Now We Know

This time, Kevin brings forth Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, a cherished late 80s single-season sci-fi series with a fake Darth Vader, a million-dollars-per-episode price tag, and a particularly brazen kid’s toy tie-in gimmick. But you know what they say: Kid Kev gets what Kid Kev wants (“nobody puts Kid Kev in the corner” would’ve also been accepted).

Chris finally plays his ace in the hole, and Kevin simply wasn't prepared for it: Death and the Compass, a 1990s film adaptation of a Jorge Luis Borges story of the same name. Kid Chris was blown away by this low-budget, highly dissonant, Peter Boyle-as-mystic-detective indie film some 20 years ago, but what to make of it now?

This week, Kevin pulls from the vault a truly bizarre relic of the 1980s: Small Wonder, wherein a cookie-cutter American sitcom family welcomes a robot daughter to the mix. Come for Vicki's incorrigable japes, stay for grandpa's anti-robot bigotry!

Baseball season is finally upon us! And so, Chris decided to take Kevin ― and all San Francisco Giants fans ― back to a particularly harrowing time, a full eight years before the start of their golden, shimmering championship dynasty. Specifically, the 2002 World Series, perhaps the most ignominious moment in the franchise's history, and the formative experience of Chris' life as a sports fan.

As winter turns to spring, Kevin brings us a 1990 film set in rural Ireland that seeks to plunge viewers into a permanent emotional frost. Namely, The Field, starring Richard Harris, Sean Bean, John Hurt, and Tom Berenger. Spoiler alert: Richard Harris is really protective of his field, and young Kevin was not prepared for this desperate, squalid, and decidedly leprechaun-free tale. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Unfortunately, Kevin is ailing, and as such the boys weren't able to whip up a brand new episode this week. But they'd never leave you high and dry without your content ― feast your ears on the decidedly lo-fi, previously unreleased Now We Know pilot episode! This was recorded in late 2017, the very first bit of Now We Know ever produced. And it concerns what was, at the time, the lowest-rated episode of The Simpsons on IMDB: Lisa Goes Gaga, from the show's 23rd season.

The very same week Nickelodeon announced it's rebooting Are You Afraid Of The Dark? in October, Kevin and Chris watched a trio of episodes of the 1990s original, a children's creepshow classic of the first water. But how does it hold up all these years later?

In the crossover episode of a lifetime, Colleen from WikiWhy leads Kevin and Chris on a journey through The Borrowers, one of her childhood classics. And to be clear, this is the one with John Goodman, and the gross cheese spray, and baby Draco Malfoy, and that scene where Arietty scoops the ice cream with her hands.

Don Bluth classic The Sceret Of NIMH has charmed, vexed, and harrowed children the world over for decades, including a pint-sized Kevin Werkheiser. Will Chris, who’s never properly seen it before, fall similarly under its thrall?

And thus begins season two! Kevin and Chris celebrate the occasion in grand fashion by revisiting the 1983 cartoon classic Inspector Gadget, in which the beloved mechanical G-man is long on bad jokes and light on basic investigatory competence.

Rounding out a rousing first season, and amid the Christmas release of Bumblebee to boot, Kevin and Chris finish out the 2018 year with a look back at the 1986 animated Transformers movie. And it's not light on star power, including Judd Nelson, Casey Kasem, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Idle, and mere days from death, the final performance of Orson Welles.

Special guest Sean Hurlburt brings one of his childhood favorites: Ernest Saves Christmas! Santa needs a replacement, a streetwise teenage runaway needs to learn to believe again, and only the inimitable Ernest can make it all happen. Will he do it, or is the title incredibly misleading? Find out!

Christmas is right around the corner, at least in relative terms, and thus Kevin treated Chris to one of his holiday favorites, a classic of the 1970's Rankin/Bass oeuvre. Namely: 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, which tells the tale of a skeptical (read: atheist) little mouse who ruins everyone's Christmas with his egghead opinions.

In a delightful palate cleanser, Kevin and Chris look back at a handful of TV commercials from the latter's childhood that successfully burned themselves into his brain. it's a nostalgic celebration of that inimitable, "I'm never gonna die" stage of not-quite-late capitalism ― the 80's and 90's.

This time, Kevin and Chris are joined by special guest Miranda Everitt to discuss 1989's Little Monsters, a hybrid children's/freak-out/gross-out/coming of age comedy starring Ben Savage, Howie Mandel, and some pretty peculiar and suggestively dark themes. But fear not, your trusty friends are here to lead you through the night.

In a Now We Know first, the boys discuss a book! And, in keeping with the October Halloween extravaganza, it's a genuine fright: William Hope Hodgson's 1908 supernatural horror forerunner The House on the Borderland, which was hugely influential on H.P. Lovecraft and Chris Tognotti alike. Steel your nerves, for ahead be pig-men!

In a surprise bonus episode, Now We Know continues its fright-filled month of October by looking back at Garfield's Halloween Adventure, a 1985 animated special that clearly left some marks on young Kevin's psyche.

Kicking off an October month of spooktacular episodes to sate your Halloween hungers, Kevin and Chris are joined by Jessica to discuss a movie that haunted her young life ― Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings.

For the groundbreaking 20th episode of Now We Know, you'll step into a time warp, hurtling you 20 years into the past to revisit the very first time Chris watched a political debate. And, as it turns out, the in question debate have been a historic one ― you'll never find a political candidate more devastatingly on-message than New York Senator Al D'Amato.

Don’t look now, but Paul Reubens is a spaceship and he done stole a kid! That’s a brief, wholly unfair description of Disney’s 1986 classic film Flight of the Navigator, which Kevin and Chris were all too eager to relive.