I’d basically stopped caring about the bullying of Ryan Scott. Yeah, Ryan’s apparently so Stockholm he insists that he’s laughing with him when it’s pretty obvious that they’re laughing at him. If they were laughing with him they’d stop eventually. But there’s a point where he’s so unwilling or unable to defend himself or even snark back (I remember Scott and Brian giving him shit for his twitter handle being rydogry and making fun of him for having a retarded nickname despite the fact that Brian’s twitter handle is agentbizzle, c’mon Ryan, that was some low hanging fruit) that I just can’t care. In the latest episode they upgrade from making fun of Ryan for not being manly enough to making fun of Anthony because he’s fat. Sure, Anthony is apparently hanging out nude for the episode, but I’m still not going to instantly find calling his mantits ‘basketballs someone left out on the roof’ funny.
Really though, it’s the fact that Scott Bromley is the king of the humblebrag. He’s incapable of telling any story that doesn’t somehow make him seem awesome. An email comes in and asks what stupid things they’ve done for a girl. Anthony tells a story about crossdressing. Max admits to having read Twilight. Scott once friended a girl on Myspace until he found out she liked Fallout Boy and then he unfriended her. Cool story, bro!
The show’s basically a radio zoo crew. I’d compare them to Stern, except Stern is capable of self-deprecation. They’re more like Mancow. They have the segments where they talk about how cool they are. Then the segments where they bash on their loser friends.
Oh, also, guys, the fact that there’s a new Beavis and Butthead show out doesn’t mean breaking out with huh-huh huh-huh huh-huh every fifteen seconds is any funnier now than it was in 1995.
In gooder comedy podcasting news, Eugene Mirman tweeted that he was on a show called A Bit of a Chat with Ken Plume, so I downloaded that. Then I looked at the guy’s backlog and downloaded all four episodes with Paul F Tompkins, the two with Adam Savage and the three with John Hodgman. I’ve started the first with PFT and while PFT is funny as always, the show is kind of disorganized. The first five minutes is literally Plume troubleshooting why PFT’s Skype doesn’t appear to be working correctly. Then they just sort of meander from one topic to another. I love PFT and he could make reading the help wanted hilarious but I do hope the other episodes have some kind of structure.
I don’t think they do. I tried to listen to the PFT ones as well and I’m pretty sure that the guy just isn’t great as a host. One of the episodes featured five minutes that felt genuinely contentious as Paul seemed a little insulted by something the guy said and was trying to defend himself, if I remember correctly. I’ve listened to most PFT podcast appearances but I couldn’t get through those. Plume is not so good.
I have no idea who Ken Plume actually is. Apparently he founded IGN FilmForce and was hired on as lead editor on MoviePoopShoot.com by Kevin Smith when he renamed it to QuickstopEntertainment and when Kevin Smith decided he was bored with the whole thing Plume bought the site. The guy gets some pretty great guests. Lots of episodes with John Hodgman in addition to Stephen Colbert and Dan Harmon.
Doug Benson is on a recent episode of the Mental Illness Happy Hour. I haven’t listened to it yet but if you’re a fan it’s worth it to give it a shot.
I’ve finished my Bits of Chat with Ken Plume. About four episodes in I came to the realization that someone desperately needs to listen to all of these episodes and then go to Ken’s site and give each of them a TTH rating. TTH meaning, of course, ‘Time To Hodgeman’, which would be the length of time it takes Ken Plume to mention that he knows John Hodgeman. The shorter the TTH, the better the episode. If Ken can get it out of his system early (“What are you up to, Joe?” “Well, Ken, I’m eating snacks.” “HODGEMAN LOVES SNACKS! HE IS MY FRIEND!”) then the rest of the episode will be pretty okay. If, on the other hand, Ken is unable to find a way to namedrop his close ties with John “I Am A PC” Hodgeman within the first half hour, the pressure will start to build and he will grow increasingly random as all cohesive thought begins to escape him, his mind desperately racing to find a way to link everything anyone says in any way possible to John Hodgeman.
