The twenty five Best Podcast Scenes Ever

The twenty five Best Podcast Gigs Ever

Photo illustration by Slate. Logos courtesy WTF, The Read, Welcome to Night Vale, and Radio Diaries. Sarah Koenig photo courtesy This American Life. Paul F. Tompkins photo by Barry Brecheisen/WireImage.

The best podcast scenes of all time? C`mon. How can you listen to ten years` worth of podcasts? Is something a podcast if it very first aired on terrestrial radio? How do you weigh a rambling, bordering on chaotic comedy call-in demonstrate against an exquisitely edited and produced meditation on the nature of distress and the power of hallucinogens?

We`ll give you our answers to those questions in one 2nd. But very first a word from our sponsor … just kidding. Very first, our case for why this unlikely task is worth attempting. Canons, so long as they are adaptable and expansive and ever evolving, are worthwhile things. They give you a sense of the possibilities of a form, a sense of what has (and hasn`t) been achieved. They give fresh artists in a medium places to embark, examples to learn from, accomplishments to improve upon.

But what is a podcast? For our purposes, a podcast is a lump of audio that was created at least in part for digital release. If it was created for traditional radio, too, that`s fine, so long as the creators also made it with podcasting in mind. Podcast purists, if such people exist, might object to the inclusion of radio heavyweights, but This American Life and The Best Demonstrate, to take two major examples, are, to our minds, superb podcasts as well as superb radio shows. And when you dig into the other entries on this list, you`ll find the distinction blurs. There are not only radio shows that have become podcasts, but podcasts that have become radio shows. We determined to throw them all in together. (We left out, however, any Slate podcasts–however we`re proud of our work in the medium, it felt unseemly to include them on this list.)

How exactly does one judge a cautiously crafted story that took weeks to report and put together but is only fifteen minutes long against a 90-minute two-man back-and-forth utter of digressions and absurdity with no real point? Well, you just do, basically. Which is better, The Simpsons or The Wire? I have no idea, but they`re both TV shows, and that`s a joy argument to have. When it comes to podcasts, we`re ten years into a vivid, crucial artistic medium. The time to have such arguments has arrived.

Here Be Monsters is part of a latest wave of cautiously produced, sonically sophisticated podcasts that tell surprising stories utter of first-person reporting and adventurous editing mechanisms. Jeff Emtman says he created the demonstrate in order to face his fears, and since the demonstrate began in 2012, it has had scenes about hate groups, Juggalos, and slug orgies, among many other topics. But its best gig, we think, is this one, in which Lauren Stelling talks to an old boss called Cherub who, grieving the death of her best friend`s daughter, travels to a rain forest near the equator to take Ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogen used by American Indian shamans. An interview with Cherub is surrounded by music, Icaro chants, and bird sounds; the effect is, well, trippy–but also remarkably moving.

On The Memory Palace, host Nate DiMeo tells brief historical stories that are always moving and humane. This individual scene mixes nostalgia and humor in ideal measures. DiMeo recalls his time living alone in the house in Providence, Rhode Island, where his grandparents raised their daughters and delves into the family archive, which is stashed in boxes across the home. Most of the material is from his grandfather`s nightclub, the Club Baghdad, where his grandparents met. DiMeo searches for a mythical, long-lost recording of the floor demonstrate at the Baghdad–a record he is coaxed will help his family come to terms with their trouble over losing his grandfather–and doesn`t find it. Instead, we hear two modern-day podcasters (Maximum Joy`s Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris) perform, in front of a live audience, comedy sketches that his grandfather wrote. It`s a consolation prize with a point: Even if some parts of the past are lost, there are others we can bring to life ourselves.

On State of the Re:Union, host Al Letson usually takes an excursion to a particular American community. On this gig, he violates from that format to introduce listeners to Bayard Rustin, the black, gay, Quaker pacifist who educated Martin Luther King in the principles of nonviolence and was the uncredited architect of the March on Washington. Rustin had an unconventional life that`s often omitted from histories of the civil rights movement, and the gig weaves together Letson`s musings on the meaning of Rustin`s work with clips from Rustin`s speeches and recorded interviews and, most moving of all, the voices with people who knew and were influenced by the man.

