Comedy Podcasts: your suggestions please

xps no guests just extensive clowning with audience members

this is the hollywood handbook thread now

love the HH/scharpling/hamburger men dynamic on last week's ep. i do wonder what regular HH listeners who don't listen to the best show think of tom scharpling.

if there was like a 10-ep primer that would work, that would be cool, but I really don't have the patience to listen to like 60 hours of pod to get a joke

i don't think you need to know the best show to enjoy scharpling on HH but he is playing more of a character (or at least an exaggerated version of himself) on HH

yeah Scharpling has his own character arc on Hollywood Handbook, I'm not a Best Show person.

I should make a list of ten episodes from the archive to give people a fighting chance of getting into the show. You'd need to fire up a stitcher premium trial.

You know, where in the world did Jason Mantzoukas come from? He's almost 50, but he seems to have hit his stride only in the past 10 years or so. I want to know about Mantzoukas, the missing years. Like, I learned he dated Connie Britton!

Google around and you can even find him without a beard, which is a trip.

I know he went to high school with Jessica St. Clair and they both came out to make it in Hollywood at the same time

or maybe it was college who knows

so comedy bang bang 10th anniversary ep is 10 hours long

only if you pay for stitcher

Yes, it's five hours and fifteen minutes with the ads in

5 hr part 1 and 5 hr part 2 if you don't

gah TEN hours and fifteen minutes

i like this:
https://www.plosive.co.uk/why-is-your-bottom-so-dirty

lol. The latest Hollywood Handbook pro-version is 11 hours long.

omg

ha ha ha amazing

i'm afraid to ask but is there actually 11 hours of content?

don't want to spoil anything but the episode may or not be a normal 30 min pro-version followed by 10 and a half hours of snoring/ambient music.

Anyone hear today's ep yet?

https://www.earwolf.com/episode/stephen-malkmus-our-pavement-friend/

of Hollywood Handbook

Does anyone still listen to HH? This week's episode is hilarious.

I do but haven’t heard this weeks yet

they're on Magic Tavern this week

Yes always! last week’s w/jesse farrar had that awkward majesty i love the boys so much for

great hollywood handbook today, though it's mostly scharpling's show. his "richard nixon doing improv" scene was amazing.

i love hh but have yet to enjoy a scharpling episode maybe this will be the one

25th time's the charm

is it even worth trying to get into HH for a complete newbie? if so, how? key eps? just pick up with the latest and inevitably miss many recurring jokes for awhile? I'm a CBB guy and have dabbled with other somewhat related Earwolf shows but missed the initial boat on HH and it has seemed intimidating to jump in

they do describe the show on their website as "a podcast that only takes 15-20 episodes to get." when hayes was on the best show a couple of weeks ago they agreed that the kumail ep is a good starting place but that's behind the paywall now. there was a "best of" episode at one point too, but that was several years ago. the ron funches episode recently was intended to be the intro for new people, or that was the premise, but it's not an amazing ep imo.

going back, maybe the andy daly episode if you've listened to other earwolf stuff? it's heavily based on references to other podcasts but that's a common theme

Yeah the Andy Daly one is a good call for eps currently outside the paywall

unfortunately, the ones i'd go to first are probably behind the paywall at this point. the episode where they play a late-period george carlin bit and joe mande has to pass it off as his is absolute all-time.

Andy Daly is a marquee CBB guest for me and love most of his characters so that sounds like a promising way in for this listener at least!

although maybe not the best place to start because you probably need some knowledge of the show history, "the masked engineer" episode of HHB is at least execution and concept-wise a masterpiece.

guys HH is not hard to "get"

ime it takes about 2-5 minutes to know whether these guys are for you. it's not The Wire

it took me 2-5 min to realise the wire was for me tbh

ok good point

Tbf, and I’m pretty sure I posted this somewhere, I’m definitely closer to that 15-20 episodes to get it demo HH talks about, although it wasn’t thaaaat many episodes.

The "mythology" of a lot of these podcasts is pretty imposing at this point. Even seemingly innocuous or straight-ahead podcasts like Are You Talking REM Re:Me go down so many rabbit holes, they just can't help themselves.

I listened to an episode or two of "How Did This Get Played" (about bad video games) and I'm on the fence. So many podcasts either veer to the radically, indulgently surreal (like Comedy Bang Bang) or embrace an obnoxious Morning Zoo vibe.

Haven't read it yet, but here's a new story about high profile figures jumping into podcasts:

https://variety.com/2019/digital/features/podcast-boom-conan-o-brien-gimlet-spotify-luminary-1203306477/

that Joe Mande-Carlin episode was the first HH I heard, probably a good entrance. I could tell there were some in-jokes (like the Chef Kevin stuff) but it's pretty straightforward. I couldn't figure whether some things were jokes or not: the impending cancellation talk, advertisers being mad about the ad-reads, guests not knowing the format of the show, etc.

another classic one that is unfortunately behind the paywall is sean and hayes commenting on their own terrible live appearance at comiccon

getting cancelled is a joke, mad advertisers and guests not knowing the format are not jokes (though they've gotten better at cutting down on uninformed guests in recent years, that was more of a problem early on)

the comiccon episode is where i got on board

Even seemingly innocuous or straight-ahead podcasts like Are You Talking REM Re:Me go down so many rabbit holes, they just can't help themselves.

tbf it was 47 months before the first episode of R U Talkin' REM Re: Me? that they switched to a deliberate rabbit-hole format

I was able to enjoy the insane rabbit holes and lack of actual discussion on U Talkin' U2 To Me? because I don't care all that much about U2. As an REM stan I couldn't listen to Talkin REM because it was obvious that Adam is a megafan and I actually wanted to hear some discussion of the music? Can't believe it's gone on this long tbh though, maybe they found a groove and I should check it out again (though I don't expect that particularly criticism to change)

important bulletin if you like Hollywood Handbook and/or Doughboys you'll be glad to learn that Chef Kevin and Yusong now have their own pcast called Maybe Don't which is very charming

there's loads of megafan discussion of the music on Talkin' REM, but they rarely mention the band at all in the first 45-60 minutes of an episode

if you enjoyed the "college girls / t-shirts" runner in the main sequence of U2 episodes, then [SPOILER] you should be pleased by the last few REM episodes, in which half of R.E.M. have separately agreed to reform the band and play Scott's backyard barbecue.

they do talk about the music a decent amount on the REM podcast but basically scott doesn't know any of the albums after like monster or automatic for the people and adam is very inarticulate. every song is "amazing" and "incredible"

Making it through that first 45-60 minutes can be a struggle