Culture on My Mind
Eat the Hot Dog!
April 4, 2022

This week, the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track celebrates the Shaq attack with the 25th anniversary retrospective of Steel.

On March 31st, the panel of Michael Bailey (Fortress of Baileytude), Keith DeCandido (decandido.net and wherever fine books are sold), and Shaun Rosado (pneumaz on Twitter) joined Gary Mitchel to celebrate hammer time and John Henry Irons in the era of cheesy superhero flicks.

The bonus material in this panel – the panelist celebrate April Fools a few hours early with Leigh Tyberg, ToniAnn Marini, Kyle McCraw, Darin Bush, Denise Lhamon, and their furry companions – was a hoot to see develop behind the scenes. Michael Bailey has wanted to do a Steel panel for a good long while, and Gary, Darin, and I mused about this after the Harry Potter panel back in January. Darin suggested selling it as a Steel panel, but having everyone show up with their pets instead as an early April Fools gag. As we laughed about it, Gary split the difference and decided to give audiences both.

You’re welcome. *wink*

(I would have been there with Charlie and Jango if I could have been. Next time.)

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These Classic Track Quarantine Panels will be held once every two weeks (or every fortnight, if you will). If you want to play along at home, grab your internet-capable device of choice and navigate the webs to the YouTube channel and/or the group on Facebook. If you join in live, you can also leave comments and participate in the discussion using StreamYard connected through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.

If you want to connect with the track, Joe, and/or Gary on the socials, you can find them on Twitter (ClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and sneezythesquid) and Instagram (SciFiClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and Gary_Mitchel). And, of course, to celebrate more pop culture awesomeness, you can find Dragon Con all year round on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

The next panel will be on April 14th, when the Classic Track Irregulars will discuss the 40th anniversary of Remington Steele. You can find all of this and more every other Thursday as the American Sci-Fi Classics Track explores the vast reaches of classic American science fiction.

The episode art each week is generously provided by the talented Sue Kisenwether. You can find her (among other places) on Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.