One thing Carolla got right strategically is getting a show out every weekday and it is available first thing in the morning.
I like the show and totally get people not liking it, but the thing that got me hooked was having a new show everyday and it became my drive to work show.
Smodcast used to drive me nuts with no semblance of a schedule and there sometimes being a month or longer in between updates.
Well, now with Smodcast Internet Radio, you’ll have a choice between Kevin Smith and Adam Carolla for driving to work every day. I get the sense, though, that Smith won’t be able to keep his material fresh with this new venture.
Adam’s “don’t know I’m hot” rant is old, and one of his lesser jokes. Not sure why he brought it out again. I mean, he regularly repeats bits, bringing in new inflections, but this one should just stay shut away.
You don’t listen to Kevin Smith shows for Kevin Smith, precisely because he DOES end up recycling a lot of his material from show to show. His saving grace is the fact that he’s got a metric ton of funny friends who can carry him. I catch SModcast (still the best, because Mosier is secretly one of the funniest people ever), HBO (getting tired…Frank needs some new material), JSB Get Old (if Kevin Smith is the world’s oldest 12-year-old, then Jason Mewes is clearly the world’s oldest 5-year-old, because he routinely carries jokes way too long and I’m not sure that he gets what’s funny about him), and Plus One (though I routinely want to strangle Jen for being one of the worst kinds of people in the world - enemas? really?) every week, but I’ve let them get a couple of months out of date because Kevin does feel sort of the same on all of them.
For what it’s worth, I thought it was clear from about 2 minutes in that Gallagher is an abusive nutcase, incapable of actually discussing any of these things you’d have like to hear him talk about. He in some bizarro version of what he must have thought comedy was in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. I mean, he thought he was going to be a Tonight Show guy? Really? That is a hugely distorted self-perception. I know you’re not trying to put up a defense of the man, or anything, I just happen to think, given the personality he was dealing with, that was kind of the best possible out-come. The attitude from the word go was, “I am the knowledgeable elder, I will control this interview.” I mean the guy walked out saying, basically, that he wouldn’t continue the discussion because Maron was disagreeing with him.
It wasn’t some huge victory for podcastinating, and I don’t want to blow it out of proportion by over analyzing it, but from where I sat only one guy came out of that looking bad.
I’m sorry to burst in with a technical question.
The thing is, I like good comedy and a bunch of the stuff you guys bring up here sounds interesting. But I also have a deep abiding hatred for podcast, and whenever I fall in and tries one I end up wishing the guys in it had an editor or some sort of time constrainst like on radio.
So is there any players that will allow me to fast forward while still listening? Ie let me get past the dull stuff without inadverdently missing the good stuff - just dragging a slider, when you get bored, leaves you with no way to know when to start listening again.
ipods will do that. You can also do stuff like playback at 1x, 2x, 4x etc. speeds.
Another suggestion is to load up with shorter podcasts. I have a job where I can listen to stuff for long stretches at a time, so the ones I favour tend to be the rambling ones - CDR, The Best Show - but not every podcast is like that. Doug Loves Movies is pretty good about keep to under an hour, and tends to move pretty quick; the insanely brilliant Superego podcast edits itself to a tight half hour; Thrilling Adventure Hour is usually about twenty minutes; Judge John Hodgman is about an half-hour, etc.
Absolute truth being spoken here.
I don’t actually listen to any of the other Smith podcasts. I can’t stand Walter Flanagan. The one thing that sticks out for me about a Smith/Mews podcast was one time when they argued about what language the ancient Romans spoke and decided it was Greek. And listening to him and his wife just seems like I’d be asking to hear more stories about the time he jerked off while staring at her asshole.
So basically it’s just SModcast, safe in the knowledge that Mosier will, without even realize he’s doing it, carry the show every damn time.
One of the best ways I’ve found to keep track of podcasts is the AVClub’s Podmass. They synopsize most of the popular podcasts on the internet, and it’s useful for catching the great episodes from podcasts you don’t normally keep in rotation. For example, a couple weeks ago they highlighted a Moth Podcast, Unexpected Twist, which was pretty great, and I wouldn’t have found otherwise.
