It Happened One Year

And now, the conclusion! The police are after the culprits, the press has caught the oddball details, and the conflict is coming to a head!

Written & Directed by Joe Cetta

Cast

Michelle Auffrey/additional - Sarah Rusakiiwicz

Freddie Auffrey - Dane Bower

Karl Daigle - Brent Hutchins

Karen Daigle - Lana Cooper

Patrolman Anne Dandy - Kristin Mann

Sgt. Furrier - Bear Savo

Judge Membrino/additional - Joe Cetta

Vito Vitale/Bailiff/...

Should the government allow as Christian a symbol as a nativity on town property? Some crusading figures in Fitchburg, Massachusetts sure didn't think so. And the events that followed grew into a local scandal and international punchline in 1984, with the nativity in Monument Park the new epicenter for this ideological battle! Vandalism, kidnapping, chicken throwing, and social commentary abound, and now, It Happened One Year bring...

A relic from the days of yore! It Happened One Year finally rolls out its episode about the New York mafia of the 1980s, recorded so long ago we still thought there was a chance Donald Trump might go to prison! Ah, those innocent days! Sarah & Joe - at the tail end of Memorial Day weekend, 2024 - tackle a variety of mob related antics from 1984 and the surrounding days, including Rudy Giuliani's RICO takedown of organized crime...

"We have Jesus. We will hang him unless the police leave five cases of Budweiser here January 1st." This was the anonymous ransom demand left at the scene of the nativity heist that made international news out of Fitchburg, Massachusetts in December of 1984. But the identity of the culprits and their true motives were a mystery to law enforcement and the rosary-clutching public. Was the objection on religious grounds? Was it someon...

For the first and only time this season, It Happened One Year is doing a fabled Road Episode - this time the show's first from outside the country! Recorded Christmastime in the Notting Hill area of London, England, Sarah & Joe tackle the coincidentally Chicago-set Sidney Sheldon thriller 1984 adaptation The Naked Face, starring Roger Moore, Rod Steiger, Elliott Gould, Art Carney, Anne Archer, and Navy Pier, baby! Come for the ...

Having largely dealt with 1984's Christmas season last year, It Happened One Year had to dig deep to unearth the Xmas episode topic this time around, and what better place to turn than to the cabbage patch itself! Sarah & Joe take a look at the big ABC special that aired December 7th, 1984 - The Cabbage Patch Kids' First Christmas, discuss the casting and bizarro plot, and attempt to track backward into Cabbage Patch lore to fi...

After trudging through many years of popcorn entertainment and bikini skydiving thrillers, It Happened One Year finally tackles highbrow, award-winning cinema in the form of the glorious biopic Amadeus, and you are there! Listen as Sarah & Joe recall hazy memories of watching the film in decades past, debate whether the film justifies its runtime, breakdown the near-casting and complex adaptation from play to opera to play to f...

The old standard returns! It Happened One Year is once again looking at what aired on November 3rd in 1984, checking in over a year since exploring ABC's programming! This time, Sarah & Joe delve into the hard-boiled, sexy, action dramas that were Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Airwolf, and Cover Up! Along the way, much discussion is made about Stacy Keach's mustache, how Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine found himself flying that h...

Geraldine Ferraro is dead. So are Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Pat Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson, and all the members of the Female United Politicians of America, but that isn't going to stop them from lending their assistance to the 2024 Presidential campaign on Earth, from their gathering place at the Radisson Valhalla Inn & Suites located on the celestial plane. President Biden's alarming debate performance has the group wo...

With Election Day right around the corner, It Happened One Year finally gets around this season to discussing the biggest news story of 1984 - the Presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale! Sarah & Joe being the political nerds they are go deep into the Democratic primaries, discussing Ted Kennedy's reluctance, Gary Hart's late surge, Jesse Jackson's implosion, and Mondale's emergence, which leads directly ...

The first presidential ticket to feature a woman was formed in 1984, when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, and history was made! In 2024, with another historic Election Day bearing down, It Happened One Year transports you to the great beyond, as a coalition of female political figures gathers in hopes of aiding a current candidate to gain the title of Commander in Chief! Written by Sarah & Joe, Fe...

Despite being a classic of the American theater and winning a rare Pulitzer along the way, Sarah & Joe were largely unfamiliar with Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, but that has all changed! It Happened One Year once again wanders into the rare live theater corner and kicks around the musical painting biopic for good and all. Along the way there's some discussion of what makes a good musical, what are particularly bad...

101 episodes and nearly three years later, It Happened One Year is finally talking Muppets again! Given the rousing success of Season One's breakdown of 1994's felt properties, it was only natural that Sarah & Joe would tackle that beloved classic from '84 - The Muppets Take Manhattan! From its sorrowful place as the final, big screen Jim Henson Muppet outing to the singularity of its setting and vibe in the franchise canon, fr...

Despite the Paris games wrapping up, Olympic fever still grips It Happened One Year, as it's time to cover the glittering Los Angeles Summer Games of 1984! Sarah & Joe tackle some of the biggest stories and stars of those contests, including the rise of women's American gymnastics, fronted by Mary Lou Retton, the record-setting run (and jumps) of Carl Lewis, the controversial collision of Mary Decker and Zola Budd, the amazing ...

Recorded on the day Joe Biden decided to drop out of the presidential race, Sarah & Joe take a pretty unhinged tact in attempting to discuss the cult classic film pitting Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers against Dr. Emilio Lizardo aka John Whorfin and his gang of aliens! Kamala Harris's chances as the potential first female president, the greatness of Ellen Barkin, Donald Bigbooté, rankings of all significant northea...

It's true, the classic novel was published in 1949, but it's quite obviously relevant to this season, and to the modern day, and thus - It Happened One Year is going all-in on George Orwell's 1984! Sarah & Joe discuss the history of the novel and their reactions from recent reads. Then, the greatest marketing tie-in of all time - Michael Radford's 1984 starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, filmed during the timeframe of the no...

Just in time for the All-Star Game, baseball is back on the show! Prior to 2016, the one Chicago Cubs team that lived in local memory as the best chance to break the World Series drought was the squad from 1984, and It Happened One Year is there! Sarah & Joe recount the basics of the '84 team's run to the NLCS, how No Lights at Wrigley played a part in the overall discourse, the progression of the franchise from that point unti...