Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast
Ernie Kovacs Centennial Celebration With Josh Mills And Ben Model
Perhaps one of the medium’s most overlooked gems, Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast is doing great work in keeping alive the legacies of countless performers from Hollywood’s golden age while being utterly profane and riotously funny. Between the eponymous Gottfried and co-host Frank Santopadre, the show is a sort of encyclopedic celebration of all the unjustly forgotten film and television talents of yesteryear. This week’s episode is a bit of a calamitous dream for comedy fans, as Gottfried and Santopadre fête the memory of television pioneer Ernie Kovacs. Joining the pair are Josh Mills (the son of Kovacs’ widow, Edie Adams) and archivist/silent film accompanist Ben Model. It’s archetypal Amazing Colossal Podcast material, by turns nakedly offensive, side-splittingly funny, and genuinely informative. Whether it’s Gottfried forcing Model to improvise a score for a fake silent film or Mills finding his own mom on Playboy’s list of “most fuckable women,” this episode is rife with delights. [Ben Cannon]
Night Call
The Very Abyssal Episode
If you had to sleep with one of the lead male characters on Seinfeld, who would you pick? This is one of the many questions debated on the latest episode of the freewheeling pop culture podcast Night Call. Hosts Molly Lambert, Tess Lynch, and Emily Yoshida make a case for each of those terrible men and conclude that their choices are based on individual tolerance levels for freeloading, sociopathy, and whether they bring sandwiches to bed. There is also much disagreement among the three when it comes to the subject of Gwyneth Paltrow. Lambert has a particular dislike of the actor-turned-influencer’s lifestyle grift, while Yoshida says, “I want to be a woman in STEM. I want to work at the Goop Lab!” They also kick off their series on bad early CGI in film with James Cameron’s The Abyss. This becomes a problem, because the movie actually has great CGI. Instead, they focus on Cameron’s apparent obsession with almost getting members of his cast and crew killed. [Anthony D Herrera]
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah: Ears Edition
The Daily Show Podcast Universe Episode 1: These American Lies
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah offers up its first entry in a five-episode miniseries that’s kicking off a stream of podcast parodies (separate from its usual Ears Edition podcast). This first episode, “These American Lies,” apes This American Life to drill down into Donald Trump’s claim that three to five million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election. Daily Show correspondents Desi Lydic and Michael Kosta give us the scoop, unpacking Trump’s lie and explaining why the president was so bothered about losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. Lydic and Kosta give a dead-on impression of This American Life, their performance infused with The Daily Show’s political wit, absurdist humor, and deadpan delivery. There are even a few surprise faux-commercials. An interview with political science professor Brian Schaffner and a tale of a conversation Trump had with German pro golfer Bernhard Langer make this bite-sized political briefing hilarious and actually informative. [Kevin Cortez]
The Heart
Lesbian Separatism Is Inevitable
Radically intimate podcast The Heart has returned after a long winter’s sleep, awoken by new producers Nicole Kelly (NK) and Phoebe Unter, collectively known as PU/NK, and the audio art company Mermaid Palace. The Heart is known for its rawness and rich storytelling, and PU/NK’s inaugural episode is a love story that feels like the next natural phase for the podcast. It follows Unter and NK meeting, falling in love with feminism and art, and learning how to embrace even the angriest, most hopeless parts of themselves. This episode is comforting and familiar, and yet distinct—from the quiet introduction with host Kaitlin Prest to PU/NK’s longing, rage-filled letters. They describe their technicolor memories of life-changing journeys and feminist authors, and impart lessons about feminist utopias and privilege. [Elena Fernández Collins]
What A Day
Dems Debate In Des Moines
Crooked Media has created a spoonful-of-sugar remedy to the daunting, joyless slog of keeping up with the news. The 15-minute daily current events podcast, What A Day, has an energizing but low-key vibe; hosts Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick are like a more bantering and irrepressible set of NPR reporters. This episode is a crash course in the (mostly uneventful) Democratic debate in Iowa, highlighting Elizabeth Warren’s response to Bernie Sanders’ alleged comments on the electability of women, Tom Steyer’s affable way being, and where the candidates stand on Iran. If you haven’t had a chance to research the primary candidates yet, this is a great primer on what each is about. Also, an update on the Houston Astros illuminates what sign stealing is, why its fine is so high, and some weird news from Great Britain about paying to make Big Ben “bong” once more. [Morgan McNaught]
