The usual format for the show is to be festooned with wall-to-wall clips of comedy podcasts from around the world via the internet. Along with some regular features and some inane silliness provided by our local crew – me, Joe Paulino our producer/engineer, Bill Heywatt our booth announcer, and even Kenny Durgess, our booth assistant.
For Succotash, Epi65, we DO have a few clips but we also have an interview with special guest Paul Mecurio. We’ve clipped The Paul Mecurio Show several times before. And the last time was a short clip from an interview he did with Paul McCartney. Well, his entire episode featuring the McCartney interview dropped this week. So we talk to Paul about that, his own career, podcasting, and a whole lot more.
He talks about having gone from sweating out 100-hour-weeks as a big shot Wall Street acquisitions-and-mergers guy and chucking it all to do open mics and one-nighters as a standup comedian. And how his work ethic paid off as he moved up and into the offices of The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report as an Emmy-winning writer.
And then how he ran into Sir Paul McCartney in passing one day, struck up a conversation and ended up inviting him to be interviewed for his podcast. The rest is online and we have the interview with the guy who interviewed McCartney. I'm never washing my audio recorder again…
THE TOP 10 MOST ACTIVE SHOWS IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST
There was mostly sluggish movement this week on the Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcast list. MOSTLY. There were a few gigantic climbs up the ladder, though and a few jumpy jumps as well. (That’s a technical term. Jumpy jump. It means, well…look it up.)
55. The Morning Stream +30
62. Onion Radio News -17
63. The Artie Lange Show -15
65. Writer’s Bloc Podcast +355!
68. Tits & Giggles +632!
71. The Joey Medina Show +229
82. Answer Me This +36
87. Dining With Doug & Karen –24
90. Keith & The Girl -24
98. #AfterBlack +68
BACK TO BOGANWOOD
We're up to Episode 4 in our featuring of Jason "Jabs" McNamara's Boganwood pod mini-series. In my chat with Jabs before it play, we talk about what some other podcasters think about the show and also get into where he got the idea for some of the characters in the show.
CHEF EDDIE VEDDER
Since the beginning of the year, I've been featuring a little Easter Egg at the end of almost every episode: A recipe for succotash - different each week - pulled from videos on YouTube of people preparing the dish. But now I'm scrapping the bottom of the saucepan as I've gone through most of them at this point. So I reached out to Travis and Brandi Clark of the Tiny Odd Conversations podcast and they were able to get Chef Eddie Vedder to whip up his version of succotash exclusively for our show. So if you listen past the show ending, after Bill Heywatt says his goodbye, you can hear Chef Eddie prepare his dish while he tells - nay, sings - you how to do it at home.
BURST O' DURST
Our Ambassador to the Middle Will Durst lambasts the conservative folk of Texas in this week's installment of his regular feature. And if you're going to be in the San Francisco area this summer, Will's show BoomeRaging, LSD to OMG, has been extended! It plays ever Tuesday night at the Marsh Theater in the city. visit http://WillDurst.com for more information.
CLIPS
Tits & Giggles
Jumping up 632 places to hit #68 in the Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcasts this week, in only its second week, it's “The podcast for women in comedy AND their supportive male friends.” according to the homesite for the just two-episode old podcast. In our clip, host Sue Smith (actress, writer and comedian) talks to Orthodox Jewish transgender comedian Dana Friedman talks about the pressure, in front of a Jewish audience, whether to do Jewish material or not. (Spoiler Alert: Sometimes, she doesn’t.)
Writer’s Bloc
Writers’ Bloc is a podcast that leaped up 355 places, ending up at #65 this week on the Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcasts, and it’s a show all about the business of comedy writing. Hosted by J.R. Havlan, an 8-time Emmy Award-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, his recent guest was Scott Jacobson, the co-producer of TV's Bob’s Burgers. In the clip we have, Scott talks about how the show was originally pitched to the network, and they also get into some of the characters.
