Succotash Epi78: Christmasin' After The Fact

As Santa Claus said after a day of delivering toys around the world, "Oy." This Epi78 of Succotash was intended to be our Christmas episode but between the crush of business, holiday shenanigans, a wicked cold and assorted other speed bumps, it's only getting out now. And how was YOUR holiday?

We have a brief chat with Rachel Eaton, the Director of Content Partnership at Stitcher. We start out talking about the nominations for the 2nd Annual Stitcher Awards but they closed the Sunday before Christmas. Fortunately, Rachel also talks about the voting portion of the awards. The finalists to get your votes in each category will be announced on Tuesday, December 31st, after which you can begin voting at the Stitcher site. (I appreciate that Rachel took time out to talk via phone while on vacation visiting family back in Boston!)

We've also got a bunch of clips for you - many of which were harvested by Tyson Saner, our go-to guy and Honorary Associate Producer. He's also one of the three folks who called into the Succotash Hotline and dropped a holiday greeting on our listeners, all of which are featured in this episode. If you'd like to hear more of his melodious tones, I've been chatting with him about co-hosting an episode of Succotash sometime in January.

SONG OF THE SEASON

Our friend, fellow podcaster (Functional Nerds) and novelty songster John Alealio re-released one of his holiday classics, Batman Smells (A Rebuttal), and it's out pleasure to feature it this episode to help us round out our post-Christmas non-stravaganza. Click on John's name to go visit his site and pick up some of his tunage, won't you?

DOUBLE DOSE O' DURST

We're featuring not one but TWO of our Burst O' Durst segments this episode, including comedian Will Durst's belated Xmas List for 2013.

THE 10 MOST ACTIVE SHOWS ON THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCASTS LIST

Here's the way the movers, shakers, and droppers shaped up this past week:

AT                                                                        MOVED
33. Ari Shafir’s Skeptic Tank                                  +26
55. Cashing In With TJ Miller                                +31
57. Improv 4 Humans with Matt Besser                 +32
60. Thrilling Adventure Hour                                 +41
62. Nobody Likes Onions                                       +50
72. The Trev & Ben Show                                      -12
73. SModcast FeAB                                               +21
91. Jim Florentine’s ‘Metal Comedy Midgets’      +12
93. The Dead Authors Podcast                               -18
98. SModcast Edumacation                                    -13

CLIPS

Amish Baby Machine
This clip was a request I made of Tyson Saner after I read last week’s Top 10 Most Active Show On Stitcher’s Top 100 Comedy Podcast list. The show jumped up over 500 places to get in. So I asked Tyson to grab me a sample. In this taste, hosts Dags and Jeff welcome back Dan Simon, who shares tales from his recent African adventure.

WTF
One of the best known podcasts around is WTF or What The Fuck, with Marc Maron. He recently hit his epi450 and had Will Farrell on as his guest, which I reviewed for This Week In Comedy Podcasts on Splitsider.com. A few weeks earlier, Marc had author David Sedaris on and he’s a favorite of our friend Tyson Saner, who provided us with this clip of Sedaris reading from Marc’s recently published book.  (Marc's IFC TV series Maron returns in May of the new year.)

Broadcast Basement
Chris Lanuti runs his show from an actual bar he has in his actual basement, surrounded by actual friends like Acoustic Mike and Wild Bill as well as whomever drops in. Chris is a former radio guy who knows how to run a show and I guess he’s the commissioner of the Broadcast Basement Fantasy Football League in which our Succotash Rocs did okay in this season, considering I know nothing about football other than the fact it’s the brown oblong ball. This clip focuses on that newish Christmas tradition: The Elf On The Shelf.

Seven Days A Geek
The lads over at Seven Days A Geek recently held their “30 Days of Podcasting” event. These guys aren’t just podcasters but they also get into the nuts and bolts of podcasting a lot – well worth subscribing. In this clip, Jay “The Angry Ginger” and Jeremy McBlizzard discuss horror movies including The Human Centipede.

The Black Guy Who Tips
Tyson Saner has clipped us a hunk of a pretty popular show featuring married couple Rod and Karen – no last names – who have been together since they were 16 and got marreid in 2002. They kick stuff around and also have interesting guests. This slice features the couple discussing R.Kelly’s ill-advised Q&A session via Twitter a little while back.

Big & Clever
This podcast out of England has been around for three years and if it hadn’t been brought to my attention by one of our friends on Twitter, I still might have heard about these guys Danny Blaze and Keith True. They’re a pair of DJs and, much like our new friends Trev & Ben, they talk about news of the day, current events, pop culture and enjoy taking shots at each each other every now and then as well.