Wind’s Howling
S1E3: Betrayer’s Moon
With an expansive story that appears in books, video games, and now a Netflix series, The Witcher has a lot going on. Luckily, Wind’s Howling (from the Lore Party Podcast Network) exists, serving as a companion to the Henry Cavill–starring series and providing both context and commentary. Each installment starts with a thorough synopsis of an episode, so those looking to avoid spoilers should be wary. For fans who might be too hungry to wait for season two next year, Wind’s Howling is a great listen. Since the hosts Abu and Brett are also familiar with the Witcher books and games, their insight helps listeners dig deeper into this TV series that deftly interweaves numerous timelines, complicated plots, and an extensive cast of characters. [Jose Nateras]
You’re Wrong About
The D.C. Snipers
At the start of this episode, Michael Hobbes asks his co-host, Sarah Marshall, what she remembers about the D.C. snipers, and her answer is probably pretty close to what most Americans remember. Not too long after the September 11 attacks, a man and a teenage boy committed a series of random killings in the D.C. area, firing a high-powered rifle from a concealed position in a parked car. At the time, the killings were framed as a terrorist attack, but the culprits, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, didn’t end up fitting neatly into that narrative and soon fell out of the public eye. What we learn in this two-hour opener to a three-part miniseries is that the D.C. snipers’ real motive was far more pedestrian. By centering the narrative around Mildred Muhammad—mother, survivor, and long-suffering wife of John Allen—the hosts of You’re Wrong About reframe this horrific killing spree and remind us that behind every sensationalized event, there is often a series of forgotten victims who have been failed by our institutions. [Dan Neilan]
12 Comments
I recently found the How Did This Get Played podcast that discusses the worst and weirdest games, and it has been a truly entertaining podcast to listen. Although fortunately I don’t listen it on headphones as I can only imagine how hard that laughter would ring in that situation, but right now it provides a pleasant atmosphere to the podcast.However, I was really disappointed when they hit Mass Effect Andromeda, the game I’m most familar with of the games so far, as it was revealed neither of the two hosts had played the ME trilogy and the guest who had requested the game and who had played the trilogy didn’t really seem to remember anything from it. As the host did some bizarrely surface level research to the ME3 ending stuff and general discussion, there was just so much context missing from the episode as you can’t really discuss the design choices in ME:A without understanding the original trilogy. Thus it was a really underwhelming episode. What made things worse that there guest next week instantly made it clear that she would have been a really good guest to discuss ME:A.
I find they are very hit or miss and a lot of it depends on the guest and the game. neither of them seem well versed with modern games (they were weirdly totally ignorant of MK 11, which was a big ‘GOTY’ hit on todays episode.) and they have a tendency to bring on people who basically never play games and they seem kind of lost. when they do older games with game familiar people, they tend to work well. when they do a more modern game (or even discuss them) without someone who seems familiar with games, its usually a train wreck,
an example would be the death stranding discussion where heather (ostensibly someone who worked in games journalism) opined that she thought the creator of that game was commenting on how ‘stupid’ video games are (basically she meant that it was sort of a meta commentary on how video games are often ridiculous.) but anyone with even a passing knowledge of kojima would know that he- for better or worse- is as serious as a heart attack. how is it possible to work in games journalism (and development for nick) and have absolutely no knowledge of hideo kojima? That’s like working for the hollywood reporter for 20 years and going ‘this tarantino guy seems like a fresh new face who’s making fun of hollywood in his new feature film.’ have they been living in caves since sega stopped making hardware?
Yeah, there are these weird gaps in knowledge there. I think a huge problem, and I genuinely like the show, is that when they came up with it, they thought they brought these different voices in to it not just because of who they are as people, but because one grew in a Nintendo household and one in a Sega household. And you can legitimately see that when they touch on past games as at least one of them will have that knowledge of the games from there or the environment those games came out in.However, the huge problem is that the two of them seem to completely converge when it comes to modern gaming with a huge leaning towards Japanese games. Thus they have these staggering blindspots when discussing current era games, which in turn would be fine if they made certain that their guests could then provide information to make up for it.
