Hoot’n & Holler’n With Matt Mitchell

90s NBA: Backboards & Baggy Shorts

Most of us remember the 90s NBA as a Chicago story. The Bulls dynasty. The Dream Team. The commercials we still quote at each other thirty years later. But spend a little time digging into the decade and a different picture comes together...one that doesn't get talked about nearly as much.

Michael Jordan was from Wilmington, North Carolina. Scottie Pippen grew up in central Arkansas. The teal and purple craze that swept four professional sports leagues started with a Chapel Hill designer. The Magic duo that almost broke up the Bulls dynasty came out of LSU and Memphis. The Rockets team that interrupted the Bulls run with back-to-back rings was anchored by a Phi Slamma Jamma Cougar who never left Texas. And the fastest-selling rookie signature shoe of the entire decade outside of Jordan's was worn by a Duke kid from Dallas.

This week, Matt, Joey, Eric, and Drake sit down to talk about arguably the greatest decade in professional basketball — Reggie Miller and Spike Lee, the New Orleans Jazz somehow ending up in Salt Lake City, the Larry Johnson Grandmama commercials, John Tesh's Roundball Rock, courtside celebrity hecklers, the Bulls dynasty, the Hornets, the shoes, and the time Dennis Rodman went missing in Vegas in the middle of the season.

The 90s NBA may have looked like a Chicago story. But it definitely got the assist from the South.

Pork Skins and Throwing Stars: The Death of the Southern Flea Market

It don't get more American than going to the yard sale and the flea market on a Saturday morning. But the version we had down here in the South was never quite the same as the one they had everywhere else, and somewhere around 2010, it just stopped.

This week on Hoot'n & Holler'n, Matt, Eric, Drake, and Joey walk one more lap through the sacred aisles of the Southern flea market.

We get into the booths we lived for: the camo guy, the pork skin man, the Coke can airplane artist, the wind chime guy who hated to see Drake coming, the wood-burned Bear Bryant clock that didn't run, and the baseball card man who would not let your sticky little fingers anywhere near a Topps rookie.

We talk about the weapons our parents let us bring home (switchblade combs, survival knives with broken compasses, throwing stars going clean through vinyl siding), the AM radio trading post show, the consignment-sale takeover of the modern yard sale, and the inexplicable rise of the indoor flea mall.

Plus: a true crime detour into the Jasper flea market's body count, a found-cassette mystery worthy of a Netflix doc, and Matt's open letter to Mark Zuckerberg about a man named Joe in Northport, Alabama.

It's a long goodbye to a Southern institution. Pull up a chair, dig out a dollar, and let's go.

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Arcades in All the Wrong Places

Out in the rural South, a real arcade was a 45-minute drive and a pilgrimage to Charles Entertainment Cheese himself. The rest of the time, you made do with what you had....and what we had was one Pac-Man at the Pizza Hut, a Street Fighter at Dips and Dogs, and a beat-up row of cabinets up front at Walmart next to the kiddie ride that smelled like feed and chicken pox.

This week on Hoot'n & Holler'n, Matt, Joey, Eric, and Drake pull up a chair, drop in a quarter, and talk through the arcade games that defined growing up Southern in the 80s and 90s. The favorites worth every quarter (Cruisin' USA, Mortal Kombat II, WWF Superstars, and the Super Street Fighter II moment that changed Matt forever). The ones that get way too much credit (looking at you, Pac-Man). The hidden gems nobody talks about anymore (Burger Time, Paperboy, Golden Tee). And the multiplayer classics that nearly ended friendships — NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and a few rounds of air hockey played way too aggressively.

Plus: bratty kids pretending to play NASCAR, pirate money jammed in coin slots, the Satanic Panic coming for your joystick, and the eternal mystery of how that one Walmart arcade machine was still standing after a decade of abuse.

Pull up a chair. Drop in a quarter. Let's do some Hoot'n & Holler'n.

Chicken Boo and the Saturday Morning Cartoon Era

He's not a man. He's a Chicken Boo.

On this episode, we're looking back at the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons. That sacred five-hour window between 7 AM and noon when kids across America parked themselves two feet from the TV and disappeared into a bowl of sugary cereal and animated chaos.

We're talking Doug. X-Men. Animaniacs. Masters of the Universe. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Rugrats. Tailspin. DuckTales. Darkwing Duck. Batman: The Animated Series. And yes, Chicken Boo gets his due.

We're also getting into the cartoons we hated, the theme songs we can still sing word-for-word decades later, the toy marketing machines disguised as TV shows, and how Saturday morning looked a little different if you grew up down here in the South than it did for kids everywhere else.

Grab a bowl of Lucky Charms, plant yourself in front of the screen, and let's get to Hoot'n and Holler'n.

Three Helmets and a Duffel Bag - Little League in the South

There is no experience more uniquely Southern than Little League Baseball in small-town Alabama. Everywhere else in the country, it's a program. Down here, it's a situation.

