Tag Archive for garbage

Rewind: The Rockford Flies?

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.

Here’s the second (and final) of our old photo-toon series called Super Neato TV Trivia Rumors. The intro for this schtick was as follows:

What’s more fun these days than trivia . . .especially trivia about America’s favorite pastime. No, it’s not baseball trivia. And no it’s not trivia on the sex life of Paris Hilton. It’s the boob tube, the idiot box . . . TV trivia! Yes, and what’s even more peachy keen is this trivia may not even be true; dare we say gossip, because you know, checking sources takes a lot of time and we’ve got TV to watch. So we present to you Super Neato TV Trivia Rumors! Yes, we’re talking seconds of entertainment all in one feature.

In this photo-toon from our October 28. 2006 issue, we explore the completely not made-up authentic rumor that the original title of The Rockford Files was actually a transposition of the l and i in the word flies resulting in much more intriguing and hilarious The Rockford Flies. Can’t you just see it now? James Garner as a garbage man solving crimes with two super intelligent talking flies named Buzz and Maggie. We believe it would have been just as good as old TV classics like Mr. T and Tina, Joanie Loves Chachi and Manimal. Oh, what could have been!

Rumor has it that this show was named The Rockford Flies when it was originally conceived by Hollywood writers. The show would revolve around an easy going garbage collector on the gritty streets of Los Angeles who solves crimes with the help of two super intelligent talking flies named Buzz and Maggie. Fortunately savvy star James Gardner suggested to simply transpose the l and the i in the title and make Rockford an easy going private investigator living in a Malibu beach trailer and replace the flies with a human dad. The result was an Emmy winning classic television detective show that lasted six seasons and produced one of the best loved theme songs by Mike Post. We can only speculate what may have happened had the executives kept the original title and premise. We predict it would have challenged Mr. T. and Tina, Joanie Love Chachi and Manimal on the top of the scrap heap of awful television shows.
Rumor has it that this show was named The Rockford Flies when it was originally conceived by Hollywood writers. The show would revolve around an easy going garbage collector on the gritty streets of Los Angeles who solves crimes with the help of two super intelligent talking flies named Buzz and Maggie. Fortunately savvy star James Gardner suggested to simply transpose the l and the i in the title and make Rockford an easy going private investigator living in a Malibu beach trailer and replace the flies with a human dad. The result was an Emmy winning classic television detective show that lasted six seasons and produced one of the best loved theme songs by Mike Post. We can only speculate what may have happened had the executives kept the original title and premise. We predict it would have challenged Mr. T. and Tina, Joanie Love Chachi and Manimal on the top of the scrap heap of awful television shows.