New Japan Pro Wrestling World and the WWE Network. On top of that he has also started Netflix and has gone head first into the trashy "Deep Fried Masters" and the slightly more highbrow "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" whereas Mitch is keeping it geeky with the new DC series "Black Lightning".

In movies, we've both been to the cinema to see the new "Jumaji" reboot, so we talk about that, as well as Mitch's trip to Imax with his son, the Netflix fantasy "Bright" and the George Lucas classic "American Graffiti".

Then for our topic this month, we "Pod It Forward" and show some love for a few of the newer additions to our podcast listening lists, including "The Guilty Feminist", "All Killa No Filla", "Edge & Christians Pod of Awesomeness", "Something to Wrestle", "Wizard and The Bruiser". "1D10T" and "Pitchface". Mitch even gets a couple of plugs in for his other podcasts, "Geekdudes" and "Hey, Hey It's the Podcast" too.

We'd like to think we've saved the best for last with this offering for Day 12 from the cartoon series "The Real Ghostbusters" from 1986.

What happens with a team famous for catching ghosts meet up with Jacob Marley and his spirit friends? Christmas chaos obviously. 

We're back for another season of our mini-episodes, and just in time for Valentine's Day!

So, as a tribute to the romance genre, we've put our own spin on it and look at our favourite romances, the David Lynch film "Wild At Heart" starring Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern for Mitch, and the Oliver Stone directed "Natural Born Killers" with Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis and a cast of thousands for Joe.

In a January tradition that we started six years ago with our very second podcast, this episode we look forward with our Great Expectations for 2018.

That's right, all the stuff we're excited about in the coming year for television and movies, plus a little bit of gaming thrown in too.

Seeing as we had so much to say we broke the end of year all media round up into two parts, so here is the second part with the boys covering live events including some musicals and wrestling shows, books, comics and movies.

We do go pretty spoiler heavy with the new Star Wars film, "The Last Jedi", so if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to turn off around the 1 hour 10 minute mark.

We're back for another year, so after a bit of a chat about our Christmas and New Year breaks, we jump right in to our review of 2017 and all the things we watched, did and played.

Seeing as we hadn't really had a chance to talk much about the year as we were doing the A to Z eps, we've had to break it into two parts, so for part one we look at gaming and TV.

We do go a little spoilery on Game Of Thrones and Stranger Things 2, so be warned if you haven't watched them yet.

For the last day of our 12 Days of Christmas Comedies we go with another modern favourite, with "White Lie Christmas", episode 10 of season 1 of the cleverly funny "My Name Is Earl" from 2005.

We also look back on this year's list and work out which were our picks of the bunch.

For our second last episode of the 12 Days of Christmas Comedies we go back to the heady days of the 80's for another one of our most loved sit-coms from when we were younger.

That's right, "Perfect Strangers", and episode 11, season 2 "A Christmas Story", where we see Balki and his cousin Larry overcoming adversity and celebrating Christmas in their own special way.

Day 10 is here, so today we go back to the 70's for one of our favourite British sit-coms with "Are You Being Served?".

There are lots of laughs, a liberal sprinkling of Christmas cheer, and a big helping of innuendo too, and not just Mrs. Slocombe's pussy. 

We go back to the world of animation for Day 9 as we look at the Xmas, not Christmas, themed episode of "Futurama" called "A Tale Of Two Santas" from 2001.

In this episode, Santa is actually a robot, but instead of being loved by all, he's feared due to a clitch in his programing where he thinks everyone has been naughty, so it's up to Bender, Fry and the crew to try and save the day.

It'd Day 8, and today we go all international with a visit to Dog River, Saskatchewen, and the off-beat Canadian humour that it "Corner Gas".

Mitch is a big fan of the series, however Joe has never seen it before, but both got a lot of laughs out of this epsiode, Season 3 Episode 13 "Merry Gasmas".

As we head into the second half of the 12 days of Christmas we go back to the 80's for another of our favourites growing up, with episode 9 of "Night Court" season 6 "The Night Court Before Christmas".

What happens when court ballif, Bull, accidently gives away the evidence for a case, and just exactly what is guest star John Astin's relationship with Santa?

In one of the very first syndicated television specials, Vincent Price narrates today's version of the classic tale, dubbed "The Christmas Carol" from way back in1949.

Day 6 sees us with one of Mitch's picks, as Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence star as "Melissa and Joey" in this epsiode called "A New Kind Of Christmas" from Season 3.

What happens when Mel's sister comes home from prison on day release to spend Christmas with the family? And why do two grown men in their 40's have such a soft spot for Melissa Joan Hart?

Every year we have done the 12 Days of Christmas we have managed to slot in an episode of "The Simpsons". This year we look at season 11 episode 9 "The Grift of The Magi", which for a Christmas epsiode, really isn't that Christmasy.

Sure, it still has all the absurd humour we'd expect, plus the added bonus of Gary Coleman as guest star, however the biggest laughs come from the non-Christmas set up.

Have we got a treat for today! For Day 4 we go back, way back, all the way to the year 1970 before our hosts, and most of our fans, were even born. This show was so long ago it's even in black and white!

Starring Reg Varney as bus driver, Stan and Stephen Lewis as Inspector Blake, it's the "Christmas Duty" episode of "On The Buses". However, don't let the age fool you, so far this has been our pick of the bunch.