I’ll keep it simple. Short? No. But simple? Yes.
My favorite art form, above movies, tv, books, music, paintings, and cat gifs is podcasts. That’s not to say that I don’t love all those other things (especially cat gifs) but my podcast obsession trumps all.
And I like to think I know a good bit about podcasts, since I listen regularly to 45 of them. Which is too many. Like, seriously too many. I have to listen to most of them on 1.5 or 2x speed, and even then I end up with a huge backlog of episodes.Eventually I go through a purge where I just delete some old episodes and move on. There’s probably something poetic about that. Someone could probably make that a metaphor for an aspect of life.
Whatever.
Anyway, here are my top ten favorite podcasts:
10) Pop My Culture: Improvisers Cole Stratton and Vanessa Ragland talk about the week’s happenings in pop culture with a celebrity guest. It’s fun, it’s silly, and it’s always a blast.
9) The Mental Illness Happy Hour: Comedian Paul Gilmartin talks to guests of all kinds, from comedians to listeners to therapists, about mental health. The show is amazingly touching and has truly some of the best, most honest and open interviews I’ve ever heard.
8) How Did This Get Made? Comedians Paul Scheer, June Diane Rapheal, and Jason Mantzoukas, along with another guest, all watch a terrible movie and spend an hour breaking it down.
7) Scriptnotes: Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin spend an hour every week talking in-depth about various aspects of screenwriting.
6) Doug Loves Movies: Comedian (noticing a theme?) Doug Benson runs a live movie-themed game show, featuring a rotating panel of awesomely funny comedians, actors, and the occasional musician.
5) The Indoor Kids: Comedian (it’s gonna keep going on like this…) Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon host the best video game podcast. I don’t even really play video games and I still love the show.
4) You Made It Weird: Comedian (I really like comedy. Deal.) Pete Holmes does crazy-long, crazy-in-depth interviews with one guest per week (usually a comedian.) They talk about the big stuff.
3) The Nerdist: Hosted by uber-nerd Christ Hardwick, it’s got excellent interviews with all kinds of great personalities, and has a really fun, enthusiastic, and friendly vibe.
2) Welcome To Night Vale: No description would do it justice, just listen and hear for yourself. All I will say is that it is beyond incredible. And stay out of the Dog Park.
1) Harmontown: Consistently the funniest 2 hours of my week. Community creator Dan Harmon and his friends do a goofy, off the rails, town-hall-esque live show every week that features rapping, ranting, and Dungeons & Dragons. It’s the best.
Some others that I recommend checking out: Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend, The Nerdist Writers Panel, Before You Were Funny, FeaB, Jonah Raydio, Who Charted, The Big Pull, James Bonding, and The Alton Browncast.
If you have podcasts to recommend, or just want to say hi (or have an internship to give a college computer science sophomore interested in writing and producing for film/tv/internet/radio…) email me, or hit me up on twitter (@AndrewTheWhip)
And if you like music and vlogs, check me on the YouTubes (TheAndrewWhipple) and, much more importantly, check my ridiculously talented friends Hannah Moroz and Kirstyn Hippe.
(Meow.)
Andrew Whipple
[email protected]
Bay Area, but sometimes Seattle