Let's talk about humorous podcasts
Hey there people!
Seeing how last post I could find on the topic was posted almost one year ago and how my question is a bit more specific, I thought a new one could be worthwhile.
Admittedly, I am not an assiduous podcast listener - what I'm mostly looking for is a show to 'scratch the itch' every once in a while which features good chemistry between its hosts, exploring whatever topic with humorous tones; bonus points if said topic is interesting.
To exemplify, some of the best podcasts I can think of on the spot are How did This Get Made (I can particularly recommend the episode dedicated to Mr. Nanny), or How to Fuck Up an Airport.
The first one is a serie that analyze extremely poor or obscure movies, while the second one unveils the debacle surrounding the 20 year old (and still aging) Berlin Brandenburg Airport project; I know this last one might sounds boring, but it's a baffling and hilarious journey - surely and by far my favorite Podcast.
TL;DR
So yeah, what are your most entertaining, hilarious, and generally fun podcasts?
https://www.filmreroll.com/ - it's not topical, but it is hilarious. This is a group of improv actors recreating various movies using a DND type RPG system. They often end up is some truly insane scenarios.
I can recommend a few as possible starting points:
Plenty available check, unusual concept check, episode length seems about right to be digestible and they are readily accessible. This is dope!
Edit: I'm about 50 minutes into the Ted and Bill excellent adventure along with Socrates and Napoleon. Dude... it's totally, like, crazy...
Oh man, come back when you get to the end. It probably had my favorite ending of all their episodes. Mostly because it just fits with the over-the-top-ness of rock culture and the absurdity of the rest of the movie.
So to sum it all up:
spoilers
They picked up Napoleon, who chilled throughout the journey, Socrates, a random old man from Crete, Benito Mussolini along with one of his bodyguards, a rogue android and a Japanese female warrior. Throughout all this, and against all odds, nothing besides a big fuckoff snake really hindered their expedition, which concluded in an epic battle against the leveled up Gundam sized rogue android, which was somehow defeated flawlessly by the power of rock during an unforgettable concert. All this for a presentation. And the incredible cheesiness of failing the very last check and ending with Bill and Ted still sucking at playing music. That was unbelievable; honestly props to the narrator who came up with this crazy fucked up story.That was absolute insanity, definitely a great recommendation, thanks!
And yeah, please do watch How to Fuck Up an Airport linked in op. It very much resembles this kind of chemistry between the hosts and the story is, believe me, equally batshit insane.
Paulo does a pretty great job coming up with scenarios. This was probably the most bonkers one since they could go literally anywhere in time and space, and he had to generate a scenario on the spot.
I'll check out How to Fuck up an Airport, thanks!
Love that podcast! I also think it's one of the most realistic depictions of playing an RPG. It's not overproduced (for lack of a better term; I can't find one that doesn't sound too harsh to either The Film Reroll or other series :p), and while they generally stay focused, they don't feel the need to completely avoid or edit out every tangent they go on. The concept is a little more niche than most games, but it's the example I'd point to first for what it's really like to play an RPG. :)
I go through phases with podcasts, and there are just two comedy podcasts that I am currently listening to, and have really stuck with for a long time.
The first is How Did This Get Made, which OP mentioned.
The second is My Brother, My Brother and Me. It's "an advice show for the modren [sic] era," where three brothers take questions, sometimes from the astoundingly bad Yahoo Answers, or user-submitted questions. There are also a whole bunch of other bits, like Munch Squad, the podcast-within-a-podcast where they read and make fun of fast food press releases.
I guess I'm going to depart from the formula a bit, as the show is pretty consistent (though it has its ups and downs; sometimes the brothers seem more "on" than other times), and episodes tend to have a bunch of bits instead of being really cohesive. So, instead of recommending episodes, I'm going to post a few clips, courtesy of the folks who make a TON of animatics (and kinetic typography) based on MBMBAM segments. :D
Glass Shark
22 Slices
Wizard Swears
a talking cat???
Hot Grapes
(Disclaimer: everyone, brothers included, generally suggests skipping the first 100 or so episodes unless you're a completionist, and even then, don't start there. Aside from sounding rough, they were all college-aged then, and the podcast could get quite a bit more mean-spirited than it is now, where it's generally super positive.)
There are also a bunch of podcasts from the same folks, including their tabletop RPG let's play series, The Adventure Zone. It started as kind of a goof of them making a podcast playing D&D with their dad, and while it always has funny moments, I wouldn't call it a comedy, because they get very invested. :) If you want to check it out, though, the recommended starting point is probably Petals to the Metal, where it really finds its own groove. Though, hey, feel free to begin at the beginning, just realize that it's not quite cooked at that point.
The only proper podcasts I've listened to would be the TechDif crew's "Citation Needed", and their newer "Two of these people are lying" (couldn't find a proper playlist, but they're uploaded mostly in sequence over here).
While it's mostly quiz/game show kind of stuff instead of just talking about stuff, it's still really good in my opinion.
As a fan of Would I Lie to You that second show you mentioned sounds right up my alley. I just watched a snippet of it and realised that one of the hosts is that one YouTube guy that makes videos about unusual stuff.