This early comedy podcast, distributed by the Guardian in two thousand five and 2006, had its roots in a radio showcase hosted by British writers and comedians Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Picking up on one of that demonstrate`s running bits, the podcast focused squarely on their erstwhile producer, Karl Pilkington, whose stubborn dimwittedness soon made him an Internet celebrity (and the subject of much terrible fan art). In this particular scene, Karl attempts to wash dishes without using his thumbs, says doctors should train people to give themselves guts exams, and shares his utter bafflement about the telling «a stitch in time saves nine.» Mostly it showcases the podcast`s signature dynamic: a disbelieving Gervais goading and mocking Karl, Merchant playing the supportive straight-man mediator, and Karl sitting at the center of it all, gloriously persistent and oblivious. For a long time, The Ricky Gervais Showcase was the most popular podcast in the world, and it introduced many people to the medium, showcasing them how funny and unexpected the format could be.

Hosts Kid Fury and Crissle anchor a weekly talk podcast that combines pop culture commentary, advice, and a weekly «read,» i.e., a cathartic rant deconstructing something that badly needs to be ripped apart. Fury, a blogger and YouTube personality, and Crissle, a writer, are friends with an effortless conversational chemistry. Read scenes, including this one, are liberate and chatty, featuring back-and-forth on ridiculous celebrities and their bad behavior, and at times reader mail; when Beyoncé astonished everyone with her December two thousand thirteen album Beyoncé, the hosts invited several friends on to simply share their instant, overcharged reactions. This installment features Crissle`s epic rant against what she calls «fuckboys,» feeble dudes of bad faith who betray, manipulate, and mess with women. «Fuckboys» has become a recurring Read watchword, as well as a useful meme.

Seven 2nd Delay, with hosts Ken Freedman and Andy Breckman, is a live radio showcase that is also available as a podcast. Each scene is faithful to an on-air stunt. Ken and Andy take calls, needle each other, and continuously pursue the given scene`s stunt premise, sometimes into the field of absurd unfunniness. Like Tom Scharpling`s The Best Display, also from WFMU, Seven 2nd Delay has accrued rabid fans and frequent callers. This particular gig`s stunt–Andy offers a princely sum to any kid who would bring a tooth into the studio by the end of the gig, instead of leaving it for the tooth fairy–completes in a suspenseful race to the finish line. Even among podcasts, the display feels amazingly liberate–and more than most podcasts, Seven 2nd Delay conveys a strong sense of place and community. It feels local, without being provincial.

Why are there so many podcasts dedicated to talking about bad movies? Is it because teenagers who loved Mystery Science Theater three thousand reached adulthood just as podcasting arrived? Whatever the reason, the best of them is The Flop House, hosted by two Daily Display writers, Elliott Kalan and Dan McCoy, and fellow comedian Stuart Wellington. The three have a ditzy, improv-informed treatment that suits well the idiocy they have generally just witnessed; many of their best moments come in ridiculous riffs that have nothing to do with the movie under discussion. The Tango & Cash scene is even more joyful than most, in part because Tango & Cash is a movie they actually like–it is what they call a «good bad movie,» i.e., an ideal topic for goofy, witty, delightful back-and-forth.

Producer and host Lea Thau`s demonstrate Strangers usually tells other people`s stories, but in this four-episode arc, Thau looks at herself, wondering why she has had trouble finding a fresh fucking partner after suffering a life-altering heartbreak. The entire thing is raw and vulnerable and thoughtful in ways that are uncommon in any medium. Scenes 1, Two, and Four, which feel in equal measures excruciating and revelatory, feature Thau talking to fellows she`s attempted to date since her breakup. In this third scene, she interviews two dating experts for advice. The very first conversation, with an «experienced» who doles out tired clichés, feels almost investigative: Thau doesn`t pull punches in questioning the author`s sexist conventional wisdom (however she is also very generous about things she thinks the supposed pro gets right). The 2nd, with a much more sympathetic interlocutor, is cathartic, as Thau ultimately opens up about the practice that left her a single mom.

