Your favorite podcast

Cafe Society
1

I’d like to hear what podcasts you are listenting to and would recommend.

Feel free to add as many as you want, but I would appreciate it if you would give a brief description of what the podcast is about and/or why you enjoy it.

I will start by recommending Bill Burr’s monday morning podcast.

This thing is around an hour long, and I usually find myself laughing out loud. The best part of the poscast, believe it or not, is the commercials. Burr has made the sponsor messages his own and they are worth hearing often just by themselves. He will improvise the copy on the fly, and he apparently has lost money and sponsors because of it, and he just doesn’t care.

One example is a company called meundies (pronounced me undees). They sell underwear that apparently wicks moisture away, and Burr has come up eith their slogan in the form of a little jingle thst he sings. “Meundies! Meundies! No more sweaty balls!”

The basic theme of the podcast is Burr just talking about his life in a mostly improvisational style.

If you like his humor, you will enjoy his podcast. And if you don’t know him or have never heard of him, Give the podcast a listen. There is one episode where he interviews Doug Stanhope thst is particularly funny, and would be a good place to start…

Yours?

2

Slate Daily Podcast: Slate has built a podcasting empire at this point but the general format is 2 - 3 incredibly smart, wonky, east coast liberals providing off the cuff debate on 2 - 3 topics in a given niche (politics, culture, finance, sports). I find all of the hosts incredibly likable and it’s a great to hear them grapple with issues and come at it with their own personal takes.

NPR Planet Money & Freakonomics: Two great Economics podcasts that delve deep into how Economics applies in interesting ways in our everyday world. They’ve both had some incredible episodes that have dug up stories ignored by the mainstream media.

Startup Podcast: Started by one of the creators of Planet Money on his attempt to start a new startup focusing on podcasting. As someone who’s involved in the entrepreneurial space, this podcast gives me PTSD listening to it which I suppose is the highest form of praise.

This American Life & Serial: The weekly storytelling juggernaut and it’s new spinoff on a single story told over 12 weeks. Incredible production values and great, fascinating stories, some of them masterpieces of investigative reporting.

Hardcore History, Common Sense with Dan Carlin & The Born Yesterday Podcast: Three great history podcasts. Hardcore history, in particular, is incredible. Dan is currently on a 12+ hour project on the first World War that’s been over a year in the making and it’s fascinating to listen to.

Harmontown: A weekly live show by Dan Harmon, creator of Community started after he was fired from the show. It’s improbable that it works but there’s something so charming and profanely funny about the show, so much so that it’s spawned an entire documentary which is also excellent.

How Did This Get Made: Paul Scheer, June Diane-Raphael & Jason Mantzoukas riffing on awful movies. The episodes are hit or miss but when they find a movie that makes their brains collectively melt, something genius happens.

Scriptnotes Podcast: Great podcast on screenwriting and a behind the scenes look at the filmmaking industry.

WTF with Marc Maron, Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler, The Alton Browncast: These are all “Host interviews a guest of the week” style podcasts. I generally only listen if the guest is someone I’ve heard of.

Cooking Issues & America’s Test Kitchen: Two food based radio call in shows that are both informative and entertaining.

3

The Bugle is my favorite by a long shot. It’s transatlantic political satire, which means you get to snicker at both the US and the UK, run by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. If you don’t like swearing, you, er, might want to give it a pass. It’s usually once a week, although right now it’s a bit spotty, probably due to John’s preoccupation with Last Week Tonight. It’s the only podcast that, once in a hotel room late at night, I had to hold my nose and hide in the bathroom to keep from waking everyone else up with laughter.

Startalk can also be pretty good if you’re into outer space - it’s run by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Lastly, Nightvale is really amazing if you’re the right kind of person; it’s a radio show from a fictional dystopian town. You’ll want to start at the beginning, as it follows a storyline.

4

Mark and Lynda podcast. Mark Thompson retired a couple years ago from KLOS in L.A. and a few months later started a podcast with his wife. Listened to him on KLOS for 25 years so it was no brainer to follow his podcast.

Adam and Dr. Drew

Dan Patrick

Tim Conway Jr podcast from his evening show on KFI

WTF with Marc Maron

5

Seconding This American Life.
Really an exemplary program.

6

Seconding This American Life, its spinoff Serial, and Harmontown.

Also:

Welcome to Night Vale - The premise is that it’s a radio show from the town of Night Vale, where hooded figures, monstrous creatures, gateways to other dimensions, and a general air of dread are part of everyday life. Heavy on the Lovecraftian influences. It’s great.

Hollywood Babble-On - Kevin Smith and radio guy/comic/impressionist Ralph Garmin do comedy bits and talk about current Hollywood news in front of a live audience.

