“Some of what we try to do is recapture some of those feelings… of the media that captured our imaginations when we were younger… But with this layer of bizarreness.”

Kristin, cast member of The Middle-Aged Candy Store

Nostalgia seems to be having a bigger, and bigger place in popular culture these days. Maybe it’s part of escapism, as society tries to adjust to a post pandemic word. Maybe innovation is dead and those hover cars we were told were coming in books and movies of the 80’s and 90’s will never exist. Maybe looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses makes facing the present easier. Or maybe nostalgia influenced work is just fun.

Speaking of nostalgia, ladies and gentlemen, your favorite classic Hanna Barbera inspired satire-comedy podcast, The Middle-Aged Candy Store is back for a third season! Produced and written by The Gathering Collective, Season 3 starts… in prison? With a honky-tonk, country-blues singing cellmate? 

Wow! Even our favorite nostalgic variety show has hit, “Hard times!”        

The Middle Aged Candy Store is a surreal, comedic anthology show featuring skits, fictional advertisements and music. It is a production of the ad hoc collective known as, “The Gathering.” Originally based in Toronto, the group also has members in Montreal. The Gathering began as the Enchanted Collective, writing and producing the live-theater show, “The Enchanted Crack House,” in 2012. 

The group prides itself in its unusual, and long, writing process that can take years. Ideas are initially work-shopped at social gatherings of the loose, ad hoc collective. The Middle-Aged Candy Store is the Gathering’s third project and their first produced as a radio play. 

To learn more about The Gathering, and their creative process Dane and Liz interviewed members Mark and Kristin on the 34th episode of the We’re Still Cool Podcast. Find that here, BUT FIRST, follow this link to The Middle-Aged Candy Store, binge the first two seasons and join in on the adventures of some of our favorite, weird characters.