Succotash Epi353: Our 12th Anniversary Show!

We've been teasing it for months but it's finally here: Our 12th anniversary episode of doing Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast! I'm going to keep this blog piece tight and sweet - and urge you to avail yourself of the actual episode, which you can find at your favorite download location OR at our homesite, http://SuccotashShow.com.

This episode — our last before embarking on a shortish hiatus — is double-hosted, featuring Marc Hershon and Tyson Saner. We talk about the shows' origins, its evolution during the Age of Soundcasting, and a number of the personalities we've met along the way. One of those personalities joins us as our Special Guest for this 12th year blowout and that's friend of Succotash and friend in real life, Travis Clark! He jumped into this madness the same time we did and, as part of that vaunted fraternity, weighs in with his own observations and opinions.

In the style of our earliest days' shows, this installment is a bit longer than our fare these days, clocking in at about an hour and 15 minutes. In addition to our three-way conversation, we have a number of congratulatory messages from friends and past guests of the show to share with you, from Dana Carvey, Jason "Jabs" McNamara, Hunter Block, Dean Haglund & Phil Leirness of Chillpak Hollywood Hour, Matt Knudsen, Davian Dent, Kat Sorens & Dom Risk of Strange Times Podcast, and Stu Buckland of The Angry Chimp and too many other soundcasts to name here.

In addition, we have an ad from our fake sponsor Henderson's Pants and we revisit a succotash recipe prepared by Chef Eddie Vedder.

Thanks, as always, to producer/engineers Joe Paulino and our booth announcer, Bill Heywatt! All in all, it's quite a shindig to celebrate our dozen years in this crazy business. Jump in and have fun! And we'll hopefully be back with some fresh version of Succotash in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks for listening!

— Marc Hershon

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Succotash Epi352: Last Clips Before Hiatus

Can you feel it, listener? I can. I can feel it. The warm, sultry breeze of our impending Succotash hiatus is gently wafting around the next bend in our feed. I’m your every-other-weekly-host Marc Hershon and welcome to Episode 352, which I’m calling “Last Clips Before Hiatus” because, well, it’s our second-to-last episode before we take a break BUT the last one in which we’ll be featuring clips. I’ll tell you more about what our LAST show before jump the tracks is going to be like toward this end of this blog entry but, for now, let’s share this time together as just another in the long lines of Succotash episodes where we feature clips from other comedy soundcasts across the internet.

 

Before I get to what I have in store for you, let’s recall what Epi351, Tyson Saner’s final solo hosting episode before the break, was like last week. His was the first episode to officially enter our 12^th year of soundcasting. We started in April of 2011 so Tyson got the glory and the honor of being the first of us to break the tape on year 12 with “The Penultimate Pre-Hiatus Show”, which featured clips from comedy soundcasts Holidays After Dark, What Went Wrong, and Bit Weird But Fair Enough (I Guess). Tyson wrapped up that episode with a very sincere thanks and farewell for now and I think you’ll get a great deal out of listening to that installment of the show.

 

As for me, I’m intending to go out with this show as it was originally conceived: By featuring a collection of clips from soundcasts that we’ve not featured before. Sure, we've occasionally dipped back into the same pool now and again to feature some faves – but our overall design and intent has been to bring you what’s fresh and new, at least our ears and quite possibly yours. Bearing that in mind, I have clips from Literally with Rob Lowe, a new sitcom soundcast called Popcorn For Dinner, and a show from across the Pond in England – a well-regarded standby there called Always Be Comedy. Since this will be our last opportunity to do so for awhile, I’m going to feature an audio essay from comedian and friend of the show Dan St. Paul, from his Slices blog, entitled “Slave to the Machines”.

 

This lovely cavalcade of clippage is brought to you, as always, by Henderson’s Pants and their new Bottoms Up Cargo Pants, a recent introduction designed by our own announcer, Bill Heywatt, for that discriminating boozehound on the go.

 

As I said, toward the end of this episode I let you know what’s in store for the final-final episode next week, as well as a few wrap-up thoughts from my brain and my heart as we hit our 12^th year anniversary.

 

CLIPS

 

Literally with Rob Lowe

Is there more of a consummate celebrity in the entertainment world today than Rob Lowe? He’s an actor who has created an indelible brand for and of himself, he’s never really had any controversy around him, and he’s basically a Hollywood homegrown talent who’s been around since he was a kid. A few yeas ago he started popping up as a guest on a number of soundcasts and it wasn’t long until he pulled the cloak off of Literally, the show he hosts every week, mostly talking to friends that he pulls right out of his own cell phone. He recently talk with Levar Burton, famous for playing Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Before that, he broke through as Kunta Kinte, a young slave on the Roots miniseries. And he talks a bit about both those experiences in this clip.