7

In Our Time.

8

Dinner Party Download

9

+1 on this American life, serial, freakonomics, and welcome to night vale.

I really like a podcast called Selected Shorts. The content is great, although the production can leave a bit to be desired. I’ve had to skip a few that range from so quiet you can’t hear them to “MY EARS ARE BLEEDING” and back in the same sentence.

10

My favorites are Reasonable Doubts, a skeptical atheist podcast. very good socialogical bits, Breakdowns of studies on religion and social benifits and such. not as dry as it sounds.

the reality check, a skeptical podcast from Ottawa. popular myth debunking and science, some of it very lighthearted and silly. the guys are very fun and they do great parody style songs for many intro songs. they do a lot of “saw this on facebook is it for real”, and quote the straightdope quite often

And the NonProphets. people from the atheist community of Austin, hang out and talk news and stuff, very irreverntly. fun reoccuring bits like superpope and mocking internet apologists.

I miss the Godless B**ches. feminist athesists. they seem to have stopped podcasting, hope they come back.

Penn’s sunday school. Penn Gillette being himself. and a sister podcast matt and matingly’s ice cream social. two improv guys from vegas just talking everything. and Geekshock, a podcast for nerds by nerds full of nerd news and opinions.

11

Norm McDonald’s YouTube podcast, also available as audio if you search for it (sorry, don’t feel like searching from my phone). Sadly, rumor is that he’s not going to do any more.

12

Another vote for Freakanomics. I’d also recommend The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. A panel discussion that debunks a lot of junk science and “alternative” medicine. They also cover developments in science in technology, while tending to avoid the sensationalizing and misrepresentations that have become so prevalent in mainstream media coverage. Throw in some interesting interviews and some humor and it’s definitely worth a listen.

13

Comedy Bang Bang - Improv comedy with Scott Aukerman and guests
WTF with Marc Maron

14

Another vote for This American Life & Serial. Serial is ridiculously addicting…

I’ve also been listening to The Moth- a storytelling medium. There was one story in particular about a civil rights prisoner during the 60s and his encounter with a very young white boy in prison that was especially poignant.

I also like Leah Thau’s show, Strangers. I enjoyed her Love Hurts series where she basically interviews men that she dated in order to figure out why she has been single for 4 years. Funny and interesting.

15

The ones I subscribe to and listen to regularly are:
Startup
Serial
The Partially Examined Life
Fresh Air
Philosophize This!
Radiolab
Freakonomics Radio
This American Life
WTF with Marc Maron
Marketplace
Planet Money

Some of these have already been described. The Partially Examined Life is a long (over 90 minute) panel discussion of topics in philosophy by some guys with grad school backgrounds in philosphy. Philosophize This! is a thirty-minute one man show on philosphy by a totally self-taught amateur named Stephen West.

Marketplace is podcast version of the nightly Kai Ryssdal radio show on business and markets. Radiolab is hard to categorize; I guess it covers whatever topics in science and popular culture that interest Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the hosts.

WTF is my favorite podcast. Since I began listening about a year ago, there has only been one or two interviews that I found uninteresting.

16

I’ll second The Skeptics Guide to the Universe for science and critical thinking.

For comedy, I like Uhh Yeah Dude; America through the eyes of two American-Americans. Also, The Complete Guide top Everything, a podcast about everything.

17

Savage Love by Dan Savage. DTMFA! Be GGG!

18

I’ve really been enjoying “The Thrilling Adventure Hour” lately. If you like sketch comedy audio podcasts like Welcome to Night Vale, you’ll probably like this too (in fact they recently did a crossover show with Night Vale). It’s a series of sketches done in the form of old-time radio, like “Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars”, or “Beyond Belief”, which is about a drunken high-society married couple who deal with ghosts and monsters. Paget Brewster playing the wife Sadie with this comically exaggerated midatlantic old-timey movie accent always cracks me up. It’s performed in front of a live audience, which gives the performances a little more of a loose, relaxed feel. Sometimes the mistakes are funnier than the actual lines.

19

Yea, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. Have done all The WWI podcasts. If you’ve got 4 hours or are taking a long car trip, listen to his podcast on… Muenster. It’s un-friggin’-believable.

20

Binge Thinking History - A very well researched and well done history podcast. Very rarely updated but worth catching up on.

12 Byzantine Rulers - A famously great podcast. Now concluded but highly worth it if this is your type of thing.
**
The History of Rome** - also concluded, also famously fantastic.

HBR Ideacast - Great if you are interested in business, leadership, innovation etc.

NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me - If I have to explain what this is…yeah.