Succotash Shut-In Epi209 Special Presentation: SleeveTalkers (Pilot)

Welcome to Episode 209 of Succotash Shut-In, the Soundcast Stimulus Package. As you may have figured out by now, this soundcast sports TWO hosts, and we switch off episodes every week in order to be able to crank these shows out. The other guy is Tyson Saner, and if you missed out on him bringing you Epi208 last week, where he featured clips from a trio of lovely comedy soundcasts – including Six Seasons & a Podcast, The Bitter Sound, and Deliver Us From Disney, it’s not too late to listen to that installment. It’s available on our homesite, SuccotashShow.com, as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, the Laughable app and all over the web.

Diverting away from playing clips from comedy soundcasts this time around, I am bringing you a Special Presentation! Among the things I was working on when I stepped away from fulltime hosting duties of Succotash a couple of years ago was writing and producing a pilot episode for a new comedy narrative soundcast. It was based on a project I had been curating on Twitter for a number of years, dating back to the last year of the administration of President George W. Bush.

Myself and a number of comedy writing minds were on Twitter, tweeting as a contingent of Secret Service agents who were on the overnight shift at the White House. We called this shift the Third Detail, and these agents were not the sharpest tools in the shed.  Our project sort of lost momentum and was more or less abandoned during the Obama Administration but then, in 2017, after Donald Trump took office, I began to realize that maybe there was new life in our old idea. I thought of it as a TV show and pitched that concept to some producers I know. They suggested that if I were to put it up as a soundcast series, we might be able to get some traction and then use THAT as a selling tool for television.

So I worked on a pilot script, with the help of Jeannene Hansen, a San Francisco comedian who had been instrumental in the version of the concept on Twitter. I reached out to a number of talented voice folks to be the cast of the show. And Joe Paulino, our esteemed engineer/producer for Succotash, applied his expertise to pull everything together technically. It took us a couple of months to get everything they way we liked it and I started trying to shop it around to some soundcast networks to see if we could sell it as a show. We got some nibbles, and it even went into contracts with one company but we were unable to come to terms that worked for everyone and so, to date, the show remains in limbo. 

Until now.

I realized the least I can is honor the folks that have helped to make this pilot episode happen by releasing it here on Succotash Shut-In. I want to thank my amazing cast: Matt Weinhold, Joe Paulino, Jeannene Hansen, Kenny Stevenson, Dorien Davies, Phil Leirness, Davian Dent, Lily Holleman, Celeste Perry, and a special appearance by Dana Carvey as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Barack Obama.

I am proud to be presenting the pilot episode of SleeveTalkers: Adventures of the Third Detail without commercial interruption. I really hope you enjoy it.

Tyson Saner will be here next week for Episode 210 with a rack of comedy soundcast clips, and I will be onboard the week following that with even more clips for your listening pleasure. Until then, wear a mask, wash your hands, don’t be racist, and please pass the Succotash!

— Marc Hershon

Succotash Shut-In Epi208: Snippin' Clips for Summer

Saluton, estas mi Tyson Saner. I'm your host this week, the week before last AND, presumably, the week after the next one. Last week and, presumably next week, your host will be Marc Hershon who created Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. We've been sharing hosting duties to push out miniature weekly shows for your listening pleasure in this thing we now call Succotash Shut-In to help us all ride out the COVID-19 pandemic is high listening style.

Succotash Shut-In Epi207 had some fantastic content that you probably should check out at your earliest convenience. In fact, if you'd like to turn this episode off and listen to the previous show because you have not done so already, I won't be fussed one iota. Technically, I won't even know…unless you tell me. Or if you tell Marc and he relays that info to me…

For those of you still listening, I have three clips for you from the soundcasts Six Seasons & a Podcast, The Bitter Sound, and Deliver Us From Disney. Of course, we have an ad from our longtime fake sponsor "Henderson's Pants" and our more recent fake sponsor TrumPoetry.com … so, let's get to it!

CLIPS

Six Seasons & A Podcast
It's been 10 years since the debut of the amazing show known as Community, and host Alex Burdine wanted to talk to the people behind the scenes to uncover who wrote what and what it was like bringing to life his favorite comedy. They cover the best jokes, the best moments, and everything learned from 6+ years at everybody's favorite community college, Greendale. Our clip comes from Epi21: "Advanced Television Studies with Special Guest Neil Goldman. Alex talks to Community's executive producer and showrunner Goldman to ge this inside look at the show.

The Bitter Sound
Host Davian Dent returns for the first time in four years to take us on a stereophonic journey into a world of dark comedy, music, and strange audio. This trip is called "The Diary of a Sad Ape", and our clip features a slice off the twisted look at life through the lens of a manic mind. That's kind of all you need to know...

