Your Comedy Podcast Rotation 2021

[TheMonk]

It's one of those pods that takes a while to get going with it's characters and world building. Try one of the ones with Mike Bubbins as Eli Roberts, he's always good value on there. I really liked the build up to the Slash Beef stuff too, lovely and silly. But yeah, those early eps can be a bit slow.

Ok cheers for that.

[Thursday]

Not to be a downer on the thread but was anyone else a slavish devotee to tons of American (mostly LA) Comedy Podcasts until one day a switch flipped and you just found them all irritating and they all started to drop out of rotation until there were none left? Not sure I could give good reason why, but it happened to me.

[BeardFaceMan]

Not to be a downer on the thread but was anyone else a slavish devotee to tons of American (mostly LA) Comedy Podcasts until one day a switch flipped and you just found them all irritating and they all started to drop out of rotation until there were none left? Not sure I could give good reason why, but it happened to me.

No, I pretty much had that experience as well. Got tired of the same handful of comedians appearing on each others podcasts, and on a wider point I think improv podcasts have made comedians incredibly lazy, I find them a bit of a chore to get through these days. And the interview podcasts got old because of the same guests all the time. Doug Loves Movies used to be essential listening, great guests, great games, now it's just a bunch of road hacks I've never heard of proving why they're road hacks I've never heard of with not as much emphasis on the games.

[Old Nehamkin]

Not to be a downer on the thread but was anyone else a slavish devotee to tons of American (mostly LA) Comedy Podcasts until one day a switch flipped and you just found them all irritating and they all started to drop out of rotation until there were none left? Not sure I could give good reason why, but it happened to me.

Yes, this basically happened to me. From around 2010-2014 most of my podcast listening was centred around Comedy Bang Bang and that whole Earwolf / LA improv sphere in general. There were shows that in retrospect I didn't really even like that much that I would still habitually check in with just because they featured comics from that scene (I'm looking at you, Doug Loves Movies). I still look back on that period fondly but I just started to feel a niggling sense that CBB and its whole house style of loose, long-form character improv was feeling increasingly repetitive, self-indulgent and tired. When Harris Wittels died it kind of felt like a natural point to step away and I've hardly listened to any of that stuff at all since then.

It does also feel like the U.S. comedy podcast world experienced a sort of magnetic pole shift from 2016 onwards with the emergence of Chapo Trap House and the subsequent glut of lefty political comedy shows mostly based in NYC. I suppose it's a shame that "pure" comedy podcasts that don't incorporate current affairs discourse by default have fallen out of fashion, but with regards to the Earwolf set I'll admit that for me the last few years of engaging with U.S. politics and culture online (maybe a little too much for my mental health!) have only hardened me more and more against the idea of listening to a bunch of middle-aged hollywood liberals doing "Yes and" for 2 hours at a time.

[Old Nehamkin]

- Time For My Stories - Chapo's Felix & Matt go over iconic American TV series since the creation of the medium to dissect how they've impacted the country's entertainment landscape and wider culture as a whole. Fascinating topics with two naturally funny people. (I think it's only available on Stitcher Premium, but, you know. You can still find them.)

I've been enjoying these very much after... finding them (no idea why the Chapo guys have decided to go the Stitcher Premium route with this after pioneering their hugely successful free episode/bonus episode model, but whatever). For my money Matt and Felix are the two most insightful and original thinkers in the CTH crew by a clean distance and they throw out some pretty illuminating theses in these shows, as well as just being funny and engaging. The Sopranos episode is maybe one of the best discussions of that show I've ever listened to.

[I.D. Smith]

I genuinely love Wrestleme, nothing in any medium has made me laugh more over the last few years.  It's the only (Pat) Patreon i'm a member of as well.  Glad to see another fan on here.

Count me in too as a fan. It's the only Podcast  - in fact, the only thing - I've signed up as a Patreon subscriber for. I like the casual nature of it, and the fact they don't feel they have to describe every move in every match, which I've noticed other wrestling podcasts tend to do.

Does it make much/any difference whether you've watched the shows or not?

I personally don't think so. I like wrestling, but I'm not a hardcore fan, so there's loads and loads of PPVs and matches I've not seen that they cover on the podcast, yet it's not spoiled my enjoyment of it.

[beanheadmcginty]

I think CBB dipped in quality a couple of years back but dince Ego Nwadim and Carl Tartt turned up it is as good as it's ever been.

[dr_christian_troy]

I'm finding myself a tad cursed in my self-fulfilling prophecy - I've had the luck of being able to interview a few of my heroes for my own podcasts, and then as soon as I've interviewed them I struggle to revisit or continue to listen to their work.