I mean, I agree that the MK11 ignorance, but for me that Mass Effect trilogy obliviousness was weird as it is one of the most influential game series of the modern era. Yet not only did neither of them have seemingly any understanding of the games, Nick really didn’t appear to really even bother trying to research it.
yeah, they kept repeating stuff that was very wrong and didn’t even google it.plus i had recently re-played that game (i’d never finished it originally) and it was fresh on my mind and it was just…. what are you even talking about?
also…. that game isn’t actually all that bad. its not a good mass effect game (the companions are mostly trash, which is a cardinal sin) but its easily playable, the combat is actually probably best of the series with a wide array of weapons, abilities and movement options the previous games struggled with and that jet pack is really, really fun. the story and characters were bad (and that is a huge disappointment in a ME branded game) but when you really look at it, its perfectly fine as a game experience.
it also helps if you turn down the combat difficulty a bit (compared to the previous entries the combat is very punishing) and not be OCD like i normally am- if you try and hit every object on that ubisoft style map you will drive yourself insane. when i replayed it on a bit of an easier difficulty and mentally decided to only do the big, crafted side quests i actually had a good time and was sad it bombed and i never got any additional content
To be honest, I do think ME:A is a good game to cover on the podcast even if I personally enjoyed it at the end. While it really picks up towards the end, it has a lot of really weird design choices which hit on certain aspects current RPG design really hits on and the difficulty of compelling narrative and explore everything mentality.The problem, as I mentioned, is that you can’t really discuss those choices in depth on a podcast like that unless you have an understanding of what happened in the original trilogy, both from a story point of view and also regarding game mechanics. So things got really bad when the guest who specifically requested it didn’t seem to remember anything of the games and it became apparent that neither host had even read the Wikipedia entries for the ME Trilogy games. Nick referred to the Kotaku article about the game development, but even that, while being really good, requires some understanding of the original games relies on some knowledge of the original games.
yeah exactly- the game is- on its own face- perfectly playable. if it was a game called Space Adventure: Beyond Space (outside of the technical issues, which seem to have been mostly fixed in my recent play through) i don’t think it would be remembered as a big failure so much as its more appropriate ‘yeah, this was fine. some good, some bad- 7/10.’
the reason it goes from ‘fine’ to ‘meh’ is because it fails as a ME game specifically- the writing isn’t great and the world building is deeply underwhelming. contrast to ME 1 (which i actually also recently replayed- i ran the series) which is- from a minute-to-minute gameplay- not necessarily all that good. the combat/movement is clunky, the overheat weapon system kind of sucks, the powers are super broken and the mako is…. well, people have opinions on it. but the world it creates, the alien races and cultures it introduces and eludes to and the story it tells is so strong that you’re willing to drive around giant empty worlds playing a version of ‘simon’ to get minerals to do upgrades.
ME:A completely drops that ball, but you can’t discuss that meaningfully if you don’t have that frame of reference
As an aside, what about those pathetic middle-aged losers cosplaying ‘soldier-boy’ at the pro-gun event in Virginia? What anatomical deficiency are they trying to compensate for? Haw! I hear from cops that they sometimes get harassed by ‘cop-groupie’ losers who fetishize police equipment. You know, the ‘lives in mom’s furnished basement’ type of guy. Why would a balding over-weight middle-aged store clerk show up to a gun event costumed to like like something out of Soldier of Fortune magazine? That’s just sad.
same as conspiracy theorists- they are just average or below average people in their real life, but when they dress up they are George Washington, noble patriot fighting against tyranny!
also, they really hate black people. can’t forget that
The Video Nasty Project continues to roll on. This week they took a look at one of my favorite Dario Argento flicks, Deep Red:
I just discovered You’re Wrong About with the episode mentioned in this article. I did know that the DC sniper attacks weren’t terrorism but some weird combination of domestic abuse and a really hamfisted extortion attempt, but there were still a bunch of details I didn’t know. I’ve been listening to some of their older episodes, although so far not the OJ ones. I’m kind of OJ’d out, although I may circle back to them later. The one they did about human trafficking was very informative (and enraging).
I was living in DC during the DC Sniper nightmare. Before they were caught there was a narrative in the local news that the suspects were spotted in a white cargo van. At that same time I was shopping for a used cargo van for my band to tour in. Every time I went to check out a used white cargo van for sale there was part of me that was wondering what the hell I was getting into. I don’t know why I made that stressful time even more stressful. I think my band had a tour coming up so I needed the van ASAP. In the end it turned out the shooters weren’t even using a van at all.
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