After Tim Burton redefined Batman for the big screen, Warner Bros. slowly pushed the franchise away from gothic weirdness and towards something brighter, louder, more commercial, and far more toy-friendly. The result was 1997’s Batman & Robin — a film so spectacularly misjudged it didn’t just flop, it effectively shut Batman down for years.

But that failure turned out to be the point.

This episode explores how the collapse of Batman & Robin gave Warner Bros. the one thing it didn’t realise it needed: a blank canvas. With the franchise too damaged to continue as it was, the studio eventually handed Batman to Christopher Nolan, first with Batman Begins, then with The Dark Knight — a film that didn’t just restore the character, but changed how Hollywood looked at superhero cinema.

It’s a story about studio panic, merchandising logic, franchise collapse, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes the best version of something only exists because the previous version failed hard enough to clear the ground.

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In ‘Virtual Worlds, Real Consequences’, Dave looks at three very different digital worlds — World of Warcraft, EVE Online and Second Life — and the very real human behaviour they exposed once thousands of people were let loose inside them.

It starts with World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood incident, when a raid debuff escaped into the wider game and created a plague across major cities. What looked like a game bug became something stranger: an accidental model of how people behave during an epidemic, later cited in real-world pandemic research.

From there, the episode moves into EVE Online, where CCP built a universe with minimal intervention and players responded by creating their own politics, economies, infiltrations, betrayals and wars. This is the world of the Guiding Hand Social Club heist, the Band of Brothers collapse, the Council of Stellar Management, and the Bloodbath of B-R5RB, a battle so vast it was covered like a real military event.

Then comes Second Life, the platform that looked, for a while, like the future of the internet. A world built around ownership, virtual land, and real-money exchange, it drew in businesses, media companies and futurists who thought the metaverse had arrived. What followed was less a clean technological revolution than a reminder that the internet always brings people with it, and people tend to arrive carrying chaos.

If the earlier episodes in Season 2 were about collapse, bankruptcy and institutional failure, this one is about something more revealing: what happens when designers build systems, step back, and let human beings do the rest.

Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.

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In ‘The Fire Sale Blueprint’, Dave looks at how Marvel’s bankruptcy in the 1990s led to one of the strangest and most important chain reactions in film history. As the company collapsed under debt, many of its biggest characters were licensed or sold off in deals that looked sensible at the time and faintly insane in hindsight.

Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four and others ended up in other studios’ hands. What Marvel was left with looked, at the time, like the second-string cupboard. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Panther, The Avengers. Characters with history, but not the kind of obvious Hollywood heat attached to Spider-Man or the X-Men.

That bad hand turned out to be the hand that changed everything.

This episode follows the path from Ronald Perelman’s debt-loaded takeover of Marvel, through the bankruptcy fight involving Carl Icahn, Isaac Perlmutter and Avi Arad, to the strange reality in which the company’s most famous heroes became someone else’s blockbuster and the leftovers became the foundation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It is also the story of how Blade, X-Men and Spider-Man proved the value of Marvel characters on screen, while Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. helped turn the characters nobody wanted into the centre of the biggest shared universe in film history.

If the earlier episodes in Season 2 were about collapse and survival, this one is about something slightly stranger: how a financial disaster became a design document.

Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.

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In ‘The Wilderness Years’, Dave looks at what happened after Doctor Who disappeared from television in 1989. No big finale. No proper ending. Just a show the BBC quietly stopped making, and an audience that refused to accept that as the end of the story.

This episode follows the long years when Doctor Who survived off screen through novels, audio dramas, conventions, magazines and the sort of organised fan determination Britain tends to produce whenever an institution behaves like it has misplaced its own brain.

It is also the story of how the people keeping Doctor Who alive during those years turned out to be the people who would eventually bring it back. Writers such as Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and Paul Cornell all emerge from the wider culture that kept the show going while the BBC was looking the other way.

From the BBC’s attempts to sideline the series, to the 1996 TV movie, to Big Finish giving the Doctor a life beyond the screen, this is an episode about what happens when a show stops being just a programme and becomes something its audience is not prepared to lose.

If the first two episodes of Season 2 were about collapse and near-disaster, this one is about survival through absence. About what lives on when the official version disappears.

Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.

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In ‘When Giants Fall’, Dave looks at three companies that once seemed unstoppable — Atari, Sega, and Blockbuster — and how each of them, in very different ways, lost their grip on the future.

