The Con Men Show

The Con Men!
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The Con Men Show is a weekly conversation between Dan w/ deckr.media and Adrian w/ Nerd @ Heart. From comics, movies, television, video games, conventions, toys, and technology... through unexpected rabbit holes... every episode is an honest, humorous exploration of the fandoms and stories that shaped us. It's less a lecture and more a conversation between friends—equal parts nostalgia, curiosity, and laughs. Pull up a chair and join us!

  1. 4d ago

    Chekhov’s Bird

    The Con Men are officially a year old, which seems as good a time as any to contemplate mortality. Adrian takes a look at what appears to be the final ride for Jackass and the strange sadness of watching a group of lunatics who built a franchise out of destroying themselves finally become too old to keep doing it. From Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O to the loss of Ryan Dunn and a younger crew that never quite captured the original chemistry, it becomes a surprisingly thoughtful conversation about friendship, nostalgia, getting older, and the ever-encroaching march of time. Also, Dan and Adrian discover their own podcast is basically Jackass, except the mousetraps are metaphorical and nobody has to drink anything from a flying portable toilet. Then it’s the penultimate episode of Lanterns, “The Jordan Boy’s Legacy,” and the series finally shows us the burden Hal Jordan has carried since childhood. Young Hal learns the truth about his father and grandfather while, decades later, John Stewart gets a second chance to know the version of Hal preserved inside the ring: Halogram, the man from before Sinestro’s betrayal left Hal broken. As John and Halogram slowly find the friendship their living counterparts almost managed to build, we discover something potentially much bigger: John can maintain Halogram without even wearing the ring. Chekhov’s Bird has come home to roost, and the series appears to be telling us that John Stewart’s will may be powerful enough that he doesn’t need a Green Lantern ring at all. A portable black hole sends John and Halogram to a dead world soaked in fear, where childhood trauma, yellow skies and a suspiciously forge-like structure make the destination feel considerably less accidental than it first appears. John nearly loses himself to the planet’s fear toxin before his own subconscious manifestation of Halogram saves him—and waiting on an island in the middle of it all is Sinestro. With one episode left, the mysteries are finally colliding: John’s impossible willpower, Hal’s legacy, Sinestro, fear, the increasingly yellow imagery and whatever the hell this season has been building toward. The Con Men give Episode Seven eight rings out of ten on its own—but with this much story still on the table, the finale has one hell of a landing to stick.

  2. Sep 26

    Yeet Yet?

    Dan survived Arkansas Comic Con and returns with stories: Kim Rhodes is a delightful goofball, Matt Ryan remains an absolute gem, Nana Visitor adds the second signature to the increasingly ridiculous Niners jersey, and Ming-Na Wen turns out to be every bit as lovely as you’d hope. There are signed action figures, airport rides, Star Wars, Star Trek, Supernatural, and even an important lesson in translating the title of Ming-Na’s upcoming cookbook into proper Southern: “Have You Eaten Yet?” becomes “Yeet Yet?” Meanwhile, Adrian finally starts Shōgun and discovers a show good enough to make him homesick for the years he spent living in Japan. Then Lanterns Episode Six, “Bad Optics,” finally brings us back to 2026 and directly into the aftermath of the mystery that opened the season: Hal Jordan is dead. John returns to Rushville, discovers Hal spent ten years in prison and somehow became friends with his mother, punches him in the face during what was allegedly supposed to be an apology, and—hours later—is standing over his body with a very awkwardly explainable broken nose. Guy Gardner finally gets some meaningful screen time, Rushville still wants nothing to do with Green Lanterns, Hal has naturally written his own magnificently self-important eulogy, and even poor Earl the carnivorous plant has to mourn the loss of his dad. But John ultimately insists Hal be buried as what he was: a Green Lantern. Except John isn't quite ready to leave Hal—or the ring—buried. With Sinestro mysteriously escaped, Noah still looking suspiciously Manhunter-adjacent and John's supposedly normal life rapidly falling apart around him, he digs Hal back up, retrieves the decommissioned ring and uses its last five-percent charge to activate the backup Hal left behind. So while Hal Jordan may be dead, Hal Jordan apparently isn't done with the show. From there, Dan and Adrian get into the difference between genuine criticism and performative toxicity, why nerd culture makes that distinction increasingly difficult, Vision Quest, Picard, the unforgivable existence of Section 31, and the horrifying discovery that Adrian knows of a 1970s spy series starring actual chimpanzees. Just another week at The Con Men Show.