The OddCast Podcast
Congratulations to Adam Barker over at The Oddcast Podcast on hitting his Epi100! Adam’s got several shows under the Barker Productions banner, including the It’s Not Soccer podcast and the Ask An American podcast. For Episode 100, he had fellow podcasters from all over the place chime into an extensive audio play, in which a visitor from the future comes back to warn him about how dangerous his podcast is going to become. I clipped a clever bit from the top of the show, springing off of his catchphrase, “Nobody Is Listening”, and based on the Baz Luhrman song, Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen.
Doesn't seem like a lot in writing but this episode runs over an hour and 20 minutes. (Not as lengthy as last week's fun epi with guest co-host Monica Hamburg from the Dazed & Convicted podcast, but still pretty ample!) Hope you enjoy it. Fell free to let me know how you're liking the show by emailing me at marc@SuccotashShow.com or show your appreciate even more concretely by going up to iTunes where you can rate and review Succotash. For even MORE concrete-ness, you can use the Donate button on the side of of our homesite and toss us some spare change to help us keep this mothership hovering a little longer over Podcastland.
Don't forget to pass the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
It's not unusual to hear a guest drop by Succotash – podcasters, comedians, actors, etc. – but occasionally I invite some in to be my guest co-host for an episode. We each pull clips from shows we want to share, then we present them to you…and each other, sometimes for the first time. For Epi64, I invited Monica Hamburg, co-host of the Dazed & Convicted podcast from Vancouver, Canada, to spin clips with me.
We had a great time! Such a great time that this edition of Succotash clocked in as the longest epi for us ever - a few ticks over TWO hours! That's a lot of clips, and yakkin' and laughs. You might want to listen to the first hour, take a break and digest, then come back for more. BUT if you think you can finish the whole thing in one sitting…you get it for FREE!
Monica comes from an acting background and she's also a hotshot internet marketer-for-hire when she's not behind the D&C mics with her co-host, Bill Allman. We get into the history of the show, its previous incarnation as The S&M Rants, and the fact that Monica is definitely a true crime junkie. It's the main focus of her show AND it's the core of three of the five clips she's brought to share.
WHAT'S HOT…WE'RE HOT!
Here's a big thank you to all of those Succotashians who have been dowloading, raiting and reviewing The Comedy Podcast Podcast up on iTunes! This past week, Succotash got up into the What's Hot section, which really helps with our visibility. (So maybe this isn't the best time to crank out a 2-hour epic episode. On the other hand, maybe it's JUST the thing. I don't think anyone knows for sure…)
THE 10 MOST ACTIVE IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST
Here’s the rundown on the latest Top 10 Most Active Shows On The Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcast List:
37. The Champs with Neal Brennan & Moshe Kasher +32
60. This Week In Blackness Radio +47
63. Dining With Doug & Karen +34
65. Cashing In With TJ Miller +36
66. Keith & The Girl comedy talk show +14
78. Superego +50
80. Jim Florentine’s ‘Metal Comedy Midgets’ -16
84. Sex Squad -12
85. The Morning Stream +23
91. Yoshi Didn’t Podcast -17
SPECIAL FEATURES
In addition to a whole lot of clips, we have our Burst O' Durst with comedian Will Durst, a song by Ren Faire sensation Hob The Troll, a promo for Mount Us More, the long-awaited music CD from Shunt McGuppin and The Journeymen (better known as the guys from Superego), a commercial for the new Henderson's Poncho Pants, and episode 3 of Boganwood, the Australian podcast mini-series along with a brief lead in chat with creator Jason McNamara.
THE CLIPS
Dazed & Convicted
Our guest co-host Monica Hamburg provides a clip from her recent Epi100. It's a sketch performed by co-host Bill Allman, Malox, and herself, revolving around a crime in Vancouver that revolved around - somehow - a bag of chips.
Dining With Doug & Karen
Normally the Karen in the title is comedian Karen Anderson. But she’s on “special assignment” as co-host Doug Benson puts it. So filling in is comedian Karen Kilgariff. Their guest comedian is Dave Anthony from Walking The Room and their guest chef is Shanna Lynn Milazzo from The Belmont in LA. This clip is less than 5 minutes but covers a range of topics – food, kids, pot, and a new sponsor whose viral video spurred Karen’s condition called Don’tClickOnIt-Itis.
