Welcome to EPISODE SEVENTY of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast. 70!!! Seems like only yesterday I was asking myself "How do I get my voice to come out of that sound thingee?" I estimate that, in these first 70 episodes, that we have played over 630 podcast clips. Listenership continues to grow. And we have consistently been showing up on iTunes' "What's Hot" section as well as being recently featured on Stitcher.
<— Here's a screen
shot of our logo floating amongst other podcast friends (and strangers)
on last week's "What's Hot" page in iTunes' podcast section.
I'm getting ready to take this show on the road next week for the 2nd Annual Los Angeles Podcast Festival. I got my shipment of Succotash buttons – they’re like pins for your clothes but WAY cooler because they hang on with this magnet backed thingee. I'm going to give those away at our table in the Podcast Lab at the PodFest, so look for me. I’ve even got a couple of big green Succotash banners to hang up so you can find me easier. You can get your tickets for online at http://LAPodFest.com. I’ll have my mics set up and will interview any comedy podcasters who stop by!
Last week I had the honor and pleasure of meeting, hanging out with, and watch Paul Bates, Lee Smart, and Nug Nahrgang – the cast of podcasting’s Illusionoid – when they were in town for the San Francisco Improv Festival. They did a fantastic job and I’m going to be featuring an interview with them AND the show they recorded live at the Festival on an upcoming episode of Succotash. You can actually hear that episode now – it dropped yesterday – called The Asteroid Juggler! Get up to iTunes, Stitcher or their homesite at http://Illusionoid.com. There’s even a little pre-show chat with ME on the episode!
NO BURST O' DURST
Our Ambassador to the Middle, political comedian Will Durst was enjoying a well-deserved week off following San Francisco's annual Comedy Day. So there's no Burst O' Durst commentarythis episode. He'll be back next time. In lieu of Mr. Durst's appearance, I'm featuring a funny little ditty called Questions by friend-of-Succotash Chet Haase.
CLICK THE BANNER!
You see that banner up there? The one near the top of our website? That can whisk you magically off to the Amazon website where you can buy pretty much anything you want. (Except, as Larry Miller is wont to say on his This Week With Larry Miller podcast, "a REAL Amazon!") The only difference by going there from here instead of right to there from…somewhere else…is that Succotash receives a kickback for showing you the way to go. So help us out for helping you out, won't you?
THE TEN MOST ACTIVE SHOWS IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST
Normally I don't even touch the Top Ten shows on Stitcher's Top 100 Comedy Podcasts because there's very little movement up there. Maron, Rogan, Carolla…y'know, the usual suspects. (Oh, and still very mysteriously, Car Talk. ) But this week Bill Maher managed to muscle his way in there, so good on him! Here's how the whole list shook out for this week…
07. Real Time with Bill Maher +24
32. Girl On Guy with Aisha Tyler +48
50. Uhh Yeah Dude +12
56. The Champs with Neal Brennan & Moshe Kasher -19
65. The David Feldman Show -17
67. Dining With Doug & Karen +18
77. The Cracked Podcast -22
92. The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling +14
95. Kevin Pollack’s Chat Show +18
100. Who’s Paying Attention +25
As for OUR Stitcher rank, we are once again on the move! Consistency IS key in this podcast game, don’t let anyone fool you. Miss a week and your ranking sinks like a stone. Last week we were at #6721 but THIS week Succotash jumps up 2,182 place to end up at number 4539!
THE CLIPS
As you can see above, Aisha Tyler’s Girl On Guy leapt back into the Top 100 this week, up 48 places, with the kick-off of her third season. (I still don’t know what constitutes a season of podcasts, by the way. It seems pretty arbitrary from show to show. Hell, at Succotash we’re still in our first season and we’re 70 shows and 2 and a half years in!) Aisha welcomes Jack Osbourne to her show. Jack’s the son of Ozzy Osbourne and he talks some about dealing with the reality of that experience.
I wanted to pull a slice from this show which is one of my regular "listens" and an episode he had last week really have me laughing hard. (Which must look weird if anyone is seeing me, out on a wilderness trail at 5:30 in the morning, running full speed in the dark and laughing like a maniac…) He had first-time guest Nick Offerman, from Parks & Rec, and returning guests Jon Hamm and filmmaker “Werner Herzog”, which is in quotes because he’s portrayed by Paul F. Tompkins. In this episode, Herzog is really on his game, too. (Don't forget to check out Doug's newest offering, Doug Loves Minis - which are some of the shorter shows now under one label.)