  3. Sep 21

    Let’s Go Regrow Your Pinky

    Arkansas Comic Con is upon us, Dan’s getting dangerously close to completing his original Marvel G.I. Joe run, and Adrian has discovered that an alarming amount of our childhood is just sitting on YouTube waiting to destroy an afternoon. From The Real Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the surprisingly hard-going theme songs of SilverHawks, M.A.S.K. and Inhumanoids, nostalgia is alive, well, and apparently monetized. Then Adrian pitches next year’s Con Men field trip: the TransWorld Halloween show in St. Louis—because nothing says professional media coverage like animatronic corpses, haunted houses and turning the whole thing into a tax write-off. Then it’s Lanterns Episode Five, “Lights Out,” and the answers finally start arriving—along with a fresh pile of questions. Zoe is definitively revealed as the Manhunter, her history with Sheriff Carrie shows how she builds loyalty through favors and debt, and John discovers firsthand exactly what those favors can cost. Meanwhile, the increasingly yellow title sequence has us watching Hal’s relationship with fear very carefully, Noah is looking considerably less like an ordinary kid, and an alien death squad descends on Rushville while Hal tries desperately to keep an entire town from sacrificing itself for the creature that has spent years collecting their loyalty. By the end, Hal and John’s fragile partnership explodes into an actual fight over the ring, John finally gets the power he spent his entire life pursuing—and discovers that having it doesn’t feel anything like he imagined. Zoe takes a bullet, John takes her heart, neither of our Green Lanterns ends the episode with the ring, and somehow solving the season’s biggest mystery only creates several more. Is Noah another Manhunter? What did Zoe actually ask John to do? Why does Hal’s apparent death in 2026 suddenly look awfully familiar? And seriously, where the hell is Guy Gardner? Five episodes in, Lanterns delivers its strongest outing yet and earns the Con Men’s first 10 green rings out of 10.

  4. Sep 12

    Hey Junior! We Found Macon’s Weenie

    Before heading back to Lanterns, Adrian has some things to say about Batman: Caped Crusader—and very few of them are nice. Dan and Adrian dig into what happens when an adaptation changes familiar characters simply for the sake of being different, why Batman’s best reinventions still preserve what makes those characters work, and how Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond managed to create something new without throwing away what audiences loved in the first place. Also: there is still a Michael Keaton Batman Beyond movie sitting somewhere in the multiverse of missed opportunities, and we remain annoyed about it. Then Lanterns Episode Four, “The Weenie,” gets the season moving again. Sinestro knows far too much about John Stewart, the Guardians are looking increasingly suspicious, and John is quietly instructed to take Hal’s ring the next time he gets the chance. Meanwhile, Hal and John finally start developing something resembling actual friendship while infiltrating Macon’s compound. John conjures an entire functioning tunnel-boring machine after some brief study on Google. Macon manages to capture our heroes and turn their interrogation into the weirdest possible power play by stripping naked and demanding John draw him. Thus fulfilling the episode title’s promise in considerably more ways than Walt Disney ever intended. But beneath all the weenie jokes, this one lands surprisingly hard. Zoe seemingly reveals herself as the Manhunter before apparently being obliterated by a space laser. John’s reaction gives away that he knows more than he’s admitting, and Hal realizes the partner he was finally beginning to trust has been keeping secrets from him. After Sinestro warns that John would betray him, Hal’s disappointment feels less like anger than genuine heartbreak.

  5. Sep 4

    A Sparrow With a Machine Gun

    It’s been a rough week in the geekosphere. Dan and Adrian remember two performers whose work became part of our cultural tapestry: Tim Curry and Peter Cullen. From Frank-N-Furter, Clue, and Muppet Treasure Island to the voice of Optimus Prime, the conversation turns to the performances that defined generations, the humanity behind them, and whether an iconic role should live on through technology or be handed to another actor to make their own. Then it’s back to Lanterns for Episode Three, which slows things down to show exactly how John Stewart became the man we’ve met. His family spent years preparing him to become a Green Lantern through an increasingly disturbing regimen designed to eliminate fear, while Hal Jordan has unknowingly loomed over nearly every part of John’s life. It’s important character work, and the Con Men dig into what it reveals about John, the Guardians, Hal, and the larger mysteries the series is building—but was an entire episode necessary to tell us that story? Finally, a promised trip back to Batman ’66 brings Frank Gorshin’s Riddler, Vincent Price’s Egghead, some gloriously straight-faced nonsense, and perhaps the finest riddle ever devised: What is dangerous, weighs six ounces, and sits in a tree? A Sparrow With a Machine Gun. It’s The Con Men Show !