 

Popcorn For Dinner

This next entry is brand new. It’s only been out for about 8 or 9 weeks at this point, which means its first season is coming to a close and you can binge it. Because it’s one of the first full-on soundcast situation comedies that I’ve heard. Popcorn for Dinner is, first of all, produced by one of my favorite production outfits on the planet, which is Kelly&Kelly out of Vancouver, Canada. We’ve featured other shows from them before, including This Sounds Serious and Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You. This new offering is largely written and created by comedian Maddy Kelly – no relation to Pat Kelly or Chris Kelly, who ARE related, but maybe it helps to have them set a show up if your last name IS Kelly. It features former Nickelodean star Ciara Bravo as the narrator, and stars Maddy Kelly, Charlie Foster, Jillian Ebanks and Ben Fawcett as four friends in their early 20s as they try to make it on their own, despite the fact that none of them know what that looks like...at all. It’s got all the tropes that make classic sitcoms identifiable including a laugh track. It’s meta, it’s corny, it’s funny and – after I listened to the first three episodes, I was pretty much hooked. The clip I have for you is from Episode 6 and I picked the very opening of the show so you can easily pick up on the vibe – they have the opening teaser scene, the set-up for the episode and your get to hear what the main characters each sound like.

 

 

Always Be Comedy

I’m not sure how long Always Be Comedy has been cranking out episode in Britain but, given their list of guests, it’s been going awhile. Hosted by comics James Gill and Tim Lewis, they invite other comedians in to chat and to curate their dream gig – o talk about all the elements that they would bring together to make a dynamite boffo show. This clip doesn’t quite get to that part of the hosts’ chat with guest, England comedy legend Stewart Lee, which is well worth strapping in for given his experience. Instead, Stewart waxes on a bit about some of his contemporary veteran comedians.

 

Dan St. Paul: Slave to the Machines

Which brings us to the end of our featured clips this week and right up to the doorstep of comedian and friend of the show Dan St. Paul. He’s been writing these humorous essays for his “Slices” blog on Substack for a while now, and I had him record a few and then added some music and effects to them. That was impetus enough for Dan to turn to his pal Jimmy Goings and really get into producing them. Here’s his latest, entitled “Slave to the Machines”.

 

That is going to do it for this final solo episode before our Succotash hiatus begins. As I teased at the top of the show, I can let you know that next week, for our 12^th Anniversary Show, Tyson Saner and I will be joining forces to celebrate the blessed event. Joining us will be longtime friend of the show who we first met in Episode 36 back in the Fall of 2012, Travis Clark. We’ll look back and reminisce not just about Succotash but also about soundcasting and how far it come since we first fired up the mics in 2011. That’s next week, in this very same feed, so don’t miss it!

 

As for me, I am sometime startled to wake up and discover this Succotash thing has been going as long as it has. I’ve made a lot of friends, literally around the globe, through the network of soundcasters out there. I think one of the things that we’ll do as we sail into our 12^th year is that I may just have to stop beating the drum to call these things soundcasts instead of podcasts. We gave it a valiant effort. I don’t think anyone would deny us that. We’ll see.

 

I have to thank Joe Paulino, first and foremost, which helped me breathe life into this concept through the auspices of Studio P, his “home of the hit” in Sausalito, California. And for introducing us to Bill Heywatt, our erstwhile and often tanked booth announcer. Scott Carvey, one of Dana Carvey’s brothers, created our theme music from me sending him a jazz tune I liked and doing his own interpretation of the concept so we could have some music free and clear. Kenny Durgis is our booth assistant who, frankly doesn’t do much more than complain but we gotta acknowledge the little guy.

 

More than anyone connected to the show, my heartfelt and deep gratitude goes to Tyson Saner, who went from contributing a few odd clips now and again to becoming the show’s Associate Producer to full-blown host, slipping into the Big Chair for several years while it stepped into the background as Executive Producer and got to take a big breather.

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my wife, the lovely and talented Debra Hershon. While she’s never spent a moment hanging around this show, if not for her support and giving me the space to create and shave time off of our personal time – sometimes on while on vacation and sometimes even urging me to head to LA or shows in San Francisco so I could get interviews and such, this show certainly wouldn’t have happened.