Distorted View
A big favorite of our guest co-host, this show proclaims on its site: “The Distorted View Show is a daily comedy podcast hosted by Tim Henson. Every weekday he scours the darkest corners of the web in search of the truly bizarre. He then presents his finds to you, complete with unique (read: crass, vulgar, childish, and inappropriate) commentary. For a half hour each day, sit back and witness this audiophonic trainwreck. After listening, you'll feel much better about your own life.” Enjoy!
Hobcast
We don't often play clips from the same show two weeks in a row. (Well, except for our running feature on Boganwood…) But last week, Hob The Troll (Steve Doccerson) sent us the wrong clip, which we then incorrectly identified. So we agreed to play the intended clip, featuring guest King John (The Thrilling Adventure Hour's Mark Gagliardi). It's a podcast. He's a troll. What more do you need to know?
The Bi-Quarterly Women’s Club
The hosts (and their tech guy) are four of the ugliest women I've seen, but that could be because they're dudes: Chris Wilding, Slako, Dylan, and Max. In this clip, they’re at the court, at the preliminary inquiry of “alleged” Canadian serial killer Luka Magnotta. Luka Magnotta fainted during the hearing. So when the trial paused for a bit, the BQWB used the break to interview people supporting not the victim, but the killer.
Kickin’ It Mary Lynn Style
Hosted by comedian and actress Mary Lynn Rajskub who you should recognize from TV's 24 and also The Larry Sanders Show, has her own p'cast over on Nerdist. (Lucky Nerdist!) One guest a recent episode was actress Casey Wilson, who has a new movie coming out and who was recently on the ABC series Happy Endings. They get deep-ish into the subject of auditioning.
The New York City Crime Report with Pat Dixon
Hosted by comedian Pat Dixon, along with producer Marcus Parks and guest Dave Rosinsky. As their website proclaims: “Crime might be down, but it sure isn’t out. This is the only podcast that gives you all the information on New York City crime, court and killers at large.”
Lost Moon Radio
Lost Moon Radio features the sketch comedy group of the same name, out of Los Angeles. I played a clip from one of their first episodes and, I’m happy to report, they’re still funny! In this clip from Episode 8 entitled Hauntings, we catch up with a group of young campers on their closing night bonfire.
Sarcastic Voyage
The Sarcastic Voyage podcast is a biweekly endeavor by Ron “AAlgar” Watt, with Matt Rowbotham and a supporting cast of voice actors and contributing writers. It is largely comprised of prepared material (sketch comedy and comedic serials), which are linked by short “host segments." The clip Monica shares with us features the conversation between a couple of servants working the never-ending party at Jabba The Hutt's hideout.
RISK!
Kevin Allison hosts the weekly storytelling podcast “where people tell true stories they never thought they’d dare to share in public." Guest Julie Threlkeld tells the story of “Mom and the Bomb”. She begins by talking about the difficulty of coming as a teen as a lesbian to her mom, who didn’t approve (“You’re having sex with a woman?!”) Later on that same life, things got weird.
If you like your podcasts long, then THIS is episode of Succotash you're not going to want to miss! We're happy you're here and we'd love to hear from you! You can write me at marc@SuccotashShow.com. You can leave comment on our Succotash Show page on Facebook. You can also call out Succotash Hotline: (818) 921-7212.
Until next time, please pass the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
"This is Marc Hershon and you’re listening to Succotash, The Comedy Podcast Podcast." That's generally how I open the show and - yes - I know it’s repetitive. Me, saying the name of the podcast right after listeners hear the show's opening with our announcer, Bill Haywatt, where HE tells you the name of the show.
I bring it up because I’ve been listening – this week in particular – to so many podcasts that don’t ever remind you what you’re listening to that it started to seem odd to me. I know this isn’t terrestrial radio and that podcast listeners what they've downloaded or are streaming. But let's face it: People have terrible memories. (I know I do, as an sampling of one…) So some of you comedy podcasters might think about reminding people the name of the show they’re listening to and also who’s doing the talking. Otherwise it’s going to be a whole lot of “Hey, I heard this great podcast the other day. It had this guy who did that thing, you know? It’s called…something. I think it starts with an 'R'…”
And that's not going to help you to get and maintain new listeners.
