Episode 4: It's Gonna Stay Right There in Your Heart (UNLOCKED)

Details, credits, errata: This week we’re opening up our first subscribers-only episode as a treat for folks who’d like to see what they’ll get with a subscription. I think this is one of our better eps; we hope you dig it. -sbtHi! This week we have an extra-long subscribers-only episode about McGee and Me, the Focus on the Family-produced VHS tape series sold through Christian bookstores to Christian schoolers (like Sam) and homeschoolers (like Alissa) as an antidote to secular sitcoms like Family Matters, The Cosby Show, and Full House, which neither of us were allowed to watch. It was a very unusual mix of high-budget sitcom content—at one point a couple of episodes were aired by ABC as trial balloons, but they didn’t break the ratings thresholds to get pickups—and absolutely brutal Calvinist condemnation. The Failure Bible, as referenced in the podcast, can be seen here. For anyone who would like to watch McGee and Me, the complete series is available at no cost here. For people who would like to spare themselves McGee and Me, please go watch The Simpsons. For people somewhere in the middle, we recommend James Covell’s album of his chameleonic pop songs written for the show; Who Do You Think You Are?, despite containing the lyric “you’re not as cool as you think you are!”, which, James, I know, is honestly kind of a bop.We know that not everybody can afford to subscribe so we’ve put up an extra-long sample of the episode. We hope you dig it.Sam said that Sylvester Stallone had won the Oscar for the Rocky screenplay; he now knows that Stallone was merely nominated for both the screenplay and his performance and did not win. (Both awards went to Network. Tough luck, Sly.) He also said that the BBC Narnia adaptations were available on Focus at Home; in fact only Focus’s own radio play adaptations of the books are available. Come on, Sam. Get it together. The radio adaptations aren’t bad, if Sam remembers correctly, but then, Sam thought he’d only seen a show or two of McGee and Me and then realized he’d seen them all and ended up having to apologize for all the swears in this episode.In the event that your podcast player of choice does not play the McGee and Me episode, we want you to know that it’s probably because you did something wrong.Our theme song is Louis Armstrong and His Hot 5’s Muskrat Ramble, made freely available by the Boston Public Library and audio engineering shop George Blood, LP through the Internet Archive. The rights to McGee and Me are believed to belong to Focus on the Family, Tyndale House Publishers, and Biblica, which now owns New Living Translations, the company that product-placed its Bibles in every episode of this children’s sitcom. Brief audio clips are used herein for review purposes. All other content is copyright 2020 Sam Thielman and Alissa Wilkinson.Our episode art is a picture of Sam’s son.Thank you so much for subscribing. We couldn’t do this without you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yammpod.substack.com