After twenty months, It Happened One Year is finally ringing down the curtain on 1984! Sarah & Joe are revisiting their season one roots by wrapping up the year with a rousing trivia contest, this time backed by the board game of 1984 product - Jeopardy! Listen as the hosts hack their way through decades-old questions and recount memories of this lengthy podcast season.

It's that time again, folks - It Happened One Year has (nearly) reached the end of another season, and so it's time to again honor those lost in the subject year. Listen as Sarah & Joe discuss a wide range of celebrities who said goodbye some forty-one years ago now, including Richard Burton, Peter Lawford, Ethel Merman, Indira Gandhi, Truman Capote, Francois Truffaut, Jackie Wilson, Count Basie, James Mason, and many more!

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/Jack/additional - David Munchak

Rocky Cannavino - Bill Randall

Radio Margaret - Jo-Elle Munchak

Officer Rodriguez - Krispy

Attorney Henshaw - Matthew Hinton

Michelle P. - Jennifer Nack

Michelle R./Atomic Scientists/additional - Angie Buonincontro

Courtroom Assistant Marsha - Dina Udomsak

Stenographer Alice - Shannon Hosey

Reporter Hildy - Matt Moran

Reporter Gail - Graceann Dorse

Reporter Howard/additional - The Batman

David Wittman/additional - Adam Carpenter

Irving R. Levine/additional - Dave Gardon

Additional voices - Danielle Harris, Michael Buonincontro, Jerron

Dead Milkmen - Bill Honchell

Dead Kennedys - Kate Langan

Heaven 17 - Reid Mosley

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 brings you the whole approximate tale with its sixth fully-scripted production!

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/Jack/additional - David Munchak

Rocky Cannavino - Bill Randall

Radio Margaret - Jo-Elle Munchak

Officer Rodriguez - Krispy

Attorney Henshaw - Matthew Hinton

Michelle P. - Jennifer Nack

Michelle R./Atomic Scientists/additional - Angie Buonincontro

Courtroom Assistant Marsha - Dina Udomsak

Stenographer Alice - Shannon Hosey

Reporter Hildy - Matt Moran

Reporter Gail - Graceann Dorse

Reporter Howard/additional - The Batman

David Wittman/additional - Adam Carpenter

Irving R. Levine/additional - Dave Gardon

Additional voices - Danielle Harris, Michael Buonincontro, Jerron

Dead Milkmen - Bill Honchell

Dead Kennedys - Kate Langan

Heaven 17 - Reid Mosley

And tune back in next week for the conclusion!

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 (a story which was very fresh in the news again nine months ago), Big Paul Castellano's murder, the rise of John Gotti, Joe Columbo's Italian American Civil Rights League, Joe Profaci's descendants, the extensive crimes of Roy DeMeo, The Godfather's Albert Ruddy, The Sopranos in pop culture, Russell Bufalino, mob tours in Chicago, and much more!

"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 someone with a vendetta against the Fitchburg police? Or was it all a light-hearted prank that got out of hand? The fourth and final scripted episode from It Happened One Year for 1984, Three Minutes to Midnight imagines the daring crimes and colorful figures involved in this semi-forgotten incident, brought to life by dozens of members from the Mighty IHOY Players! Tune back in March 14th & 21st for the epic, two-part tale!

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 breakdown of the melodramatics - touching quickly on Roger Moore's career and life, with appearances by Scaramanga himself Christopher Lee, Harry & Sally, the local Tesco - and wrap up with some truly mediocre impressions. Look, it was a recorded on a long vacation at the end of a long day, it was bound to be a little odd, even by IHOY standards.

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 figure out what the hell is going on here. Along the way, the visit the oddball Cabbage Patch event center Babyland, chat about the connected books and records of the franchise, give some quick love to the Garbage Pail Kids, and quickly shout out last year's epic scripted episode Jingle Hell.