While not a podcast in the traditional sense I gotta say I'm digging it, thanks!
If you're a fan of "Would I lie to you" you might enjoy "The unbelievable Truth". https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d7pb Most episodes are available via torrents.
There's a ton of great audio comedy on BBC Radio Four.
I like
Party: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011md4l
Tom Finnemore's Souvenir Programme: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mk97n
Cabin Pressure: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lmcxj
Bleak Expectations: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cwgs6
All of these are available to buy or via torrents, and probably on Youtube too.
Yup, I'll search them all later on 'alternative sources' as all the official streams are region locked; but yeah, many of these quirky British game shows thingies are my groove - I'm gonna check them out, thanks!
If you enjoy Bob Mortimer on Would I Lie To You, you may like Athletico Mince. It's one of my favourites because it's so completely daft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletico_Mince
https://athleticomince.com/
Now I don't know how much of what's been told on WILTY is actually true, and in all fairness some of the stories are quite jarring; regardless Bob Mortimer is by far one of the best recurring guests of the show imo, along with Greg Davies and Wehn, so I'll add Athletico Mince to the list.
I'm a fan of The Jeff and Casey Show (who apparently got new episodes, I'm way behind!). The two guys are programmers, so things get predictably nerdy. It's mostly two or three topics per episode, over-analyzed to hilariously obsessive detail. They love making fun of Silicon Valley type techno-religion, "the internet of things", bad movies and shows, generally unnecessary inventions and covering all kinds of "weird news" articles. It's a bit hard to explain. There's often half-hour rants about super programmer-specific issues and whatnot, which maybe a bit much if that's not your thing, but mostly it's about literally anything that's weird and funny.
By calling them "programmers" you are vastly underselling them. :)
Jeff Roberts is the head of RAD Tools, a staple of game development industry. If you played any game in the past 10-15 years it's a high chance there has been something from RAD in it.
Casey Muratori is the main engineer behind MollyRocket game studio, but he is probably better known for his youtube series HandMade Hero, where he has been developing a game singlehandedly for about 5 years.
Among each other they hold a lot of experience when it comes to the game industry and game development.
That's exactly the kind of show I was seeking; something light hearted, generalist but still somewhat grounded in topics. I'll bookmark it and give it a spin next weekend, thanks!
Had this been suggested to me 5 or so years ago it'd have probably been right up my alley, but at this point I have to say Tiny Meat Gang is not my cup of tea.
Good Morning from Hell from what I can see sounds somewhat like Count Dankula's Mad Lads Serie here is my favorite episode, which I still consider fun but got kinda spoiled by the meh nature of the host himself. It could be hit or miss, I'll check it out and see if it's my jam; thanks ^^
I'm surprised No such thing as a fish hasn't been mentioned yet. They collect fun facts, talk about them, and are generally pretty funny.
Dice Funk is a comedy DnD Podcast, despite me not being a DnD player I follow along pretty well
Potterless is about the host reading the Potter series for the first time and making predictions. He has finished now though and is starting to cover the expanded stuff (movies, etc). It's probably the funnies podcast I'm subscribed to!
Boston's favorite son is a stand-up podcast by Jim Sterling and Konrad Zimmermann. Good, but it they have a very... special type of humor
Not knowing jack all about DnD myself, and having checked out what @Omnicrola suggested, I'm starting to understand I really like the dice-roll kind of formula for podcasts; I'll deffo have to give Dice Funk a go.
On a side note, I'm starting to remember that a friend of mine once showed me some clips of a podcast which had some (or all?) episodes animated, where 4 people played DnD? I just recall there was a fat guy, a red haired chick and a gremlin of sort, idk...
It was some years ago, and my memory is kinda fuzzy honestly; googling it real quick I found Critical Role, but I'm sure that's not it.
Even the other entries sound cool; perhaps I'm just gonna pass on Potterless, but that's on me; I never really liked that serie.
Maybe you're thinking of HarmonQuest.
That's it, yeah! I had no idea the Rick and Morty guy was involved in other projects... Thanks!
DiceFunk is currently in the middle of a season and you can just hop in (I did that when I started listening) it's usually better to start from the beginning of a season. If you just want to get a feel for it, they have a few One-Shot episodes, the latest one is the Halloween onehttps://austinyorski.podbean.com/e/df-one-shot-mr-spookys-house-of-fun/).
As far as Comedy Podcasts go, my favorite is the dearly departed Improvised Star Trek, and I recommend the episode, Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go! as it introduces everyone involved, sets up and pays off really well, and was the first episode I listened to, so I'm probably biased in that regard.
I'll admit that I know absolutely nothing about Star Trek; provided it's light hearted enough and there aren't too many in-jokes I assume it should be accessible and enjoyable to newbies like me as well, I'll give it a go and see ^^
Sleepycast by far. Featuring primarily a bunch of degenerate animators from the Newgrounds golden era like OneyNG, PsychicPebbles, Spazkidin3D, JohnnyUtah, Ricepirate, Stamper, and many guests, it's just a bunch of really stupid humor and hilarious stories told by the less well-adjusted. It's probably an acquired taste, but if you have the taste, it's fantastic
Sleepycabin was great to just unplug and chill, plus Zack and his melodious nasal voice were part of the cast fairly often, and that for me can only be a plus.