Deliver Us From Disney

We jump back to pre-pandemic November of last year to clip the premiere episode of Deliver Us from Disney with hosts Ani Easton Baker and Whitney Moore. In this episode, the hosts take a look at the 1940 classic, Walt Disney's Fantasia, and discuss which parts Ani's parents would find the most satanic.

I'm glad you took the time to come along on this journey of discovery with me. I don't always have time to become a regular listener of every soundcast I sample, and I can say that I'd like to hear every episode of each of this episode's offerings. Technically, I have heard multiple episodes of at least two out of the three soundcasts… and I intend to hear more of all of them. Perhaps one day I'll do a "Top 5" list of "Soundcasts I used to listen to every episode of…" or at least a list of five (or more) "Soundcasts I USED to listen to every episode of…" in no particular order.

And I'm now realizing that the fact that I've heard more than one episode of the Soundcasts on offer for your earlier sampling is in itself a theme of sorts. That's true of most of the episodes that I've assembled in the past. I just love listening to people talk. I love listening to them discuss things I'm interested in. I'm even interested in hearing their perspectives on things I may not have known or remembered I was interested in. I'm just letting you know all this because this might have been your first soundcast listening experience. And perhaps you'll be interested in and seek out more episodes of these shows.

Perhaps you will seek out more of our episodes? The archive goes back almost 10 years, and many of the soundcasts we've featured aren't being produced anymore. It's funny how time works. Anyway, thank you for listening. Be decent to each other and please remember to pass the Succotash.

— Tyson Saner

Succotash Shut-In Epi207: Supportin’ the Movement

Thanks, Bill Heywatt! I AM Marc Hershon, your every-other-episode host of Succotash Shut-In, the Soundcast Stimulus Package. I switch off with Tyson Saner, who had some great clips last show, Epi206, including Full Court Chat with Dave Shilling, Sensibly Cynical, and New Player Has Joined. You can still grab it or any of our past episode at our homesite, SuccotashShow.com, as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, the Laughable app and all over the web.

THIS, however, is Episode 207, and I also have a lovely late Spring harvest of comedy soundcast clips for your listening pleasure. Today we’ll be hearing from Alonzo Bodden: Who’s Paying Attention?, Black Men Can’t Jump (In Hollywood), Daydrinking with Gary & Eliot, and The Brilliant Idiots. This episode is brought to you by our two long-term sponsors: Henderson’s Pants, featuring their Wake Island Abbreviated Trousers, and Trumpoetry.com, the website featuring the biting political verse by our very own engineer and producer, Mr. Joe Paulino. And, time permitting, we are going to bring back an old feature of the show at the very end: The Tweet Sack!

Before proceeding, I want you to know that I know this is a very, very weird time, both around the world and here in the United States. It could be the weirdest time ever, maybe, but it certainly is in my lifetime. It’s one of the reasons Tyson and I decided to start producing more rather than less editions of this show. He’s a relatively new father. I’m a relatively old man. Going out into the streets is a piss-poor option for us, but we are here for you. Whether that’s the you who is also sheltering in place and just trying to stay sane, or that’s the you who has been wronged by 400 years of prejudice, degradation, and violence which is still being perpetuated to this day.

Regardless of where you fall on the 2020 Apocalypse scale, Succotash is doing what we can to try to bring a little light and levity into your life, by introducing you to comedy podcasts that you may not be aware of, or that you have heard of but have yet to check out. In the scheme of things, it may not be much. It’s definitely standing none-to-nose with police in riot gear, armed with military hardware. And it’s not offering amazing frontline early responder or incredible unswerving medical care from health care personnel who keep putting their lives on the line without hesitation to help others. But it is what we can do, for free and on a weekly basis, in hopes of making your mental and spiritual load just a little lighter as we move, as a people, to a brighter tomorrow.

And if you ever need to reach either me or Tyson, you can email us either of us ar marc@succotashshow.com or tyson@succotashshow.com.

CLIPS

Alonzo Bodden: Who’s Paying Attention?

First up is a clip from a soundcast I reviewed just this past week at Vulture.com, as part of the This Week In Comedy Podcasts column. And that’s Alonzo Bodden: Who's Paying Attention? Alonzo is a very funny comedian who you may recall from his winning of the seasons of NBC’s Last Comic Standing show back in the day. His weekly soundcast features him turning his comedic wit and straightforward wisdom on the news. Last week he found the news so full of …news…that he just tackled as many headlines as he could without going to deep on any one story. Our clip features the host calling several folks on what he terms their “bullshit apologies.”