I interviewed Scott Aukerman (one of my first interviews too) and it generally went well, but what I failed to remember at the time, was that for a lot of these guys it's just another day. I'm not a part of their world, and it's not likely that they would perceive me as a friend afterwards either. So there's this difficult psychological strength that is hard to attain where you meet someone you look up to, and for you it's one thing and for them it's another thing entirely. In that particular example, I later rallied fellow UK CBB fans to come to the live show in London, and without any encouragement from me a fellow fan very kindly pulled me forward at the signing afterwards and said "this is the guy who got us to come here, we love your show" etc. I said hi and that we had met before and I had interviewed him, and he went "oh, how did that turn out?" and suddenly you realise that you're nothing to them. It doesn't make them an asshole because they must be super-busy all the time, but it did leave me feeling gutted at the time. Especially since his people really pushed me to confirm a release date of the episode and everything, as if they were going to RT or promote on social media, which they never did despite me pushing to reach an earlier release date and, as it turns out, he never listened to it anyway.

For the record, while the issue of me being able to visit their work afterwards remains in this context (for reasons unknown to myself), I can say with full confidence that Todd Glass, Cecil Baldwin and Jimmy Pardo for example were all absolutely sound and wonderful. Matt Gourley too was marvelous, but despite an ongoing correspondence on and off I now feel like he's doing his very best to not tell me to fuck off entirely.

Tom Scharpling was probably the best interview I had purely because we spoke as much off air as we did on air. He seemed to turn the tables on me and was sincere about asking how I was doing, and it went a strange but enlightening way. In another world Tom could have been quite the therapist, I reckon. Ironically though, I have since been on his podcast as a caller and I don't think he necessarily remembered who I was (maybe next time I call I should actually mention that we have met before and the interview we had, and perhaps he'll react differently. Hard to say.).

This has all come to the surface for me very recently only because for the first time in years I interviewed two folks I have looked up to (in the last year certainly), and despite an initial high I've since been torturing myself in terms of rustiness and generally just a lot of self-doubt. Then it comes back round to the fact that for you, you want to make a connection - for them, it's just another day. In the last year, making connections, being connected to the people who make you feel better and who you feel you have things in common with - it seems more important now, which means if you interview someone and then walk away knowing that it's not the same impact for them, it's difficult to deal with mentally and that's no one's fault but my own.

[Mr Banlon]

Smershpod

Beef & Dairy Network

Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast

The Dana Gould Hour(s)

What a Time to Be Alive

The Dave Hill Comedy Hour

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Thirding or fourthing Office Hours Live, though the joy is greatly enhanced by the video show on YouTube, as opposed to just the podcast.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Smershpod

Good recent ep. on You Only Live Twice with Charlie Higson.

[chveik]

The Sopranos episode is maybe one of the best discussions of that show I've ever listened to.

just listened to that one. it's nice to hear people who 'get' the ending for once.

i listen to trillbilly regularly and catch up on Hollywood Handbook (mostly the premium stuff, guests often tend to bring the show down) and the best show bests (i love Scharpling but i can't listen to a whole four hour episode) once in a while.

apart from Andy Daly (i've listened to a few bonanza eps, they were pretty good), i'm not arsed about the LA comedy scene anymore.

there is way too much 'content' out there , i'd rather people spent more time working on their material but i suppose they need the monthly patreon money.

[Old Nehamkin]

I quite enjoy Smershpod but I find it a million times more entertaining when the guests actually have some degree of knowledge/affection for the Bond films (The Man with the Golden Gun episode with Mark Gatiss was pretty delightful) rather than the ones who fall into the dislike/not arsed category. I imagine that John Rain is trying to go for a broad appeal and avoid being too fanboyish or whatever, but if you like these films (as I assume the vast majority of the audience does) then it's not very fun to listen to people either repeatedly saying that they were bored and nonplussed by them or making the same collection of hacky observations about the cliches and dated elements of the series as though they're the first ones to come up with them. Also Rain always seems to just compliantly agree with the guest's take on the week's film, so if the guest hated it then the episode tends to end up being relentlessly negative and miserable. I remember finding the early episode on Diamonds Are Forever (a film I've got a bit of a soft spot for) absolutely interminable for this reason.

[Brian Freeze]

Ok cheers for that.

BeardFaceMan said it better but its definitely worth sticking with as a lot of effort has been put into the depth of the off kilter world building, it isnt just crash bang wallop ha ha surreal. And Eli Robers is an incredible bastard.

[Tokyo van Ramming]

Do The Right Thing

I've really missed this. As with Flatshare Slamdown, the live shows often invite and stride upon chaos.

My number one pod is Brian Gittins and Friends and I'm very sad it's also quiet, as it seemed to be getting some attention just as it looked like Brian was going to fuck it off. (Just looked, Gittins and DTRT are the two shows at the bottom of the new episode list boo hoo).