There you go. A little over an hour of podcast gold. You can help us out for the new year by heading over to iTunes and gives us a nice star rating and perhaps a short review. You can also give us a "Thumbs Up" on Stitcher, Like us on Facebook, give us a heart on SoundCloud or Favorite our tweets when you see 'em on Twitter. You can also help us to offset expenses by clicking on the Donate button on the righthad side of our SuccotashShow.com website, dipping into your Christmas bonus and sending a little smidgen our way. We'll regale you in word and verse on the show.

Best wishes for a great 2014 and we'll talk to you next year!

- Marc Hershon
 

Succotash Epi77: Visitin' with Larry "Bubbles" Brown

I'm Marc Hershon and this is the official blog entry for Epi77 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast. Big thanks as always to our engineer-producer Joe Paulino, our announcer Bill Heywatt, our booth assistant Kenny Durgess and – once again – our Honorary Associate Producer Tyson Saner, who provided several of the clips you’re going to here in this episode. (Don't forge to look Tyson up on Soundcloud.com and listen to some of his original music.)

Not sure how you found yourself to the Succotash blog, but I invite you to listen to my podcast streaming from the homesite or from Stitcher On-Demand Radio OR from SoundCloud. Of course you can download us from iTunes AND we get replayed over on CWERadio.com as well.

Our special guest this week is Larry “Bubbles’ Brown, who is a standup comedian in San Francisco. You may have heard on a past episode of Succotash – he was with Dana Carvey in the car in Epi58 when the three of us hit the road to a couple of gigs. And he was also on Epi55, one of the crew at the table when I interview Andy Kindler.

Larry has been a fixture in the San Francisco comedy scene pretty much since he started (1981) and had rarely ventured far from home. Although he does get out on the road once in a while and has even been on David Letterman's show - twice - 21 years between appearances.

Our interview this episode is just us – one-on-one – back at D’Angelo’s, the same Mill Valley restaurant where the Kindler interview took place. Larry’s also one-third of the subject of a new documentary, 3 Still Standing, that’s been made about comedy in San Francisco starting back in the 80’s, and we talk more about that.

Because of the length of my interview with Larry, we have fewer clips that usual this episode but we still have a nice big handful of ‘em.

As I mentioned last week, I’m no longer going to tag every clip with the fact you can download the shows from iTunes and Stitcher.com, because it’s pretty much a given. But I’ll mention the homesite and some of the other places you can pick up the show.

RECORD YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOUT OUT!

Got a note via Facebook from Bonn, of The Strange Times Show and also of The Bonn & Obo Show. He wanted to know if we were planning any kind of special Christmas show and was I interested him putting something together for it. We weren't BUT, after getting Bonn's message, I figured we should do something after all. SO, to any and all comedy podcasters within sight of this blog, just pick up your phone and call the Succotash Hotline at (818) 921-7212 and leave a holiday greeting! You can plug your show, tell me how great Succotash is, do a shoutout to your loved ones, whatever. And I’ll play it on the show as we get near to Christmas.

FEATURES

In addition to our Burst O' Durst, with comedian Will Durst running down his Top 10 news stories of 2013, we have promo from the folks over at the StoryWorthy podcast - Christine Blackburn and Hannis Phinney - who made it special for us by including Dean Haglund from the Chillpak Hollywood Hour podcast. AND we have a new Henderson's Pants commercial with something special just in time for the holiday! 

THE 10 MOST ACTIVE ON STITCHER'S TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST

In this feature, found exclusively on Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast, we don’t look at the shows sitting up at the TOP of the list but, instead, those podcasts that have moved the most up OR down the Top 100 in the past week. How’d it shake out this time around?

23. Deathsquad +21
37. Wiretap from CBC Radio +16
39. My Brother, My Brother And Me +18
42. The Jimmy Dore Show +16
44. Christopher Titus Podcast +20
46. This Week In Blackness Radio +22
50. The David Feldman Show +31
51. Sarah & Vinnie Secret Show +35
59. Amish Baby Machine +554
71. Lightcast +1421
The Amish Baby Machine podcast?! Best title ever! Can't wait to check that one out.

Hey, the 2nd Annual Stitcher Awards are gearing up, which means nominations are open NOW! You can even nominate THIS show, your favorite Succotash podcast, to win! Go to Stitcher or hop on over to our homepage at http://SuccotashShow.com and click on the Stitcher Award button on the right hand side!

THE CLIPS

Modern Day Philosophers with Danny Lobell
This new podcast features comedian Danny Lobell trying to his head around philosophy, which he does by inviting various comedian guests to come on and talk about a particular philosopher. Most recently, he had one of my favorite podcaster/comedians on, Bill Burr, and he threw 18th century’s Adam Smith at him, which they start to get into after Bill covers a little of his early home life.

Overview with Rick Overton
One of my best friends is also a very funny comedian and has been running some great interviews from the helm of his own podcast. I’m talking about Rick Overton and Overview. He sat down recently with a guy whose radio show I’ve loved for years, Phil Hendrie.