The Brilliant Idiots

Charlamagne Tha God and Andrew Schulz are The Brilliant Idiots.  Charlamagne’s commentary is unfiltered and from the heart. He’s been described as “Hip hop’s Howard Stern.” You may know him from The Breakfast Club, the hit syndicated morning show. Zooming in on the co-host position is Andrew who is a standup comic from New York but I don’t know much more about him – his bio on their homesite says he thinks bios are lame. Okay. These guys can be kind of goofy but they’re always funny. Or almost always - understandably, one can’t expect to get a lot of lightheartedness out of comedy soundcasts right now that are tuned into what’s happening in this country. I think it’s important to hear how these Charlamagne and Andrew break down what fucked up idiocy happened to result in Breonna Taylor getting gunned down in her home by the Louisville Metro Police Department just after midnight on March 13th.

Black Men Can’t Jump [In Hollywood]

Our next clip comes from a show that I’ve been a big fan of since they first hit the podwaves. Hosted by Jonathan Braylock, Jerah Milligan, and James III, Black Men Can't Jump [In Hollywood] is a comedy soundcast has guests come in who are actors of color in “the biz”, and they review films through the lens of race and diversity issues. The episode from a couple of weeks back started out with a frank and somber lead-in about hos the hosts were feeling about the unrest going on across the US and the world, and their feeling relevant ot the Black Lives Matter movement. But in the spirit of “the show must go on”, they welcomed guest Niccolo Aeed to examine the 1998 terrorism action thriller The Siege starring Denzel Washington, Annette Benning, and Bruce Willis. Our clip is from their set-up of the movie itself.

Daydrinking with Gary and Eliot

Billed as a "cocktails and comedy" soundcast, Daydrinking with Gary and Eliot features exceptional actor and improvisation comedian Gary Anthony Williams as well as home mixologist Elliot Blake. They like to have celebrity friends drop by for a drink during the sane light of day, although the dropping by these days is virtual via Zoom, and they often have other friends in on the Zoom chat as well, just to make it a party. Most recently they welcomed standup comic Dan Ahdoot, who has his own great foodie soundcast called Green Eggs and Dan. Our clip revolves around something he’s been cooking up while quarantined at his parents house: lamb brains. Be warned: Dan gets into some details here…

There it is, then. Epi207 is in the archives. Thanks for stopping by, downloading, streaming or how ever you chose to experience Succotash Shut-In, the Soundcast Stimulus Package. Always a pleasure. Tyson Saner will be dropping Epi208 next week with some more lovely soundcast clippage for you, and I plan to return for Episode 209 with an unreleased pilot episode for a comedy soundcast I wrote and produced called Sleevetalkers: Adventures of the Third Detail, about the overnight shift of the Secret Service at the White House.

Until then, be good to each other and please pass the Succotash!

— Marc Hershon

Succotash Shut-In Epi206: Trippin' On A Trio Of Clips

Saluton, estas mi Tyson Saner, your host for this and every other episode of Succotash Shut-In, the Soundcast Stimulus Package (formerly known as Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast) for the forseeable future. If this is your first time listening, thank you and welcome.

This is the miniaturized form of Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, created by Marc Hershon and we have been trading off hosting episodes since we reached our 200th episode which closed out our 3rd season over a month ago. Episode 205 was our first "Chats" variant of Succotash Shut-In and features a talk with soundcaster, Improvisational comedy performer, author, and one of my favorite guests on this or any soundcast, Greg Proops. Why not give it a listen if you've a mind to?

Anyway, never start a sentence with "anyway".

So, I've got another clips episode because I haven't really been able to secure anyone for a short, recorded chat yet but I remain open to the concept. I have several people I'd be interested to talk to...so be on the listen-out. I have three clips for you this week. I was thinking of "theming" the episode but then abandoned that idea. I'll try again in the future...or at least I'll plan to try but Holy Placeholder, can stuff change quickly and often!

I've got clips from the soundcasts Full Court Chat with Dave Shilling, Sensibly Cynical, and New Player Has Joined. (Please notice that you can find clickable social media and websites links of the soundcasts featured below.)

This episode is also sponsored by Henderson's Pants Summer Stock Slacks and by Trumpoetry.com.

Let's do this, shall we?

CLIPS

New Player Has Joined 
Each episode from Starburns Audio explores the video games people love and why they love them. Why do we imprint hard on certain games, and how do those games imprint on us? Keith Kingbay and Jesse Neil chat with celebrities, game developers, industry pros, and some folks you’d never guess are into video games. Our clip was harvested from their Epi131, "Far Cry 4 - Keith & Jesse (Like Father, Like Son) Run from a rhino and learn how to use a bow and arrow real fast, because Keith and Jesse are jumping into Far Cry 4. There will be drugs. There will be rocket launchers. And there will be a very eccentric fashion designer.

