Comedy Bang Bang E543: At the end of 2017, Comedy Bang Bang host Scott Aukerman mentioned that CBB would see a transitional period. While people on speculated what that could mean (a new host? the end of the show?), it became abundantly clear that the old set of regular guests were moving out and a new set moving in. This week’s episode marks the 9th Anniversary since the shows beginning, and apart from longtime mainstays Lauren Lapkus and Paul F. Tompkins, is filled with newer names from the past year of shows. As is common on these all-character episodes, guests are eager to jump all over each other and run bits which leads to a chaotic mess. Fortunately, the return of Zeke Nicholson’s hole-obsessed Kiwi Chris and Ego Nwodim’s somewhat meta dig at the show Entree P. Nuer get some great opportunities to shine. Jeremy Piven to you Comedy Bang Bang, and to many morrrrreeeeee! (Jeremy Pivens).
Peculiar Journeys E34: Chicago based storyteller Don Hall sits behind a microphone and tells stories about his life – talk about first wave podcasting. In Season 4 of Peculiar Journeys, Hall splits episodes up into two chunks – episodes telling stories about his ten tattoos, and a behind the scenes look at WNEP Theater, the off-loop group he helped form in the nineties. The WNEP eps are very much inside baseball, focused on fights between critics and producers, conflict between castmates, and the sheer craziness behind putting up a WNEP production. But Hall’s gift of gab allows for the best kind of inside baseball – conversations are re-encountered word for word, specific details of locations and attitudes paint a precise picture to the listener. It’s the kind of storytelling you’d only expect to hear by meeting the right person in the right place at the right time, and then buying them a couple of jars of beer. If you can get past the intro that is 50% pretentious, 50% parody; you’re in for quite the journey.
Ox Tales E01-E02: There are plenty of food podcasts about chefs, about restaurants, about recipes. Ox Tales is the first show I have found about food and our relationship to it. A production from the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, the show takes previous tabled papers and talks based around food history and food studies and turns them into podcasts via that familiar public radio-cum-podcast style, or at least tries to imitate that style. The first two episodes come from the 2006 symposium themed about offal foods – foods that are considered discarded. E01 tries to make the case that the Pillsbury Bake Off is responsible for molecular gastronomy, but finds itself getting lost in tangents – a focus on “home cooking” being considered women’s work is interesting, an attack on meal kit services less so. E02 is better, with French foie gras producer Guillemette Barthouil telling us about the ethical quandary of the luxury product juxtaposed against the history of duck and goose breeding (originally bred for fat!). At 30 minutes an episode it’s an easy listen, but it will take a few more episodes to decide on whether it’s worth continuing with.
Sandra E01-E03: Anyone who has used Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant knows reliability isn’t it’s strong point – I know I’ve gotten used to hearing the phrase “Sorry, I don’t understand that.” Gimlet Media’s new fictional drama takes us to a sleepy Oklahoman town where Helen (Alia Shawkat) is a new hire at Orbital Teledynamics, the brains behind popular voice assistant Sandra (Kristen Wiig). When users ask Sandra a question, Helen and her coworkers power Sandra, understanding and answering questions no matter how specific, before they are translated into Sandra’s robotic tone. While this concept could provide numerous themes to explore (if corporations are recording everything, are the humans really listening? how much should we trust corporations with our privacy? What if computers stop reading data and start reading intent and tone?), Sandra doesn’t attempt to answer any of these. In fact, Sandra doesn’t attempt to do much at all. Episodes are slow, with characters having conversations where they talk around subjects, and sound design so minimal that you wonder if this very show was recorded on an Amazon Echo. Worst of all are the frequent commercial interruptions, which made me question whether this show was created for the advertiser instead of the listener. This is an easy one – ok Google, unsubscribe.
Is There Something In This? E04: I haven’t really thought about the cartoons in the New Yorker since Elaine redid a Ziggy, but new podcast Is There Something In This? had me more intrigued about the process. Australians-in-Manhattan Scott Dooley (joke guy) and Jason Chatfield (artist guy) meet up to pitch ideas and jokes to submit to magazine while recording their process. Like just about any comedy podcast, expect tangents from the concept; with Jason telling tales of a recent shampoo commercial he filmed, and the war on MAD Magazine. These tangents lead into the boys reflecting on previously submitted material and pitching new ideas with incredible ease, riffing off news items and deconstructing concepts to find the purest joke. A great mix of going inside a process and sharing a bunch of laughs.
Pod News: Edison Research sez the average podcast listener plays seven shows a week! Google’s new podcast player allows you to start a podcast via a Google search, pause, then resume via your Google Home. David Chang is bringing a limited series podcast to Bill Simmons’ Ringer Podcast Network. Wondery (Sword and Scale, Dirty John) have added a premium subscription tier for $7 a month. Acast wants to make podcasts better by having better ads (I recommend roping in Sean and Hayes).
The Final Question: Do you binge podcasts? I found myself getting through a backlog of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert podcast in the office and found it pretty easy. But I can’t imagine doing so with something that requires my full attention, like Sandra or The Dollop. How do you do?