Welcome to the blog entry counterpart to Episode 69 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast. The biggest news for this show in the past week is that we're now recommended listening by Stitcher Smart Radio! That's right, particularly if you’re a podcaster just starting out and want to get a handle on this baby widecast medium. Just a couple of days ago, Stitcher mentioned that my appearance on the Podcaster 101 show is featured in their “So You Think You Can Podcast” Top Ten Helpful Tips section!
I’ve been tweeting this past week (via @SuccotashShow) that Succotash will have a table set up in the Podcast Lab at this year’s Los Angeles Podcast Festival, which is happening in a couple of weeks — October 4 thru 6 in Santa Monica. You can get more information and get tickets at http://LAPodfest.com.
Anybody can stop by our table – if we actually get a table – but I will have a Succotash banner and be giving away some cool magnetic buttons I just ordered – they’re like pins without the pin and feature the Succotash yellow and green logo. (they haven't even been delivered yet but, once they're here, I'll post a picture of them...) So do stop by if you’re at the fest. And, if YOU'RE a comedy podcaster, we’ll have our mics set up and I’ll do an interview with you which we’ll feature on the show.
Some friends of Succotash are in town this week. In town meaning San Francisco at the San Francisco Improv Festival. And the friends are the cast of ILLUSIONOID!, one of our favorite podcasts. Paul Bates, Lee Smart, and Nug Nahrgang – the best name in podcasting – will be performing on Wednesday night, September 18th, at the Eureka Theater. So, if you’re in the Bay Area, buy tickets and join me in checking these guys out live and in person.
LIVE APPEARANCE
I’ll actually be performing live and in person a little later this month. Friday, September 27th, I’m going to be part of Marsh Jam, a new improv free-for-all that’s going up at the Marsh Cabaret in Berkeley. I think that’s at 8:30 and you can find out more at TheMarsh.org.
HONORARY ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Special thanks again this show to Tyson Saner, whom I've dubbed as our Honorary Associate Producer for providing us with clips to some podcast he's discovered This episode in particular is loaded with Saner clips and it's a pleasure to have those available.
THE TEN MOST ACTIVE ON THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST
Every week (or so) we're tracking the shows on Stitcher's Top 100 Comedy Podcast list that show the most action, either up OR down. Here's who distinguished themselves this week:
16. Bertcast’s Podcast +12
29. The Champs with Neal Brennan & Moshe Kasher +29
45. Jordan, Jesse, GO +31
61. Smodcast >> FeAB -27
66. The David Feldman Show -17
70. Dining With Doug & Karen +25
78. The Read -28
85. The Insanity Check +21
86. The Jack Blood Show +16
98. Keith and the Girl Podcast -20
DOUBLE DOSE O' DURST AGAIN
With this episode, I think I've finally caught up with the backlog of our Burst O' Durst feature, but only because we're playing one more double header with America's "Raging Moderate" Will Durst.
THE LAST OF BOGANWOOD, SEASON 1
We feature the eighth and final chapter of Boganwood, Season 1, this show, along with the last snippet of my interview with this podcast miniseries creator, Jason McNamara. It's a bittersweet end of our having played all the episode. Bitter because it's ending, sweet because we've been keeping you occupied while Jabs (Jason to his mum) has been getting Boganwood, Season TWO underway! Check it out at http://Boganwood.com.
THE CLIPS
Jordan, Jesse, GO!
This podcast moved up 31 spots this past week in the Stitcher Top 100 so that’s a good place to start. This is one of the shows in the Maximum Fun podcast arsenal. And they are about to hit Episode 300, so you know they’ve got a handle on this podcast thing. Featuring Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris co-hosting what they refer to as “a freewheeling comedy podcast about life in your 20’s”. The most recent episode featured a visit with comedian and writer Liz Feldman and they got into talking about a place Jesse takes his 2-year-old.
The Insanity Check
This show, which got into the Top 100 on Stitcher’s Comedy Podcast this week at #85, is hosted by Kriss, Ryce, Dylan and a few other guests here and there. The show focuses on crazy things like working in the corporate world, politics, the entertainment industry and society as a whole. They’ve been dropping shows twice a week – I envy them – and so they recently sailed past 400 episodes. Their latest – Epi408 – is entitled The Can’t U Niggas Troll Convention.