Adam Carolla’s constant whoring himself for Amazon made me think: why doesn’t stusser or Tom or whoever pays Qt3’s bills get a referral link for Amazon, and then we all make our Amazon purchases through it? The site will pay for itself that way.
I buy so much stuff from Amazon that I could singlehandedly keep Tom in berets, but it’s been my experience from running my own forum that no one remembers to use the link.
Stumbled across Infinite Monkey Cage the other day. Podcast of the Radio 4 show with dishy physicist Brian Cox. Panel discussion type format with a decent mix of comedians (Tim Minchin and Stephen Fry are perhaps the ones that you foreign types might have heard of) and sciencey type people.
I am bumping this thread because “Affirmation Nation With Bob Ducca” is my new favorite podcast. If you listen to Comedy Death Ray, you should know the Bob Ducca character. This podcast is daily, approx 2 minutes long, and features poems, medical product reviews, and guided meditations.
If it were any longer, it would probably overstay its welcome, but at the length it is, its great.
I recently decided that my podcast list was pretty slim after several regulars of mine disappeared, so I went on a hunt primarily for humor podcasts since my interest in video games has waned a bit in the past year or two. My first stop was to pick up some from people who’ve been on one of my favorite podcasts, Doug Loves Movies. So I picked up the last five episodes of Comedy Bang Bang, Never Not Funny and the Pod F Thomcast. Based on a review at the Onion’s AV Club I also picked up Superego, the podcast of an improv group out of the LA area.
First I listened to Comedy Bang Bang, an episode where the special guest was Bobby Moynihan. It wasn’t bad, Bobby was actually a hell of a lot more interesting than I assumed he’d be and it was fun to hear about what a thrill it was to get to say “LIVE FROM NEW YORK…” for his first time, but when they brought out Ozzie Patinkin (no relation) and went into an extended skit about the dog-apocalypse, the whole thing just died for me. Only one part really made me laugh hard (“Okay, let’s play two truths and one lie. I say three things and you guess which one is a lie. One, my first dog was a border collie. Two, my golden retriever is named Choochoo. Three, 9/11 happened the way the government said it did.”) but the rest was just dull. I liked the songs, though. I’ll probably keep listening to this one.
Then I listened to Superego, which was a collection of sketch supposedly featuring people with different mental illnesses, though that tie was pretty loose. Like any sketch show I liked some of the sketches more than others. John Hodgman’s appearance as a ghost tours guide was funny and the one where the guy kept breaking out in song in Bed, Bath and Beyond was great. I’ll definitely keep subscribed to this one if only cos it’s once a month and only about 30 minutes long an episode.
The Pod F Thomcast was next and not better. There was some humorous stuff in there, though I think John Hamm and Maya Roudolf had more to do with that than Paul F Thompkins. The entire time it seemed like Paul was doing some kind of NPR character, with soft, classical music in the background and a very quiet, calm voice. I powered through to the end, but by the last 11 minutes I began wondering why this podcast was 80 minutes long. Way too much of that ‘I’m just going to riff on something I just said for the next ten minutes’ which wears itself out too fast. Not sure if I’ll keep on this one.
I’m about twenty minutes into Jimmy Pardo’s Never Not Funny and I’m not sure how much more I’ll bother with. Of the four this one is the most like listening to an awful morning zoo. It started promisingly with Jimmy saying something wrong which resulted in him creating a new character (“the non-judgmental rapist”) and then a whole bunch of hilarious and uncomfortable riffing on that, but it quickly became people I didn’t know making references to LA that I didn’t get and I started feeling like I’d tuned into a different city’s drivetime crew.
The difference between all of these and Doug Loves Movies is that most of them are either one person talking (PFT) or two people talking in an almost interview style (CBB) which is probably never going to be as funny as something like Doug Loves Movies, where it’s usually a bunch of funny people talking at the same time, riffing on one another, making fun of one another and just ramping up the hilariousness quotient with their interactions. So can any fans of these assure me it gets better once I start getting into the groove? Is there anything else anyone can suggest? I want to laugh, damn it! I just want to laugh!