This improv podcast hosted by Scott Aukerman has now logged more than three hundred scenes and boasts a ample cast of recurring characters (as well as a spinoff television showcase). The podcast illustrates how well character-based improv comedy works in an audio format: No costumes are necessary, and suspension of disbelief comes relatively lightly. Gig one hundred fifty (also one of Aukerman`s favorites, at least as of 2012) features seamless character work done by podcast regular Paul F. Tompkins and SNL`s Bobby Moynihan. Taking the personae, respectively, of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and the dangerous orphan Fourvel (like Fievel, but more «stabby»), Tompkins and Moynihan, aided by the always game Aukerman, spin a bizarre tale of adoption and murder. The «Time Bobby» concept turned out to be durable; the tale continued over two subsequent gigs of Comedy Bang Bang.

Mercedes Martinez and Zachary Kent had a plain but ambitious idea: Ask people to submit their phone numbers, solicit questions from listeners, and then randomly dial those numbers and ask whoever answers one of those questions (along with more general queries about, say, how his or her day is going). The results were necessarily uneven, but the moments of serendipity captured the intimity of podcasting like few other shows before or since. (Dial a Stranger is now sadly no more.) The gig «Life Savers» is a lovely example: Martinez and Kent ask five strangers, «Who saved your life?» Here`s the gig description in iTunes: «Julie was saved by Zach, Virgil was saved by his daughter, Melissa was saved by her step-mom, Angela was saved by her hubby, and Dahlia was saved by her mother.» Don`t you want to hear those stories?

Adam Kempenaar and Sam Van Hallgren embarked Filmspotting in 2005, when podcasting was just getting off the ground. (It was called Cinecast at very first and took the current name in 2006.) Over time, they established a reliably entertaining format: a review of a fresh film; then a self-consciously amateurish recitation of a classic movie scene, with listeners asked to identify the movie in question via email; then a top-five list, ranging from the «Top five Movies About Movies» (Gig 1) to the «Top five Movie Manimals» (Gig 507). They key to the demonstrate`s suffering success, however, is not the format so much as the tone: earnest, informed, self-deprecating, and conversational. Van Hallgren, now a producer of the demonstrate, turned co-hosting duties over to Matty Robinson, who in turn transferred the reins to Josh Larsen in 2011. Each, along with Kempenaar, has sustained the showcase`s friendly enthusiasm and sultry loyalty to fresh and classic movies, best exhibited, we think, on the three hundred th scene blowout, in which the hosts picked not just the top five but the top twenty films of the very first decade of the twenty one st century.

I embarked listening to the Savage Lovecast right about the same time that I came out, so advice columnist Dan Savage`s weekly doses of hookup and relationship guidance and liberal polemic has been a constant companion for literally all of my sexual life. A particularly fine example of the Lovecast is Gig 109, which was recorded just after the passage of California`s anti-gay Proposition 8. Savage starts the program with one of his typical political rants, but with added passion given the news–he offers the Mormon church a generous «fuck you» for their efforts, noting that «when political attacks are launched from churches, political responses will be delivered to churches.» He then moves on to listener questions, a trademarked balance inbetween poignant relationship worries and comically specific sexual issues (like one caller`s «smelly dick»). Then, as usual, the showcase finishes with listener comments, which this time concentrate on responses to Prop 8; it feels like a cathartic group therapy session. And that feeling of community, of not being alone with your fears or problems or disappointments, is why I keep tuning in all these years later. –Bryan Lowder

The Big black cock Radio four showcase Soul Music investigates the emotional resonance of famous chunks of music. This installment, about the song «Don`t Leave Me This Way,» which was very first performed in the early 1970s by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, with Teddy Pendergrass on vocals, features a trio of interwoven segments about death, loss, and faith. The scene connects the stories of Pendergrass, who was paralyzed in a car accident at age 42; the gay community in the U.K., which danced to a remix version of the tune while mourning the loss of friends during the AIDS crisis; and Sharon Wachsler, homebound by illness, who turned to the song during dark times. The song itself, heard in its different recordings via the scene, gains layers of meaning, becoming more haunting and beautiful each time we hear it.