I guess it’s neat that he knows John Hodgeman? It’s almost enough to make me want to become B-level famous just so I can go on his show and start it out by saying, “So, I understand you know John Hodgeman. That’s interesting! Let’s talk about that.”
I accidentally managed to catch the one of those with Coulton on it from a completely different feed, so it’s good to know going in that that one, at least, should be alright, since they’re both friends with the man. It’s really funny because one of Hodgeman’s many bits is that he is not famous, but he has multitudes of famous friends.
So, The Bugle is dead. At least in its current, Times hosted and funded format. Possibly related to their relentless Murdoch bashing during the last six months. Anyway, here’s hoping it finds a new home soon. I’d certainly be willing to chip in.
I passed on the two top ten episodes of Comedy Bang-Bang since they were just a clip show, but that was an error. The framing discussion features Paul F Tompkins, who is as awesome as usual. Paul and Scott’s duet of Go Ask Alice is amazing. If I have any issues with the whole thing it’s that Cake Boss communicating with Chewbacca in Fictional Wookiee Heaven should have been #1. Even listening it to the second time I had to stop walking and just lean against a tree I was laughing so goddam hard.
It was funny to hear Paul talking about how competitive he is. I’ve always loved that even in a game as stupid and meaningless as Would You Rather, his characters always jump in with the first question and always goes for two or three followups before anyone seems to notice the game has started.
Man, the Comedy Button just keeps getting more and more depressing. In this latest episode, they move on to belittle (even more than usual) their fans who take the time to write in and create music for them. Sure, the music was pretty terrible, but they were aggressive towards how hard they shit on it. They also made more fun of the mid-west, did yet more (!) Beavis and Butthead impressions, and hounded one of their own (Ryan Scott) even though it’s “all in good fun” I think you can tell he’s definately getting tired of it. I know I am. It’s the same gag over and over again (I’m your Dad Ryan Scott and you are a great disapointment).
It stll has moments that get a laugh out of me, but it’s fallen to something I listen to if the weeks up and I’m otherwise out of podcasts to listen to while I’m working around the house.
My personal favorite episode of the year was Zappity Tappity, but my second favorite was the Adam Scott, Harris Wittels, Chelsea Peretti one. They didn’t even play the best part of that one, which was the disco/waffles ending scene.
Paul F. Tompkins is the lone guest on Doug Love Movies this week. He plays himself, Garry Marshall, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Loved it. It works really well when Doug has characters on. I hope he does more of these in the future.
Had Keegan-Michael Key (From the awesome sketch show on comedy central “Key and Peele”) on my show to answer some questions from Quizbot! Hilarious dude, good times, worth a listen.
So, if anybody out there is a fan of Michael Ian Black and / or Michael Showalter, you probably should check out their new podcast, Topics.
I won’t spoil anything, but if it’s your kind of thing, it’s amazing. If it isn’t your thing, you’ll hate it, but if you know their material, you probably already knew that. It’s definitely some black-belt level cynical jaded hipster irony stuff (for the record, I say that as somebody who loves it).
Spoilers
It’s an incredibly elaborate long-form troll. It’s kind of amazing.
Speaking of comedy podcasts, I may be way behind on this bit of news but did you know Kumail Nanjiani does a videogame podcast with his wife called The Indoor Kids? Well I only just found out so I haven’t listened to too much, but I’m going to. Alert the media!
Topics is great and the two Michaels are so good at keeping character. Thought I’d give a shout out to How Did This Get Made (making fun of bad movies), the Street Fighter episodes is great just because they have to explain what a street fighter is multiple times. Also, We Hate Movies is another good podcast that just makes fun of bad movies, I’d suggest either the Godzilla or Pallbearer episodes for the anthropomorphic takes on Godzilla and David Schwimmers companion rain cloud.
Are you worried that the McElroy brothers aren’t on every single podcast ever? Love Jordan, Jesse, Go! but hate Jordan and Jesse? Is your favourite D&&D podcast not floppy enough? Well have I got news for you. It’s Maximum Fun switcheroo week!