 

Finally, of course, there’s you. Our listener. Whether this is the very first time you’ve filled your ears with Succotash or if you’ve been with us for every one of the 352 episodes we’ve dropped, this has always been intended for you. As a wayfinding tool to help you hack through the soundcast wilderness to find fun, new shows to listen to. And whether it was from those heady early days when we actually would show up on the front page of Apple’s downloads or, more often bouncing along with just blips on the download radar, we know that you’ve been out there putting up with our audio shenanigans. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

We’ll be here next year with that 12^th anniversary show. And then Tyson, Bill, Joe, and I are going to take a little break. Catch our breaths and figure out how and when we’ll return. This show maybe exactly like you hear it today. Or we may change up the format and try some different things. Hang in there and we’ll let you know what’s what.

 

And in the meantime, if in the next week or so you have someone tap you on the shoulder while you’re working out in the gym and they ask what you’re listening to on your earbuds, won’t you please pass the Succotash?

 

— Marc Hershon

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Succotash Epi351 - The Penultimate Pre-Hiatus Show

Saluton, estas mi, Tyson Saner, and I welcome you heartily to this 351st episode of Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, which just so happens to be the second-to-last episode of Succotash before our 12-year anniverary special, which will then be swiftly followed by a well-deserved hiatus. If you are a 1st time listener, this show typically features clips from other soundcasts from around the world and has for almost 12 years.

The entire archive of episodes past can be found over at www.succotash.com for the time being, so if you end up enjoying this program and you'd like to share it with others, send them there or pretty much anywhere else you can listen to soundcasts, which are also called podcasts most everywhere else other than here on Succotash.

Last week in Episode #350, show creator and executive producer Marc Hershon brought you a "Chats" episode that featured conversation with, and fascinating stories from Shane Elliot of the sketch comedy group from North Hollywood called Fries On The Side that Mr. Hershon had also been involved with. It's a fascinating and funny chat that you should check out at your earliest convenience.

In this, the last episode I'm producing before our aforementioned hiatus, I have brought you some clips to listen to from the soundcasts Holidays After Dark, What Went Wrong, and Bit Weird But Fair Enough (I Guess). 

I'll be rounding out the show with 2 clips from the Strange Times Show, the hosts of which just celebrated 10 of their own years in soundcasting. The episode clipped for this purpose is #462, titled "Ten Bloody Years". Many soundcasters sent in their congratulations in audio form, so I've decided to include the one I sent, and the one Marc sent. Those will be played at various points in this program.

I'm even throwing in a classic Henderson's Pants ad into this episode just for kicks. It's one of the oldest ones I think…If the numerical system it came with is to be believed. 

Well, the show wasn't going to finish writing or producing itself, so I had to get into it. And now it's time for you to do the same…

CLIPS

Holidays After Dark
This is directly from the show description for 
Holidays After Dark: "It's a year-round soundcast which explores the strange, unusual, and dark sides of the holidays while also paying tribute to the lighthearted festivities we all know and love!" Featuring host Kristin Seering, our clip is from show from March 28th, 2023 - Easter 2023: Tale of a Homicidal Hare. In this episode, Holidays After Dark explains the history behind how the Easter Bunny came to be and tries to determine if the story of the Bunny Man Killer is real or simply an urban legend. The clip I've selected is from somewhere in the middle. Enjoy. 

What Went Wrong
From Sad Boom Media, What Went Wrong covers Hollywood’s most notoriously disastrous movie productions, digging into the behind-the-scenes insanity of everything from massive flops to record breaking blockbusters. The clip is from their episode of April 3rd, 2023: "Gone With The Wind". Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel may star in 1939’s Gone With the Wind, but this was David O. Selznick’s dumpster fire. Join hosts Chris Winterbauer and Lizzie Bassett as they break down a truly disastrous production featuring 15+ writers, 3+ directors, an amphetamine-fueled producer, and racism galore - both onscreen and off.

Bit Weird but Fair Enough (I Guess)
From Down Under, under The Angry Chimp banner, host Stuart Buckland and guests look at some of the weird stuff going on in this crazy, crazy world. Our clip, from way back on the 1st of February, 2021, is from a show entitled "God or Demon?" And it features not one but two Friends of Succotash. In addition to Mr. Buckland, his guest this episode was British expat in South Korea Samantha Pett, joining Stu to examine weirdness surrounding cats, exams, toast and processed meat. (Sam was formerly a co-host of The Strange Times Show for a not-insubstantial amount of episodes, and a podcaster in her own right with programs such as The Kimchi Chronicles and Anarchy Audi". Keeping with the theme of including Strange Times Show content in this episode, and also wanting to feature Mr. Buckland's relatively recently established soundcast, I was pleased to be able to get both of them in one episode.