From Atari’s collapse after the video game crash of the early 1980s, to Sega’s spectacular inability to get out of its own way during the console wars, to Blockbuster staring straight at the future and somehow deciding it probably wasn’t important, this is an episode about what happens when success turns into inertia.

It is also a story about what comes after.

Because these collapses did not just leave wreckage behind. They reshaped the industries around them. Atari’s fall cleared the way for Nintendo. Sega lost the hardware war but survived as a games company. And Blockbuster became the monument everyone points to when talking about businesses that had every chance to adapt and somehow talked themselves out of it.

If last week’s episode was about a film nearly vanishing, this one is about something bigger: the moment giants stop noticing the ground moving underneath them.

Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.

If you’d like to support Geekstorians in the Webby People’s Voice Awards, you can vote here:

https://wbby.co/57464N

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This episode tells the story of how Toy Story 2 nearly disappeared during production, not because of a studio fight or some dramatic Hollywood scandal, but because of a routine command, a failing backup system, and the sort of technical catastrophe that still makes creative people wince.

But this is not just a story about Pixar nearly losing a film.

It is also the perfect starting point for a season about how geek culture survives when everything goes wrong. The glitches, collapses, bad calls, money problems and moments of blind panic behind the films, games and franchises that now feel untouchable.

If Season 1 was about how fandom built itself, Season 2 is about how geek culture kept going when it should probably have fallen apart.

If you'd like to support Geekstorians in the Webby People’s Voice Awards, you can vote here:

https://wbby.co/57464N

Geekstorians is a documentary-style podcast from Dave Elliott of Geektown, exploring the hidden history of geek culture, fandom, film, television, comics and gaming.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

They are all part of the long, strange history of the Easter egg.

In this special Easter episode of ‘Geekstorians’, Dave digs into how hidden messages, secret rooms, buried jokes and coded nods evolved from acts of quiet rebellion into a full-blown language between creators and audiences.

The story begins with Warren Robinett’s famous hidden room in ‘Adventure’ on the Atari 2600, before moving through the rise of the Konami Code, Microsoft’s increasingly odd software secrets, Pixar’s long-running A113 tradition, the golden age of hidden DVD extras, and the giant Alternate Reality Games that turned the hunt itself into the story.

It also looks at how modern blockbuster culture transformed Easter egg hunting into an industry of its own, with fans racing to spot, decode and catalogue every hidden reference packed into films, games and TV shows.

At heart, though, this is a story about something much simpler: somebody put something there, and somebody else found it.

The episode also arrives just ahead of ‘Geekstorians’ Season 2, which is coming very soon.

Geekstorians is the documentary-style podcast from Geektown, exploring the hidden histories, creative accidents and industrial chaos that shaped geek culture.

You can find more on Geekstorians, plus all the latest TV, film and gaming news, at Geektown.co.uk

Also, a quick but important plug, Geekstorians is currently nominated for a Webby Award in the Podcasts – History category, and voting for the People’s Voice Award closes on Thursday, 16th April.

Vote for Geekstorians here:

https://wbby.co/57464N

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Sometimes, it creates it.

In the Season One finale of Geekstorians, Dave explores the hidden history of geek language — how fans invented their own slang, references, in-jokes, and shorthand, and how that language quietly shaped modern geek culture and the internet itself.

From handwritten letters in the back pages of early science-fiction magazines, to fanzines, conventions, badges, and costumes… from Monty Python quotes and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to arcade slang, tabletop role-playing games, online gaming, text-message shorthand, memes, and chat rooms. This episode traces how fandom learned to communicate long before social media existed.

Along the way, we explore how shared language helped fandom survive moral panics, cancelled shows, shifting technology, and changing formats, not through manifestos or rules, but through jokes, references, and community shorthand.

Geek culture didn’t just grow around stories.

It grew around conversations.

This episode marks the end of Season One of Geekstorians. All ten episodes, plus the Christmas special, are now available.

If you’ve enjoyed the series, please consider rating, reviewing, or subscribing. It really helps the show find new listeners. You can also share your thoughts on Season One over at Geektown.co.uk or on social media.

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In this episode of Geekstorians, Dave traces the rise of the Plastic Empire — the moment when action figures, model kits, bricks, and collectibles stopped being side products and started becoming entire universes.

