Already reviewed:
Chaz and A.J in the Morning
Doug Loves Movies
BBC Drama of the Week
The Moth
New Yorker: Fiction
NPR: Foreign Dispatch
Stuff You Missed in History Class
WTF with Marc Maron
2 Cent History (thought this has been pretty quiet for awhile)
Reviews in 2103:
The Dan LeBatard Show
Notes in Spanish, Inspired Beginners
Q and A Spanish
WNYC's Radiolab
Sampling:
The Comixologist
Giant Size
The Grantland Network
The Nerdist
Peter King NFL podcast
...and many more in the new year. If you want me to review your podcast, I'm all ears.
A Review Which Writes Itself
It's a podcast version of Radio 4's Drama of the Week. It's weekly. It's from the BBC.
You don't have to be an Anglophile to enjoy these 45 minute to an hour plus episodes. I find them a pleasant change of pace from the interview shows, comedy hours, news and educational podcasts that form my current playlist.
Not much more to say except you could do a lot worse than listen to these self contained weekly audio plays from the BBC.
Things I knew little about
In 1915 Clara Immerwahr committed suicide using the service revolver of her husband, Nobel Prize winning chemist Fritz Haber. It is believed she did so after his refusal to abandon pioneering use of chlorine gas as a chemical weapon during the First World War. Haber’s son, Hermann later also killed himself, supposedly due to the shame he felt over his father’s actions.
I learned about Fritz Haber because I subscribe to “Stuff You Missed in History Class”. Almost everyone and everything discussed on this podcast was not talked about in any history class I ever sat through. In addition to Fritz Haber, I have been treated to looks at the life and times of such disparate figures as John Dillinger, Catherine The Great, Frida Kahlo, Ma Barker, Billy the Kid, Lord Byron, Gandhi, Lucretia Borgia, Meriwether Lewis, Brian Boru, Stokely Carmichael, and Mata Hari to name but a few.
So I commend them on an entertaining and informative product. I hope you will sample Stuff You Missed in History Class and perhaps SYMiHC can make up for some of the things that were never brought up in school.
Doug Loves Movies - He really does.
I have been listening to this podcast for so long that I remember when it was titled “I Love Movies”. I came across it when I was looking for something in the Movie genre to augment my catalogue. At the time I was listening to the “Filmspotting” podcast. During that new search I came across this creation of Doug Benson’s.
The framework is Doug hosting a live panel of three guests, who are fellow comedians. Things generally take place at the UCB Theatre on Tuesday’s before Comedy Bang Bang. But there are many variations of this theme. There have been episodes with one guest (any “Rental Car” episode or Paul F. Tompkins voicing Cake Boss (Cake Boss) and Ice-T) or more than three guests (check out the 12 Guests of Christmas episodes). Or episodes which did not take place at the UCB Theatre. And there have been guests who are not comedians which doesn’t mean they weren’t funny (director Graham Elwood comes to mind).
After the opening guest introductions there is cinematic discussion but it’s more along the lines of “What movie(s) have you seen lately?” For road warrior comedians, this involves a lot of in-flight movies or going to current releases during daytime hours. Their up to the minute viewpoints have saved me from making some big mistakes in my own film going. Thanks Doug and panel members.
Then it’s down to business as Doug leads the panel through the Leonard Maltin Game. This is like Name That Tune reimagined by someone who is high (Hello again Doug). The contestants go through a bidding round where the person who says they can name a movie in the fewest cast member names has to try and guess the movie. Their clues come from the cast listing in Leonard Maltin’s popular movie guide (hence the Leonard Maltin Game) and they are read from the bottom up with the more obscure cast members coming first. Just listen a few times if you don’t understand that explanation. Oh, and the panel members are also playing for audience members who will receive pop culture swag if their contestant triumphs (generally first person to three points). The Leonard Maltin Game is funny, often surprisingly competitive, and you can try to guess along.
If you pick this up as a subscriber going forward, make sure you go back through the older episodes for some great moments. They are identified by a list of who is on each panel. My favorites are:
Doug’s running effort to get John Lithgow to come on the show which results in a smashingly success episode.
The inevitable appearances of Leonard Maltin himself (not a great player of the Game by the way).
The only time an episode was bleeped when Doug removed comments Elizabeth Shue made about her director on Hollow Man, Paul Verhoeven (apparently he favored more nudity. She disagreed.)
I could go on about Build A Title, audience name tags, the prize bag and the many great recurring guests…but …do yourself a favor and give this a try. It’s been a must download for me since I first came across it.
WTF - Marc Maron is listening
I did not know that Jack White was the youngest of ten siblings. Or that Craig Ferguson broke into standup playing a character named Bing Hitler. Or that Jimmy Kimmel was born in New Jersey but raised in Las Vegas. And I foung these thimgs out because Marc Maron sat down with White, Freguson and Kimmel and got them to open up about their lives.
Marc Maron is the creator and host of WTF, a podcast that travels a rare path. It's an interview with only one guest (usually) and since it runs about an hour, there is plenty of time to really go in depth with each subject. I don't watch late night television and I am sure some of WTF's guests have sat on several couches but I can guarantee they never spoke about themselves as much as they do with Marc.
A comedian by trade, Marc is a genius interviewer. He has gotten some guests who clearly don't enjoy discussing there lives (like the aforementioned Kimmel or say Chelsea Handler) to relax and open up. He generally tries to keep things on track under the umbrella of a timeline/lie events approach. But he is certainly not a slave to an outkine and really shines in his ability to work with what each guest is giving him.
And what a guest list. Nick Lowe, Bill Maher, Fred Willard, Wierd Al, Diablo Cody, Janeanne Garofalo, Nick Offerman with Megan Mullally. I don't know how he books them but the word must be getting out that Marc Maron is a good person to talk to. I urge you to go to http://www.wtfpod.com/guide and sample the full epsiode list (and check out the Merch section and be a supporter).
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