(I already listen to Smodcast, Scott Mosier is the secret funniest man alive. And I’m just waiting for Comedy Button episode 1, damn it.)
Because it’s night-time… on the internet.
Doug Loves Movies is pretty unique, both in format and quality. I certainly haven’t found anything to match it.
Re: Comedy Bang Bang / Death Ray - I was already predisposed to the show because of my undying love for Mr. Show and anybody who ever appeared on it, and I find CBB to share that sensibility. But inherent to a podcast that is based on improv is that, sometimes, the improv doesn’t go anywhere. There are episodes of CBB that turn on a dime, or suddenly spiral into total madness, and it’s amazing, but they certainly don’t hit it out of the park every time. When it clicks, though, it’s insane. My suggestion would be to dig through the archives and listen to the ones that have guest on you like, and see if it clicks with you that way.
I had similar experiences as you did trying to find funny podcasts. Of the few that stuck I can recommend “How Did This Get Made?” Where Paul Sheer and a small group of regulars and a guest discuss truly terrible movies.
I’ve recommended it before, but Sklarboro Country is reliably funny.
I’ve also been dropping in and out of My Brother My Brother and Me, pretty riff-tastic inspite of not really being able to tell one brother from another.
The one that sounds like he might have something in his mouth and is middle tone is Justin. The one that sounds young and is highest tone is Griffin. The one that almost never talks anyway and is lowest tone is Travis. And it’s worth going back to the beginning and listening to them all, as they’re not even remotely related to the time when they were produced, and they’ve got a fair-ish number of running gags.
If you like MBMBaM, there’s at least a fair chance you’ll like the other podcasts on the Maximum Fun network.
There’s Jordan, Jesse Go!, which is Jesse Thorne (America’s Radio Sweetheart, otherwise known as the bailiff on the John Hodgeman podcast everybody hates for some reason, I guess because they don’t get that basically his entire public life is kind of a gag) and Jordan Morris (Boy Detective - he’s on some junk for Fuel TV and fails to make it on SNL pretty much every time they have tryouts) and usually a guest from the comic universe.
Stop Podcasting Yourself is Graham Clarke and Dave Shumka (like, Canadian Jordan and Jesse, sort of) doing…well, sort of mostly the same thing, but with a Canadian guest, and with different segments.
You Look Nice Today is very much in the spirit of those shows, but it’s not on Maximum Fun and is only updated irregularly. Adam Lissigore promises that another podcast is coming at some point in the near future, but it’d be an achievement of monumental proportions to get more than one episode out of them a month, and I can’t remember how many months they’ve gone at this point without an update. Their back-episodes are also good, though.
I hate Jesse Thorn because I listened to a few episodes of The Sound of Young America and decided I really hate his schtick. If you’d like to tell me that the person I heard on that was some kind of avant garde post-humor caricature, that’s fine. I hate his stupid avant garde post-humor caricature schtick. On the scale of not-funny, not-clever horseshit, Jesse Thorn ranks slightly lower than an actual non-sentient pile of horseshit that isn’t placed in an area that is particular clever nor lends itself to much in the way of humor.
Ohhhhh…well, I don’t like The Sound of Young America either, largely because it’s primarily an interview show that people get on to do publicity about one thing or another. Jordan, Jesse Go! is a lot lighter and less constrained.
However, there’s an easy method to tell if you hate him or not. Just read this. Responses seem to be pretty indicative of whether you’ll enjoy his style. If you want to murder the guy that wrote that, then yeah - avoid.
Yeah, I listen to every episode, but I’d say I only really enjoy 1 in 5. Not great, I know! But I keep hoping for another Bob Ducca to appear.
I only just noticed that every episode of Never Not Funny is only twenty minutes long, so maybe I’ll keep listening to that one. On the other hand every episode of The Pod F Thomcast is roughly ten thousand millennia long, so that one’s probably going to go.
And Brian, I did try to read that once. Just the phrase ‘new sincerity’ had me pressing my thumb against my eye hard enough to blind myself for two days. I don’t dare try reading the whole thing. I’ve got a driving test next week.