Agent Palmer

The United States Women won their third FIFA Women’s World Cup title in Canada, in spite of looking and performing below their World #2 ranking at times.

But before I examine what it all means and what is next in the riddle that is Soccer in America, let’s take a look at how they got the Cup.

Remember that time when Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saved the world together?

Of course you do, because Independence Day was the highest grossing film of 1996. In case you’re wondering, it beat out Twister, Mission: Impossible, Jerry Maguire, and Ransom, which, with ID4, make up the Top 5 highest domestic grossing movies of that year.

In order to increase sales of toys marketers have always used Saturday Morning Cartoon commercial breaks, but some went to the extreme creating whole new brand monsters that took on a lives of their own. From He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to Transformers, Care Bears, G.I. Joe, Pound Puppies, and countless others, let’s look at the franchises of in variety of mediums spawned from toys, in order to increase the sale of those toys.

Keep in mind this was 30 years ago, before the marketers of today realized that releasing toys to a movie, will boost a movie.

It’s not a mistake. The Stranger Conversations with Grant Markham was not an anomaly. Do not adjust your dials.

That was I, Agent Palmer, on another podcast. This time I infiltrated the Moving the Needle Podcast (MTNpod). “Infiltrated” may be a harsh word, as I was invited. As a peek behind the curtain, here’s how this came about.

I was just live tweeting some episodes of MTNpod, per my usual podcast listening habits.