From the Star Wars Early Bird box that accidentally rewrote the rules of merchandising, to the 1980s cartoon-toy industrial complex, moral panics, and the birth of gender-segmented aisles, this is the story of how plastic shaped imagination, identity, and fandom itself.

Along the way, we explore LEGO’s uneasy relationship with licensed worlds, Gunpla’s transformation of fandom into craftsmanship, Warhammer’s hobbyist ecosystems, the rise of collector culture and shrine shelves, the collapse of toy superstores like Toys “R” Us, and how blind bags, loot-box logic, and digital skins quietly gamified collecting.

Finally, we look at the strangest evolution yet — a future where fans no longer wait for companies to make their toys at all, but design and print their own.

Because the Plastic Empire didn’t disappear.

It decentralised.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you’re subscribed or following Geekstorians wherever you listen, so you don’t miss future deep dives into the hidden history of geek culture.

You can find every episode at https://www.geektown.co.uk, along with Geektown Radio, our weekly show covering the latest TV, film, and gaming news.

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It arrived through fans.

In this bumper-length episode of Geekstorians, Dave uncovers the real, messy, rebellious story of how anime travelled from post-war Japan to British living rooms and American college basements. It’s a journey that begins with lone animators and wartime propaganda films, explodes into giant-robot fever, and eventually spreads across the globe through mail networks, tape-trading rings, fan-subtitling groups, Channel 4’s late-night experiments, the chaos of SMTV: Live… and one film that hit like a cinematic meteor: Akira.

This is the tale of the people who carried anime by hand, copying tapes at 3am, mailing fanzines in brown envelopes, hosting screenings in overheated hotel rooms, building early websites on dial-up, and refusing to let shows like Gundam, Yamato and Macross slip into obscurity.

It’s the hidden history of how a scattered, passionate, wildly inventive fandom reshaped global pop culture, long before the industry realised the world was watching.

If you enjoy the episode, don’t forget to follow, rate, and share Geekstorians. It genuinely helps the series grow and reach more listeners. And for more geek culture deep-dives, visit Geektown.co.uk. lBpEafq5XiZIpS64QLST

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A tabletop role-playing game built around imagination, storytelling, and collaboration was suddenly accused of promoting occultism, psychological harm, and even violence. Dice were framed as sinister objects. Rulebooks were treated like dangerous texts. And ordinary teenagers playing fantasy games found themselves caught in a storm of fear and misinformation.

In this episode of Geekstorians, Dave from Geektown unpacks how D&D was pulled into the wider Satanic Panic, and why it became such a powerful symbol of adult anxiety about youth culture, imagination, and control.

The story begins with a missing student and a media myth that refused to go away, then follows the rise of anti-D&D campaigners, sensationalist talk shows, and made-for-TV dramas that blurred fiction and fact. Along the way, we explore how moral crusades spread, how “experts” were created for television, and how a game about fantasy became a real-world scapegoat.

But this is also the story of what actually happened around the gaming table, and why Dungeons & Dragons endured attempts to ban it, blame it, or brand it dangerous. Long after the panic faded, the game went on to influence video games, television, film, and modern fandom itself.

A deep dive into the Satanic Panic, moral hysteria, and the unlikely survival of one of the most influential games ever made.

I’m Dave from Geektown.

And this is Geekstorians. lBpEafq5XiZIpS64QLST

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In this episode of Geekstorians, Dave dives into the chaotic, brilliant rise of gaming fandom: from the arcades of the late ’70s and the night Space Invaders caused Tokyo to mint extra coins, to the Atari 2600 bringing pixelated magic into the living room, to the bedroom coders who unknowingly kick-started a creative revolution across the UK and US.

We trace the console culture wars - Nintendo vs Sega, Mario vs Sonic, identity vs identity - and how gaming magazines, tip lines and school-yard myths became the pre-internet backbone of fan knowledge. Then it’s onto LAN parties, MMOs that became entire eras of people’s lives, the WoW meteor strike that reshaped the genre overnight, and the moment consoles finally connected the world through Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and Halo 2’s multiplayer explosion.

Finally, we reach the age of Twitch, YouTube, esports arenas, indie devs, Discord servers and sprawling online communities. A culture that is messy, generous, chaotic, creative, and very much alive.

This is the story of how gamers built one of the most influential fandoms on the planet... one joystick, one cartridge, one guild, one livestream at a time.

