Woof, that Mencia episode was brilliant podcasting. Occasionally hard to listen to due to the vicarious embarrassment problem…but totally compelling. Maron also does a Robin Williams interview that covers some of the same ground.
I’ve been listening to Behind the Screened Door (screened.com), but the quality there has really plummeted lately. Anyone recommend any good TV and/or Movie podcasts to replace it?
IGN Channel Surfing.
IGN Keepin’ It Reel.
I’m not much for the games podcasts, but their media stuff is possibly the best ever. Alternately, if you can stand listening to a bunch of snooty annoying nerds who decided that they didn’t like Community because they thought it was making fun of people that go to community college and that’s where the lady-who-really-shouldn’t-be-judging-the-attractiveness-of-others-based-on-the-pictures-I’ve-seen-of-her got her degree in making shit to sell on etsy or something - well, then you’ve got Television Zombies. I dropped them because half of their news turned out to be groundless rumors and their personalities made me want to choke a puppy, but they do generally tend to like the same stuff people around here tend to like.
I find WTF a bit of a chore sometimes as I don’t like Maron or find him at all funny or interesting. But, he does get some great guests and the recent interview he did with Carl Le Bove is ah-maz-ing.
I just skip his introductions and get right to the interviews, and only then if he’s interviewing somebody I find interesting. His recent interview with Tom Scharpling was fantastic, though.
Thanks. I have to ask, though, since those have “IGN” in the title: How much of a “Hur, hur, boobies” quotient are we talking about here?
I recently discovered TV on the Internet which is done by one of the writers for the Onion’s A/V Club. I really like it. He does it with his wife and they have lots of funny, cool arguments and he’s got a really sharp critical eye.
Not that much. They’re not as bro-tastic as the games side.
Put it this way - I dropped the games podcasts in toto and some weeks I can’t get more than twenty minutes into the GameSpy Debriefings, but I’ll listen to Channel Surfing as soon as it hits and Keepin’ it Reel later in the week.
None at all. They’re excellent.
I’ve pretty much have burnt out on the majority of podcasts by now, so my current rotation is down to three -
NPR - Planet Money - http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=94411890
The History of Rome - http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/
Three Moves Ahead - http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/three-moves-ahead/
Based on this recommendation, I downloaded it, and the wife makes my skin crawl. Her voice is annoying, and she doesn’t have anything to contribute other than to proclaim that everything he says is stupid.
Maybe I caught them on an off week.
Is this the only general-purpose (not limited to gaming) podcast thread? It hasn’t been updated in a year and a half, but nothing else showed up in a search.
My commuting time has gone way up, and consequently, I’m burning through my current roster of podcasts faster than new ones are being recorded, so hoping to get some new recommendations.
I currently listen to:
[ul]
[li]Idle Thumbs
[/li][li]Three Moves Ahead
[/li][li]Radiolab
[/li][li]The History of Rome
[/li][li]Hardcore History
[/li][li]Common Sense
[/li][/ul]
I’m open to just about any subject matter (and would actually prefer to branch out into divergent territory), as long as it’s informative and entertaining.
Good choices! What’s common sense?
It’s the Hardcore History guy talking about current events and political theory from an independent perspective.
Any suggestions on what to add to the rotation?
My primary rotation is:
This American Life (How do you not have this?)
The Moth (interesting stories)
The Memory Palace (interesting historical stories)
Backstory with the American History Guys
WTF with Marc Maron – the intro stuff can be rather crass and base (particularly when he’s sponsored by Adam & Eve), but he is a brilliant interviewer. Anyone who like comedy should listen to some of these.
Major Nelson Radio (Xbox interviews and banter)
Other podcasts I listen to sometimes:
KCRW’s The Treatment (great interviews of folks involved in movie production)
Qt3 Movie Podcast (Generally most enjoyable in episodes where you didn’t like the movie :)
Qt3 Games Podcast (I like this, but it runs bit long to keep in regular rotation)
The Tested Podcast (tech news and discussion, sometimes with some bonus Whitta)
Fresh Air
You might also like History According to Bob. He digs up some really interesting historical events and I often learn from it, though his delivery is a bit like a high school history teacher who’s nearing retirement…
(I also listen to Radiolab, but you have that one. :)
Well it’s 2016 so let’s update our picks! I’ve just changed my podcast app so I’m adding new podcasts. I’ve already trawled Triggercut’s history podcast thread and I’m interested in other good podcasts, not necessarily history related. Currently, I’m listening to a lot of 99% Invisible (design related podcast that is short, interesting and has very high production values) and a fascinating podcast called The History of the English Language which as you can probably guess is all about how English came about. If you’ve ever wondered why the plural of ox is “oxen” but the plural of fox is not “foxen” or why the letter Z is at the end of the alphabet (or why alphabet is spelled with a “ph” rather than an “f”, for that matter) I highly recommend checking it out.
I pick podcasts that make me smarter. My core rotation is NPR-based:
- Ted Radio Hour. We all know this one, right? If not, we should!
- Intelligence Squared US Debates. It’s P&R without the ad hominem!
- Radiolab. Another common and excellent choice
- Invisibilia. Relatively new, in their second season, but fantastic. Essentially a Radiolab spinoff
- Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. His series on the mongols got me completely hooked
- StarTalk Radio. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a suprisingly bad podcast host, but the subject matter is invariably interesting. And it’s Neil DeGrasse Tyson :)
The links are to their homepages, but they’re all available on iTunes.
