Since the iPod debuted in 2001, it has gone from portable music player to a medium in itself: Podcasts, like blogs, indelibly shaped the media landscape in less than a decade. The A.V. Club listens to a lot of them, and Podmass is our weekly round-up of the podcasts we follow.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Finally my friend came with the shoes that were too big for me. I wear a 9 and these were like an 11, and I shuffled in ridiculously. They asked me to whisper the password to the owl that opens the secret door that lets you go into the Magic Castle. And you know what I whispered? ‘Are you happy now, you stupid owl? I don’t look like a magician. I look like a well-dressed clown.’” —John Hodgman, Judge John Hodgman
THE BEST
The BS Report With Bill Simmons: Chuck Klosterman
Bill Simmons takes on a big week for pop culture by hosting a two-part episode with one of his most entertaining regular guests, writer Chuck Klosterman. (Part two posted after The A.V. Club’s deadline.) The guys address the realness of Charlie Sheen’s mischief and how it retroactively affects the way people view his work. They also briefly touch on a rock ’n’ roll fantasy draft (for which Chuck has a few rules, including in ineligibility of Jimi Hendrix) and who would be the first vocalist drafted: Mick Jagger or Michael Jackson. Finally, part one wraps with a discussion over labor issues, particularly the NBA and the mutiny of the Detroit Pistons, but also Sheen’s salary for Two And A Half Men and the ongoing protests in Wisconsin.
Culture Gabfest #128: Adonis DNA Edition
You can almost hear the haz-mat suits zip up this week as Slate’s three Gabfest hosts prepare to “tuck in” with Charlie Sheen and two other basically lowbrow topics, the Oscar telecast and Justin Bieber. Don’t be deceived: Their initial discomfort quickly gives way to delight as Julia Turner dissects Sheen’s new body of megalomaniac rants. “He has a particular way with language that is incredibly mesmerizing,” Turner says—cut to a clip of Sheen talking about “strafing runs in my underwear”—and she adds, “He has a way with a euphemism, that’s for sure.” (Oh, and bless them for also taking a few shots at the goateed-porcupine-looking dude who interviewed Sheen for TMZ.) Like anyone else taking about the Oscars in recent memory, the hosts seem rather tired of the whole affair, though they do a great job describing the seeming imbalance between hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway—“Poor Anne, who was clearly the star of her sixth-grade play,” as Stephen Metcalf puts it. Then they traipse off to see Justin Bieber: Never Say Never—Director’s Fan Cut. “The movie is just pure fan service,” Dana Stevens says, and all three attempt to suss out Bieber’s “dog-whistle pre-teen sex signals.”
Doug Loves Movies: Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jeff Garlin, Dave Foley
It’s rare for a Doug Loves Movies panel to gel as well as this week’s does, and it probably has to do with how the guests—Christopher “He’s been in a bunch of other movies, so you can stop calling him ‘McLovin’” Mintz-Plasse, Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin, and Dave Foley of The Kids In The Hall—travel in separate comedy circles, which practically nullifies the potential for ego-clash. Each plays heavily to his previously established comedic persona—Mintz-Plasse, the wide-eyed innocent; Garlin, the lovable prick; Foley, the consummate straight main—and react to one another with hilarious effect, as when Garlin and Mintz-Plasse debate the “wonderfully terrible” merits of the recent Mechanic remake. Garlin is particularly funny here, and his snickering causticity revives DLM following last week’s flat Kevin Smith appearance. (Although he does muscle Foley off the mic a couple times—an unfortunate result of the show’s freewheeling format.) If Doug Benson were to accept Garlin’s facetious request to be on the show every week, we’d have no objection.
How Did This Get Made? #5: Drive Angry/Curtis Gwinn
On How Did This Get Made?, Paul Scheer of Human Giant and The League and co-hosts Jason Mantzoukas (The League) and June Diane Raphael (Players, Party Down) take a simultaneously affectionate and bemused look at the dregs of contemporary American cinema. Though still in its infancy, the podcast has now covered two Nicolas Cage films, first Season Of The Witch and now Drive Angry 3-D, a deranged B-movie custom-made to be dissected, ridiculed, and praised by the team and guest Curtis Gwinn. Drive Angry offers them an embarrassment of riches and a decade’s worth of plot holes and inconsistencies. An hour barely gives the gang enough time to unpack even a fraction of the film’s gleeful idiocies, but the episode nevertheless gives a good sense of the film’s drive-in awesomeness; if you’re not onboard with either How Did This Get Made? or Drive Angry 3-D, there’s a good chance you will be after this episode.
Judge John Hodgman: #14 Snob Vs. Slob
This week’s case settles a conflict between a soon-to-be married couple. The complainant, a tech nerd who works at a company with a “relaxed” dress code, is tired of fielding complaints from his fiancée about the awful clothes he wears to work. She thinks he should dress for the job he wants—something in management perhaps—but he feels his dryer-scorched wardrobe of T-shirts, ratty jeans, and cargo shorts brings him in line with his co-workers (and in some cases, outclasses them). This is not a good argument to bring before Judge Hodgman, one of our nation’s best-dressed minor celebrities, who advises the complainant to burn those cargo shorts. (And they should burn quickly, Hodgman suggests, since they’re probably from Old Navy.) But as usual, Hodgman’s ruling is more nuanced than you’d expect, opening with a hilarious story about his own shame at being turned away from L.A.’s Magic Castle for wearing tennis shoes with a suit and continuing with some wisdom about why it’s always preferable to dress better than required.
Never Not Funny: Live From San Francisco Sketchfest & #814 Graham Elwood
While Jimmy Pardo is worthy of a spot on the Mt. Rushmore of podcast hosts, the unsung hero of Never Not Funny has always been “entrepreneur” Matt Belknap. In the first of two of the dirtiest episodes in a while (which includes a lengthy discussion on placenta and an inspired parody of “All That Jazz” that shouldn’t require explanation), David Koechner (The Office’s Todd Packer) shares a story on taking the surrogate mother of his newborn to Chili’s, teeing up a homer for Belknap: “Did she want her baby back, baby back, baby back?” The episodes include a number of other great Belknap moments (hats off for the only correct Oscar pick), and frequent guests Pat Francis and Graham Elwood set the standard tone for any given episode of Never Not Funny by being both knowledgeable and belligerent. (“You’re being very unfair to Pat Sajak,” says Pardo.) Oh, and apparently Elwood used to jerk off from his Chicago high-rise onto the street below. He’s not scheduled in Chicago anytime soon, but still, consider yourself warned, Belmont Avenue.