Yes, ‘tis I – Marc Hershon – your host and former-prizefighter-now-casino-greeter for Epi140 of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. And, as you heard in the opening introduction by our esteemed booth announcer Bill Heywatt, our carpet now match the drapes. That is to say, we’ve got “soundcast” replacing the outmoded “podcast” just about everywhere we can. Special thanks to our engineer/producer Joe Paulino for making that happen.
As I drop this ‘sode, I’m heading to the 5th Annual Los Angeles Podcast Festival! Exciting, indeed. I shall be in attendance all three days, more or less. Holding down space in the Podcast Lab to interview just as many folks as I can. And I will be moderating the panel on Journalism and Podcast on Sunday, Supetember 26th, at 2 PM. We’ve got Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer, the host and producer of the Criminal soundcast and Jefferson Graham from USA Today. Should be a lively discussion.
Which you can listen in on! They’re going to be livestreaming the Podfest this year at http://LAPodfest.com and I can get you a special deal. That’s right. They want $25 from you BUT they’ve given me a discount code to give to Succotash listeners. So click on the link and enter HUFFINGTON as your code and they’re knock five bucks off the price. PLUS they’ll kick us a little chunk just because you used our code to get there! Here’s a link that takes you right in - https://podfest2016.eventbrite.com/?discount=HUFFINGTON
CLIPS
This is an installment of Succotash Clips and we have a whole rack of snippets for you. Some I picked, some were harvested by our associate producer Tyson Saner and at least one was uploaded directly from the soundcasters themselves. We’ll be hearing from The Answering Machine Podcast, the Big Question Podcast, Cave Crew Radio, Changes In Latitude, Dark Odyssey, Droids Canada, Ear Goggles, Improv Nerd, My Favorite Murder, No Such Thing As A Fish and The Unwritable Rant.
OTHER STUFF
We’ve also got a double dose of our Burst O’ Durst, courtesy of our friend, political comic, and social commentator Will Durst. In celebration of Fall, there’s a song from our friend Abner Serd all about apples.
THE CLIPS
Improv Nerd
I decided to do some double duty this episode and clips the same shows that I reviewed this past week for Splitsider.com and the Huffington Post. First up is Improv Nerd with Jimmy Carrane, a great improvisor and teacher from the Chicago area. He interviews some tremendous improv talent on his podcast and just this last week he dropped an episode interviewing always funny and jst slightly off TJ Miller. In this snippet he talks about creating his character of Erlich Backman on the HBO series, Silicon Valley.
Cave Crew Radio
We get a lot of Twitter retweet love from Choo Choo Stu from Cave Creek Radio, the internet radio show and soundcast, so high time we sliced off a hunk, thanks to Tyson. In addition to Stu from London, there’s Sir Big B, outta New York, and Mr. Wednesday Night from Ontario, Canada. The clip we have is from Cave Crew Radio’s highest rated episode on iTunes, Epi6, entitled “Smells like Urine Sushi”, and it’s a section when the hosts and guest on the show chat with the woman who inspired the meme “McScuse Me”.
Ear Goggles
Last episode I mentioned in the Tweetsack segment that I got a an upload from the gang at the defunct Ear Goggles soundcast. Well, guess what? They are defunct no longer — Jeremy Grater, Aaron Ristrow, and Stacy Black are back! Jeremy said they just couldn’t stay away and are recording 12 weeks of episodes, then they’ll take a break, do another 12 in the Spring, and so forth. The clip they sent us was from a special drop they did this summer to announce their return.
