It Happened One Year

Recorded amidst the booms and bombast of the country's yearly bacchanalia, Sarah & Joe took time away from the hot dogs to discuss the Jackass franchise, which began its unlikely quarter-century run in October of 2000! From the relatively short-lived, hugely-popular TV show through the five film series with many random products and guest shots and spinoffs along the way, Jackass has been a consistent 21st century presence whether you like it or not - and some politicians and advocates have made their bones by being self-aggrandizingly opposed to the group's brand of comedy. All this and more discussed to exaggerated length in this rare foray into Ultra-Violent-Hilarity Corner! 

Welcome back to full tilt speculative corner here on It Happened One Year! This episode clearly should've been released much sooner, given how much has happened to the 2026 White Sox since this recording - while February 2nd, 2000 baby Munetaka Murakami's career on the South Side has had more ups than downs (even as he currently languishes on the DL). Listen as Sarah & Joe give late-April predictions on how this season will play out, a recap of Murakami's slugging prowess in Japanese baseball, who will still be on Chicago's South Side squad come the end of the year, favorite in-stadium baseball memories, and more! 

On November 2nd, 2000, human beings signed the lease and got their mail forwarded to 250 miles above the Earth's surface, and they've been up there ever since! Listen as Sarah & Joe stumble-bum their way through the facts and figures connected to the International Space Station - from the long history of post-lunar landing stations in orbit around the Earth to the onrushing plans to dump the entire ISS in the drink off the coast of Formosa! Much time is spent discussing the toilet habits of these intrepid pioneers south of the Van Allen belt, and speculation on the future of the domestic space program and what the astronauts get up to in their spare hours. Fun!

The year 2000 ushered in the end of the 20th century, and the end of one of the most popular comic strips in history, as the world bid farewell to Peanuts and its creator, Charles Schulz. Sarah & Joe take a trip through the comic's long history - from newspapers to movies to television specials to video games - discussing their scattershot memories, their beloved artifacts from the franchise (mostly the Christmas special and the Royal Guardsmen), and talk through a few lawsuits, the characters' enduring popularity, and the psychological makeup of the Peanuts world.

Golf corner! A rare one here on It Happened One Year! Listen as Sarah & Joe hack their way through the legendary 2000 U.S. Open held in Pebble Beach, when Tiger Woods hung a beating on the competition that has never been equaled! Side stories detail the Tiger Slam, the bizarre circumstances around Payne Stewart's death, a previous record set in 1862 by Old Tom Morris himself, and more. And then, the salacious, grandiose unraveling of Tiger Woods life and career, bringing us straight up to the present day! Mistresses! Bogeys! DUIs! Fran Tarkenton cameos! 

The #1 news story of 2000 not directly connected to the presidential election was the harrowing journey and legal struggles of six year old Elian Gonzalez, and It Happened One Year is there! Listen as Sarah & Joe navigate their way through the history of 20th century Cuban politics, the key figures in the custodial battle, the general buffoonery of the state of Florida, the outstanding SNL comedy that rode the story's coattails, and much more!

Finally, professional women's basketball corner on It Happened One Year! Only hinted at before, the listeners are finally exposed to the full mania Sarah & Joe experience in recent years, by way of the hometown Chicago Sky and their super dramatic off-season. This is all a conduit to head back and take a look at the fourth season in the league's history in 2000, with such defunct teams as the Houston Comets, the Utah Starzz, and the Charlotte Sting, and the stars of yesteryear like Sheryl Swoops and Tina Thompson! We all learn some deep-buried lore around the WNBA, why it took so long to reach the current pinnacle of its popularity, what became of the numerous early franchises that disappeared, who the upcoming expansion teams will be, and some basic speculation about what kind of season the Sky should have here in the South Loop. 

Put down those crayons and close MS Paint - It Happened One Year is delving into the wildly inconsistent world of film animation in the Year 2000, and you are there! Listen as Sarah & Joe discuss films that range in quality from near cinematic perfection to virtually unwatchable in this barreling episode! The discussion largely centers on five (count 'em, five!) major theater releases - Dreamworks' The Road to El Dorado, Disney's Dinosaur and The Emperor's New Groove, Aardman's Chicken Run, and the Don Bluth space epic Titan A.E. Along the way, many curious production facts are explored, including the similarities between the South American pictures, the not-so-welcome influence of computer effects on these largely hand-drawn films, and the fact that you could still get two Whoppers for only $2 in 2000. Surprises abound!

Back to the longtime favorite running series inside the show - It Happened One Year's exploration of television programming specifically on November 3rd of a given year! This time around, Sarah & Joe dig into what the hell was going on that Friday night over at the FOX Network and cable's E! Entertainment Television. Not the most robust of original programming nights saw FOX roll out the short-lived, X-Files-esque FreakyLinks starring Ethan Embry and Dennis Christopher, while E! dropped another entry in their beloved look at chat and reality shows, Talk Soup. Along the way, the hosts get into a lot of random TV areas, including Cheaters, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, A.J. Benza, Greg Kinnear, The Nine, The Chicago Code, and more!

Book corner is back on It Happened One Year! The best selling adult book from the year 2000 (discounting that fourth Harry Potter) has proved to be Angels & Demons, the precursor to the cultural phenomenon that was The Da Vinci Code in the early years of the century. But...why? How did these novels catch on? And just how popular were they really? And you're telling me Dan Brown has kept writing books, but fewer and fewer people seem aware they exist? Sarah and Joe attempt to dig into 21st century popular literature and the confounding tastes of modern readers, while also taking time to discuss the movie series, the TV adaptations, an odd amount of Harry Potter, and the first American Pope!