Harmontown
This past week I reviewed this podcast from Dan Harmon, the creator of NBC’s Community – you know he’s back this season, after leaving last year – and also with Jeff Davis, a great improvisor from Whose Line Is It Anyway. My review is up as part of This Week In Comedy Podcasts on Splitsider.com. It’s a very entertaining show – and they’ve been on for only 2 more episodes than Succotash – maybe there's hope for me yet!
Podhouse 90: The Wonderful Pundits of Oz
Frank Coniff is a very funny writer and comedian - he’s currently
working on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell - and has come up with a
great concept that bends the parameters of podcasting. They’re these
full-length musical comedy plays, with the title springboard off early
TV’s “Playhouse 90”. Tyson Saner snipped us off a clip from The
Wonderful Pundits of Oz, which picks up after the events as we know them
from The Wizard of Oz. Great cast, too, with Coniff, Melissa Villasenor, Dave "Gruber" Allen, J. Elvis Weinstein, David Higgens, Laraine Newman, Emo Phillips, Dana Gould, Mark Thompson, Jamie Haddad Tompkins, and Joe Keyes.
Combat Radio
We haven’t played anything from our old pal Ethan Dettenmeier over at Combat Radio in awhile, so it was nice to have Tyson send in a clip from a recent show. Ethan had a couple of comedians in – Eric Mark and Justin Rivera – then threw in the author of Why Are You Single? Sonia Everett McKie just to stir the pot…
Inverse Delirium
Our buddy, Geoffrey Welchman, over at the Inverse Delirium podcast, shot us in a clip this week – actually, he sent it in a couple of weeks ago but I lost it somehow. So he’s re-sent it in because he realized that the last couple of clip from Inverse Delirium we played didn’t actually have him in them. Here he is now, in a piece about EVPs or Electronic Voice Phenomena.
SModcast >> Edumacation
If Kevin Smith’s Smodcast brand were in grocery stores, they would have tons of consumer “facings”, as they’re called, because there are so many different flavors. Tyson Saner sent us in a clip from Edumacation, where Kevin gets schooled by someone new every time. This time, it’s Tonight Show writer Andy McElfresh who gives us the straight scoop on something called prosopagnosia, where the person can't identify people by their appearances, even celebrities.
Evil Teddy Bear Podcast
Korey Epps and Thomas Fine have hosted over 100 epis of their show. The tagline on their homesite reads: “Two film freaks, one podcast and a shitload of movies.” So this is mainly a movie review/tribute/slapfest. The hosts and their guest, Steve Sievers, about their first Kevin Smith movie experiences.
That's is for Epi69. It's pretty jam-packed so I hope you enjoy it. See you soon and, while i'm out, would you mind passing the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
I was going to start off this episode with a ramble – not a rant, but a ramble – about the medium of podcasting based on an epiphany of sorts which I had while thinking about this show. I was going to be about I suddenly realized that podcasting really is its own medium. Some people, in trying to describe it, refer to it as “radio on the internet”.
And, in a sense, I suppose it is.
As much as back when television was introduced, it was referred to by many as “radio with pictures.” And, before that, radio was often referred to as “vaudeville for the ears.” You get the idea.
Anyway, before I could put my ramble together, I ended up interviewing this episode’s guest: Comedian, actor AND now podcaster Jimmy Shubert. And we end up discussing that idea in some detail, so I’ll let that go for now. Jimmy and I talked about a bunch of things about his career and one of the defining periods in his development as a nationally touring headliner was traveling on the road with, and opening for, Sam Kinison.
In addition to being a national headlining comedian, Jimmy has shown up in some movies and TV shows in various guest appearances, including Go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Italian Job, Monk, Two Broke Girls, and a bunch of other projects. He’s recently added podcasting to his resumé and, less than a half dozen episodes ago, he kicked off The Jimmy Shubert Show.
(He's also a good sport. We had Skyped ourselves an interview last week which then crashed and burned on yet another bum hard drive while I was trying to edit it during a business trip cross country. As soon as I called him up, Jimmy didn't even let me get past the second "ahem, you see what happened was…" before he was volunteering to do it again.)
Because of the length of our interview, plus playing Chapter 7 of teh Boganwood podcast mini-series from Australia, we only have time for a couple of podcast clips this show. But it's a full show - including TWO Bursts O' Durst with comedian Will Durst and an end-of-the-show recipe for Irish-style succotash by Chef Shamus, courtesy of Kat Sorens of The Rigid Fist and the Strange Times podcasts.