The issue I have is that pretty much every episode was topical of bullshitting about whatever was trending in pop culture at the time, and seeing how they post with the same frequency as we get a new Pope, well... It just doesn't feel appealing to me to re-listen to any of the episodes...
I'm a huge fan of last podcast on the left. They talk about everything from aliens to serial killers and they're hilarious the entire time. It also helps that they have 400 episodes and all of them are incredible.
The Infinite Monkey Cage!
Nominally a science show, hosted by a professor of physics (Brian Cox), but cohosted by a comedian. Every episode they have a mix of scientists and comedians on and they discuss some sort of scientific topic with the benefit of real academic study (not just speculation like so many podcasts), but the comedians participate as well, telling jokes and asking clarifying questions, which I think makes the podcast more approachable to the layman.
Never heard of this show before even though I consider myself somewhat acquainted to BBC's productions.
As i wrote in some other responses I usually listen to podcasts while doing chores or working around so I'll have to see if I can keep track of what's being said. Cheers!
The first podcast that I ever really listened to regularly was a humorous one called Welcome to Night Vale.
The show is basically NPR for a small town where all of the craziest conspiracy theories are true and a part of every day life. They will casually refer to a rip in the space time continuum opening during a PTA meeting that lets dinosaurs into the public school gym. It's a very dry humor and a very well done show.
It's not totally 'haha' funny, but it's light in nature and has a lot of great moments.
Alan Alda's Clear and Vivid is an excellent podcast focused on communication. His guests are all over the board, but he has a lot of comedians and such. It's super wholesome without being cheesy.
This sounds interesting for moments when I can actually dedicate all the attention to the podcast itself; I usually consume podcasts while cooking or cleaning around, and I'm not sure I'd be able to keep track of what's being said while also handling whatever else I'm doing.
It does sound like a great show to listen to while relaxing when my eyes need some resting, a great alternative to watching TV; thanks!
I typically listen to podcasts like this. I really like
... etc. But these are close to the opposite of what you're after :)
I don't know why, but I never could have imagined a podcast with Baldwin discussing music, politics and society could ever exist.
Neither of these really fit what I was looking for originally, but perhaps they might be good to listen to while commuting? Again, I'm not really good at multitasking so it'd depend on how thorough the discussion in each one is. I'll download a couple and try them out.
I never really thought of Alec Baldwin as intelligent -- but he actually is. It's surprising how much he knows about everything from classical music (he's a strong supporter of the symphony), politics, film... you name it.
He's also an excellent interviewer. He's had talk shows on TV, but I think radio suits him better.
One of my favorites is The Dollop
Two comedians with standup / improv backgrounds. One researches an event in American history, then tells the story to the other. Usually focuses on more off-beat / less well-known parts of history.
Both hosts are quite far left, politically, so especially in recent years a lot of the episodes have a decidedly leftward lean. Ends up being somewhere between the TV show Drunk History and Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States.
A few classic episodes to start with:
Ten Cent Beer Night
Action Park
The Hippo Bill
And for a taste of their more explicitly political content, for their 400th episode they had Patton Oswalt as a guest and covered the life of Ronald Reagan. Part 1 and part 2.
Keep in mind I'm from the other side of the pond, meaning that the extent of my American history knowledge is only superficial; I assume this also probably means I shouldn't have any gripes against how political the show gets.
The Reagan episode is actually be quite topical for me - not long ago for one reason or the other he popped up in a discussion I was having with my father. I'll have to check that one out for sure.
I've been listening to The Greatest Generation for a number of years now, it's a Star Trek podcast run by two film production professionals who mostly use the episodes as an opportunity to riff on, but who also bring an interesting perspective to the craft of putting together a TV show. Their sense of humor is a little juvenile, though I've obviously enjoyed it enough to put in the suggestion here that someone else might. They started the podcast discussing Star Trek: The Next Generation, ran through it's full set of episodes, and are now 2/3rds of the way through Deep Space Nine.
And if you like their sense of humor, they have two other podcasts. The Greatest Discovery as the name suggests is about Star Trek: Discovery and the soon to be released Picard series, and Friendly Fire is a war movie podcast where they do pretty much the same thing, with the addition of a third host.
So yeah, I downloaded a podcast once and a few years later realized I've been listening to them for hundreds of hours. Funny how that works.
As I said in another comment in this thread I really don't know my Star Trek at all, so I guess my enjoyment of it would depend on whether Star Trek here is used to begin the episode, set the theme for the rest of the podcast and go off on a tangent or if it is central to a whole show.
I'll check what's what once I get home though, thanks for the input ^^
Very Bad Wizards is a philosophy-based podcast that's hosted by two Professor's who I find hilarious.
A lot of the philosophy stuff can be over my head or too esoteric for me to really care too much about, but they split the show into a semi-topical chat at the beginning and then the heavier stuff towards the end. They're clearly very good friends and at its best it feels like you're just eavesdropping on some amazing banter.