The comedy podcast universe is ever expanding, not unlike the universe universe. We’re here to make it a bit smaller, a bit more manageable. There are a lot of great shows and each has a lot of great episodes, so we want to highlight the exceptional, the noteworthy. Each week our crack team of podcast enthusiasts and specialists and especially enthusiastic people will pick their favorites. We hope to have your ears permanently plugged with the best in aural comedy.
Happy Sad Confused - Will Forte
Elizabeth: I dare you to listen to this week’s Happy Sad Confused and not fall a little more in love with Will Forte. The nicest guy in Hollywood sits down with Josh Horowitz to talk about his career and his new show The Last Man on Earth. They go through his early years from the Groundlings to writing on Jenny McCarthy’s sketch show on MTV. He has nothing but nice things to say about the experience, but doubles back later in the show to emphasize how great it and Jenny McCarthy were, just in case. He also talks about working on 3rd Rock from the Sun and That ‘70s Show and how he almost didn’t take the job on SNL because he was so happy at the latter. (He actually turned it down the first time it was offered to him, but luckily he was asked to audition again the following year.) Josh also asks Will for a memorable moment with his MacGruber co-star Val Kilmer and gets more than he bargained for when Will tells him that Val lived with him for a while when he was looking for a new place in Malibu. Will Forte may be the only person in the world who knows what it’s like to sing along to “Roadhouse Blues†at the breakfast table with roommate Val Kilmer. The rest of us just get to imagine, which is still pretty delightful.
The David Feldman Show - Larry “Bubbles†Brown Returns
Marc: David Feldman is a sterling example of a comedian and writer who, despite his success in mainstream media — he’s won a trio each of Primetime Emmys and Writers Guild Awards, has written for a pile of TV shows like Roseanne and Real Time with Bill Maher, as well as for the Academy Award, the Emmys…the list goes on and on — since 2009 he’s had The David Feldman Show out there as a podcast (and also a radio show, as of the past few years) to keep him honest. Not satisfied to maintain the status quo, his podcast has shifted formats over the years. Starting out as a live show that harkened back to the days of old time radio with a cast of comics, to nowadays as more of a straight ahead interview show. His guest going into the weekend was Larry “Bubbles†Brown, a longtime fixture in the San Francisco comedy scene dating back to the early ‘80s – about the same time Feldman got his start there, too. This episode is a rambling conversation filled with remembrances, comic moments, a few serious asides, and a handful of dead hooker jokes. For a few brief moments, Bob Rubin, another S.F. comedy scene alumnus, joins Feldman and Brown but technical snags prevail and he’s aced out of the chitchat. There’s no agenda or pressure to get anywhere in particular in this interview, and part of the fun is that it can go anywhere at all without notice. Butter.
The Dollop - The Fans of Philadelphia
Pablo: On this week’s episode of the American history podcast The Dollop, Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds aim their sights on the ugliest of Ugly Americans: Philadelphia sports fans. As the hosts preface the episode, Philadelphians obtained their inferiority complex in the 18th century when the United States decided a piece of humid swamp land was a better place for our nation’s capital than the birthplace of American democracy. And when your professional sports teams post the worst winning percentage in the 20th century, that doesn’t help much with the ol’ complex. But if your boorish behavior becomes on par with the fictional exploits of Mac, Dennis, Charlie, and Sweet Dee, maybe it’s time to just grow up already. Anthony starts it off with a story about one of the Philadelphia Phillies’ first black players, Dick Allen, who had to wear his batting helmet in the outfield to shield himself from projectile batteries. But he wouldn’t be the last target of drunken hooligans, as Anthony moves onto the infamous December 1968 Eagles game where Santa Claus himself (or an obese fan dressed as Santa because the hired performer was stuck in traffic/hungover) was pelted with hundreds of snowballs during a halftime show. Their behavior didn’t change in 1970 when the Phillies and Eagles opened Veterans Stadium, a multi-purpose coliseum that was outdated before the teams played their first game. The arena was notorious for rock-hard turf, countless stray cats, and even its own basement municipal court and jail due to the bi-monthly drunken brawls known as Eagles home games. You have to give Philly fans some credit though. While they heaved D batteries for racist reasons in the ‘60s, by the ‘90s they became more progressive with their violence, like when Phillies draft pick J.D. Drew shunned the team for the minor leagues because they refused his desired $10 million signing bonus. There are too many tales of lurid behavior to note, but if you guessed the denouement involves a drunken fan purposely vomiting on a 10 year old girl, then congratulations!
Other Podcasts We’re Listening To:
You Made It Weird - Rob Huebel
Who the Eff Is Sal Calanni? - Working with Spike Lee
Monster Party - Monster Acting with Doug Jones
Nerdist Podcast - Kurt Braunohler Returns
Elizabeth Stamp is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York.
Pablo Goldstein is a writer from Los Angeles, CA.
Marc Hershon is host of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast and author of I Hate People!