This week, Matt, Drake, Joey, and Eric are taking it back to the dusty infields, the borrowed helmets, and the army-green duffel bags of Dizzy Dean and Dixie Youth baseball. We're talking about the equipment that barely worked, the jerseys with vinyl numbers that would sooner take the shirt with them than peel off, and the bats so worn out nobody could tell you what brand they were. We're talking about fields that were technically pastures, dugouts that were technically a bench and a fence, and coaches who were technically just dads that didn't work Saturdays.

We're also talking about the real reason any of us showed up....the concession stand. Slush puppies. Nachos. Hot dogs steamed in tinfoil. Sour Punch straws that were basically cocaine for children. And at least one kid on every team who had already given up on playing and was just eating his way through the fifth inning.

If you grew up playing ball in the South, this one's going to hit like a cold aluminum bat on an April night. You'll know exactly what that means.

Southern Spring Break: Club La Vela vs. Club La MeeMaw

Spring break in the South meant one of two things: Panama City chaos… or a fried bologna at Meemaw’s.

 

This week on Hoot’n & Holler’n, we’re diving into what spring break really looked like growing up in the 80s and 90s before Cancun trips and credit card debt. From AEA Week in Alabama to road trips fueled by Shoney’s breakfast bars, Tiger Electronics, and empty threats of “don’t make me turn this car around,” this is the Southern spring break experience in all its glory.

 

We talk about:

• The real origin of spring break (hint: it started with Yankee swim teams in Florida)

• Why most Southern kids ended up at grandma’s house instead of the beach

• The chaos of Panama City Beach in its prime (and what happens when it’s 45° and everyone’s still partying)

• Road trip essentials: Game Boys, Walkmans, and staring out the window like you’re in a music video

• Beach debates: boogie boards vs inflatables, Coleman vs Igloo, go-karts vs mini golf

• And of course… Meemaw’s house, featuring bologna, Bob Barker, and Aunt Bee.

 

Plus, we wrap it up with a round of “Hoot OR Holler” and answer a listener question about the ultimate airbrush spring break t-shirt (which goes exactly how you’d expect).

 

Whether you spent spring break at Club La Vela or Club La Meemaw, this one’s for you.

The Tornado-Chasing Garbage Man

We’re back in the vault.

 

This episode of Scattered & Covered comes from one of our live, on-location recordings where we basically set up, see who walks by, and let it rip.

 

This time, we met a garbage man who chases tornadoes.

 

From the Boston Celtics to trash truck mechanics to real-life storm chasing in Alabama, this one goes everywhere and somehow keeps getting better.

The Episode That Shouldn’t Exist (But Here We Are)

Somehow… this became a full episode.

What started as leftover clips from our last recording quickly turned into something we couldn’t ignore. We went off the rails, stayed there, and now you’re listening to the results.

In this episode, we bounce between mariachi bands playing “Achy Breaky Heart,” an ongoing rat situation that may or may not be escalating, the chaos of Costco, competitive eating legends, hot dog rankings, and a few stories that probably should’ve stayed off the record.

It doesn’t make sense. There’s no real theme. And honestly, we’re not even sure how it all connects.

But it made us laugh… so here we are.

If you enjoy Southern storytelling, off-the-cuff conversations, and the kind of randomness that only happens when nobody hits the brakes—this one’s for you.

Pre-Internet Lies We All Believed

Before Google, before smartphones, before you could fact-check anything in 2 seconds… we just believed stuff.

 

In this episode, the guys dive into the wild world of pre-internet urban legends—the rumors, myths, and straight-up lies that somehow spread across the country with zero proof and 100% confidence. 

 

From Marilyn Manson being that kid from The Wonder Years, to Pop Rocks and Coke “killing you,” to every town having a Crybaby Bridge, we break down the stories we all heard growing up—and why we believed every single one of them.

 

We also get into:

• The Satanic Panic and the stuff people thought was “evil”

• The rumor that Procter & Gamble was secretly sinister

• Small-town legends like hitman capital of the world

• And the weird ways these stories spread before the internet even existed

 

If you grew up in the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s, there’s a very good chance you believed at least one of these… and probably repeated it like it was fact.

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The Ultimate Cable TV Movie Bracket

What is the greatest movie ever shown on cable TV?

 

In this episode of Hoot’n & Holler’n, we build the Ultimate Cable TV Movie Bracket to settle one of the most important debates in television history: which movie dominated basic cable for decades?

 

From action classics to endlessly replayed comedies, we debate and rank the movies that basically lived on TBS, TNT, USA, and FX. The bracket includes cable staples like The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Jurassic Park, The Fugitive, Die Hard, Armageddon, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Speed, Twister, Mrs. Doubtfire, Tombstone, A Few Good Men, Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Air Force One, Remember the Titans, Rudy, Dumb and Dumber, and more.

 

Some of these movies are genuine all-time classics.

Some of them just felt like classics because cable TV played them 4,000 times a year.

 

Along the way we ask the important questions:

Which movie actually deserves the title of Greatest Cable Movie Ever?

Which one only seemed bigger because we saw it every Saturday afternoon?

And which cable TV legend gets knocked out way too early?