I think NPR’s Embedded is pretty interesting so far. Reporters deep dive into some particular situation. Episodes so far have included spending time with people on this particular prescription narcotic that’s apparently making a big splash in certain towns, talking to one percenter biker gangs who had a big shootout in a restaurant, spending time in a school that’s closing due to consolidation and performance standard issues, and following a couple of players in the NBA’s “D league” - the latter of which I found unexpectedly fascinating. I’m not a sports fan, so I really had no idea that the development league even existed, and the contrast between the folks who get drafted to the NBA proper (enormous paychecks and the rockstar treatment across the board) and the ones who join the development league in the hopes of getting drafted (they make less than I do - not much more than minimum wage, really, although it seems like housing and such are taken care of; get their own groceries, go from town to town by bus, etc) is really striking.
Here’s a list of my regular listening on my podcatching software. One thing is for sure…I listen to too many podcasts.
- 1 Player Podcast - A solo board/card gamer podcast. He goes pretty deep on them. Even though I’ll never play 80% of the stuff he talks about, it’s a fun listen.
- Baseball Tonight - Buster Olney’s daily podcast, from the straw-hatty “baseball guy” perspective.
- Battleship Pretension - I actually don’t care that much about their main podcast, which is fine, but fairly typical movie podcast fare. But their weekly-ish “Movie Journal” episodes where they kind of freestyle for an hour or two on whatever movies they happen to have watched that week are a lot of fun. (The link goes the Movie Journal subcategory on their site.)
- Bloody Good Horror - My favorite horror movie podcast. The movie reviews tend to be fairly thoughtful, but most of all I just enjoy the obvious rapport between the 4 hosts…they’ve been doing this for quite a while now and it shows.
- Cardboard of the Rings - LOTR LCG discussion.
- Citizen Radio - Leftie politics.
- Criminal - This is a show in the mold of TAL or Radiolab. High production values, short episodes, interesting stories about criminals doing criminal things.
- Effectively Wild - More daily baseball, this time from Baseball Prospectus guys from a nerdy stats-guy perspective.
- Filmspotting & Filmspotting:SVU - The grandaddy of serious film review podcasts, still kicking. The main podcast isn’t quite as good as it used to be, I find, but I still make a point of checking it out when I’m interested in the film they’re discussing. SVU’s Matt & Alison are terrific though.
- Filmwax Radio- Mainly interviews with indie filmmakers. A bit NPR-ish, but he gets excellent guests and interviews well.
- First Planet - Warhammer 40k: Conquest LCG discussion.
- Invisibilia - As mentioned upthread. Very Radiolab. Great production values, but I’m tiring of the format I think. They feel like those “here’s some amazing thing you’d never expect…#15 will blow your mind!!!” links come to life as a radio show. My mind is less and less blown as they start to run out of topics.
- Judge John Hodgman - Always amusing, and the concept is good as it allows John to ramble on about whatever. Honestly, though, these tend to pile up.
- Kermode and Mayo - Friday appointment listening. Love these guys!
- Last Podcast on the Left - Serial killers, cults, massacres, occult conspiracy theories. You name it, they’re on it. It’s like a sicker Coast To Coast AM. Can’t really defend this one, but when I’m feeling particularly misanthropic this makes me feel worse.
- Left Right and Center - Weekly half-hour politics from the various sides.
- Limetown - A really good Serial-ish fictional podcast about a disappearing town. Like Night Vale, but less silly, more creepy. Supposed to be a season two at some point.
- NBA Lockdown - More ESPN sports hot takes.
- Planet Money - I probably don’t need to mention this one.
- Pseudopod - Short horror fiction read aloud from writers known and unknown from some talented readers. Some great stuff on here.
- Quarter To Three Movie Podcast - You’ve probably never heard of this one, for good reason.
- Reply All - Ex-TAL guys doing stories from the internet. Surprisingly interesting.
- Scriptnotes - Two screenwriters talking about writing movies, getting movies made, getting movies seen. Fasacinating show if you’re interested in behind-the-screen biz stuff.
- Allll the Slate shows - Culture, Politics, Money, Hang Up and Listen, etc, etc - Look, they’re all quality. Slate’s been doing this a long time and they’re good at it.
- Song Exploder - Simple concept. Take a song and get the musician to talk about writing and recording it. Short, to the point. Mostly indie-ish artists, for obvious reasons.
- Sword and Scale - True crime podcast. I just started with this one, so I’m haven’t totally formed an opinion yet, but so far so good. Pretty gruesome, though.
- The Adventure Zone - Three brothers and their D&D campaign. I don’t [usually care much for nerd humor and in-jokes, but these guys are amusing.
- The Bill Simmons Podcast - Sports and entertainment blather with BS. He’s past his prime, but he’s still good.
- The Black Tapes - Serialized mystery/horror drama. Not super-scary, more on the level of a creepy X-Files episode. Just starting with this one, and there’s 200+ episodes so we’ll see how it goes.
- The British History Podcast - Excellent overview of Brit history. He goes in generally chronological order, though he does tend to stop and look around sometimes.
- The Flop House - Bad movie podcast. There’s a lot of these, but this is one of the best…though if Elliott’s not on, don’t bother. He’s the engine that makes it go.
- The Lowe Post - More NBA hot takes.
- The Sword and Laser - Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont’s SF/F book club. They seem nice.
- The West Wing Weekly - One of several recent TWW rewatch podcasts. This is the best one. Stars Joshua Malina (played Will Bailey on TWW) and the host of Song Exploder (above) whose name I forget.
- Vox’s The Weeds - New politics and polls podcast from Vox/538 people that’s been pretty good so far.
- You Must Remember This - Last, certainly not least. This is Hollywood history. The fabulous Katrina Longworth picks a classic Hollywood topic and dives deep on it. Manson’s Hollywood is a fucking tour de force. Even if you don’t care about Hollywood history, it’s a must-listen.
Whew, that’s a lot. There are others, but I figured they were too niche for a general interest forum like this. I clearly need a media intervention.