People often ask (or I imagine them asking, anyway…) "How can I help your podcast?" I won't belabor the Donate button on our SuccotashShow.com website. But if that's not what you mean by help, you can always go to iTunes via your computer and look up Succotash in the listings, then click on five stars and jot down a short, 2 or 3 sentence, writeup about how you like the show. If you listen via Stitcher, you can click the Thumbs Up button. And, as always, you can simply just tell your friends about us or, as we like to say, pass the Succotash.
BOGANWOOD
On the back half of this show, we'll be playing episode 2 of Boganwood. We started playing all eight episodes in the first season last week and we'll do one an episode until they're all played. Just prior to this episode's installment of the novel pod mini-series, I speak with Jason "Jabs" McNamara, the Boganwood head cheese (actually, as producer, director, writer and talent on the project, he's pretty much all the cheese...) via Skype from Canberra, Australia, and he gets into where the idea for the show came from, the characters and the white trash world they inhabit.
THE 10 MOST ACTIVE IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST
Here are the show that were movin' and shakin' this past week as the most as The 10 Most Active On The Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcasts:
39. Onion Radio News +38
63. The Naughty Show -12
69. The Champs with Neal Brennan & Moshe Kasher -25
76. Where’s My 40 Acres +38
78. SModcast/Get Up On This +30
86. Vos & Bonnie’s My Wife Hates Me +19
90. The Ricky Gervais Podcast +33
95. Who’s Paying Attention +56
97. Dining With Doug & Karen -30
99. SModcast/FeaB -29
And for those of you keeping track, Succotash this week rang in at #5036, which is up about a thousand places since a month ago, so we’re moving up, too!
BURST O' DURST
Our Ambassador to the Middle , that Raging Moderate himself, Will Durst, gets a little misty-eared as he regards America's latest 4th of July birthday bash.
HENDERSON'S PANTS
Our chief sponsor, Henderson's Pants, is back with a new line of trousers - the Peer Sucker Pants! Don't miss our commercial for this one.
THE CLIPS
Vos & Bonnie’s "My Wife Hates Me"
Moving up into the Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcasts this week at #86, this podcast features a pair of married comedians, Rich Vos and Bonnie McFarlane. They call it the podcast they swore they’d never do and yet…here it is. They talk about themselves, their lives, their child, the comedy business and, no matter what angle they take, they seem to mostly be at odds with each other.
The Paul Mecurio Show
We recently featured a snippet of host Paul Mecurio interviewing Jay Leno – great in-depth chat – and now he’s done it again, grabbing a podcast rarity by talking with Sir Paul McCartney! In the clip we got, Paul asks Paul about where The Beatles got the confidence to go from the music that had gotten them to the top and put out something as daring at the time as Sgt. Pepper.
After Hours with Mark Pitta
The term “comedy podcast” is a pretty big circus tent – it includes comics talking to other comics, comedians talking to themselves, non-comedians talking to comedians, improvisational shows, sketch shows, non-comedians trying to be comedians, and even comedian hosts interviewing non-comedian guests. Marc Maron does it all the time on WTF, we play Paul Mecurio with Paul McCartney in this episode, and now on his podcast called After Hours, friend-of-Succotash Mark Pitta just dropped a fascinating interview with legendary baseball manager Tony LaRussa.
The Hobcast
I just mentioned the wide-ranging category of comedy podcasts and I forgot to mention trolls interviewing sketch comedians. There’s only one I know about and that’s the Hobcast with Hob the Troll aka Stevo Doccerson. The toast of Renaissance Faires across the country, and the star of Hob Sings!, a CD with his legendary music – songs such as “I Hate Goats”, he recently brought his unique speaking voice to the podcast universe. In this clip, he’s chatting with King John, aka Mark Gagliardi from The Thrilling Adventure Hour podcast.
