Succotash Epi298: 2 Hobbits, 2 Pals & A Bee

Saluton, estas mi Tyson Saner, and welcome to Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, Epi298. Now, this is the part of the episode where I usually mention what happened "last week" on Succotash…and I use quotations because usually I have heard the episode for the previous week that is hosted by show creator and executive producer Marc Hershon before I start putting together a show…In this case, I began work on this episode before Epi296 released so, unfortunately, I have no idea what happened in Epi297. (I mean, by the time you listen to this I certainly will have listened to Epi297 and, hopefully, so will have you.)

Due to circumstances well beyond my control it's just impossible for me to do that AND put together a show in the week leading up to the release of the 298th episode so that puts me in a bit of a weird headspace but I will shake it off and sally forth and all that sort of thing.

This is a Clips episode, meaning I've got clips from soundcasts The Friendship Onion, The Deep Dive with Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael, and Full Release with Samantha Bee. I've also got a classic, time-of-the-year-appropriate Henderson's Pants advert for their Bloomin Bloomers!

CLIPS

The Friendship Onion
Join your favorite hobbits, friends and co-stars, Billy Boyd and Dom Monaghan as they take a look back at their time on The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Featuring interviews with cast and crew, diving deep into life behind the scenes, and answering the many fan questions, The Friendship Onion peels back the layers of their friendship, both on screen and off. Our clip hails from the beginning of March of this year and features the hosts chatting up Professor Corey Olsen, president and founder of Signum University, an innovative online university that enables students to pursue their passions without going broke - and he's a Tolkien expert!

The Deep Dive with Jessica St. Clair & June Diane Raphael
The Deep Dive, hosted by actress, writer, and activist, June Diane Raphael and actress, writer, comedian, Jessica St. Clair, takes a "deep dive" into a wide range of topics such as motherhood and family, feminism, Meghan Markle, shit they put on their faces, and whether or not to buy a crystal because it’s on sale. In short it's about two friends trying to survive adult womanhood. We snipped a sample from their "Must Love Dogs" episode from this month (or March 2022, if you're listening at any point past then...)

Full Release with Samantha Bee
TV's Full Frontal host Samantha Bee sits down for weekly unscripted, in-depth conversations with the best and rightest people about how to navigate the ever-changing world and what to laugh about along the way. Our selected clip dates from last June and features guest Rob Reiner, who dropped by then to talk about a variety of topics, including when the host watched this Is Spinal Tap with her grandmother, why Ted Cruz loves the Princess Bride, and joining Twitter just to take on Donald Trump.

Episode #298 is packed with soundcast goodness and suitable for archiving. There's a great deal of entertainment to be had over at our homesite, www.succotashshow.com - 11 years worth, in fact, come April of this year. The show has been evolving like a Pokemon in that you can look at the stage it is in now, and look back on the past iterations, and - I believe - that one would not be asking themselves something like "How did THAT turn into THAT?!"…There's a familiarity and yet it is a somewhat different beast, or pocket monster, than it was when it was new and still figuring out it's powers.…at some point the metaphor falls apart but, I'm not sure that it has yet so I'll leave it there.

Thank you for listening, Be Decent To Each Other, and if someone asks you if you've heard something good or interesting lately and you are fairly confident that we fit into one, both, or more of those catagories won't you please pass the Succotash?

— Tyson Saner

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Succotash Epi297: 3 Clips, 1 Teaser & A Slice

Welcome, welcome, welcome! Whether you’re downloading this soundcast or are streaming it from somewhere on the World Wide Web, as the host of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, I am delighted that you’re listening. Apologies for not knowing your name, but I’m Marc Hershon, the host, executive producer, and founder of this little slice of Soundcastville, which kicked off just 2 weeks shy of 11 years ago.

Before I get into what’s in store for you in the next half hour or so, let me ask if you had a chance to lay ears on last week’s Epi296, entitled A More or Less Typical Episode, hosted by my fastidious and factually accurate co-host Tyson Saner. He featured clips from a triad of soundcasts, including JudyCast with Frances Gumm, The Ramble, and Lightning Bugs: Conversations with Ben Folds. The good news for you, if you happened to miss it, is that you can still grab it – on Apple or Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Soundcloud, YouTube, Amazon Music, Audible.com, as well as any number of reputable distribution nodes across the web – including our own SuccotashShow.com.

Since you’re here now, however, I’ll let you know that I’m going to be shaving off shreds of three soundcasts: Citation Needed, The Stoners NextDoor, and War & Peace in Just 7 Years. I’ve also got another Slice from comedian Dan St. Paul’s blog, and a trailer from a brand new soundcast that’s dropping this week entitled Rituals. And even as we’re still shaking the bushes for a real sponsor, I have a commercial from our long-running fake sponsor Henderson’ Pants and their just-now-in-season Picnic Pants.