Last Week On Earth
Comedian Ben Gleib appears frequently on Chelsea Lately and had a popular TV show that he directed, wrote, and starred in for the National Lampoon Network back in the mid-aughts. He’s up to 109 episodes of his SModcast podcast The Last Week On Earth, where he talks about news, politics, and sports. Normally he has a guest but he occasionally goes it alone, like in the clip we're featuring, where he speculates on what the upcoming TV show based on the old movie Ghost starring Patrick Swayze might be like.

AnxieTea Party
Second time around for us to feature a clip from AnxieTea Party with Kathy Hopkins. In Epi32, she hosts Dian Bachar. You might recognize him from his work with Trey Stone and Matt Parker of South Park fame – he was in BASEketball and Orgasmo. He talks with Kathy about comedy writing, improv as it pertains to acting, and social situations where people could benefit from a little “give and take”.

That’s most of the highlights of Epi77. (More bits and pieces lurking around in the episode that I didn't bother to mention here, so check it out!) Thanks for hanging out! Remember to take it easy on the road this holiday season and please don’t ever, ever, ever forget to pass the Succotash!

— Marc Hershon

Succotash Epi76: Podfestin' with Chris Mancini

Welcome to Epi76 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast. To start off, and I've mentioned this on the show before, I don’t understand why some podcasts have “seasons”, like on television, or how they determine how many episodes constitute said seasons or why.

It’s all quite arbitrary.

But I have decided that we are going to start following this obtuse convention so welcome to the first season of Succotash, already in progress. This is episode 76, which means there are only 23 episodes left before the big season finale!

That’s right. You heard it here first: Episode 100 will be this show’s season closer.

Maybe we’ll make it a big deal. A live show somewhere, with lots of guests, lots of podcasters calling in and sending in messages. It’s a ways off, of course. At the rate I drop episodes, we’re looking at next summer sometime. A great time for a season finale! Or maybe it will be just me, huddled in my car in the pre-dawn light, trying not to wake the neighbors as I talk to you, our loyal listener.

Our show mostly has made its bones playing clips of comedy podcasts from around the world but we also feature interviews. This week our Special Guest is Chris Mancini. This is last of my official LA Podcast Festival interviews – it’s only taken two months to get through them all – and Chris is one of the creators and organizers of the PodFest. Chris is also co-host of the Comedy Film Nerds podcast, along with Graham Elwood, a previous guest on this show.

The Comedy Film Nerds podcast is a spinoff, more or less, from the Comedy Film Nerds website and also the book of the same name.. The website focuses on film reviews by both Chris and Graham but slso a number of contributors, including Dean Haglund and Matt Weinhold, both of whom have appeared on Succotash. Their book is more about film genres, with their contributors tackling everything from horror to romantic comedies.

We managed to corner Chris in a corner of the Podcast Lab at the PodFest and spend about 10 minutes chatting about how things were going and their plans for the future of the Fest. The Fest Future, if you will.

WHAT ELSE?

In addition to a pile of podcast clips (due in no small part to our Honorary Associate Producer Tyson Saner!), this epi also features a DOUBLE Burst O' Durst with our resident raging moderate, comedy Will Durst. Also, we have a holiday poem, Black Friday, by friend-of-Succotash and contributor Chet Hasse. And I talk a little bit about my appearance in Epi4 of a strange little web series called The Funster, produced and starring friend of the show Dana Carvey.

Here's the video:



TEN MOST ACTIVE IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCASTS LIST

In this week's list, there's a podcast from England that jumped an astounding 1139 spots to get up into the Top 100! Called The Trev & Ben Show, from Cryodon Radio, we also sliced off a taste during the podcast. But here's the whole list for the week:

21. The Black Guy Who Tips Podcast +9
40. The Comedy Button +36
50. Out Of The Box +151
63. The Trev & Ben Show +1139
73. SModcast >> Edumacation -12
75. SModcast > FEaB -22
78. Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine -13
79. Dining With Doug & Karen +14
82. Cashing in With T.J. Miller +31
94. Jim Florentine’s Metal Comedy Midgets -13

THE CLIPS

Comedy Film Nerds
The Comedy Film Nerds podcast is a spinoff, more or less, from the Comedy Film Nerds website and also the book. Hosts Chris Mancini and Graham Elwood frequently have guests on the podcast but recently it was just the two guys and, in the clip we're featuring, they have a letter from a listener setting them straight on a movie-based issue.

Improv 4 Humans
Usually Matt Besser’s Improv 4 Humans is Matt and his guests improvising audio scenes based on listener’s suggestions. In this clip, Matt and one of his guests, Chris Gore, from PodCRASH, discuss the core essence of what improvisation is about, beyond the simple “yes and” belief that’s floating out there for years.

