Minnesota memory, live from the old dial.
Flashback Twin Cities treats Minnesota history as a living conversation, not a museum placard. KLBB-era interviews move from Metrodome memories and Vikings mascots to local broadcasters, old photographs, Bob Dylan, classic film, and vanished Twin Cities businesses.
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Flashback Twin Cities is a local-history talk show built from Minnesota voices, archived audio, and the kind of stories that get richer when someone remembers exactly where they were. Its center of gravity is the Twin Cities, but the subject can swing from television studios to football stadiums, downtown photographs, music criticism, classic movies, tornado history, and defunct restaurants or stores. The show’s episodes sound like live KLBB radio, with Tom Osmond guiding loose, detailed conversations and Kyle often nearby for banter, clips, and timing. It is warm without becoming tidy. The best stretches come when a guest starts tracing a career through accidents, side doors, and long-gone local institutions. Nancy Nelson recalls being a teenager with Broadway plans before a Channel 9 television opportunity changed her direction. Mike Binkley talks about television work and the unusual privilege of choosing when to step away. Hub Meads brings the Vikings mascot story down to the human scale of gear, games, Super Bowl travel, and being asked back after retirement. Mike Evangelist’s photography conversation gives the city a second life through scanned images, contact sheets, old building markings, and details that only appear decades later on a good monitor. Brian Lambert’s visit widens the lens to media, university controversies, and the way local institutions handle pressure. John Bream’s conversation turns Minnesota music into argument, pride, and memory, especially around Bob Dylan. Bob DeFleur brings classic film into the mix, including the changing boundaries of adult themes in movies. Flashback Twin Cities also keeps its AM-radio messiness intact. There are sponsor reads, vintage commercials, traffic complaints, weather jokes, and abrupt news detours. That texture matters. It makes the archive feel less like a lecture and more like an afternoon spent with people who saved the clippings. The result is a show for listeners who care about how a place sounded, looked, worked, and entertained itself before the present tense took over.
Made for: For listeners drawn to Twin Cities history, local broadcasting, Minnesota sports lore, vintage media, and place-specific nostalgia. It especially suits people who enjoy long conversational interviews over polished documentary packaging.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its archive-room specificity: named local guests, KLBB texture, vintage audio, and memories tied to actual Minnesota institutions. It treats media, sports, music, photography, and civic history as one shared local record.
Old Minneapolis on the radio: your imagination gets a very good scanner.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warm final broadcast ties Minnesota media history to stadium memories, a first TV job, and a gracious goodbye.
Flashback Twin Cities makes its final scheduled broadcast feel like a warm sign-off to Minnesota broadcasting history. Tom Osmond and Kyle are joined by Nancy Nelson, whose memories trace a path from a teenage Broadway dream to her first television job at Channel 9, with AFTRA…
A warm Twin Cities media farewell, with Mike Binkley reflecting on television, timing, and leaving on his own terms.
Tom Osmond's conversation with Mike Binkley plays as a measured farewell to a familiar Twin Cities television presence. Binkley, then nearing his December 6 departure from WCCO-TV's weekend anchor desk, talks through the value of leaving by choice rather than waiting for the…
A radio conversation about old photographs finds life in the details that scanning brings back into view.
This single-episode review follows a radio conversation about old photographs and turns it into a close look at how cities leave evidence behind.
Hub Meads reflects on the Vikings costume, Super Bowl memories, and the returns that made retirement less final.
Flashback Twin Cities finds its best material in the gap between a familiar sports symbol and the person who lived inside it. Tom Osmond speaks with Hub Meads, the Vikings mascot for 22 years, with the original costume connected to the 1970 to 1992 era.
Hub Meads turns the Vikings mascot costume into warm, lived-in team history.
Hub Meads brings Flashback Twin Cities into the lived history of the Vikings mascot costume, making the role feel less like a sideline novelty and more like a durable piece of team memory.
Overlooked lives, read from the sources, talked through warmly.
Mike Duncan narrates Rome's full history solo, from Aeneas to Romulus Augustulus's exile in 476.
The episode opens with archive audio from November 20, 1981, when Channel 4 reported the Hubert H.
["Flashback Twin Cities uses Mike Binkley's WCCO-TV retirement to revisit Minnesota TV news history, including his December 6 final day after 34 years in the business.", "Tom Osmond and Kyle interview Binkley about early-morning shifts, weekend work, and the family sacrifices that came with decades in local news.", "Binkley also retells the Warren, Minnesota UFO case from 1979, where a sheriff's deputy found a cracked windshield, a damaged squad car, and a stopwatch stopped for 14 minutes.", "The conversation moves through the Metrodome, satellite-news history at Hubbard Broadcasting, and the way social media and on-demand viewing are changing TV news."]
Mike Evangelist says he began photographing in 1968 with a borrowed Argus C3 and a $1 Radio Shack camera book, then kept shooting Minneapolis streets for decades.
Tom Osmond interviews Hub Meads, the Vikings mascot from 1970 to 1992, and Meads says a $15 Super Bowl ticket helped turn him into the team's sideline figure.
["Hub Meads says he was the Minnesota Vikings mascot from 1970 to 1992, traveled to three Super Bowls, and did it for little to no pay.", "Tom Osmond traces that job back to a first Super Bowl in New Orleans, a letter to the Vikings, sideline passes, and homemade shields that spelled \"Vikings.\"", "Meads says he made about $3,000 a season in his final nine years, got paid only after Crazy George arrived, and still treated the role as an honor rather than a contract fight.", "The episode also recalls snowballs and bottles at Yale Bowl, a 1976 \"loser's ring\" from the Raiders Super Bowl, and McDonald's all-day breakfast splitting Egg McMuffin and biscuit territory by region."]
Flashback Twin Cities 10-03-2015 features Tom Osmond and Kyle interviewing Brian Lambert of MinnPost.com about media coverage of 2015 politics and Twin Cities institutions.
Flashback Twin Cities 09-26-2015 opens with Mark Tucker’s seven-level St.
Flashback Twin Cities host Tom Osmond interviews film archivist Bob DeFlores about preserving radio, television, film, photographs, slides, and other media artifacts.
Kevin Berger recounts how his father, Al Berger, and a small Ohio radio station led him into broadcasting, from CONUS and News Star 5 to modern digital work.
Tom Osmond and Stan Turner preview Newsapalooza 2 at the Heights Theater, a $15 event supporting TC Media Now and featuring archival Minnesota television.
Hosts Tom Osmond and Tom Shue interview Kate Roberts about the 'Toys' exhibit at the Minnesota History Center.
Two hosts discuss a local hockey team's playoff game and potential fan riots.
A comedic talk show host jokes about St.
Host Tom Osmond introduces a talk radio show with guest Turi Rydern, discussing her career and the evolution of AM radio.