Nick van der Kolk`s Love + Radio is a podcast pioneer, taking the individual storytelling and high-quality production you might associate with This American Life into realms more risqué and even raunchy than you`re likely to find on public radio (however some scenes have, in fact, aired on public radio). The display has done scenes about a Detroit man running a de-robe club in his home and a woman who performed in balloon fetish movies, among many other subjects, winning numerous awards in the process. There are several gigs we might have chosen, but we like this early one, which tells stories about secrets, including one about the then fairly fresh PostSecret project.

At the commence of this gig of the long-running, cult-favorite call-in showcase, musician Aimee Mann, a regular guest, takes a call from her fan «`80s Rick.» «Ms. Mann,» he starts, «I desired to say that I indeed loved what we did in my desire last night.» Before host Tom Scharpling can stop the caller, phrases like «a wire feather duster» and «burnt urine» creep out among an explosion of bleeps. The rest of this gig is just as off-the-rails, taking the form of a bizarro holiday party. Tom and guest John Hodgman gulp Four Loko, while a sober John Roderick looks on in disbelief. Unlike the colorful malt liquor drink, the fresh incarnation of The Best Showcase won`t be missing essential ingredients. –Andrea Silenzi

Choosing a single gig of Welcome to Night Vale is difficult, since one of the display`s greatest strengths is the long-term world-building it`s done over its fifty seven gigs. Created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, Night Vale is a sprawling fictional series narrated by an unnamed radio host set in a petite town located at the diabolical nexus of all things sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. What makes the pilot particularly notable, then, is the confidence and certainty with which it presents this world from the very beginning. Hopping straight into such a fully realized, high-concept world of cosmic horror from the word go is no effortless feat, but this gig somehow manages it with poise. –Chris Wade

The Moth began organizing live storytelling events in 1997. Eleven years later, they began turning recordings of those stories into podcasts. Few are as heartrending and eloquent as the one told by Mike DeStefano in 2007, which was released as a podcast in 2009. DeStefano, a comedian who died of a heart attack in 2011, talks about his life with Fran, whom he met in rehab when he was attempting to kick heroin. Fran was diagnosed with AIDS after they commenced dating and before they got married. When she was in a hospice, shortly before her death, he bought the Harley-Davidson they`d always dreamed and took her on a rail. «I always imagined the wind on a bike making you feel free, you know?» DeStefano says. «It`s so powerful. For ten minutes we were normal, and that wind just blew all the death off of us. … Nothing I`ll ever do will be that grand.»

The Dead Authors series, recorded live, features host Paul F. Tompkins–a podcast savant whose own Pod F. Tompkast also threatened to make this list–in the character of H.G. Wells. The conceit of the showcase is that Wells has whisked deceased favorites to the present day in his time machine. The authors, played by other comedians, submit to interviews, with varying results. James Adomian`s Walt Whitman is the best of the bunch. Never cracking character, Adomian responds to every question from Tompkins` courtly Wells with a stream of Whitmanic prose. He stays in cadence, sticking with Whitman`s themes, spouting forward grandiose and nonsensical catalogs, only uncommonly finding himself at a loss for words. It`s a flawlessly sideways interpretation of the poet`s signature style.