The All We Know clip was grabbed for us by Tyson Saner, our Honorary Associate Producer (he's got three of 'em in this epi - thanks, TS!) It’s with Benny and Rafi Fine, AKA The Fine Brothers and is described (on their Tumblr page) as "A sometimes ignorant, occasionally uninformed, irresponsible news podcast." The content is largely driven by audience suggestions through Twitter and Facebook. Tyson tells me that All We Know isn't a weekly or even bi-monthly podcast lately but that could be because The Fine Brothers also produce weekly content for at least TWO YouTube channels.
For This Week In Comedy Podcasts on Stitcher.com, I’m reviewing No Pressure To Be Funny, a British podcast I’ve featured before. The brainchild of Nick Revell, Alistair Barrie and Jake Waring, there are lots of other folks involved in this topical live monthly show from the SoHo Theatre, including a panel of journalists and pundits that changes every show. They just kicked off their 6th season with Angela Barnes, Rich Peppiatt, Dan Smith, and Richard Herring, along with host James O’Brien, who keeps it all together. (We've actually got TWO bits from NPTBF - Nick Revell with an emergency bulletin about handbags and a song about randy pandas by Steve Gribbin.
Here’s a another show harvested by Tyson Saner for us. It features Shane Dawson along with his producer Lauren Schnipper. This is a new podcast – only been around since June – and there are nine episodes so far. This clip is from Epi8 and features guest Harley Morenstein of Epic Meal Time, a very popular YouTube web series.
The Clutch & Wiggle Experience
We didn't have to go looking for a clip from Clutch & Wiggle - one showed up in the Tweetsack this week! It seems that hosts Rob, Craig and their new "3rd Mic" The Ditz created an accidental "He-Man PSA" while talking about proper pooping etiquette. These are the same folks that run http://CWERadio.com, by the way, where you can hear episodes of Succotash "randomly replayed" during the week!)
We’ve featured the Air-Raid podcast with Aaron Roden several times before. Aaron’s heavily into the music scene in the Seattle area but he’s also into comedy there, too. And he manages to snag some great interviews with comedians who may be on everyone’s radar but not necessarily getting on podcasts too often. This week he got a hold of SNL veteran Jim Breuer and talked about a bunch of stuff…
The last of this week’s clip contributions – or “cliptributions” - from Tyson Saner. The schmoes in this case are Kristian Harloff and Mark Ellis and their podcast talk about all things entertainment. In their Epi87, they have two guest schmoes – Maria Menounos and Hal Rudnick – who discuss Seth McFarland’s hosting of the last Oscars telecast and also about how subjective humor is.
That's all the Epi70 that there is (except for a really long recipe for "spicy succotash" after the closing credits.) Thanks for listening and please remember to pass the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
Dry and sarcastic or lewd and absurd — no matter how you slice it, I love British humor. And the lads behind the No Pressure To Be Funny podcast have concocted a winning combo of chat, monologues, music, and rants that delivers on all fronts. The brainchild of English comedians Nick Revell and Alistair Barrie, the show is fronted by LBC talk radio host James O’Brien. Performed before a live audience, each show features a different panel of guests every episode. Drawn from the arts, media, and politics, the crew for the latest outing includes Rob Grant, Simon Munnery, Kevin Day, and Polly Toynbee in addition to the show’s creators.
There’s a James Bond theme song with lyrics designed to reflect the economy of the day (“he has to pay to renew his license to kill, and the only reason he doesn’t shower alone is to cut down on the water bill; because Tomorrow Never Dies, just like the Bond franchise…”) There’s a panel discussion of the morals crisis infesting the BBC that’s recently come to light as well as the recent US elections. And, in my favorite tirade of the episode, series co-creator Revell levels a martini-dry accounting of the British involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
The only shortcoming of No Pressure is that it only drops once a month and that’s no laughing matter.
— Marc Hershon
Originally published 12.6.2012 in This Week In Comedy Podcasts on Splitsider.com
I'm trying desperately to get this edition of the Comedy Podcast Podcast up while it is still officially International Succotash Day. (As so declared by the inimitable Jabs of The DHead Factor podcast in Australia.) All day long our podcaster friends have been tweeting and messaging words of praise and support for the show — thanks, everybody! — and I've been enjoying seeing the number of downloads and the reviews and ratings go up!
I'm Marc, he's THAT Chris Gore… |
Great fun this episode with my special guest co-host That Chris Gore onboard. Chris, the host of the PodCRASH podcast as well as regular on G4's Attack Of The Show, was in San Francisco for Stitcher's Podcast Awards. We talked about his tenure as publisher of one of my favorite magazines, FilmTHREAT, as well as his multi-pronged career doing all kinds of cool stuff in TV, the internet and film.