Sensibly Cynical 
Sean Pratten and guests talk about topics that are on the mind of the masses...while taking the discussions to sensibly extreme levels. We clip their episode from January 20th of this year, entitled "The Lore of Grand Theft Auto." where Sean is joined by Stoy from the EXPCast to talk about the legendary action-adventure video game series, Grand Theft Auto!  This Iconic franchise took over the video game world in the late 90's and early 2000's and has developed a cult following — even to present time. They also talk the Pokémon Go phenomenon, Resident Evil, and more!  Turn back the clock with this amazing Podcast!

Full Court Chat with Dave Schilling
Sportswriter and journalist Dave Schilling (ESPN, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, The Guardian) sits down with the biggest names in sports and culture for in-depth, no-holds-barred conversation. The questions will be hard. The answers will be harder. We clip an episode from just last month, in an episode featuring Dave's interview with Steve Bartman. He's the absent-minded baseball fan who caught a foul ball in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series that cost the Chicago Cubs a chance to go to the World Series for the first time since 1945. That single moment changed the course of baseball history forever. Death threats, public shaming, and a life spent in hiding were Bartman's rewards for his brush with infamy. The scapegoat of the 2003 NLCS has never agreed to an interview...until now.

LATERS

Ta-dah. Another ending for another show. There are SO very many soundcasts out there in the world and we can only offer but a few at a time for you to sample, and that's going to have to be good enough for the time being. I hope you enjoyed their content alongside our content.

I'll tell you, I never clip something that I didn't finish listening to and I also often listen to more than one episode of a soundcast to get a feel for it...but that depends on how many episodes there are... ah, you know what? I can't imagine you want to hear me go on about my process of selecting clips so I won't right now. I can tell you that I listen to everything submitted to the show when that is done using our Hightail link.

You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Skype at @revt23 and you can click here to be whisked away to my YouTube Channel where I post gaming videos on a fairly regular basis.

As for this show, we'd really appreciate it if you rate and review over on Apple Podcasts if you have the time. It's a terrific way of showing support and it helps spread our show around a bit for which we would be eternally grateful. And, of course, it's what we mean when we gently ask you to please pass the Succotash.

— Tyson Saner

Succotash Shut-In Epi205: Catchin' Up with Greg Proops

Welcome to Episode 205 of Succotash Shut-In, the Soundcast Stimulus Package. I’m your every-other-edition host Marc Hershon, switching off with the inimitable Tyson Saner. And we are doing our best during this time of pandemic and – since the most recent installment – extreme civic unrest, to bring you fresh comedy soundcast tidbits every week.

I have a special treat for you this week, departing from playing a sampling of several comedy soundcasts to, instead, bring you a conversation I held via Skype with comedian, writer, raconteur, and friend-of-the-show Greg Proops! You likely know Greg from his years of appearing on TV’s Whose Line Is It Anyway?, both before they added the question mark to the title and afterwards. He’s also been soundcasting for years with his show The Smartest Man in the World, and wrote The Smartest Book in the World in 2015. He’s got a list of TV and movie credits you can check out on IMDB.com as well.

He and I go back a long way, to when we were both with the house improv comedy group at The Punch Line comedy club in San Francisco starting in 1986. We run into each other every couple of years at things like the San Francisco Sketchfest, or Comedy Day in Golden Gate Park. But since the last time we had Greg on the show was a couple of times in 2015 – for a full episode in May of that year and in a minisode I put together during the 4th Annual Los Angeles Podcast Festival in September, it seemed a good time to bring him back.

Like many of the rest of us, Greg has been sequestered at home during the current COVID-19 crisis which, for him, is in Los Angeles. He and his wife, Jennifer Canaga, have been continuing to do episode of The Smartest Man in the World from their "Fortress of Proopitude", and we’ll get into that in this show's discussion. We also talk about what the state of live performing might be like if and when thing open back up more fully, what it’s like to do comedy for audiences via Zoom, and we also talk about our mutual friend Will Durst, who is still recovering from a stroke suffered last fall.

This episode of Succotash Shut-In is sponsored by Henderson’s Pants and their new Peersucker Pants.  And also by Trumpoetry.com.

Before you know it, Epi206 will be here, hosted by Tyson Saner but, in the meantime, if you’d like to email me with any questions you’d like to hear sampled on our show, shoot me a note at marc@SuccotashShow.com. And if you ARE a comedy soundcaster, listen in for details from our booth announcer, Bill Heywatt, on how you can upload a clip directly to us!  So as I get out of here, let me remind you that if you liked the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and don’t be afraid to pass the Succotash to someone you care about.

— Marc Hershon