Radiolab, like This American Life, is a gateway podcast, hooking listeners with a rich, 13-season back catalog of gigs that stand the test of time. «Space» was one of the very first Radiolabs to have been produced during the podcast era, and the gig brings together many of the elements that make people love the display: interviews with a diverse slate of voices, scientists as well as artists and authors; an intriguing soundtrack («Radiolab space gig music» is a Google search autofill); and, above all, an intelligent probing of the human, emotional aspects of an essential scientific topic. The most indelible part of the gig is the interview with Ann Druyan, widow of Carl Sagan. She tells the story of the pair`s collaboration on the «Golden Record» sent with the Voyager probes, a job they embarked as colleagues and finished as paramours.

Some 99% Invisible scenes make me covet a visual supplement. (What did the lost walled city of Kowloon look like?) But in this scene, Roman Mars` beloved short-form design podcast asks how sound designers make «organic sounds for inorganic things.» The clicks, sproings, and clatters that sound engineer Jim McKee demonstrates for Mars are the background noise of everyday life for people who use digital devices. The scene singles these sounds out for analysis and deconstructs their origin, a classic 99% treatment that works beautifully. You may find yourself looking toward your phone several times during the scene`s five-minute run, thinking you`ve received a text–a weird overlap of podcast and life that makes the scene`s point flawlessly.

The four-part Xxx History series on the Eastern Front of World War II is almost five hours long. And that`s brief for a Xxx History «scene.» The demonstrate`s fall of Rome arc, «Death Throes of the Republic,» clocks in at thirteen hours. The subject matter of «Ostfront» lets host Dan Carlin do what he does best: paint vivid pictures of a terrible time in history. Walking listeners through Operation Barbarossa, the German attempt to capture Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, and Germany`s ouster from the Soviet Union, Carlin is a wide-eyed, colorful guide to a dreadful story.

Have you heard about Serial? It`s pretty good. It`s so good, in fact, that there are podcasts about this podcast–and its success has helped to create momentum for the entire medium. That has happened in part because, by telling a true story over twelve gigs of harshly forty five minutes each, and continuing to report that story as they go, the producers of Serial have created something genuinely fresh and expanded people`s notions of what podcasts can do. It helps, of course, that the story they`re telling, about the murder of a youthfull woman in Baltimore in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine and the questionable conviction of her ex-boyfriend for the crime, is instantaneously gripping. But more significant is the care with which they tell that story, from the reporting, to the music, to the eloquent but conversational narration by host Sarah Koenig. And it`s all there in Gig 1, «The Alibi,» which is now one of the most downloaded podcasts ever made.

This two thousand ten scene of Radio Diaries was rebroadcast this year after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the ensuing protests. The display uses long-lost historical audio to tell the story of the lynching in Marion, Indiana, that inspired poet Abel Meeropol to write the song «Strange Fruit.» The producers juxtapose voices of the witnesses who stood by while a crowd hanged the black teenagers Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith on Aug. 7, 1930, with a one thousand nine hundred ninety four interview with James Cameron, who slightly escaped being the third victim. The host, Joe Richman, makes minimal interventions after setting the initial scene, leaving a historian, those eyewitnesses, and Cameron`s stable voice–«I was pleading for some kind of grace, looking for a kind face»–to speak for themselves.

This gig about the two thousand eight financial crisis was a collaboration inbetween NPR News and This American Life, a weekly public radio display that has become the 800-pound gorilla of podcasting. It spurred, in turn, the creation of Planet Money, an excellent NPR podcast about business and economics. The hourlong gig traces the collapse of the housing market to its earliest roots and is incredible for its capability to make complicated financial topics entirely understandable. Wondering about a mortgage-backed security? A collateralized debt obligation? A subprime mortgage? Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson explain all of this with ease. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better synopsis of what brought down the economy in two thousand eight anywhere. –Alison Griswold

“I never truly thought of it as an interview. It was very significant to me that he and I attempt to repair our friendship and figure out how to do that.”

Older gigs of WTF are generally behind a paywall, but to mark this occasion Maron has re-released the two-parter as a single scene.

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