Before I get into the clips, just a quick bit of news for longtime listeners of this ‘cast that remember our feature the Burst O’ durst with San Francisco comedian and social commentator Will Durst. Will suffered a stroke back in the Fall of 2019 and has been on a very long and slow road of recovery all the way through the pandemic. He’s still working hard on getting it all together but I was delighted to find he’s finally started posting on Facebook in the past couple of weeks. You can dig the Durst at facebook.com/will.durst.9 — and let him know that we are waiting with bated breath for him to start pumping out the funny again.

CLIPS

Citation Needed
The first comedy soundcast I’m clipping today is a five-hander, that is five hosts who stir the stew that is Citation Needed. Weirdly, in the About Us section of their homesite, some of the guys have last names and some don’t. There is Cecil, Eli Bosnick, Heath, Noah Lujeons, and Tom. The format for this show is hilariously simple: They pick a subject, read one article about it on Wikipedia, then pretend to be experts on the topic. The focus for their episode that dropped just last week was Alice Roosevelt, the eldest daughter of US President Theodore Roosevelt. She was pretty much crazy pants, Looney Tunes, and a deliciously black sheep of the family…and her dad Teddy R. was a bit of a dick about it. Just listen as the guys take their initial dip into the Alice Roosevelt pool…

War And Peace in Just 7 Years
This next show claws out a special little niche for a comedy soundcast: Literature. War And Peace in Just 7 Years is attempting to provide the equivalent of one of those episode-by-episode watch-along TV show soundcasts like Office Ladies or Fake Doctors, Real Friends, except they’re doing it with the 12 hundred and 25 page epic tome War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. With 500 characters, there is no lack of material in store. The hosts, Will and Steve, are both British comedians but they conveniently have not used their last names on the show’s homesite. A recent episode picks up the action in 1886 or 1887, and things are looking a bit grim for the world at large…

The Stoners NextDoor
I can’t imagine that this next soundcast is the only one to dip into the crazy world of NextDoor, the half-gossip, half-neighborhood news site. But The Stoners NextDoor does a great job of harvesting some of the loopier posts and their responses from the site. Host Aaron and Moll don’t focus on where the incidents and altercations are happening, which always makes it feel like it’s happening in YOUR neighborhood. Our clip is from this past December, their season three finale, and involves a warning from an angry apple tree owner warning neighbors to keep their mitts off his fruit.

Slices: The Lands of Hoops and Plenty
When I was last in this feed, for Epi295, I featured a new segment called “Slices” from comedian Dan St. Paul’s blog of the same name. I have another slice of Slices for you, this one about Dan’s trek to a Golden State Warriors game with a mutual comedian friend of ours, Bob Sarlatte. Give a listen…

Dan and I are still trying to figure out if people are enjoying these audio odysseys so please drop me an email at m-a-r-c@succotashshow.com or a note in your socials directed to us @SuccotashShow to let us know if you’re digging these stories. We’re considering a short-form soundcast of Dan’s own, featuring stories like this, and we’d love to hear if you’re enjoying them.

That’s going to do it for this installment of Succotash. As always, it’s a pleasure to go out into the soundcastiverse and scrabble up these tidbits from the incredible range of comedy soundcasts that are out there. Between Tyson and I, it’s hard to even pretend to be keeping up with the massive influx of new programs that seem to be dropping weekly, so if we haven’t harvested a clip from your show, or a show you enjoy listening to, you can upload a 3 to 5-minute MP3 clip directly to us at http://hightail.com/u/Succotash and we’ll pop it into an upcoming episode.

Speaking of Tyson, he’ll be here next week with Succotash Episode 298, and a trio of comedy soundcast clips, so don’t miss out. Then I will be back the week after that with Episode 299. And THEN, for Episode 300 – THREE HUNDRED!!! – we will also be celebrating our 11th year of doing this ding-danged show!

I’m going to talk with Tyson about us actually co-hosting that one and maybe we’ll do something special. Who knows? If YOU want to record a special 300th episode, 11th year anniversary message to us, you can call the Succotash and Runaway Truck Hotline at 1 (818) 921-7212 OR upload a message to the Hightail URL. Or just say it to yourself while listening to that episode. Whatever gets it done for you.

Just remember that the next time running down that next perp that skipped bail and it’s up to you, as a bounty hunter, to bring him or her back to justice, and someone asks if you’re listening to anything fun, won’t you please pass the Succotash?

— Marc Hershon

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Succotash Epi296: A More Or Less Typical Episode

Saluton, estas mi Tyson Saner. Welcome to Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, Episode 296! I am your host this week for a more-or-less typical "Clips" episode of Succotash.

Last week in Epi295, my co-host and your every-other-show-host, Marc Hershon, brought a bouquet of clips from the soundcasts known as Comedy Gold Minds with Kevin Hart, Hypochondriactor, The Extramundane with Max West, and Let’s Make A Sci-Fi.