Pep Talks
The week before last I reviewed Eddie Pepitone’s new podcast Pep Talks, part of the All Things Comedy Network, for Splitsider’s This Week In Comedy Podcasts. He’s just getting started, after years as one of the four hosts for The Longshot Podcast. Now it’s just Eddie, his head and also usually an interview guest. This clip is from his second episode, where he chats with Canadian comedian Glenn Wool, but what I’ve got here is from more of a one-man audio sketch Eddie did before the interview began.

Don’t Quit Your Daycast
We haven’t checked in with podcaster and longtime listener and supporter Ed Wallick over at Don’t Quit Your Daycast in a while. He recently hit his episode 50 after being off for a bit due to health reasons. But he’s back and still doling out his Asshat Of The Week award!

Doug Loves Movies
Our friend Tyson Saner clipped out part of a recent Doug Loves Movies episode. I do enjoy DLM but I somehow missed this moment when Doug Benson had Bert Kreischer, Lauran Lupus and Clare Kramer on and, partway through "The Leonard Maltin Game", Doug puts his spin on an idea that Bert had, and then Bert can’t stop laughing.

The Comedy Buffet
Got a note from Michael Powell, the "Tycoon of Comedy" and host over at The Comedy Buffet Podcast, who says, “Hey Marc, all your hard work has inspired me to put in at least a half assed effort in return. I finally pulled a clip from our show for you again. This is Episode 114 with special guest Mike Hammock, fill in co-host Steve Vanderploeg and our new co-host and pun meister Rick DeSimone…I know you took us to task last time I sent in a clip. We have still not done much with the website. So our official tag line is "Another comedy podcast? This can't possibly fail!" Are you ready? Here come some cow puns…

The Todd Glass Show
I find comedian Todd Glass not only funny but an engaging podcast host. Our Honorary Associate Producer Tyson Saner found a great clip of Todd with guest Whitmer Thomas from “Power Violence”, which Tyson refers to a “Anti-Improv”. See for yourself how well it works…

Please don’t forget to rate and review us up on iTunes, thumbs-up us on Twitter, Like our Facebook page and Like us on Soundcloud. Basically, do whatever you can to help us out for free in as many places as you can OR save all that virtual running around and kicks us a few bucks by either using the Donate button on SuccotashShow.com, buying some merch at SuccotashShow.com, or doing your holiday shopping on Amazon by using our portal at SuccotashShow.com.

Enough begging. Until next time, please remember to pass the damned Succotash!

— Marc Hershon

Succotash Epi75.5: Drivin' My Life Away

A funny thing happened on the way to Epi76. I had a trip scheduled to Los Angeles to take part in an annual card game with a bunch of friends. So I haven't had a chance to finish putting the next episode of Succotash together.

But there I was, tooling down Interstate 5 in the middle of the night. Pulled over to gas up and checked my email, Facebook and Twitter feeds. And @HarryHumorNY had tweeted, wondering if I was going to record another rambling "halfisode" from the road. So I did.

And here it is. Just me, talking to myself (and you) as I speed through the night. No clips. No Tweetsack.

See you soon with Epi76, which will feature many clips from comedy podcasts along with my chat with Chris Mancini, co-organizer of the Los Angeles Podcast Festical and co-host of the Comedy Film Nerds podcast.

Please remember to pass the Succotash!

– Marc Hershon
 

Succotash Epi75: Speakin' With Adam Spiegelman

Welcome to Epi75 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast!

75 episodes.

A milestone of sorts. Three-quarters of the way there if there is 100 episodes.

Glad to have you with us and hope you enjoy this particular outing. Not a whole bunch of comedy podcast clips this time because our special guest is podcaster and TV producer Adam Spiegelman, host of the Proudly Resents cult movie podcast and also Dream Tweet, a podcast game show.

Adam is – or was – a producer on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell – I say “was” because I just read today that FXX has cancelled it. Bear that in mind when we talk about the show in our interview because – a month and a half ago when we talked – everything was fine.

Back then, in happier times, Adam and I hung out a bit at this year’s Los Angeles Podcast Festival and he sat down with me in the Podcast Lab where we talked about movies, TV and, of course, podcasting.

In addition to Adam, and some funny clips, we have our Tweetsack, our Burst O' Durst, and a classic Henderson's Pants commercial.