This Week In Comedy Podcasts
One more clip we have this episode is from The Paul Mecurio Show, which I also reviewed this week over on Splitsider.com for This Week In Comedy Podcasts. Paul's guest is one of my favorite comics out there: Brian Regan.
The 10 Most Active Podcasts in The Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcasts
For the uninitiated, this weekly feature isn't concerned with the podcasts at the TOP of Stitcher's Top 100 Comedy Podcast list - mostly because they never change much. Instead, we take time out to look at which shows have shown the most significant movement - either way - up or down.
28. Bertcast’s Podcast -15
34. SModcast > FeAB +60
49. The David Feldman Show +18
52. Moment Of Clarity +27
68. The Champs with Neal Brennan & Moshe Kasher -32
76. Jordan, Jesse, GO -30
83. The Dana Gould Hour -17
86. SModcast > Get Up On This +61
95. Dining With Doug & Karen -40
100. Super Best Friendcast! +99
The Clips
The Chillpak Hollywood Hour
Hosts Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness have just finished shooting their new movie The Ladykillers and the most recent epi of Chillpak was recorded at the wrap party itself. In this brief clip, they chat with the actor in their cast who is also hosting the party at his home.
The Paul Mecurio Show
Recent guest on OUR show, Paul Mecurio, hosts comedian Brian Regan on HIS show. You can read my review of the show, as mentioned above, over on Splitsider.com. In the clip we have, Paul - who has been an opening act for Brian over the years - gets him talking about his love of coffee and his problem with hotel room numbers.
The Super Best Friendcast!
This show just squeaked in at #100 on Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcasts this week. As I mention on the show, I'm not sure this qualifies as a comedy podcast per se (but then NPR's Car Talk has been in the Top TEN of the comedy podcasts forever, so who am I to judge?) It is, however, an entertaining show about games - mostly video games - and it's for those who are REALLY into video games. Matthew tells us about a couple of them and his co-hosts Woolie, Liam, and Patt kick into the chatter.
The Stand-Up Chronicles
Congrats to our friend Adam Harris for hitting Episode 200! His consistently solid show's format is most him going one-on-one with comedians from all over. The clip we have for you is a piece of his chat with Tom Wilson, who tends to be recognized most often from his role as Biff in the Back To The Future movies, although his turn as the harassed police captain in this summer's The Heat let audiences see him in a different light. As did his role as Coach Fredricks in the short-lived but cult fave TV show Freaks & Geeks, which is what Adam talks to him about in this clip.
Looking at the page, it doesn't seem like it, but this episode of Succotash is the second longest we've done, clocking in at about an hour and forty minutes. Don't sweat it - it's FREE! (Although you shouldn't feel shy about A) Clicking our Donate button at our homesite, SuccotashShow.com; or B) rating and reviewing us up on iTunes. Or BOTH!) In the meantime, pass the Succotash!
– Marc Hershon
It's been another couple of weeks since I last posted a new epi of Succotash, so I hope you didn't forget about us! We’ve got a bunch of podcast clips in store for you in this – Epi67 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast.
I really appreciate you sticking around and downloading or streaming our show. The delay was kind of unavoidable – work has been crazy busy PLUS the computer I use for creating the episodes was damaged while I was on vacation. Fortunately (and coincidentally) past-and-future guest as well as friend-of-Succotash Dana Carvey wanted me to help him out with some writing on a project, so I bartered the job out in exchange for a spiffy new Mac to replace Fleegle, the official Succotash computer. (In memory of the first one, I am also calling the replacement Fleegle. It's not sentimental, it's just that all my files transferred over to the new one and it would be a hassle just to change its name…)
Honorary Associate Producer
I want to give a big shout out to our friend and avid listener Tyson Saner, who recently has been clipping some comedy podcasts that HE enjoys listening to and then passing the clips along to Succotash. We got a bunch of them from Tyson this show so I think I’m going to make him this episode's honorary associate producer. (It's probably temporary mainly because I think Tyson is about THIS close to launching his own podcast – at which point he won’t have any spare time left to cut clips for our show!) Thank you, Tyson, I really appreciate it.
Thanks, Charley!
