It Happened One Year

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!

The Year 2000 tried to beat us over our collective noggin with dazzling creations and technological wonderment, and It Happened One Year is there to get wrist deep in the discoveries and doohickeys! Sarah & Joe take a crack at understanding and discussing the Human Genome Project, put that on hold to answer call waiting about the Nokia 3310, pull sunken submarines off the Atlantic floor, discuss the greatest yeast-based children's channel program of the century, get hypnotized by the longest playing song in the world, and then tackle their still-operational Playstation 2 - a segment brought to you with extra crackle! You're welcome!

It's Christmastime pretty baby once again, and It Happened One Year is all over it like tinsel on the holiday goose! The highest grossing domestic film of the year was Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, so naturally Sarah & Joe needed to weigh in on this semi-classic of the millennium year, with details on all the Jim Carrey antics and development of a live-action Seuss picture and the return of show favorite Taylor Momsen! And mere weeks later, over on VH1, the timely Dickens adaptation A Diva's Christmas Carol starring Vanessa Williams as Ebony Scrooge and Chilli from TLC as...Marley hit the airwaves. Our punch bowl runneth over!

It's time once again for It Happened One Year to swerve into Broadway Corner, and this time they turn up a big fat hairball! That's right, Sarah & Joe are tackling Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, which wrapped up its original, record-breaking New York run on September 10th, 2000, after 7,485 performances! Listen as the hosts share their fondest memories of the show (which is largely limited to the ubiquitous television commercial of their childhoods) to their darkest recollections (which is the 2019 movie adaptation). Along the way they chat about Broadway and West End records, previous predictions and speculations made on this show, other 2000 stage offerings, landmark flops, and more!

It's that time again, folks! No, not just Thanksgiving - it's It Happened One Year's annual trip to the Love Corner, and romance abounds! Highlighted by the dazzling union of gorgeous Hollywood types Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, the year 2000 was no slouch in the famous marriages department. Listen as Sarah & Joe breakdown the various millennial weddings, dig into the forgotten pairings of celebs throughout recent history, discuss the longest (and shortest) marriages, take a brief sojourn through a tawdry Eskimo Brother tree, and ultimately examine way more of Gary Oldman's love life than anyone could've anticipated!

"This is not Mission: Difficult, Mr. Hunt, it's Mission: Impossible." Tom Cruise returned as super spy Ethan Hunt in the top worldwide grossing film of 2000, and Sarah & Joe are taking it to task! Listen as they breakdown the stark differences between the first two films in the long running series, the carousel of directors that were employed under the M:I banner, how the Lord of the Rings and X-Men franchises were affected by this movie's extensive reshoots and Eyes Wide Shut's epic shooting schedule, and dig deep into the person most victimized by M:I 2 - Dougray Scott.