REVIEWS

For This Week In Comedy Podcasts on Splitsider.com, I reviewed not one but two shows — the hot-as-a-pistol Welcome To Night Vale, über-comedy-creepy narrative; and The Nerdist with Gillian Jacobs (Community, Bad Milo), so check those both out.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

(l-r: Marc Hershon, Frank Cronin, Dex Carvey)

This past weekend I got to act in a sort of experimental web series that friend-of-Succotash Dana Carvey is producing and starring in called The Funster. VERY low budget. The first three episodes – I call them episodes but they’re really more like “moments” because they’re so short – are up on YouTube. I make my appearance in the fourth installment, which is still being worked on. I think we’re re-shooting some of it this weekend, so I’ll let you know when that’s up online and I’ll have that episode on the SuccotashShow.com site when it’s ready.

THE 10 MOST ACTIVE SHOW IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST

The Top 10 Most Active Shows in the Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcast list is heard exclusively on Succotash. Most people do a straight ahead Top 10 countdown.

Not us.

No sir.

We’re more interested in the podcasts that have moved up or down the most on Stitcher’s Top 100 comedy list. Like these…

37. The Artie Lange Show +25
63. This Week In Blackness Radio +12
66. Dining With Doug & Karen +36
72. This Week with Larry Miller +9
75. Jim Florentine’s “Metal Comedy Midgets” +10
79. The Dana Gould Hour -21
85. What Say You? -20
87. SModcast > FEaB -31
88. The David Feldman Show -15
96. The Cracked Podcast +49

CLIPS

Proudly Resents
The flagship show of our special guest this episode, Adam Spiegelman, Proudly Resents is billed as "the cult movie podcast" and often features Adam and his guests dissecting and roasting some of the silver screens most fragrant bombs. In this sample from his most recent episode, Adam - along with Katharine Heller and Myq Kaplan – took a look back at the movie Dead Heat, starring Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo.

The Artie Lange Show
Most people know Artie Lange from his years sidekicking for Howard Stern. He was also on MAD TV and has appeared in a few movies like Dirty Work and Beer League. His new memoir, Crash And Burn, is out and has been on the New York Times Bestseller list. His podcast is really the audio version of his Dish network TV show, and also features HIS sidekick, former NFL player Jon Ritchie. In this clip, Artie reminisces about some quality party days.

Cornucopia Radio
We received a clip of this podcast from producer/writer Peter Beeston, who tells us that his podcast is created by a selection of writers and performers in the UK. "Every episode is a unique piece of radio fiction — sometimes they are dramatic pieces, sometimes they are comedic — but they are always of high/professional quality." This particular clip comes from a mocumentary about druid life in the UK, and about one Druid in particular, Brian Parker. The clip was written by Laurence Peacock, and features the voices of Chris Bellamy, Laurence Peacock, Christine Bellamy and Phil Mason.

Welcome To Night Vale
The podcast universe has gotten so vast that even I am having trouble keeping up with it all. Which is why hadn’t even heard of Welcome To Night Vale before I got to the Podcast Festival in LA last month. The show's a narrative and is, in fact, narrated by Cecil Baldwin. The show’s created and written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. They’ve got commercials for really weird things, original music, and the best way I can define it in a thumbnail pitch is that it’s A Priarie Home Companion as conceived by H.P. Lovecraft.

The Wrong Foot
We haven’t played a clip from The Wrong Foot podcast for awhile. They’re a funny audio "sketchcast" and it’s high time we got another taste. We got a note from executive producer Robin Brecker this week along with a clip. Robin says, “I know you guys are busy with Thanksgiving coming up and lima beans to shuck, but here's a clip from the Wrong Foot collection that is short enough. Thanks. And rememember, defrosting is for suckers."

That's the lineup, essentially, for Epi75 along with, of course, our Tweetsack segment and a classic commercial from our sponsor, Henderson's Pants.

If you'd like to help us out, we invite you to visit our homesite, at http://SuccotashShow.com, where you can avail yourself of our colorful Donate button, or click on our Amazon ad at the top of the page and do your shopping through our portal (in which case we'll get a little kickback), or perhaps purch some merch from our Succotashery web store.

If spending money to see your favorite comedy podcast podcast continue to flourish isn't your thing, a few moments of your time is all it takes to go to iTunes, look up Succotash in the podcast section, and the rate and review us. You can also go to Stitcher.com and give us a "thumbs up" to let people know you like us.

At the very least tell a friend about us — we call that "passing the Succotash"!

— Marc Hershon 
 

Succotash Epi74: Metacastin' with Andrew Johnstone

Can it be?! Yes! This is Epi74 of Succotash, The Comedy Podcast Podcast, and our “thing” is playing clips of comedy podcasts both known and not-so-well known across the internet and we also feature interviews with podcasters, comedians, podcast-comedians and other folks from the entertainment biz.

