I’ve been listening to the Prancing Pony podcast, which is what got me started on this thought. They do a deep dive on Tolkien’s work: The Hobbit, LOTR, the Simarillion. Really excellent word-nerdery and detailed analysis. But they also never miss a chance to sh*t on Jackson’s films, make annoying digressions on other topics, or beat a funny quote into the ground (yes, Monty Python is funny, but I’m here for the Tolkien). Any podcasts you folks can’t miss but also slightly dread?
There are a few podcasts where the reporter/host’s voice sets my nerves on edge so much that I can’t listen anymore, despite otherwise liking it. Thankfully, on one of them, the person is only rarely on it anymore so I can skip over that segment. And there’s a crime podcast where the host mispronounces words and cities all the time.
Last Podcast on the Left. They do a great job on true crime and cults, but the paranormal/UFO stuff is dull as dishwater. You can tell the primary researcher/narrator Marcus Parks is just covering that stuff to humor his cohost comedian/impersonator Henry Zebrowsky.
Years and years ago, it got recommended to me and I couldn’t get into because the hosts were too “Austin comic” before that was even a thing with dropping “edgy” slurs occasionally. I have heard that they don’t really do that anymore.
I listen to a lot of weird ones for my specific weird interests (I think we had a similar thread a while ago and a bunch of us were Pratchat listeners) but I think to add something new to the mix, and since it just started a new season, I love Normal Gossip. Just a host telling a guest a gossipy, anonymized story. It’s usually pretty wild and funny and gives me no learning or insight or facts or figures.
I think Radiolab has some interesting stories, but I find the overproduced soundtrack to be incredibly grating on my ears.
I listened to Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone for years. (She mentioned me by name in every episode for more than a year, but that’s not the only reason I listened.) I really like her and her co-host Adam Felber.
But after the first year, Bonnie Burns, Paula’s manager and producer, and a production assistant, Toni Anita Hull, started making brief appearances, and gradually became more and more prominent in the show. At first they were merely quirky, but after another year or two they were annoying and taking up too much of the show, so I gave it up. I haven’t listened for years.
Now I just listen to Car Talk in the car all the time.
James Bonding
A podcast on the James Bond films I listened to week by week as it aired, and really liked but apparently a ton of other people also really liked which meant it inspired a ton of copycat podcasts about James Bond and the worse part is they all took the hosts words as gospel leading to a TON of misinformation about James Bond films that I’m constantly hearing repeated to this day about James Bond.
Some enterprising folks have resurrected a whole bunch of Art Bell programs as podcasts episodes. It’s nice to have a chance to hear them again, but why, oh why couldn’t they have edited out the endlessly-repeated bumper music in the segment breaks?
I really like “Criminal” except that Phoebe Judd, the host, has a cadence that makes William Shatner as Captain Kirk sound positively spontaneous. I didn’t really hear it at first, but once you become conscious of it, you can’t un-hear it. It’s kinda ruined the podcast for me, which is a shame, because a lot of episodes have fantastic content.
For me it’s Freakonomics. It’s a first wave podcast, and has some great stories. Then there will be weeks of sports stories which are probably boring to anyone who doesn’t follow that sport, and probably old news to anyone who does. Followed by uncritical interviews with some neoliberal economist, or something.
Then just about when I’m ready to quit, they come back with something really interesting.
And not labeling the rebroadcasts is unforgivable. I have a friend that unsubscribed for that reason. Super annoying when I’m 10 minutes in, and am thinking, oh yeah, this one.
But then they do some really interesting story that are the kind that makes the show such a classic.
I was very taken for a while with a podcast called Shedunnit, which was concerned with the Golden Age of mystery writing (between the two world wars) and especially with women authors. Not limited to just women or just that period, but that was the main focus. I learned a lot of stuff, and found some new authors to read.
Eventually, however, the material seemed to get a bit thin. And then there were the constant pleas to join their book club (i.e. membership) with all the extras that go along with it. The show has frequent guests, often interesting, but I can’t always tell because they are clearly communicating via telephone, and the sound quality of that part is generally bad. But the last straw was very unexpected – I just became sick of the presenter’s British accent, and I’m not sure why. It’s almost posh RP but not quite, which normally wouldn’t bother me; maybe it’s also her voice, which is a bit thin. All in all, it makes me cringe so much now that I can’t listen to it.
Yep - Phoebe Judge (note spelling) pauses after every 3 or 4 words as though she has to take a breath. It’s a wonderful podcast, though. There’s almost always more behind the story than just the crime itself. She had one episode about the numerous people who got away with killing people who were gay, usually claiming they were afraid they were getting hit on, that nearly moved me to tears.
Yup! Such a great name for a podcaster with a “criminal” theme.
I am not sure why I wrote “Judd,” except that it is a historically significant name in Hawai’i and just came up in an event I attended yesterday. I leaned over to my son and said, “remember our friends [in New England] the Judds? They are actually related to the people being talked about.”
That’s a piss-poor excuse though. Phoebe JUDGE, dammit! Next time I’ll get it right.
Empire hosted by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple. William Dalrymple is one of my favorite authors, the subject matter is super interesting and covers parts of the history I’m not particularly familiar with.
But on the other hand it’s “dialogue” format where the two hosts converse back and forth (sometimes with a guest), which I’m not a.fan of. Though mostly I am not a fan because it’s so light on content. I listen to podcasts because I want the details, that’s where this format excels. I have pretty much given up on TV history documentaries because they are so content free (introduction, interviews with couple of talking heads, dramatic recreation, thats a wrap), and this seems like that. I stuck it out for a while but gave up in the end.
We Hate Movies
A very long running and absolutely hilarious bad movie podcast, but I 100% can’t shake the hosts being both high on their own egos and having serious ivory tower syndrome.
Among other things, constantly bringing up personal podcast beefs they had 10 years ago they should have gotten over by now, being super defensive of stuff for no reason, and having really bizzare hill to die on opinions such as “If you’re American and need subtitles to understand a British person’s accent, you’re an idiot”
That reminds me of my feelings about the very popular podcast How Did This Get Made? They have some episodes about genuinely bizarre and terrible movies like Old Dogs and I Know Who Killed Me that had me dying of laughter. But there are only so many of those truly weird movies, so they mix in movies that are deliberate kitschy like Anaconda; pointing out that a deliberately silly movie is silly is much less interesting. Plus, I can only take so much of Jason Mantzoukas’s “wacky” antics on that podcast.
This. I’m glad I know it’s just a character he plays.
100% agree on “How Did This Get Made” Their Street Fighter 2 episode was painfully unfunny for the same reason.