Another friend of the show, Charley Miller, featured an interview that he did with ME back in April on a recent episode of his Random Variety Show podcast. And it wasn’t just an interview – this is a real tribute to our show. He plays a couple of classic Henderson’s Pants spots, played a clip of us clipping RVSP, and he even plugged I Hate People!, the business book I co-wrote a few years ago (which is still available online!) On top of all that wonderfulness, Charley dipped into his 1-year-old son’s college fund and kicked a very generous donation in through our Donate Button on the SuccotashShow.com website. So get up to http://RandomVarietyShow.com or iTunes or Stitcher or the PodGods network and give Charley’s episodes a listen. (You should also do like Charley did and feel free to donate a little bit to help us keep this podcast going!)
Those Great Succotash Recipes
One of my favorite features of our show is fast becoming the succotash recipes that appear at the very tail end of the show. The original idea came from Jabs at the Dhead Factor and Boganwood podcasts and it was fun to play an actual recipe for succotash after every show – I just grabbed the audio off of YouTube video where people were cooking the stuff. But after doing that for about 6 months, the well was running try. So I’ve been reaching out to some of the more creative comedy podcasters out there and asking them to record recipes. So far we’ve had Chef Eddie Vedder from the Tiny Odd Conversations podcast and Chef Terry with a Cajun recipe from the Don’t Quit Your Daycast podcast. This week’s episode features a recipe provided by Davian Dent over at the Bitter Sound Podcast through his Bitter Sound Cooking Class and Chef Matt Bubbles.
Chillpak Hollywood Hour
Even though we’ve been down for a couple of weeks, it seems our friends Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness over at the Chillpak Hollywood Hour podcast have been swamped and, although they’ve been very good about putting out their Monday episodes, they’ve been from the set of a new movie they’re producing, directing and acting in called The Ladykillers. As a result, they haven’t been mentioning Succotash, which is fine, but those have been the clips I’ve been playing here – when they mention our show, see? I guess we’ll just call the past couple of weeks a wash.
This Week In Comedy Podcasts
My latest review on Splitsider.com, for This Week In Comedy Podcasts LAST week, was The Jimmy Shubert Show. Veteran comic and actor, Jimmy Shubert has been around a while but only 2 episodes into the world of podcasting. And I’m going to interview Shubert on the next epi of Succotash, so how about that?
Boganwood Chronicles, Cont'd.
This show also features Episode 6 of Boganwood, the podcast mini-series out of Australia. Just before that rolls, there's more from an interview I had over Skype with the series' creator, Jason McNamara.
Double Dose O' Durst
Our Burst O' Durst segments have been piling up so in Epi67 we're running two - one towards the beginning and one in its usual spot near the end of the show.
The 10 Most Active Podcasts in The Stitcher Top 100 Comedy Podcasts
Here are the shows on Stitcher that shown the most movement - up OR down in the past week. Simple.
22. TalkS Hit with Eddie Ifft +9
42. Professor Blastoff +11
45. The Dana Gould Hour +66
50. Girl On Guy with Aisha Tyler +17
55. That American Life -16
63. The Champs with Neal Brennan & Moshe Kasher -25
66. The Black Guy Who Tips Podcast -15
70. The David Feldman Show -14
91. The Perfect 10 Podcast with Ralphie May & Lahna Turner +45
100. Yoshi Didn’t Podcast -16
THE CLIPS
The Dana Gould Hour
The funny and dark, or maybe it’s the darkly funny Dana Gould is back. I thought I was offline for a bit but he’s got me beat by a month. He has a better excuse – and I’m not telling tales out of school because he mentions it right in the opening to The Dana Gould Show – he was going through a divorce. When I saw him early in the summer, it was just getting started but now most of the hysteria is done with and he getting back to finding the funnier things in life. In this clip Dana and two of this episode’s guests – April Richardson and past Succotash guest Matt Weinhold – chat it up about ghosts in the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, which seques quite naturally into a discussion about cocaine. What?
The Perfect 10
Anyone familiar with Ralphie May’s comedy know that he’s got strong opinions about things. He’s not afraid of expressing them onstage and he’s definitely not afraid to jump into them on his podcast which he co-hosts with his wife, comedian Lahna Turner. It’s called the Perfect 10 and this week it jumped up into the Top 100 on Stitcher at #91, having leaped up 45 places since last week. In this clip, we discover that Ralphie not only doesn’t like wine very much but HATES the movie Sideways, that is all about wine and wine tasting and screwing. This clip precedes a visit that Lahna then makes to take a tour of a winery and to learn a little something about viticulture.