Our special guest this week is my doppleganger in Podcastland, if you will: Andrew Johnstone, the host of the Podcast Squared podcast, which was initially known for reviewing podcasts, comedy and otherwise. He’s been spreading his parameters of late and we sat down to discuss that and more in the Podcast Lab at this year’s LA Podcast Festival for a mutual interview. (Apologies for the background noise - the POdcast Lab got really pakce djust as we were getting underway and there was no way to block the chatter…)

A couple of the clips on THIS show are from the LA PodFest – I’m getting to as many as I can – and that’s thanks in large degree to our amazing honorary associate producer Tyson Saner, who is great at grabbing worthwhile moments and even better about sending them into us at Succotash! Tyson is also a musician and you can catch some of his amazing stuff up on Soundcloud. (By the way, you can also catch episodes of Succotash up on Soundcloud as well!)

DURST AND MORE

We’ve also got a new Burst O’ Durst, a classic Henderson’s Pants commercials – because Bill Heywatt is out of town and we forgot to have him get some new spots “in the can”, as they say, and who knows what else. (Well, I do, but you have to download or stream the episode to see if there’s anything I’m NOT telling you about…)

THE 10 MOST ACTIVE SHOWS ON THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST

Our Top 10 Most Active Shows in the Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcast list represent those podcasts that moved the most – either up OR down – Stitcher On Demand Radio’s Top 100 comedy podcasts this past week. Last week there were some BIG triple-digit swings into the list. This week not so much, with the exception of ONE show that jumped over 600 places to barely get into this week’s list.

32. Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 +17
54. My Brother, My Brother & Me +23
58. The Dana Gould Hour +38
59. Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine +19
64. About Last Night -8
65. What Say You? -8
71. The Todd Glass Show +8
73. The David Feldman Show +20
83. Sex Squad -9
96. Modern Day Philosophers with Danny Lobell +634

CLIPS

Chillpak Hollywood Hour
We got a couple of nice mentions from Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness at the Chillpak Hollywood Hour this week, one of which is by way of an email from our pal Geoffrey Welchman over at the Inverse Delirium podcast. (Spoiler alert: I’ll be in an upcoming sketch on Inverse Delirium in the very near future. And it looks like Dean will, too!)  They also continue a lively discussion about spaghetti Westerns in the latest show. (BUT I think they may have lost their Empire Gas sponsor because I don’t believe there was a mention of it. Hope that’s not the case. I don’t know what we’d do if Henderson’s Pants stopped supporting US…)

Jordan Jesse Go
We have a clip from the recent LA Podcast Festival! Jordan Jesse Go features co-hosts Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris. We’ve clipped these guys before and with good reason – they’re funny. And popular. Consistently in the Top 100 over on Stitcher. In fact, this week they’re at 61 on the chart. And they're at the PodFest, talking about…pigs.

4 AM Cab
Lee Wilson and Rachel Wheeley in England at the 4 AM Cab podcast sent us a clip. Haven’t heard from this sketch show in a while, a “nocturnal comedy podcast” as they put it, featuring “scenes from the small hours.” BTW, they have an open submission policy for writers so, if you want to try your hand at writing audio sketches, here’s a place to try them out! This sketch was written by Matt Fishwick and Cat Furniss, and stars Chris Baker as the robber with Dan Warren as the cop.

Mohr Stories
Comic Jay Mohr and his Mohr Stories podcast is the flagship of Jay’s Fake Moustache Studios, where they’ve got about a half dozen shows in their stable. Our honorary associate producer Tyson Saner has clipped a couple. The first is the, well, the first – it’s Mohr Stories and Jay’s guest is comedian Jim Norton who is gaga for metal and they’re talking Sabbath.

Industry Standards
If you’re savvy to the standup scene at all, you’ve got to be familiar with the name Barry Katz. Starting in Boston in the 80’s, he started in as a standup as well as a booker for clubs all over the New England area. By the early 90’s he hung up his comedy cleats and began managing comedians – landing clients on Saturday Night Live, record deals, tour dates, the works. The guys a heavy hitter, having kicked off comedians' careers, produced movies, TV shows, and giant concerts. And now he’s a podcaster, too. Gee, Barry, leave something for the rest of us! On a recent episode of his podcast Industry Standards, Barry spoke with Robert Morton, the producer of Late Night with David Letterman.

Hey Teens
Jon and Eric are fully grown adults who reminisce about their awkward teen years on the Hey Teens podcast. The show’s been around a little over a year and THEY had some listener from Glascow little paper cutout dolls of themselves. Damn! Who do I have to clip to get some damned paper dolls! Anyway, on Hey Teens recently, they talked with guest Whitney Moore who talks about Birdemic!

The Tenderloins
Our Honorary AP Tyson Saner sent this slip in and I ALMOST didn’t include it this epi because I was certain that I’d played another clip from this same episode of The Tenderloins before. But I’ll be damned if I can find it so what the heck? Sal Vulcano, Joe Gatto, James Murray and Brian Quinn – The Tenderloins - are probably better known for their hit Tru TV show, i. Here the boys discuss bad dating experiece.