TOPICS
We’ve been big fans of Michael Ian Black along with Tom Cavanagh with their Mike And Tom Eat Snacks podcast. But there hasn’t been a fresh epi of MATES since may and now there’s a new podcast with Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter – both of whom were in The State and also Stella. Maybe MATES is delayed? ON hiatus? Gone away? I don’t know. Ostensibly, this new format is a way for two funny guys to address more serious issues but, as you might be able to hear in this clip, their tongues seem to be lodged in their cheeks a bit…
See You Next Tuesday
I discovered Troy Saple’s See You Next Tuesday podcast just by surfing through iTunes’ New & Noteworthy this past week. But it turns out that this isn’t a NEW podcast, it’s a show that’s been on hiatus for the past 18 months, ever since the host had to do some jail time for a DUI. He’s been out on probation, clean and sober, but with frequent and random drug testing and whole bunch of other restrictions. So he hasn’t been feeling podcastery until recently, when the itch has begun to return. The last time he hit the podwaves was in 2011 and I gather he was interviewing comedians and musicians. Maybe he’ll go there again but, for now, it’s just a man and a microphone.
Mike Ward Is Full Of Shit
Mike Ward is a Montreal-based comedian and I gather he performs in both English and French – or Quebecois. He’s been named one of the top 25 Comedians of All Time by the Just For Laughs festival. His podcast is called Mike Ward Is Full Of Shit EXCEPT on iTunes and Soundcloud, where he’s had to sanitize it to: Mike Ward Is Full Of Crap. In the clip we have, he’s talking about how he went to LA to find a writer to help with a new show and he happened upon the legendary Paul Mooney.
The More You Nerd
Here’s another show I discovered in iTunes' New & Noteworthy. (Of course, they’ve had over 80 episodes. I’m beginning to think “New & Noteworthy” is like the term “Overnight Success”.) These guys nerd out all over the place about all kinds of things. This clip is from the episode “Obscure Reference #6: America, Aliens and Ghosts”, and here Myles, Patrick, Mike and Drew duke it out – metaphorically speaking – on which are the best and worst ghosts.
That's the basic rundown for Epi62 of Succotash. There are some bells, whistles, and other assorted goodies in the show this time around, including a revisit with Dana Carvey from WAY back in Epi3, and some classic old radio comedy from a show called The Bickersons. So enjoy and, even if you end up stuffed to the gills with podcast, please remember to pass the Succotash with your friends.
— Marc Hershon
Back from the dead. Or the nearly dead. Or at least the severely Laryngytised. Is that a thing? Anyway, my throat and voicebox were down for the count with a nasty virus. Still playing a little hurt, but I’m ready to muscle through with Epi62 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast!
We’re diving heavy into clips this episode. Some new shows. Some old favorites. Got a new Henderson’s Pants ad. Have an unprecedented TRIPLE shot of Burst O’ Durst because we got so far behind. And we actually had someone FINALLY click the Donate button on the http://SuccotashShow.com website! (It’s been over a year since anyone’s touched it but it’s happened and I reveal who it was AND give the person a big ol’ wet sloppy thank you in the TweetSack segment this episode. (Oh, what the heck, I'm going to spoiler alert it right here and thank Geoffrey Welchman, our buddy over at the Inverse Delirium podcast for his generous clicking of the Succotash Donate button!)
THE 10 MOST ACTIVE IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST
Even though I was out for a bit, those active podcasts kept marching up and down the list over at Stitcher. Here's how this week's MOST active shows shook out:
39. My Brother, My Brother & Me +31
51. The Naughty Show +20
63. Too Beautiful to Live with Luke Burbank -23
69. The Dead Authors Podcast +41
82. Cashing In With TJ Miller -21
84. Rollin’ with Dice & Wheels -37
85. Tom Rhodes Radio +283
91. This Week In Blackness Radio -24
97. The New York City Crime Report with Pat Dixon +18
99. Answer Me This -24
BOGANWOOD
Friend-of-Succotash Jabs over at the DHead Factor put together an interesting "mini-series" of a podcast a few months ago. The show, done narrator or storyteller style by Jabs, chronicles the misadventures of a bunch of low-rent Aussies who live in Boganwood, "Canberra, Australia's forgotten suburb". Delivered in eight episodes, it's an ambitious little project that demonstrates the ability for practically anyone living anywhere to produce inventive entertainment via podcasting.