Chris picked some nice clips for this epi, all of which I'd never covered before, and after we talked about his podcast — listeners of Succotash have heard from PodCRASH here previously — where he appears on other podcasts, then plays excerpts on his show. Which means that you've be able to hear part of this episode of Succotash on a future episode of PodCRASH. It's as about as meta an experience as you're likely to find.
Two Marcs: Maron & Hershon |
Last Minute: Since I was late getting this up, I can tell you that I DID end up attending the Stitcher Awards with special guest co-host Chris and it was a grand time. I met the CEO of Stitcher, Noah Shanok, and even got a picture with the evening's host, WTF's Marc Maron. Sadly, though nominated for both Best New Show and Best Album Artwork, Chris didn't end up taking up an Itchy or whatever they call their awards.
CLIPS
PodCRASH
A clip from PodCRASH epi55, wherein our guest co-host Chris Gore crashes Zane Lamprey Live. The main ingredient here seems to be alcohol. Cheers!
Joe Rogan Experience
Comedian and UFC commentator Joe Rogan, well-known for hosting TV's Fear Factor, hosts a daily podcast where he talks to other comics, friends and just plain interesting folks. His show is part of the Deathsquad network of podcasts.
http://DeathSquad.tv, iTunes and Stitcher
Lost Moon Radio
I met someone attached to Lost Moon Radio
at the LA PodFest in October and he suggested I check it out. Now we're
doing the same for you. Chris and I both loved the sound and feel of
this sketch group out of Los Angeles, high prise considering this is
only their third podcast.
Pointless: With Kevin Pereira
Best known as the co-host (and Chris Gore's colleague) on Attack Of The Show on G4, host Kevin Pereira has kicked off a new podcast on the Deathsquad network. In this clip he's chatting it up with successful YouTube video creator Freddie Wong.
No Pressure To Be Funny
I'm
a huge fan of dry, witty, and biting British comedy. Having cut my
teeth on Monty Python way back when they first crept into the US, I'm
pleased to discover No Pressure To Be Funny. Hosted by James O’Brien, created by with Nick Revell and Alistair Barrie,
each episode pulls a panel together from the arts, media and politics,
where they then chat about that week's news in front of a live audience.
This clip features Revell with a monolog about the war in Afghanistan,
in a style that smacks of Douglas Adams. Brilliant.
Throwing Shade
Chis brings in this clip from Throwing Shade, a new-to-me podcast. Hosts Erin Gibson and Bryan Safi
are both prolific writers and comedians whose weekly show focuses on
politics, entertainment, gay rights and women's issues. This is pretty
damn funny chat.
RIFF-erendum
San Francisco-based comedians Steven Pearl and Al Clethen, a couple of buddies of mine, started up RIFF-erendum
so they could converse with some of THEIR favorite comedians and
musicians. In the latest episode, they chew the fat with fellow Bay Area
comic Jeff Applebaum.
We close out Epi42 with the return of Will Durst and his Burst O' Durst. With the elections over, our Ambassador to the Middle sets his sights on what the lame ducks in Congress are doing…or not doing…as the year winds down.
We're hoping to grace a pre-Christmas episode with a live appearance by the aforementioned Will Durst. If you're doing some driving over this holiday season, just remember that a long car ride is an excellent place to pass the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
We've got a bunch of clips in Epi40, the longest episode of Succotash yet! Yes, I said "we", because I'm joined by special guest co-host Jabs (aka Jason McNamara) all the way from Canberra, Australia, through the magic of Skype. Jabs is the main man behind The DHead Factor and invited me to share the hosting duties several months ago on his show, so I figured it was high time to return the favor. Wasn't sure how it was going to come together, given the time difference, but Jabs is on holiday down under so he was kindly enough to give up part of a Monday morning at his end.
He really serves as a true co-host in this installment - I didn't really get a chance to interview him about his podcast or his life or anything. So if you're hoping to learn more about Jabs the man, please click right over to his podcast and start filling your ears. We split the job of pulling clips for this show, which allowed us to surprise each other with new discoveries. (And since we both enjoy yakking so much, the running time on this episode is over an hour and a half.)
It was great having Jabs on the show, and that's not just because he's announced that he's proclaimed December 4th to be Succotash Day! That's right - an international observance of this very podcast! We chat about it during the episode and you can be SURE I'll be talking more about it as the blessed event approaches.