Thanks again to our special guest Andrew Johnstone. And, of course, thanks to you, our loyal listeners. If you'd like to help us out with a rating and review on iTunes or a thumbs up on Stitcher, we'd be most obliged. It just that sort of thing that helps us to pass the Succotash!

— Marc Hershon

Succotash Epi73: Apocalyptin' With Diani & Devine

The past few episodes we’ve been featuring interviews and snippets from show that were at this year’s Los Angeles Podcast Festival October 4-6. There are still MORE to get to but this episode we’re taking a little bit of a break from the PodFest. (I do feature one clip from the festival from Girl On Guy's live appearance.)

The main focus of Epi73 is my revisit and interview with the comedy and independent movie production team of Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine.

We last spoke with them when they were doing a Kickstarter campaign for their comedy horror movie called The Selling. The movie ended up doing well for an crowdfunded indie production – it played in movie festivals around the US, got a limited theatrical release and is now out on DVD or you can rent it online through places like Amazon.com. (HINT: Use the Amazon banner at the top of our homesite to find The Selling - that way, Succotash gets a taste, too!)

Diani and Devine are now doing their most ambitious Kickstarter to date – trying to raise 100 grand! The campaign kicked off this past week and when I was in LA for the Podcast Festival, I got a chance to sit down with Gabe and Etta to find out about their new project.

Here’s the video from the Kickstarter site for their new project, called Diani & Devine Meet The Apocalypse…



I've sprinkled a couple of extra audio goodies from the campaign along the way during the interview. And I got to have Watson, one of the stars of the movie sit on my lap during our chat. I may never wash this lap again…

THE 10 MOST ACTIVE SHOWS IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCASTS LIST

This week there were a LOT of big numbers in the ST100CPL – here are the ones that did the most and by that I mean TRIPLE digit climbs, all UP the chart:

73. Harmontown +162
85. Straight Outta Lo Cash +159
89. Ronna & Beverly +162
91. Talkin’ Walking +166
92. Distorted View Daily +169
94. This Is That from CBC Radio +174
96. A Mediocre Time with Tom & Dan Show +170
97. Cluster F +209
98. That American Life +172
99. The Steven Brody Stevens Festival of Friendship +369

DURST

We've got our Burst O' Durst this episode with our Ambassador to the Middle, political comedian Will Durst (whose one-man show, Boomeraging, has been extended Tuesday nights through December 17th at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco.) This episode he talks about the glitchy Obamacare website.

CLIPS

Due to the length of the interview this episode, we light on clips, but there are still a couple to keep us honest…

Girl On Guy With Aisha Tyler
Recorded live at the LA Podcast Festival, our clip features part of Aisha Tyler's chat with her guest, The League's Nick Kroll. (And thanks to our Honorary Associate Producer Tyson Saner for slicing this one out - the guys been a lifesaver! If you'd like to hear some of Tyson's original music, BTW, you can hit up his page on Soundcloud…)

Take Me Home
Our other clip this episode was sent in by Tyler & Parker, the hosts of Take Me Home. The premise of the show is that they talk to comedians IN Los Angeles about their hometowns and growing up there but they get there by talking about what’s going on in the hometown news that week. In the clip they sent along, their guest is Brandt Tobler, who talks about how he helped himself ot over a million buck in merchandise from a department store in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

That's about it for Epi73. Seems short, right? No way. You're getting it with both barrels - this show runs over 120 minutes. More Succotash that you can shake a stick at - although shaking sticks at podcasts rarely results in anything.

Get out of here. And, until next time, please remember to pass the Succotash!

— Marc Hershon
 

Succotash Epi72: Spitballin' with Shawn Marek

It’s your ol’ pal, Marc Hershon, once again and I’ve got Epi72 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast right here for you.  I don't spend a whole lot of time jabberin’ because — as usual —I’m WAY behind getting the episodes out.

And I have a healthy backlog of interviews from the 2nd Annual Podcast Festival from about 3 weeks ago now, which I can really only put these out one an episode AND still play clips from podcasts that were featured at PodFest. 

In addition, I’m now running into a pipeline problem in that the pipeline is filling up with content. Non-podfest content. Which is a good problem to have, but it means I’m going to interrupt the podfest interviews later this week and put out a show featuring two filmmaker friends of mine – Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine – because they just popped the top on a Kickstarter campaign for the new comedy feature film they putting together. It’s called Diani And Devine Meet The Apocalypse and so next episode that chat will be our centerpiece.

After a bunch of clips are played, I have an interview with our Special Guest Shawn Merek. I got to know Shawn last year at the FIRST LA PodFest, when he was the producer for the PodCrash podcast with Chris Gore. He’s still producing for Chris but he’s also one of the guys helping to make all the shows go over at the Sideshow Network. Shawn popped into the Podcast Lab at the PodFest and we talked about him, his life as a producer and also where podcasting may be heading in the future.