And there it went…my last solo episode of Succotash before our hiatus. What an amazing ride this has been. It's really hard to wrap my head around the passage of time it seems. I don't mean to say that I don't know what it is, although I don't know what it is more than someone who studies that sort of thing might. Or might claim to…That's what people who study that sort of thing say, right?  "I know what time is..", in casual conversation. Or perhaps sitting by themselves in the middle of a café, working through what they imagine a conversation of that nature would be like, ultimately culminating in an unscheduled "outside voice" moment. 

No, I don't mean to say that I don't know what it is…although I don't. It happens, I witness it, it continues to happen, and I attempt to fill it with variety and relative happiness…and music. I can't forget the music. Coming up next, and also LAST for…uh, well…let's just say that I'm not specifically sure how long it will be before we reemerge with something…But my understanding is that that is the plan…there's one of those "that that"'s again. Is that a peculiarity of the English language?  I suppose I could look it up, but I'm not going to do that right now. I'm going to be working on other things in the meantime, and you will be able to find those things over at www.tysonsaner.com as well as an archive full of  stuff I've already done as of this recording. Music, Gaming Videos, A Redbubble store…stuff like that…and who knows what else?  I'm not 100% sure, but if I needed to be, I would never create anything…and there will be plenty of time for inactivity…um…let's just say…later?  

Before I go, I need to remember to say "Thank You" to Marc Hershon and Joe Paulino for making me feel like a valuable contributor to something for the last 10 years of my life. It's a very specific thing to say "thank you" for, I know, but It's a very specific sort of gratitude I feel to those who would include me in their creative endeavors. I do not, and hopefully never will, take that sort of thing lightly….

…and now, I have to make the awkward transition into actually saying "Good Bye"…so I will end by saying 
"Thank You" to my parents and my wife for being supportive of me in many ways including keeping me alive for the entirety of this experience I call "life" so far. I hope I didn't make it more difficult than it had to be. #Goalz 

Thank you for listening, be decent to each other, and when you are out there in the world, should you seek out, or perhaps stumble across our archive during our absence, and you got something out of it that can only be expressed by sharing it with others in some form or another, for example sending them to www.succotashshow.com , then we will experience gratitude for you, for having done so. It's what we dream about happening when we utter the final words of every episode, which are please pass the Succotash…

— Tyson Saner

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Succotash Epi350 — Special Guest: Shane Elliott

Hello, friend! Marc Hershon here for yet another edition – the 350^th installment, in fact – of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. Later this month we’ll be celebrating hitting our 12^th Anniversary of bringing you clips from (mostly) comedy soundcasts and interviews with some of those soundcasters, some comedians, and some other showbiz folk, as our esteemed booth announcer, Bill Heywatt, is fond of saying.

That anniversary show will be fun. It will be me and my switching-off-with-me-every-other-week co-host Tyson Saner on the show together, along with a special guest surprise! That show is going to drop on Tuesday, April 25^th, so mark your calendars!

Speaking of Tyson, if you missed last week’s episode 349, you missed his special “One For the Kids” installment, featuring slips from Wow in the World, TDR Now Travel Podcast, and Story Pirates! With a lot of kids on Spring break this week or next, depending on your school district, grab that episode and see if there isn’t a show or two in that bunch that might be some good road trip filler if you’re heading out with the ankle biters.

I don’t have clips for you this week but, instead, it’s a Succotash Chats episode featuring my visit with an old friend of mine who doesn’t have a podcast. Shane Elliott headed up a sketch comedy group in North Hollywood called Fries On The Side that I got involved with and we get into that quite a bit. He acted in TV and movies and commercials for quite a while but then was also very much into computers and technology and programming and, well, we talk about how he made the choice move away from the Hollywood “thing.”

This episode is brought by our long-running sponsor, Henderson’s Pants and, because they don’t pay us nuthin’, when they told us they were going to be advertising their new Artificial Intelligence Trousers, we figured we’ve lost enough money with this non-paying turkey of a sponsor so we’ve created the first Henderson’s Pants ad completely put together by AI. The script was written by ChatGPT, the AI version of Bill Heywatt reading was provided by the NaturalReading app, and some 8-bit computer music by Dream Protocol. Then we smooshed all together and – voíla! – history was made.

I appreciate our guest Shane Elliott for jumping in here at the tail end of our 11^th year in the soundcasting game! You can follow Shane on Twitter at Twitter.com/Shane_Elliott and you can still see a few of the old Fries on the Side videos up on YouTube at http://YouTube.com/friesontheside.

Just like that, we’re out of here! Check back in next week for Episode 351 with Tyson Saner back in the drivers seat. And remember our 12^th Anniversary show is destined to drop on Tuesday April 25^th.

Easter’s coming up this weekend so if you’re sitting around, stuffing your face, and someone asks if you’ve heard anything good lately, won’t you please pass the Succotash?

—    Marc Hershon

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