It’s been a long, hot, Riverdale-less summer, but Dial M For Maple is here with a special treat: an interview with Tiera Skovbye, a.k.a. the mysterious Polly Cooper. While on a press tour for her new movie, Summer Of ’84, Tiera jumped on the phone with host Cameron Scheetz to discuss the future of the Cooper clan, the…
FriendsLikeUs has long been a gem of podcasting, providing women (and particularly women of color) a place to sit down and unapologetically discuss their lives in the world of comedy. These conversations are often quite frank, touching as much on the issues of the day as the minutiae of the stand-up scene and all with…
Few foods straddle the middle of the Venn diagram between “wholesome, pastoral staple of the American diet” and “hotly contested ethical minefield” quite like a glass of milk. According to culinary historian and journalist Mark Kurlansky, many of the nutritional and moral questions surrounding human consumption of…
Why allow yourself to be killed by spending a mere minute-plus watching a video, a la The Ring, when you could drag it out for the length of an entire podcast? That’s the exciting proposition of an upcoming movie that dares to ask the question, “Is anything more deadly than a shitty podcast?”
“Iconic” is a word people often use to describe the music of James Bond. Like the clothes, cars, and gadgets of the early films, John Barry’s original 1960s arrangements feel like immutable elements of the franchise’s titular character. It just isn’t Bond if you don’t hear that certain chord progression. In the second…
A Woman’s Smile could spawn a Literally Unbelievable Tumblr just as easily as The Onion did. It’s billed as a podcast where co-hosts Patti Harrison and Lorelei Ramirez “talk about, well, everything! But especially the gentle and kind nature of a woman’s smile,” a summary that exemplifies the tone—but it could be taken…
In every episode of Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People, Chris Gethard gets on the phone with a complete stranger, and plays a role that’s equal parts interviewer, confessor, and confidant. Over the course of 120 episodes, he’s heard from the likes of an Australian aerialist turned sexual education teacher, a…
Oh, bless this podcast. Cher And Retweet springs from a delightful corner of the podcast world, where two or more people come up with some super-specific thing to discuss—in this case, Cher’s Twitter feed—as an excuse to get together and crack each other the hell up. It’s the podcast equivalent of a hangout film,…
The podcasters: Perhaps more friendships ought to start with a shared love of horror. Unlike the many popular podcasts helmed by siblings, lifelong friends, or longtime colleagues, Teen Creeps hosts Lindsay Katai and Kelly Nugent first met in early 2016, when the former was a guest on the latter’s Buffy-centric series …
Anyone who assumes that “a podcast about dictionaries by people who write dictionaries” might have limited appeal hasn’t heard lifelong lexicographer Kory Stamper rattle off the word “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” with aplomb and glee. She and fellow dictionary editor Steve Kleinedler approach Fiat Lex…
Fans of medical history and/or the McElroy family of podcasts are already familiar with Sawbones, the podcast where Justin “Houston’s Native Son” McElroy interrupts his wife, actual medical doctor Dr. Sydnee McElroy, as they explore the bizarre, misguided, sometimes totally disgusting history of how medical…
With one study recently estimating that as many as 180 million Americans are listening to online audio each month, podcasting as a form is indisputably on the rise in every way—a fact demonstrated by its inclusion, for the first time, in The A.V. Club’s “best of the year so far” coverage. As the sheer number of…
Bubble, the first scripted comedy series from Maximum Fun, begins as a cutting and comic look at millennial misadventures. Set in Fairhaven—“a literal bubble of corporate utopia”—the opening scene depicts a bunch of young people as they all “brunch and vape and watch shelter dogs and have too-loud conversations” about…
Last month saw the start of Love + Radio’s seventh season. Nick van der Kolk’s podcast is known for its in-depth and expertly produced interviews that cover “an eclectic range of subjects, from the seedy to the sublime.” Even before it found a permanent home at Radiotopia in 2014, Love + Radio was an award-winning…
ESPN’s 30 For 30, the documentary hub known for producing stories “too dramatic not to be real,” just delivered a one-two punch to the world of podcasting. First, a quick jab with “Bikram,” its first serialized season in its three-season run, and second (and most importantly), a power punch in the form of Julia Lowrie…
In the episodes leading up to January 1983, co-host Scott Weinberg lamented that he was dreading 1983, calling it one of the worst cinematic years he experienced in his lifetime. June certainly is a mixed bag of films for the summer season, featuring teen sex comedies, Gérard Depardieu, and a 4-hour-long Ingmar…
Two and a half episodes in, and The New York Times’ ambient, immersive, and ambitious podcast about the workings of ISIS is vivisecting the deadliest cell on the planet. The cold open of the show’s prologue offers an ISIS member’s rationale for all the killing he’s ordered to perform. It’s the same justification that…
In the podcast world, comedian Paul Scheer is best known as one of the hosts of How Did This Get Made?, a show in which he dismantles famously terrible and appropriately obscure movies with his co-hosts June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas. A man can only watch stuff like Gamer or Vampire Academy for so long,…
There are plenty of places to listen to two geeks dissect the new Solo: A Star Wars Story trailer, but few are as funny as Jason and Gabe on Blast Points, and there’s not a trace of cynicism to be found. A new trailer for this foray into the Star Wars universe—which apparently belongs to Ron Howard now—dropped Sunday…
Look, if you want to make it in the competitive world of podcasting, you have to recognize every possible advantage. Conventional wisdom has always stressed the first three steps: get your mic sorted, pick a good theme (“wacky news” or “super niche pop culture history” are always safe bets), and send out preliminary…