T-SHIRT WINNER
In the previous episode with my interview with Andy Bumatai, I offered to give away an old t-shirt of Andy's from the Crack Up Thursdayz one nighter comedy gig in Hawaii to someone who could tell me the distance in miles between San Francisco and Honolulu. I had a number of people email in with the mileage — 2387 — and then randomly drew Esben Borsting's name from the correct entries. So I'll be sending the t-shirt his way...back to Honolulu. Thanks to everyone who entered.
FUNCTIONAL NERDS
Maybe I don't talk about myself enough on THIS show but I can't shut up about me when I guest on Epi126 of the Functional Nerds podcast. Hosts John Anealio (who was a guest on Succotash back in Epi33) and Patrick Hester made me feel welcome and the time flew by. At least for me. Might be different for you. Click over and give a listen...
B & A
Alba Lewis and Thomas Moore of The Brit & The American podcast swept through San Francisco on a roundabout journey to Peru, stopping just long enough to tuck into a Chinese dinner and have some good conversation with yours truly. Thanks for the eats, kids, bon voyage, and I'll be putting up some or all of our chat in the near future.
THE CLIPS
Let's do this thing.
The DHead Factor
The usual haunt for our guest co-host Jabs, The DHead Factor is also occasionally co-manned by #FUJosh and others, all the way from Canberra, Australia. Random news, lively chat, and more.
Royal & Doodall
In a classic R&D clip chosen by Jabs, Royal & Doodall pull off a dramatic send-up in which they pay homage/skewer a number of their fellow podcasters. Including US. Check it.
This Week With Larry Miller
Comedian Larry Miller
suffered a head injury about a year ago and his podcast over on Adam
Carolla’s ACE Broadcasting System has been playing reruns ever since.
Larry's been on the mend and fronts a recent repeat episode with this
message to his fans…
The Christopher Titus Podcast
I've always enjoyed the rambunctious energy of comic Christopher Titus
– even more so now that the sound quality of his podcast is coming
together. This episode's a treat, seeing as it also features freind-of-Succotash Kelly Carlin.
Pissed Off Man
Jabs has brought along a clip from a podcast that's a favorite of both of ours - The Pissed Off Man, featuring Gavin, aka Gee from Belfast's Gee & Jay Show. Here our mate's gotten all pissy about eating our at restaurants. Not because of the food. Because of the people.
Garagecast
Is anybody as incensed about the Red Dawn remake as Jake and Bryan? I don't think so. Give a listen to the Garagecast podcast, why don't you?
Phil Hendrie Podcast
I think the best way to encapsulate our inclusion of a clip from the Phil Hendrie Podcast is to run my review of same which ran last week in This Week In Comedy Podcast over on Spiltsider.com:
Good things DO come to those who wait! Years ago, living in Northern
California, my only reliable access to Phil Hendrie’s KFI radio show out
of Los Angeles was the occasional CDs of the show my friend Matt would
send me. And any time I was in the southland, I’d gobble up as much
Hendrie as my ears would hold. Hendrie created some of the most original
and hilarious programming to be found on radio. NOW he’s making hours
and hours of past moments available via his daily podcast. Dr. Jim
Sadler’s his guest in this epi, and he’s giving hints on how to get
people to move along that are blocking your way in the fast lane on the
freeway. “Get right up on their bumper and highbeam ‘em!” urges the doc.
“Nobody ever gets mad. In fact, they appreciate you letting them know
they’re going too slow.” And if that pokey driver ahead of you is
handicapped? “Four short blasts of the horn lets them know you’re back
there,” adds Sadler. No one messes with me – I was an all-star wrestler
and one look of my well-muscled arm resting on the windowtells folks I
mean business.” The people who call into the show are increasingly
outraged the more outlanding Sadler gets and even Hendrie cautions him
about going to far. Spoiler Alert: Hendrie IS Dr. Jim. And he’s even one
of the outraged callers. But the other callers often don’t get the
gag…and neither will you until you hear a few episodes and get hip to
Hendrie.
Mental Poison
Bill and the rest of the East Coast crew of Mental Poison
made it safely through Hurricane Sandy a couple of weeks ago. Now they
just need to survive more fantastically lame-brained marketing ideas
from Brian…
The Bugle
This
clip is a slice of the well-crafted and droll wrap-up of the USA’s
presidential election, seen through the British filter provided by hosts
John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. We've played a few clips from The Bugle before, and we'll continue to play samples of this great show until you finally relent and subscribe to it!
TOFOP
Thirty Odd Feet Of Podcast is a show I've not heard before, although I did catch a few minutes of co-host Wil Anderson
at last month's first ever Los Angeles Podcast Festival. Highly
recommended by Jabs, Wil's an Aussie stand-up who's at the top of the
pile, while his partner-in-podcasting Charlie Clausen just landed a TV gig that's put their show on hiatus.