Epi295 also has the distinction of being the episode of Succotash that featured the debut of a new "thing" for the show. That particular thing being an audio presentation of a humorous essay that was adapted by Marc Hershon and comedian Dan St. Paul from his blog "Slices". It was called "The No Tube Alternative" and you can also read that one, and over three dozen more at https://danstpaul.substack.com/. (You can listen to the episode in its entirety at www.succotashshow.com in our show archive, and I encourage you to do so at your earliest convenience should that sort of thing be of interest to you.

In this week's episode, I've got clips from three soundcasts for you. They are called JudyCast with Frances Gumm, The Ramble, and Lightning Bugs: Conversations with Ben Folds. There's also a classic spot from our ubiquitous fake sponsor "Henderson's Pants" for their exciting "Hooray for Hollywood" pants, delivered with abject professionalism by our esteemed announcer Bill Heywatt.

CLIPS

JudyCast with Frances Gumm
JudyCast is a surreal talk/variety show hosted by Judy Garland and her band of Hollywood and Broadway legends. Solely voiced and produced by Bill Phair, there's really no other podcast like it! As of December of 2021 there are 25 episodes to be listened to…and even though this clip is from the episode that posted on March 5th, 2006 - AND is the oldest episode available on iTunes - it references itself in the episode as "The 11th episode". Also, this show pre-dates Succotash by around 5 years. It is called "A Tetris Valentine" in which "Judy discusses the love of her life and plays Tetris".

The Ramble
Comedian Jerry Rocha talks about whatever is on his mind at the time. Our clip is from Episode 296 - posted on November 10th, 2021 - from a show in which Jerry and Eddie Pence (third chum Cody Villafana somehow found a daytime baseball game to go to) talk James Bond, haunted houses, video games and so much more.

Lightning Bugs: Conversations with Ben Folds
Join host Ben Folds, NYTimes best-selling author and musician, in celebrating and commiserating with some of the world's foremost creatives about their endlessly various artistic processes. We clip the show's debut episode from almost a year ago, April 8th, 2021, when Ben talked with anthropologist Agustín Fuentes about the role of creativity in our evolution and survival, how society causes writer's block, and the time a macaque monkey stole Ben's glasses.

Well, there you have it. There's another episode of Succotash for the archives. It's almost 11 years deep in that thing. If you didn't already know that, you do now. I do hope you found something interesting in this week's offerings. If you didn't, then there is a very good chance that you will find something of interest in another episode. There is simply too wide an array of talent and personalities that have been sampled for you over the years that if absolutely nothing interest you in any single existing episode…then all I have to say to you is…. don't give up trying.

New episodes come out every week, I'm sure we will catch your interest at some point. Anyway, thank you for listening, be decent to each other, and if you'd like to get a second opinion on what you just heard, or you would just like to share us with others then, by all means, pass the Succotash.

— Tyson Saner

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Succotash Epi295: 4 Clips with a Slice of Dan St. Paul

Hello, listener. Glad you’re here! I am Marc Hershon, as stated so eloquently for our booth announcer, Bill Heywatt, here to present Episode 295 of Succotash, THE Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. Before I get into what’s in store this week, did you happen to catch last week’s Epi294 with my punctual and well-read co-host Tyson Saner?

He brought the heat, with clips from a trio of shows, including Wheel of Randy - A Randy Newman podcast, Podcast Killed the Video Star, and The Hollywood Experience. If you missed it run, don’t walk, to download or stream it from any of the wonderful distribution points on the World Wide Web, including Apple & Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, YouTube, Soundcloud, Audible and many others, including our own homesite, SuccotashShow.com, where you’re find a blog entry for every show we’ve done for the past 10 years and 11 months with clickable links to the shows and the social media accounts for the hosts and many of the guests.

I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the international clown fiesta that Vladimir Putin is orchestrating on the people of Ukraine. There’s not much that we, as the hosts of a comedy soundcast can do to actively help the situation. But we do stand in support of the people and country of Ukraine and, just as we’re no longer distributing Succotash via that streaming service that Neil Young doesn’t like, we also will not feature clips from any comedy soundcasts produced in Russia. It’s not much but it’s what we’ve got to offer.

All right. Enough of that. Let me take your mind off the troubles of the day with the distraction of a quartet of soundcast clips that we have never featured before: Comedy Gold Minds with Kevin Hart, Hypochondriactor, The Extramundane with Max West, and a brand new offering on the podwaves entitled Let’s Make A Sci-Fi. We’re also brought to you this week, as usual, by Henderson’s Pants and their Scavenger Slax!

