Anime is everywhere now. Streaming platforms, cinema screens, fashion, music, TikTok, gaming. But it didn’t arrive in the West through studios, marketing campaigns, or corporate strategy.

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.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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

In the 1980s, Dungeons & Dragons became the focus of one of the most unusual moral panics in modern history.

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.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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

Gaming didn’t just grow up... it took over.

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.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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

n this episode of Geekstorians, Dave dives into one of the most heated and strangely human conflicts in modern fandom: the battle for canon.

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.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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

Television didn’t always remember. For decades, episodes reset like clockwork, characters lived in cheerful time loops, and anything resembling continuity was considered a liability. Then came a wave of rebellious creators, strange experiments, and a generation of fans armed with VCRs — and everything changed.

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.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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

It’s time for the Geektown Awards results podcast.

Dave is joined by Matt for a spoiler-free rundown of how the Geektown audience voted in the 2025 awards, covering TV, film, games, sci-fi, comedy, animation, procedurals, British TV, and the most anticipated releases of the year ahead.

With thousands of votes cast, the results sparked plenty of discussion, from nail-biting category races to unexpected shake-ups and a few outcomes that genuinely caught us off guard. We talk through the voting trends, what they say about viewing and gaming habits right now, and why some long-running franchises still dominate while newer titles continue to break through.

All winners and full rankings are revealed and discussed inside the episode itself, so consider this your spoiler-free invitation to dive in and see how your favourites fared.

Thanks to everyone who voted, and happy awards season listening.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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

On 17th November 1978, CBS aired the first ever Star Wars spin-off — a chaotic, disco-tinged Christmas variety show featuring Wookiee domestic life, baffling guest stars, and the on-screen debut of Boba Fett. It aired once… and then disappeared.

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.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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

This week, Geektown Radio does something a little different.

Instead of our usual round-table discussion, Dave goes solo for a special end-of-year episode, looking back at what kind of year 2025 actually was for television, streaming, and the industry as a whole.

This isn’t a “best of” list or a countdown. It’s a reflection on a year where shows moved platforms, franchises returned in strange new forms, cancellations came faster and colder than ever, and streaming finally stopped pretending the money was infinite.

Along the way, we talk about:

• ITVX quietly becoming one of the most useful platforms of the year
• The annual US TV Bloodbath, and why it felt different in 2025
• How Netflix, Apple TV, Prime Video, and Hulu play by very different rules
• Why franchises don’t end anymore, they just come back wearing a hat
• What video game adaptations finally seem to be getting right
• The shows that proved TV can still be genuinely brilliant
• And why 2025 was the year the industry stopped expanding and started reorganising itself

We also wrap up with a look ahead to 2026, a thank you to everyone who listens, reads, and supports Geektown, and a short message for anyone finding this time of year a little heavy.

Plus, we tee up our Geekstorians Christmas special — The Hunt for the Star Wars Holiday Special, dropping this week.

Geektown Radio will be taking a short break in January, but we’ll be back in February 2026.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/geektown.

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