The Bitter Sound
The Bitter Sound podcast out of the UK is often a sort of audio experiment. Host Davian Dent likes bending sound and structure in interesting and – often – disturbing ways. In the spirit of the BBC over there, Davian’s recently concluded his second season of six shows and we have a clip from that last show where a friend has bought him something to commemorate the occasion.
Call Chelsea Peretti
Here is the first of the clips submitted by our buddy Tyson Saner. Tyson is not just an avid listener to podcasts but he’s a very supportive voice out there for a lot of shows – he’s constnatly retweeting stuff from not just Succotash but Chillpak Hollywood Hour, Combat Radio and others that he wants people to discover. I love this clip from Call Chelsea Peretti – a show we hadn’t gotten around to featuring yet – as Chelsea has guest Bill Burr on her podcast and you can tell they like mixing it up a bit.
Action Science Theater
We received a clip from Dan Bond, Brian Macken, and Dan Booth from their relatively new sketch-based podcast. The description on their website reads: “Action Science Theatre is a podcast in the style of a radio play, that mixes action, science, comedy and silly voices to create a welcome distraction from real life for 20 minutes or so. It is unquestionably the finest free online audio drama you can get without trying any others.” There’s a little bit of a feel of The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Superego and Illusionoid to the show – at least in the clip we have, but that’s not a bad thing at all.
Bertcast
We played a clip from the Bertcast – hosted by comedian Bert Kreischer – when he first launched about a year and a half ago. Our honorary associate producer Tyson Saner lets us revisit the Mancave this week when Bert lures Marc Maron out of the WTF garage on The Bertcast to get real about marriage, kids, drinking, as well as hopes and dreams.
Mission Log: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast
Tyson Saner comes through again with Mission Log: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast. It’s a one-of-a-kind thingeroo that I’d never heard of but is pretty interesting, especially if you’re into The Trek. It features Ken Ray and John Campion delving into EVERY episode of EVERY Star Trek TV series, recounting the plotlines and then delving into the character motivations, plot wrinkles and everything in-between. There’s a sense of humor to it, for sure, but this is for the true ST aficionado.
One Dollar Beer
Our next clip was sent in by Tommy Kay, one of the hosts of the One Dollar Beer podcast. Other hosts include Frost-T and Anthony Gunn. Tommy’s cover note says, "This is a snippet of our second episode entitled "Purple Lightsabers and White Women". It includes a clip from a segment where one of the hosts reveals some of his list of confessions and secrets that he never told anybody, along with reactions from the other hosts. Thank You." No, no - thank YOU, Tommy, for sending the clip in. Enjoy your first taste of One Dollar Beer…
There it is, Epi67 of Succotash, all neatly wrapped up and ready to pass along to your friends!
– Marc Hershon
Aloha! I was delayed getting Epi66 out because I was out of town in Hawaii for a vacation last week and pretty much technology free. Had a great time but it was one of those vacations that you need a vacation to recover from when you get back. Or I would have if it wasn't for the fact I knew that folks would be clamoring for their next helping of Succotash!
This episode marks that first time since we started over two and a half years ago that pretty much all the clips were sent in by comedy podcasters. I usually am out there, sweating in the cloud, harvesting clips myself so it was quite a treat to get back from vacation and find the TweetSack brimming over with sweet, sweet clippage.
The exception is this show's visit to the Chillpak Hollywood Hour, where Phil Leirness reveals to Dean Haglund the subject of a Skype call he and I had, along with confederate Taylor Ripley. We've begun the earliest stages of trying to put a new podcast network together. Too early to reveal much more than that, but the ball is rolling.
I love that my friends in the Pod Mafia - which is not a network but a closeknit bunch of podcasters who share information, visit each other's shows and do various favors for each other - have begun supply this show with our "post farewell" succotash recipes. For those hardy few listeners who venture past announcer Bill Heywatt's signature "Good-bye!" at the end of each show, I've been laying an Easter egg since the beginning of the year: The audio of recipes for succotash that I've been snipping off of YouTube. But I've cleaned out that pantry and need more fodder. This week the show is visited by Chef Terry, courtesy of Ed Wallick and his Don't Quit Your Daycast podcast, for a Cajun version of the popular Early American dish.
We continue to serialize Jason McNamara's Boganwood pod mini-series this week, with Episode 5. As we've been doing, that chapter is prefaced with a snippet of a conversation I had with "Jabs" about the origins of the show.