OTHER THAN CLIPS

This episode, besides clips and the interview, we also have our Burst O' Durst with comedian Will Durst, a new song just in time for the upcoming holiday, A Stormtrooper for Halloween by John Anealio. John just released an EP with that song as the title track - one of four songs - that you can download for FREE at http://JohnAnealio.com (or you can also opt to kick John some dollars if you wish. WE did, but who are we to ask you for money?), and we also have a brand new Henderson's Pants commercial.

TOP 10 MOST ACTIVE PODCASTS IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST

Exclusively from the Comedy Podcast Podcast, here's a list of the comedy podcasts that showed the most action - either up OR down the chart - from Stitcher's Top 100 Comedy Podcasts:

44. The Champs with Neal Brennan & Moshe Kasher +60
48. The Artie Lange Show +13
67. The Comedy Button +44
68. The Dead Authors Podcast +112
69. The Bone Zone +22
89. The Dana Gould Hour -32
94. Where’s My 40 Acres: Ratchet & Real +23
95. Thrilling Adventure Hour -13
97. Wits +12
99. Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show +31

(Anyone have tips on how to get your Stitcher numbers up? Succotash is at 5859 this week. Which is up a thousand or so from last week, but still...)

THE CLIPS

Inverse Delirium
I like to think it’s a measure of this show's success that my supporting players are getting more airtime in Podcast Land than I am. Just this past week, Geoffrey Welchman over at the Inverse Delirium podcast tapped both my booth announcer Bill Heywatt AND the host of our Burst O’ Durst feature, comedian Will Durst, to provide their voices for a couple of characters in a sketch!

Man School
Jumping back a few weeks to the LA PodFest, we have a clip from Caleb Bacon’s Man School podcast which was done live at the Fest. You may remember that Caleb was the host of the Gentlemen’s Club podcast but hung up his bouncer’s dud for a professor’s hat when he debuted Man School. In this clip, we hear him with guest Chris Gore and Jason Smith, with kind of a sports/cosplay mashup chat going on.



My Wife Hates Me
Tyson Saner - who continues to amaze me and delight you with his ability to send along multiple clips every week for this show - grabbed a clip from My Wife Hates Me with husband-and-wife comedians Rich Vos and Bonnie McFarlane, along with their guest (and past Succotash visitor) Andy Kindler.

But we’re not done with Rich Vos yet. While at the LA PodFest, he hopped over and guested on…

Road Stories with Murray Valeriano
Murray was performing his podcaast live and I guess Rich Vos doesn’t just have it tough at home – he shared a couple of road horror stories from working gigs on the road…

Story Worthy
I ran into Christine Blackburn from the Story Worthy podcast in the Podcast Lab at the Festival. She hung out for a little bit – long enough to record an ID for the show but not a real interview. She had to run off to do her show, where one of the guest spinning a tale was Pearl Aday, who talked about meeting and bowling with Michael Jackson when she was just 10 years old.

I Am Idiot

I was trying to keep the clips on this episode reined in to just Podcast Festival shows, but there’s just too much going on. I like to celeberate when podcasts hit their Episode 100 but this time it’s a bittersweet hurrah. Our friends Howard, Keith and Ben in England, the brains behind the I Am Idiot podcast just dropped their centennial epi but, at the same time, they’ve announced it will be their LAST episode as well. Bummer. I swapped a couple of tweets with them and I found out that they had always planned to put in 100 shows and then move on to something else. So here’s a taste of the Final Idiot…

Phil Hendrie's Hmm Mmmm with Bobby Dooley
Back to the LA Podcast Festival, where Phil Hendrie was on hand with Phil Hendrie’s Hmm Mmmm with Bobby Dooley, one of the better known characters from Phil’s long running radio show. I’ve heard Phil as a guest on a couple of podcasts and, although he’s still doing some radio, he is embracing the podcast model. Here he is, as Bobby Dooley and her husband occasionally, along with his guest and Podcast Festival co-organizer Graham Elwood.

The Science Jerks
Tyson Saner found us a two-fer! One of the live shows at the PodFest was Stuff You Should Know with Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant. But they haven’t dropped their festival episode yet. They did sit down with Dave Ciaccio and Robert Chan, hosts of The Science Jerks podcast, for an interview in the Podcast Lab. Funny enough, I saw this interview going down about 6 feet away from where the Succotash table was set up. The guys talk about the theft of Einstein’s brain.

Hope you don't mind that this show runs about an hour and a half with everything we've got going on. Once you've heard the clips, take some time out to go listen to these shows in their entirety. And, when you get done with that…don't forget to please pass the Succotash!      i

— Marc Hershon