Quack Attack

Chokers are in. Fanny packs are being worn unironically. The X-Files is on tv and Jumanji is playing in a theater near you. The ’90s are alive in 2018.

Children of the ’90s are adults now, and the demand for content based on their nostalgic memories has never been higher. Enter Quack Attack – a podcast about the cinematic gem and beloved ’90s trilogy The Mighty Ducks.

The Mighty Ducks franchise boasts 3 movies about little league hockey, following a team of misfits and underdogs from struggling on skates to winning a global championship. All three movies were released between 1992-1996 and boast a total run time of 314 minutes.

“People either completely get it and are all in, or they completely don’t and think we’re weird,” said co-host Michael Florek. “Honestly, I understand both sides.”

The show is an evolution of the conversations Florek had with college friends. “Everybody had an opinion and everybody had a different point I hadn’t thought about before. When I met Tommy and Kevin and we made the podcast, our goal was just to see how long we could keep it going,” said Florek.

What is there to say about a series of kid movies that are over 20 years old? A lot. Quack Attack has over 150 episodes and their total airtime of over 4,700 minutes. You could watch the whole trilogy 15 times before running out of QA material.

“I think we cover enough ground to be of interest to a lot of those groups, particularly when we start posing questions like: ‘If the Mighty Ducks battled in The Hunger Games, who would win?’ The answer is Julie the Cat, by the way,” said co-host Kevin Cullen.

Beyond discussion and speculation, QA also hosts a seriously impressive amount of guests. They’ve talked to crew, writers, producers, and actors like Matt Doherty, Shaun Weiss, and Scott Whyte. They’ve also interviewed Steve Brill, who created the franchise and said of the podcast, “Your devotion is both flattering and scary.”

“It’s always interesting to hear how they ended up there, what they remember from those days and what they’ve gone on to do since then,” said Florek. The podcasters hope one day to hear from every Duck, including Emilio Estevez.

A podcast with such a limited scope, one might expect devoted listeners to be few and far between. But fans of the podcast — affectionately called ‘Quackolytes’ — are everywhere.

“For me, the weird corner of the internet that we’ve created and the fact that it spans across the globe is the coolest and most surprising thing that’s come of the pod,” said Cullen. “We have Quackolytes in Australia, London, Malaysia, New York, LA and everywhere in between and have made some true connections to them, which is beyond cool.”

Maybe it’s because the podcast isn’t just about The Mighty Ducks movies. It isn’t even just about hockey or sports in general. “You don’t have to know anything about sports to enjoy the podcasts. Our conversations are littered with movie references, but its really about ’90s nostalgia,” said Florek.

With the 24-hour news cycle on a constant loop of bad news and worse speculation, maybe it isn’t surprising that people have been looking more and more to a time that felt simpler, happier, and brighter.  Beloved movies and television shows are getting rebooted (and yes, a television reboot for The Mighty Ducks is in development).

People old enough to see the Ducks first capture the silver screen are now closer to middle-age than to teenagehood. “It’s obviously the perfect time for our generation to be driving and creating a lot of the content online, so it makes perfect sense for ’90s nostalgia to be so prominent right now,” said Cullen.

“All the ’90s children have entered a stage in our lives where a lot of us are starting to make good money,” said Florek. “Because of that, our purchases are driving markets.”

When you indulge yourself in nostalgia, there’s a wave of optimism and happiness that comes with a trip down memory lane. It’s a way to create an immediate connection between strangers, which is appealing to ’90s kids from all around the world.  We are all Ducks. And Ducks fly together.

Quack Attack  is independently produced and released weekly. Visit Quack Attack on Podchaser to listen with your favorite app, and leave it a rating or review.

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