    A Sparrow With a Machine Gun

  6. Aug 28

    I’m Not Thinking About a Bird While I’m Unconscious

    Before we get back to glowing space jewelry and deeply dysfunctional mentorship, The Con Men take a moment to remember Dolly Parton — songwriter, performer, philanthropist, businesswoman, champion of childhood literacy, and one of those exceedingly rare public figures who somehow seemed to belong to everybody. Adrian and Dan also preview the absolutely stacked Arkansas Comic Con, featuring everyone from Ming-Na Wen, Danny Trejo and Tom Welling to Nana Visitor, Matt Ryan, Kane Hodder, X-Men voice actors, Red Dead Redemption alumni and enough wrestling talent to body-slam the Statehouse Convention Center. LANTERNS. Episode 2, “Trust Fall,” keeps Hal Jordan and John Stewart firmly in reluctant-buddy-cop territory while giving us our first real clues about just how powerful John may actually be. Hal’s ring is running out of juice. His relationship with the Green Lantern oath is looking increasingly complicated. Rushville gets stranger by the minute. And John accidentally creates a bird that survives after the ring is removed. It acts independently. It protects John while he’s unconscious. And everyone who understands Green Lantern powers seems considerably more impressed by this than John himself. Meanwhile, Manhunters have entered the conversation, Sinestro knows considerably more than he’s saying, somebody is financing a deeply suspicious anti-alien militia, and Lex Luthor is beginning to look like an awfully obvious answer. But sometimes? The obvious answer is still the answer.

  7. Aug 21

    There's Hail In Rushville, Nebraska

    Lanterns has arrived in the DCU, and apparently somebody decided the best way to bring the Green Lantern Corps back to live action was True Detective with power rings. Dan and Adrian dig into the premiere of HBO’s Lanterns, the strange state of DCU continuity, and the decidedly unhappy partnership between veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan and would-be replacement John Stewart. Why does John’s father have such an absolutely bananas method of teaching his son not to be afraid? Is Hal training John, tormenting him, or both? Why does Hal seem happier without the ring than with it? What exactly happened in Nebraska? How much should we trust what the show has already shown us? And perhaps most importantly: Did we actually see what we think we saw? Along the way, the Con Men wander through Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Creature Commandos, the increasingly fuzzy borders of DCU canon, Guy Gardner, Sinestro, Parallax, streaming-era attention spans, the lost art of waiting a week for television. Bonus Round: the childhood trauma of spending an entire summer wondering what happened to Locutus of Borg. SPOILER WARNING This episode contains extensive spoilers for the premiere of Lanterns. Watch first, then come back for some real down-home spoilers.

    There's Hail In Rushville, Nebraska

  8. Aug 17

    Nostalgia Philosophiæ

    Course Description PHIL 042: Nostalgia Philosophiæ is an interdisciplinary seminar examining the philosophical, cultural, and occasionally absurd nature of nostalgia, vintage media, and the collective memory of Generation X. Through case studies including Rush, Super Mario Bros. 3, The Wizard, Cheech & Chong, Popeye, The Honeymooners, Robin Williams, The Golden Girls, and the USS Flagg, students will investigate the criteria by which ordinary objects transcend age to become cultural artifacts. Primary questions include: When does something become vintage? Is nostalgia measured in years, craftsmanship, or emotional resonance? What distinguishes retro from vintage? Why do conventions exist, and what role do they play in preserving popular culture? Can Popeye simultaneously exist as a comic strip, radio serial, cartoon, feature film, arcade game, and nostalgic touchstone? Topics include the preservation of childhood media, inherited cultural memory, classic television, early video games, toys as historical artifacts, the evolution of counterculture into mainstream culture, and the strange realization that the things we grew up with are now museum pieces. By the conclusion of this lecture, students should possess a greater appreciation for the cultural archaeology hidden within everyday entertainment—and perhaps accept the uncomfortable truth that they, too, may now qualify as vintage. Required Listening: This episode. Recommended Reading: Whatever comic book, VHS tape, cassette, or game cartridge happens to be closest to your chair. Office Hours: Every Tuesday, wherever two nerds accidentally begin discussing something from forty years ago.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
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About

The Con Men Show is a weekly conversation between Dan w/ deckr.media and Adrian w/ Nerd @ Heart. From comics, movies, television, video games, conventions, toys, and technology... through unexpected rabbit holes... every episode is an honest, humorous exploration of the fandoms and stories that shaped us. It's less a lecture and more a conversation between friends—equal parts nostalgia, curiosity, and laughs. Pull up a chair and join us!

Information

  • Creator
    The Con Men!
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    49
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © The Con Men!
  • Show Website
    The Con Men Show