And, as is standard, we've got our two-minute Burst O' Durst provided by the waterboard of political comedy Will Durst.
THE 10 MOST ACTIVE SHOWS IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST
Here's the hottest action - up OR down - on Stitcher's Top 100 Comedy Podcast lineup:
35. SModcast >> FEaB +25
39. SModcast >> Edumacation +13
53. Who Charted? -15
59. Comedy Of The Week +15
71. If I Were You -30
77. Sex Squad +19
82. Superego +55
90. The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling +22
91. Harmontown +36
99. That American Life +102
SPLITSIDER
Over on Splitsider.com, you can find my review for This Week In Comedy Podcasts. I'm listening in on The Bugle podcast, co-hosted by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. You're probably aware that Oliver's been filling in on The Daily Show since early June, when host Jon Stewart took time off to direct a movie. I wanted to see if he was still showing up for the podcast gig and, indeed, he's managing to pull it off.
THE CLIPS
The Joey Medina Show
Joey Medina is a New York comedian right out of the Bronx. You may have seen him on The Original Latin Kings Of Comedy DVD or performing in clubs around the country. And he can be seen in the classic film Zombie Strippers. His podcast is episoding in the 60’s now – see, I’m making up verbs: episoding – and he alternates between interviewing comedians and porn stars. (It’s kind of amazing how often comedians with podcasts interview porn stars or strippers. Are there porn star podcasts where they interview comedians? Let me know.) The Joey Medina Show had jumped several HUNDRED places a couple of weeks ago to get into the Top 100 on Stitcher and, although it’s slid out of there this week, it’s still going strong. Here’s a slice from a recent epi where he asks guest Tessa Lane how she got into doing porn.
The Geek Generation
We got an email from our friend Rob Logan over at The Geek Generation podcast that reads: Hi, Marc! With the social media attention that Sharknado has been receiving, I thought your listeners might enjoy some exclusive audio from the sequel! And he sent along a clip from his and co-jhost Mike Volpe's Epi143 with that exclusive trailer.
Foster The Podcast
We got a clip in from comedian Justin Foster and his namesake podcast, now 20-something episodes in. He’s in LA, originally from Dallas, and sent along this note: Here's a clip from my podcast Foster the Podcast, the official show of comedian Justin Foster. Short, hilarious, and insane stories from some of the most interesting people I know. Missing kidneys, partying with navy seals, and getting fired by James Franco, are just a few of the stories you will hear every week. I’m not sure who his guest is in this clip, but it’s someone who got drunk from a little person pouring booze from a hut behind a bar somewhere, who then got arrested. The comic, not the midget.
An Idiot At Home
This show's pretty new – there have only been five or six episodes of An Idiot At Home – and it comes from host James Proudlock and permaguest Karl Stott over in Shotten Colliery in the UK. It’s a podcast that focuses on music AND comedy which, in the case, seems to be drawn from the news.
Positive Podcast
I appreciate Adam and Josh of the Positive Podcast sending a clip with a nice note: Hey saw your post on twitter here is a clip from episode 23: Testosterone Zone the latest episode of our podcast. Thanks for doing something like this love to get new listeners. We will shout you guys out next episode. Hope you Enjoy! That’s all great but Adam and Josh didn’t send along much information about their actual show. After a bit of digging, though, I think they’re from Chickopee, Massachusetts, and that their show bounces around between music and comedic commentary. In this clip they chatter on about public drunkenness.
Talking Rubbish
The show's last submitted clip comes via email from a husband-and-wife podcasting team, Eric and Stacey, who host Talking Rubbish. Their cover note into the TweetSack reads: Hello Succotash! Love the show (first heard of you on Podcasting101) and thought I'd try to get you a clip of our show "Talking Rubbish" with Eric and Stacey. This is from show 21 “Ballwater / the worst show ever”, its the very end of the show and I try to explain one of my many phobias (while drunk) to Stacey who ends up not being very supportive and just starts cry laughing. Hope its good enough to be on your show, Thanks! Eric Yes, Eric – congratulations! Your clip IS good enough for Succotash!
Epi 66, at just a hair over 57 minutes, may be the shortest episode we've done this year. Next week should be more robust but hey, for what you're paying, you're still getting a hell of a show! So get out there and pass the Succotash!
— Marc Hershon
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