Unkempt
Does a podcaster shit in the woods? The last time we featured a clip from Unkempt, one of them had, and left it wrapped in a groddy towel. Let's see what Mike & Matt have in store this time around…
Burst O’ Durst
Our political correspondent Will Durst takes a side trip into Thanksgiving Town.
Happy Thanksgiving to our American audience - that would be Happy Thursday to the rest of you. And what an appropriate time for me to urge you to please pass the Succotash!
I’ve really fallen behind in getting Succotash episodes out the door so apologies to those of you who have been trained by decades of televison and radio with their regular release of content. I’d love to be more on top of the release schedule but I have a regular fulltime gig which, if I were just sitting here with an open mic and spitballing witty bon mots off of today’s headlines, I could probably pull it off. But on this show I try to bring you snippets and bits from comedy podcasts around the interwebs and around the world and that just plain takes time.
So Epi38 is a clipless show BUT I do have a great interview with one of my favorite comedians. Andy Bumatai is from Hawaii and is IN Hawaii and made his name there as well. He gets to the mainland from time to time, which is how I first got to know him. We get into that story in the interview. I recorded my chat with Andy when I was in Honolulu back in September and I was hoping to have it up before now, because it’s got some plugs for a show Andy and some other bruddas from the islands did in the Bay Area and Southern California at the end of October. I was hoping to spread the word but it’s like my whole show is on island time of something.
Anyway, you can see Andy regularly now on YouTube with his series In The Car with Andy Bumatai. (Note: Andy's show hit the web a good half year or so before Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee debuted online.) We talk about not just this current project of Andy’s but touch on many of the other shows he’s done over the years that helped to make him as much about Hawaii as pineapple, poi and pupu platters.
Speaking of pupus, that’s one of the things mentioned on a t-shirt I’m giving away this episode! Seriously. It’s an artifact of Andy’s – a genuine black tee from a long-defunct live comedy show called Crack Up Thursdayz. The show was at Honolulu's East Side Bar & Grill. I even have a picture here of Andy wearing it. Bear in mind I have ONE, it’s a large and it’s well-worn. But it’s also been well-laundered – Andy left it in my rental car when I drove him to a show when I was in Hawaii in September. Wanna win this timeworn classic? Here's how.
Send the number of miles (or kilometers for our metric friends) between San Francisco and Honolulu to me, marc@SuccotashShow.com. I'll draw one name from the correct guesses and mail the winner the Crack Up Thursdayz tee shirt. Be sure to include a mailing address with your emailed entry!
I was going to do a show around the 8th Annual Podcast Awards, which the voting on closes November 15th. Perfect self-contained show idea, right? I thought I’d feature clips from the ten shows in the Comedy category but, again, no time. In lieu of playing those clips, here are the shows nominated:
Beauty and Da Beast, Citizen Radio, Comedy Bang Bang, File Under Horrible, Metrobuzz, My Brother My Brother and Me, The Green Light Show, The Ramen Noodle, Walking The Room, and WTF with Marc Maron.
So get up to http://podcastawards.com and vote before November 15th. (There are a bunch of other shows in other categories as well, but we really don’t care about them here on Succotash, the COMEDY Podcast Podcast.)
With the elections upon us, don't forget that our inhouse political comedian and Ambassador to the Middle Will Durst has an ebook out! It’s called Elect to Laugh, a collection of his election year rants and observations, both from his act and from the syndicated column he does. You may even see a few familiar passages that you’d have heard right here on our Burst O’ Durst feature. Get over to Will’s site and grab it there.
Early Warning: I'll be a guest on the Functional Nerds podcast next Tuesday night, November 13th, hosted by friend-of-Succotash John Anealio and Patrick Hester. Catch it at 10 PM EST/7 PM PST at http://FunctionalNerds.com or download it later from iTunes!
Next episode not only we'll we have a full rack of clips, but I should be joined by special guest co-host Jabs from The DHead Factor podcast, Skypecasting with me from Australia!
That's it for now. Until next we meet, please be sure to pass the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
My buddy and former improv teaching partner Sammy Wegent was able to Kickstarter himself into a web series — "Everybody's A Comedian" — that he dreamed up, co-created and got produced. It kicks off on August 6th so be sure to catch it. And catch ME, too, as I appear in Episode 2 as a somewhat sleazy commercial director. (Typecasting, some might say.)
I was also in the teaser trailer for the original Kickstarter campaign, playing a somewhat sleazy comedy club owner. (Typecasting, some might say.)
Look for me...