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From the moment Star Wars quietly shifted a blaster bolt in 1997, the ground beneath our favourite universes began to move. Suddenly, creators weren’t the only ones shaping continuity. Fans were scrutinising every frame, showrunners were building puzzles inside their storylines, and entire franchises were juggling multiple timelines at once.

We explore the rise of forensic fandom, the chaos of competing continuities, the fury of finales that don’t land, the strange elegance of narrative retcons that do, and why video games blew the old idea of a single canon to pieces. Along the way we revisit Lost, Sherlock, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, The Witcher, Fallout, Baldur’s Gate 3, and more — all to uncover how canon became an ecosystem rather than a single authoritative truth.

And ultimately, we ask:

Why do we care so deeply about what “really happened” in worlds that only exist because we love them?

For more episodes and everything else we do, visit Geektown.co.uk.

For weekly TV news, reviews and release dates, check out Geektown Radio, wherever you get your podcasts.

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In this episode of Geekstorians, Dave rewinds to the era when TV grew up. From Hill Street Blues quietly teaching networks how to tell long-form stories, to Star Trek: The Next Generation bending the rules, to Twin Peaks turning mystery into obsession, and The X-Files training audiences to become detectives, this was the decade television learned to think in arcs.

We dive into J. Michael Straczynski’s audacious five-year blueprint for Babylon 5, and how it helped invent the modern showrunner/fandom feedback loop. Then it’s on to Buffy the Vampire Slayer — the series that rewrote the emotional architecture of genre TV and launched a writer’s room that would shape the next twenty years of storytelling.

After that comes the rise of cable: Angel, Stargate SG-1, Carnivàle, and the 2005 Doctor Who revival becoming proof that genre could be ambitious, sincere, and mainstream. And finally, the 2000s network scramble — the adrenaline of 24, the puzzle-box frenzy of Lost, the heartbreak of Firefly, the ambition of Battlestar Galactica, and the improbable triumph of Fringe.

All of it leads to the blueprint that streaming would later inherit — and occasionally break — as binge culture transformed how we watched, talked, and obsessed.

This is the story of how geek TV conquered the schedule, reshaped fandom, and taught the world that continuity isn’t a burden… it’s a promise.

Geekstorians is written and hosted by Dave from Geektown. For more TV, film and gaming news, visit Geektown.co.uk, or listen to our sister show Geektown Radio.

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But Star Wars has fans.

And fans do not let things disappear.

In this Geekstorians Christmas Special, we unwrap the unbelievable true story of the Star Wars Holiday Special: its overnight vanishing act, the bootleg trail that kept it alive, the obsessive hunt for surviving recordings, the rise of fan archivists determined to clean up every frame, and the moment this forgotten piece of TV slowly drifted back into the galaxy — in ways no one in 1978 could ever have predicted.

Featuring Wookiees, VHS tapes, Boba Fett’s origins, questionable musical numbers, and the fandom that refused to let the strangest artefact in Star Wars history fade away.

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In this episode, Dave rewinds through the story of how home video broke the monopoly of the movie studios, terrified censors, and accidentally created the first generation of fan-filmmakers. From Mary Whitehouse’s “Video Nasties” crusade to Kevin Smith maxing out his credit cards to make Clerks, this is the tale of how VHS gave ordinary people the power to choose what they watched — and in doing so, redefined geek culture itself.

Listen for:

• The forgotten role of a door-to-door video rental van

• The panic that birthed Britain’s “Video Nasty” blacklist

• How a New Jersey shop clerk became a cult-film icon

• Why imperfection made VHS feel alive

🎙️ Written & Presented by Dave Elliott

🔗 More at Geektown.co.uk

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Along the way, it looks at the forces that shaped the medium, from political satire and counterculture to literary ambition and creative risk. The story leads up to the arrival of books like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus, and the legacy that followed in film, television and modern graphic fiction.

A thoughtful, accessible deep dive into the moment comics truly grew up, told with the usual mix of research, atmosphere and Geektown warmth.

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The episode looks at how those early fans connected, how ideas spread around the world and how the first generation of sci-fi readers helped shape everything that came after. From the rise of pulp magazines to the birth of fan culture in the 1930s, it shows how passion, curiosity and a love of stories built the roots of modern geek culture.

Geekstorians blends storytelling, research and sound design to uncover the often forgotten history behind the worlds we love. This is where the story of fandom begins.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.