I know a lot of people listen to smartypants podcasts, but I prefer to listen ton ones that make me laugh embarrassingly loudly in public. Or ones that make me shout trivia answers like I was watching Jeopardy! at home. I have a problem with self-control.
Here are my podcast recommendations, I think they are all at least an 8:
How Did This Get Made?
Three comedians plus a comedian guest talk about really bad movies. Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael make this show for me, though Paul Scheer works well with them (he’s married to June). The format has shifted a little over the years, but now they round out their discussions with “A Second Opinion”, where they read five star reviews from Amazon. I have listened to every episode and I haven’t seen all of these films, so I don’t think you need to worry about that in order to enjoy this podcast. Also, they sometimes have a guest with insider knowledge on the show (someone who was in the film/knows someone involved/etc.) which is really fun.
ETA: Jason Mantzoukas’ role is similar to his role as Rafi in the TV show The League. He’s very raunchy, he curses a bunch, and one of his running jokes is talking about how he orgasms during ridiculous scenes. It’s a schtick, and it took me a bit to get into his whole thing, but he might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Personally, I love his interactions with June because he seems to be able to coax her wacky thoughts out of her the best, but I can see why his other interjections can be too much for people.
Here are some of my favourite episodes: Con Air, After Earth, Anaconda, Sharknado, Monkey Shines.
Doug Loves Movies
Doug Benson hosts a movie game show type of thing with comedian guests and the typical deciding game for the win is the Leonard Maltin game, where he has funny categories for different movies and gives the year of the film, Leonard Maltin’s rating of the film, and some snippets of his review of the film. The guests then bid on how many names, from the bottom up, they can guess the movie in, with the possibility of going negative (to name the film plus the top billed X number of people in Leonard’s order). Other games include Last Man Stanton (named after Harry Dean Stanton, who couldn’t really name his own films when Doug had him as a guest), where an audience member suggests a major actor or director and Doug and the guests keep naming movies until they are out; Doing Lines with Mark, where “Mark Wahlberg” reads a line from a movie and the guests shout out the answer when they know it; and ABC Deez Nuts, where Doug chooses a movie and makes a list of other films stemming from each letter of the first movie (ANACONDA, for example, would be Almost Famous, Nine, After Earth, etc.) and then sees if the guests can match what Doug has previously assigned each letter.
I can’t really recommend specific episodes. Each is fun for me because of the movie trivia. There’s one with Ngaio Bealum, “Mark Wahlberg,” and Andy Wood that might be fun because Mark is great. Also I think it’s funny when Pete Holmes is on because he’s so nuts. Just download whatever is available–they rotate off iTunes so that people can purchase them later.
My Brother, My Brother, and Me
An advice show for the modern era. The brothers McElroy tackle a mix of user-submitted questions and user-submitted Yahoo! questions, and they give their goof-filled advice. Their voices might take some getting used to, but I find them delightfully silly and they probably make me laugh the hardest.
If you want to be introduced to the best of their materials, they have episodes called “Bro’s Better, Bro’s Best” every so often that compiles their best clips from chunks of their episodes. I started off listening to Episode 137: Tangentz. That got me hooked, and I went back to Episode 1 and worked my way up. I even restarted that process recently because I enjoy them so much.
ALSO, they mentioned me (not by name, and they call me a guy) in Episode 244: Slimefoot! I had a total geekgasm on the metro when that happened.
If you’re into geeky, here are a few more:
The Adventure Zone
The brothers from the above-mentioned podcast do a D&D podcast with their dad. Only one or two of them have D&D experience, so it’s a lot of silliness and a lot of learning. It’s pretty hilarious. This is actually what got me interested in anything D&D–they debuted this podcast last year, I think, and so I listened to it because I love MBMBaM, and I was hooked. Which led me to finding the next podcast…
Crit Juice
Also D&D. A group of friends take user-submitted “God cards” and “crit hit/crit fail” cards and make a drinking game out of D&D. These guys are actually experienced players, so the entire story is more or less original content. Their webpage includes pictures of their game and their tabletop setups. They have some preset drinking rules that apply for every game just to ensure that they will, indeed, get drunk while playing (they also often pregame, so that helps).
Welcome to Nightvale
This one is seriously quirky but pretty entertaining. I admit I haven’t listened to all that’s avaialble yet, but it’s an ongoing story about a small, supernatural town and the events that take place as told by an announcer’s community updates. The weather reports are random songs, there’s talk of secret police and lights in the sky, etc. It’s pretty ridiculous but I think it’s fun, if you’re into sci-fi stuff.
All three of the above podcasts require listening from the first episode, as a story is taking place.
Otherwise, I have dabbled with Comedy Bang! Bang!, but I find that my enjoyment is really dependent on the guest(s). Harris Wittels (RIP) was one of my favourites, and I kinda can’t handle knowing there are no more Harris’ Foam Corners in the future. Also, I enjoyed the podcast he did with Scott Aukerman called Analyze Phish, where Harris tried to convince Scott that Phish is a good band. The last episode covered the last Phish album, and they discussed Harris’ drug addiction and his recent stint in rehab. It really stings listening to that again after his overdose, but if you’re a Phish fan, the whole podcast is interesting. I have often wondered how to introduce people to Phish, so I enjoyed listening to this process.
How about you guys? Any fabulous podcasts you want to share with us, comedy or otherwise?