Poppy Hilstead Has Entered the Chat is a lot of fun, and The Alexei Sayle Podcast is currently the cream of active podcasts for me.

[DrGreggles]

My number one pod is Brian Gittins and Friends and I'm very sad it's also quiet

It'll be back, once they can all be in the same room. Doubt it would work on Zoom.

If the past year has taught me anything, it's that David Edwards doesn't understand basic technology.

[cincoveces05]

Count me in too as a fan. It's the only Podcast  - in fact, the only thing - I've signed up as a Patreon subscriber for. I like the casual nature of it, and the fact they don't feel they have to describe every move in every match, which I've noticed other wrestling podcasts tend to do.


That's ace to hear, I could talk about my favourite moments all day!! I'm hoping to get to their live show this year.

Does it make much/any difference whether you've watched the shows or not?

Sorry for the (very) late reply!  Like ID Smith said, I don't think you do need to be a big fan of wrestling to enjoy wrestleme.  It's more a love letter to the the wrestlers themselves than the matches they were in,, half the time they don't even tell you the result of the matches they are talking about.  I started from the beginning again based on this thread and it's pretty great from the get go, they are just 2 very very quick witted men, can tell they both work in radio.

[Dusty Substance]

Smershpod

As a Bond head, I thought this might be my cup of tea but I dipped into one episode a couple of years ago (Robin Ince was the guest) and the host of the show appeared to have lifted jokes and observations almost word-for-word from the James Bonding Podcast on Earwolf. This was enough for me to switch off and never go back. Should I give it another try?

Did Brian Gittins & Gittins come to an abrupt finish or did they move to Patreon? This was the case with Matt Morgan's podcast which started on Radio X. The episodes stopped appearing on there and it was only months later that I found out through CAB that Matty Morg's had made a move to Patreon.

[Fishfinger]

Last Podcast on the Left - and some of its siblings, e.g. the current Dune series and last year's run of No Dogs in Space about The Stooges, which got me through some tedious hours of decorating
Office Hours live
Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown
All Killa No Filla

Fave defunct podcasts:

The George Lucas Talkshow

Edit: deleted a bunch of stuff that's arguably not comedy

[Tokyo van Ramming]

A new one I'm enjoying that's two episodes old and already in permanent rotation is Brent Weinbach's Gangster Party Line podcast.

If you remember this from seven years ago https://youtu.be/Cx1J2CzNnS8 the phone number was real, and people still call it, lookin to talk shit with some gaingkstas.

A lot of the callers are naturals and really just want to to talk shit. The back and forth made me laugh my arse off.

I hope they tighten this up and it sticks around, as the first two eps hit some very high spots for me. Shame it's through these folks though:

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-gangster-party-line-81178062/

[Poison To The Mind]

Could you recommend any podcasts which are just straight-out comedy? Character stuff, maybe sketches? (I've not heard of there being anything close to sitcom, the nearest I can think being Partridge's brilliant From The Oasthouse) Instead of just people chatting amusingly. Or is that not how these things work?

Comedy Bang Bang might be close enough for you: it's ostensibly a talk show where nearly every episode opens with a "real person" who has a book or movie coming out or w/e, but then multiple "character" guests join the show, and the real person can either go along with their premise or play the wall. (Sometimes the real ppl will "leave" and reenter as a fictional character, occasionally the characters will be in from the start, some characters recur and build up massive accretions of backstory and plot.) In the early years, people often brought detailed bits and sketch material and plots for their characters, but the majority of every episode is improv in character. They just broke off their seventh hundo, so there's no shortage of material to work through, either chronologically or picking performers you like and bouncing around their appearances.

[McChesney Duntz]

Could you recommend any podcasts which are just straight-out comedy? Character stuff, maybe sketches? (I've not heard of there being anything close to sitcom, the nearest I can think being Partridge's brilliant From The Oasthouse) Instead of just people chatting amusingly. Or is that not how these things work?

There's also Superego, which is all sketch, pretty much all improvised but really fucking funny: http://www.gosuperego.com/

[Poison To The Mind]

Also Sizzletown, a "late night call-in podcast" in which every caller is played by the same bloke who ostensibly hosts*. Most of the caller characters recur, and every couple of months there's an elaborately produced musical parody number. Runs biweekly in seasons, took most of 2020 off.

_{*A Kiwi-born Australian resident who has been a TV sketch show writer and performer, one of the top-rating radio broadcasters in the market in three different decades (two of them nationally) AND a completely unheralded community radio host AND anonymous in-character public broadcaster, a stand-up, a film writer/director, a TV host, a prose comedy memoirist, a novelist, a sitcom director, and won multiple Best Comedy Album awards at the Australian Brits/Grammies equiv.}