My Favorite Murder
For Splitsider.com’s This Week In Comedy Podcasts column I recently reviewed the soundcast which is at the top of the iTunes Comedy chart: My Favorite Murder, with comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. If you like your murder flashbacks delivered with a healthy dose of humor and a side of squeamishness, you have coem to the right place. The hosts do their homework and delve into cases that are sometimes fairly recent and sometimes back in the dusty archives. Most recently they looked at the unfortunately murder of a college law student named Jane Mixer and her death at the hands of supposedly a serial killer who was dubbed the Co-Ed Killer. Turns out that, years later, DNA pointed the musty finger of justice at another joker who was incarcerated for the crime. Here’s a sample of Karen and Georgia’s witty back-and-forth…
Changes In Latitudes: A Transgender Experience
Ever since Succotash began about five and half years ago, one of our staunchest supporters and loyal listeners has been Charley Miller, who said he was partly inspired to start his Random Variety Show soundcast. A lot has changed in five years. Charley now goes by the name Charley Sabrina Miller and describes herself as a 40-something transgenderqueer fem-person, and hosts a soundcast called Changes in Latitude: A Transgender Experience. It’s Charley’s stream-of-consciousness journey that she takes us on through life, self-discovery, relationships and beyond.
Doctor Who Dark Odyssey
I have to confess to being a little mixed up about a clip I played in the last Succotash Clips show. It was from a show called Doctor Who Dark Journey. THAT was actually a serious take or homage to Doctor Who — sort of audio fan fiction, I think. The same folks responsible for that also put out their own spoof called Doctor Who Dark Odyssey, which stars Atweh Atweh, Paul Thomas Manz, Jason Gray, Merrin Lalonde and which is – according to the email I got with their direct upload to us — “Dark Odyssey is a take on Doctor Who as if it were produced for audio in America with basically everything wrong about it! Our American Doctor shoots, swears and shags!” So what we have is a clip from a parody of a ripoff of Doctor Who. I think. Still confused.
No Such Thing As A Fish
There’s a very popular BBC TV panel show in Britain called QI, which stands for Quite Interesting, hosted by Alan Davies and Stephen Fry, in which the point is to just be interesting. And entertaining. Interesting and entertaining. Now the researchers for the show — because it’s got loads of trivia in it — are four folks called the “QI Elves” because they look everything up — have gone and started a soundcast called No Such Thing As A Fish. Simple format – each of the elves, who as named Dan, James, Anna, and Andy, take turns kicking off a segment with a favorite fact for the week. The others then chime in with facts and tidbits related to that fact. The episode that I reviewed for Splitsider.com features them talking about something called “train jam”.
Answering Machine Podcast
Tyson found us a really interesting soundcast I hadn’t heard before. It’s called the Answering Machine Podcast, and its tells a story all based on a series of answering machine messages left for a woman named Lila Rose. Created by Sara Polton, who voices Lila, there’s a big cast of people who leave the messages.
The Unwritable Rant
The last of my review podcasts from last week was featured in Huffington Post Entertainment. It’s The Unwritable Rant from Juliette Miranda, who is a writer and an essayist — kinda the same thing, right? — and she’s clearly a monologist as well. We’ve certainly had some terrific shows from dudes who can riff all by themselves, like Bill Burr and Greg Proops. But there haven’t been a lot of soundcasts like that from women. So give a listen to Juliette…
Droids Canada
The gang from a show called Droids Canada got a clip to us through our direct upload link, at http://hightail.com/u/Succotash. About the show they say, “Based out of the Niagara Region in Canada this geeky pop culture show features blunt, comedic and outrageous behavior that occurs on every episode! Hosts Mr. J, AJ (and other rotating hosts Gabbypool, Dr. Stevil, DanMo and DJ Johnny Rock) cover current hot TV shows, comic book movie reviews, fan made things, interviews and any geek other related topic they can get their hands on.” This clip features guest James O’Barr, creator of The Crow.
Big Question
Are you happy? That’s the Big Question that gets kicked around in Epi49 of the English soundcast Big Question. Hosts are Pete, Maria, Gary, Kay and Rocchi, plus they often have guests. Tyson, who snipped this clip, didn’t tell me if there were guests so I guess that’s MY big question. Let’s just listen…
To celebrate the kickoff of our grassroots campaign to change the term “podcast” to “soundcast” in as many places as we can, feel free to drop by the Succotashery via our homesite, http://SuccotashShow.com, and pick up some merch emblazoned with our name, Succotash, and the magic words, “The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast” directly beneath it. It’s on shirts, hats, coffee mugs and more.
That's all for now - how to see you at the LA Podfest this weekend or at least know that you're out there listening!