But that’s not all, as they used to say on the Ginsu Knife and Ronco Pocket Fisherman ads on TV. I’m introducing a new “thing” on the show this week. San Francisco-based comedian Dan St. Paul, a friend of the show whose work we featured back in Episode 211, started a blog a while back during the pandemic lockdown called Slices. He writes up these funny essays and thought pieces about the absurdities of life. I’ve been suggesting he think about recording them and get them out there somehow and then it hit me: “Hey!  I have a soundcast! A comedy soundcast! Dan could play them on our show!”

So Dan cut his first one this week and we added in some music and some sound effects along the way. It’s called, “The No Tube Alternative”, the first entry into the audio realm from Dan. St. Paul’s Slices blog. You can read that one, and more than three dozen more at https://danstpaul.substack.com/. You can also follow him @DanStPaul on Twitter. Let me know what you thought – drop a note to m-a-r-c@SuccotashShow.com or hit me up @SuccotashShow on Twitter or Instagram.

I think we’re going to work up another one by the next time I’m back with Epi 297. And – this is confidential so don’t spread it around – but Dan is in talks with Succotash Patch Productions to possibly release his own soundcast based on his Slices essays.

CLIPS

Comedy Gold Mines
I don’t think it’s my imagination that Kevin Hart seems to be everywhere these days. He’s got a series on Netflix called True Story, he’s developing a hip-hop animated project for HBO Max, he was even in a Super Bowl commercial. His soundcast, Comedy Gold Minds, has been going for a while now, where he deep dives into the brains of well-known comics to find out what makes them tick. I clipped his chat with David Spade from a few weeks back, from a part of the convo where they get into what getting started on the standup stage was like.

Let’s Make A Sci-Fi
Fans and friends of Succotash know that I am a nut for any soundcasts that come out of the funny factory that is Kelly&Kelly Productions. This Sounds Serious, Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You, and just scads of other crazy satirical stuff they pump out is all comedy gold. (Flip back to Succotash Epi221 for my chat with Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring, two of the main brains behind those shows, to learn more about how the humor sausage is made…) Now they are presenting Let’s Make a Sci-Fi, and this is a show that’s different than a lot of their mocku-style products. It’s the 8-part adventure of three comedy writers - Ryan Beil, Maddy Kelly, and Mark Chavez – and their earnest attempt to write a pilot episode for a serious science fiction TV or streaming series. Here’s a snippet from their first episode, where the three writers are spitballing ideas for what the core of the show might be about.

Hypochondriactor
Actor Sean Hayes, who you know from TV’s Will & Grace, and from soundcasting’s Smartless, is a bit of a hypochondriac and has parleyed his groundless fears and obsession with maladies into a soundcast that he co-hosts with Dr. Priyanka Wali, a legit doctor and comedian, to delve into the sick side of life. In what has to be considered a pretty good “get” for a soundcast guest, Sean pulls in pal Robert Downey, Jr. for last week’s episode. They talk about a lot of stuff in just under an hour: Downey’s penchant for Wing Chun Kung Fu, his thoughts on Iron Man’s final words in Avengers: End Game, and his “Cat Scratch Fever”. You’ll have to grab the download for a couple of those topics, but our clip does start to get into the whole Kung Fu thing.

The Extramundane with Max Ward
If you like creepy, cryptid-based, spooky soundcasts…you’ll have to look further than The Extramundane with Max Ward. Why? Because it’s a spoof of those kinds of shows. A bit in the vein of My Neighbors Are Dead, this show rips the veil away from the supernatural to reveal, well, like the title says, the extramundane. Host Max Ward is voiced by Dan Kozuh, a writer of fictional non-fiction for places like McSweeney’s, The Hard Times, Infinite Worlds, and others. Our clip comes from Episode 6 – The Woman Who Raised Bigfoot, where Max tracks down and interviews, uh, the woman, L. Melacetti (Nicole Kemper), who raised Bigfoot. Or A bigfoot, who was left on her porch as a baby in 1964.

Well, friend, there it is, then. Episode 295 is stocked, cocked and locked. I don’t know if that’s actually a thing. I DO know that my cohort in soundcasts, Tyson Saner, will be right here in this very feed next week host episode 296. So close to Epi300 that we can TASTE it! And next month is this show’s ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY in soundcasting. Some folks said it couldn’t be done. A lot more folks said, “What’s the show called again?”, followed immediately by, “How the hell do you spell Succotash?”

Just remember S-U-C-C-O, the “sucko” part, and you’ll be able to Google the crap out of us. Thanks once again to Dan St. Paul for letting us try out one of the Slices from his blog. We’re hoping to try out another one next time I’m here, in Episode 297.

Until you deign to hit us up again, won’t you please keep yourself and those around you as healthy as you can, brush after every meal, be nice to each other and the next time you’re buzzed by a low-flying cropduster and the pilot yells down to you, “Have you heard anything good lately?”, won’t you please pass the Succotash?

— Marc Hershon

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