Dancing With Ourselves: A Totally RAD 80's Podcast

Why the hell is everything sealed now?

On September 29, 1982, the Chicago Tylenol murders began—and American consumers would never look at an unopened bottle quite the same way again.

In Episode 147 of Dancing With Ourselves, Jimmy, Jeremy, Josh, and Kane use the Tylenol crisis as the starting point for a much bigger Gen X conversation: we didn’t just grow up in a world that seemed more dangerous—we grew up while th...

How did some of these songs actually become No. 1 hits?

Jimmy, Jeremy, Josh and Kane put the Billboard charts of the 1980s on trial in Episode 146 of Dancing With Ourselves: A Totally RAD 80s Podcast.

The mission sounds simple: take one questionable No. 1 hit from each year, examine the evidence, and decide whether the song deserved its place at the top—or whether America collectively lost its mind for a week.

But this is DWO, s...

Was the 1980s really better—or were we just younger?

Dancing With Ourselves EP145 puts Gen X nostalgia on the witness stand after Ryan Reynolds sparked a fresh debate over how people remember the ’80s. Are we remembering the decade that actually happened, or the edited highlight reel that survived in our heads?

Jimmy, Jeremy, Josh and Kane start with Reynolds, Top Gun and the idea that nostalgia naturally ...

What happens when four Gen X guys show up to record a podcast with absolutely no idea what the hell they’re going to talk about?

Apparently, you just start talking and see where the hole takes you.

DWO EP144 begins with Jimmy, Jeremy, Josh, and Kane admitting there is no topic. No prepared macro subject. No carefully constructed plan. Jimmy even puts VYRA to work searching the DWO catalog and the wider Gen X and 80s podcast wor...

Before Google Maps, smartphones, live traffic, and that little blue dot always knowing where the hell you are, how did we actually get anywhere?

Jimmy, Jeremy, Josh, and Kane go back to the Gen X world of paper road maps, road atlases, handwritten directions, landmarks, gas-station advice, family-road-trip navigation, MapQuest printouts, TomTom, Garmin, and the old tactical nightmare known as “Just follow me.”

But this on...

Artificial intelligence feels like it exploded into our lives overnight.

But did it?

In DWO EP142 — AI Was Already Here, Jimmy, Jeremy, Josh and Kane go digging through the history of artificial intelligence and discover that the machines have been creeping into our lives for a hell of a lot longer than ChatGPT would have you believe.

The trail runs from 1940s cybernetics and artificial-neuron research, through Alan Turing, the ...

Before streaming, smartphones, instant messaging, same-day delivery, and live tracking, waiting wasn't a malfunction in life. Waiting was an actual part of life.

In DWO EP141, Jimmy, Kane, and Jeremy go back to the Gen X world where you took pictures and waited days to find out whether they were any good, sat beside the family telephone hoping somebody would call, hovered over a cassette recorder waiting for the right song to hit th...

 #DWO #DancingWithOurselves #StruggleCuisine #EatWhatYouGot #GenX #GenXPodcast #GenXNostalgia 

What cheap, weird, improvised, or downright questionable childhood meal do you still eat today—even though everybody else thinks it looks disgusting?

DWO EP140 began with Kane and his infamous “depression-era sandwich.” One look at that culinary creation opened the pantry door to a much larger Gen X conversation:

...

⚠️ SPOILER ALERT: Jimmy reviews Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey from approximately 8:55–20:00. Skip directly to 20:00 if you have not seen the movie.

What time is it? Apparently, it’s time to stretch fluorescent rubber across the face of an already colorful plastic watch.

This week, Dancing With Ourselves returns to the Gen-X schoolyard to examine the mid-1980s Swatch Guard craze. Swatch watches were already bright,...

Class is back in session—and this time, the Gen X kids are grading the system that graded us.

In DWO EP138: School Daze, Jimmy, Jeremy, and Kane (Josh was at a Soccer festival for World Cup26) examine the American education system from its earliest foundations through the classrooms of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. What was public education originally created to accomplish? Was it designed to produce informed citizens, capable ...

DWO Ep137 welcomes guest Tom Hippler, creator and host of Fanacek and author of Boxed In - Trapped in 80s Television!

This week, the DWO crew climb straight into the glowing CRT and get trapped in the beautiful madness of 70s and 80s television. Tom brings the Fanacek energy with deep TV knowledge, comedy, acting-world perspective, Navy life experience, and a massive love for the shows, actors, forgotten gems, bizarre spin-o...

We had a plan.

The DWO crew was going to do a Zoom-recorded Uncle Buck watch party. Movie on silent. Crew talking over it. Sound bites ready. Big pancakes. Big 80s energy. Big John Candy love.

Then Paramount+, Zoom, the internet, and the black-box goblin said: Nope.

So we did what DWO does best.

We adapted and overcame.

What started as a watch party for the 1989 John Hughes classic Uncle Buck turned into a full DWO conversation and brea...

This week on Dancing With Ourselves: A Totally RAD 80s Podcast, the crew dives into one of the most unforgettable “wait, what’s that guy’s name again?” icons of the decade: Michael Winslow, the man best remembered by Gen X as Larvell Jones from Police Academy and the human sound-effects machine who could turn his mouth into a siren, robot, helicopter, modem, machine gun, arcade cabinet, or entire movie sound...

This week on Dancing With Ourselves: A Totally RAD 80s Podcast, we’re checking the stats.

Gen X grew up surrounded by numbers we could not verify: TV ratings, Billboard charts, arcade high scores, baseball card stats, report cards, inflation, mortgage rates, toy crazes, AIDS PSAs, crime scares, nuclear anxiety, and the mysterious permanent record.

Before Google, we had TV Guide, Casey Kasem, school assemblies, cereal boxes, bas...

In this episode of Dancing With Ourselves, the crew dives into one of the most Gen X ideas ever:

What if Gen X itself was basically a cover song?

We start with the shocking number of classic 80s and 90s songs that were actually covers, remakes, or reinterpretations of earlier tracks. From “Tainted Love” and “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” to “Red Red Wine,” “Nothing Compares 2 U,” &l...

What the boom was that?

In this episode of Dancing With Ourselves, the crew dives into the loud, strange, and strangely nostalgic world of sonic booms. We start with recent reports of mysterious boom events in South Carolina and Massachusetts/New England, then use those real-world shockwaves as the launch point for a much bigger Gen-X conversation.

What makes a sound feel like a threat? Why does a boom instantly turn a normal day int...

Gen X grew up with school posters, TV specials, public health warnings, government messaging, and media scares that shaped how we saw the world. The Food Pyramid told us to load up on bread. Pluto was the ninth planet. Y2K was going to crash civilization. Duck-and-cover drills were supposed to help us survive nuclear war. We heard about global cooling, global warming, acid rain, the ozone hole, overpopulation, AIDS, peak oil, and a...

DWO Ep#130 goes full Gen X nostalgia with a deep-cut tribute to Pat Roach — the towering British wrestler-turned-actor who became one of the greatest “wait, THAT guy?!” faces of 80s action cinema.

You may not know his name immediately, but if you grew up watching Indiana Jones, Conan, Willow, Bond movies, VHS adventure flicks, cable reruns, or practical-effects action scenes, you absolutely knew the face.

Episode 129, recorded Tuesday, May 12, 2026.

This week, Jimmy saw the new movie about one of the biggest pop-culture figures of all time, and that launched the crew into a full Gen X memory dive. We do not just talk about the music. We talk about the era, the videos, the dancing, the glove, the jackets, the fame machine, MTV, childhood memories, schoolyard moonwalk attempts, and the weird emotional gravity of watching a performer be...