For the next 8 episodes of Succotash, I'm going to feature the Boganwood episodes of Season 1, and we'll also have some conversations with Jabs about the series - where he got the idea, how he executed it, and how plans are coming along for Season 2. We kick off this mini-featurette with Episode 1 in this edition of Succotash.
THE CLIPS
Tom Rhodes Radio
Tom Rhodes is one of those veteran standup comedians who has traveled the world, literally, performing and sometimes NOT performing comedy. At one point he had made the San Francisco scene his hang, but since then he’s been around quite a few comedy scenes. Podcasting is the latest scene and he’s been quietly dropping episodes since 2011. This week Tom Rhodes Radio makes a mighty leap up 283 places to get into the Stitcher’s Comedy Top 100. He interviews guest Andy Kindler (who visited Succotash Epi55.)
SModcast/FEaB
After watching this show ricochet around in the Stitcher Top 100 for the past few weeks, I finally listened to enough of it to find out that FEaB stands for Four Eyes And Beard, which are indicative of the two hosts – Matt Myra, who is also part of The Nerdist with Chris Hardwick, and Scott Mosier, who partners with Kevin Smith on the original Smodcast. (I’m not sure, but I think the Smodcast Network is slowly taking over all of podcasting. They’re like the Borg of the internet.)
Live Wire! Radio
With Luke Burbank, Courtenay Hameister, Sean McGrath, Patricia Ferguson, Live Wire! Radio is a audio variety show recorded in front of an enthusiastic live audience from the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland. They've got music, conversation, and sketch comedy. It's "radio variety for the A.D.D. generation", as they say on their homesite. Guests this episode include Jen Kirkman, Dan Savage, and The Builders & The Butchers. But our clip is one of their home-brewed sketches about a somewhat different genie…
Pablo Francisco: Anything Goes
Comedian Pablo Francisco has joined up with the ever-growing Sideshow Network to enter the rolls of comics-with-podcasts. In the clippage we share, he takes a look at someone with a lot of fame and fortune that also recently revealed that he’s spent millions on blow.
About Last Night
Adam Ray and Brad Williams are 55 episodes into this podcast and going strong. Both are comedians, and both are irreverent. Adam Ray’s in that new movie The Heat that just opened, and their guest this episode is pop culture TV host Michael Ho, who also got to interview President Obama after the last election’s disastrous first debate. (I also reviewed this show on last week's This Week In Comedy Podcasts on Splitsider.com - check it out!)
Proudly Resents
This is Adam Spiegleman’s podcast where he and assorted friends like to take movie apart at the seams. Sometime old movies. Sometimes new movies. And, in the case of one recent episode, kids movies. Specifically, Adam invites a friend over with her kids to talk about what they thought of TWO kids movies – A Talking Cat? and Tommy & The Cool Mule. Kids make great reviewers because they pretty much always tell the truth…when you can get them to talk.
Air-Raid Podcast
We’ve featured some clippage from the Air-Raid podcast out of Seattle before, with host Aaron Roden, and it’s often more hot new music rather than comedy. But Aaron does pull down some nice chatter, including recently when he took his mics to The Sasquatch Music Festival at the Gorge in Washington State. He ran across comedian Mike Birbiglia, who was performing at the festival, and sliced off a little interview, with a cell phone cameo appearance by You Made It Weird host Pete Holmes.
Rutledge Radio
Hosted by comedian Gabriel Rutledge and his wife, stay-at-home-mom Kristi Rutledge, their Rutledge Radio hails from Olympia, Washington. In our clip Gabriel talks about the misery and false hope of the audition process.
It's good to be back, and with so many clips! If you'd like to make sure we get to your show, you can always send us a 3-5 minutes MP3 clip to clips@SuccotashShow.com. or, if you just like what we're doing, jump on up to iTunes and gives us a healthy rating and maybe a short review. We'll be your bestest friend! Especially if you remember to pass the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
