1.18 Winner - Podcast Roundup August - November 2022

Bestest Friend and I are doing a podcast project. Every day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the eighteenth day of the month is "Winner."

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The last podcast roundup I did was in July. Wow. That was a long time ago.  Let's dive in to the podcast I deem as real winnters.

Let's Make a Sci-Fi is a very fun limited run series in which three comedy writers get together and try to write a serious script for a sci-fi series and then it culminates in them hiring actors to perform it. There's so much I loved here. I loved listening to the writing process, getting to hang out with some friends, and I love the final output. Overall, this podcast just really hit a sweet spot with me.  If you're someone who wonders a lot about how people in creative industries do their work (process nerds, please come join me), this might work for you. 

Look, I know that you don't need me to tell you yet again to listen to 99% Invisible. You're seriously annoyed that I'm bringing it up for the one millionth time. I get it. But, listen, really, it's a great podcast and then Bill Clinton interviewed Roman Mars about Mars' book and it was two smart people talking about things they really care about and know a lot about and it was absolutely riveting. Roman Mars thinks we should be concerned about infrastructure and maintaining/replacing what we have already built? Me too! 

I have also repeatedly recommended the podcast Hit Parade here before, too, so I guess this is turning into a roundup of podcasts I have liked over a long time, which isn't nothing, I guess. In Hit Parade, Chris Molanthy takes a deep dive at the pop charts. In the most recent episode, "At Last My Legacy Comes Along," Molanthy examines the interesting phenomenon of what he calls legacy hits - hits that underperformed when first released, but now are the artists' most well-known or well-played songs. And I was riveted by his explanations for these occurrences, how he gathered his data, and all the examples he played. I'm not really into music podcasts, but this one really ticks a lot of boxes for me.

Too Scary; Didn't Watch is another one I've recommended a couple of times before. It's a horror movie rewatch podcast. In general, I prefer when they don't have a guest because I like the chemistry of the three hosts together. But when there's a guest who has done their homework and gets into the spirit of the show, I really love it.  There have been TWO such episodes recently! "ANACONDA with Wes Larson" is just brilliant. Larson is a wildlife biologist who hosts a podcast called Tooth and Claw (which is also quite funny) and he watches this movie while pointing out all the scientific facts that it gets wrong, but doing it in such a way that he knows it's part of the joke. I enjoyed him greatly in this.  The episode "THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE with Evan Gregory" is another episode in the same genre in which the guest is really in on the joke of the TS;DW podcast, as well as the joke of the movie. I enjoyed both episodes tremendously.

The Outlaw Ocean is a new podcast based on the reporting done by Ian Urbina. There's a book by the same name available, but I haven't read it, so I don't know how much cross pollination there is in the information provided. Regardless, this is a podcast that's really hard to listen to, but is super important. This podcast argues that the ocean is basically lawless, too big to police and with complicated jurisdictional lines that international authority is moot. It's a seven-part series that explores everything from illegal pirating and floating abortion clinics to slavery and smugglers. (I think this is a nice companion piece to the podcast Containers, which I've recommended before, that examines life on and about container ships.) I honestly just had no idea about the scope of lawlessness in the seas and how many people were impacted it. It's fascinating, but sad. 

While we're in the maritime world, consider listening to the light-hearted Did Titanic Sink?, a ridiculous exploration of the conspiracy theory that it wasn't the RMS Titanic that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912, but rather its sister ship the RMS Olympic. It's funny, but it also sent me down a giant rabbit hole about the sinking. It's two doofy comedians, one of whom seems like a bona fide expert on the ship. I even really loved the bonus episode with Abby Howells, a comedian who also knows a lot about the Titanic and pushed back on the conspiracy theorist. I was surprised at how entertaining and educational this podcast was.  

What's a recent podcast discovery you've made?