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Succotash

Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, was launched 12 years ago (April, 2011) with the idea of promoting comedy soundcasts in what was then a marketplace still trying to find its way. By featuring short clips of shows being produced by funny folks both known and unknown, we like to feel that we maybe had a little tiny, eeny weeny, itsy bitsy bit to do with helping to ignite the torch of soundcasts across the globe! (But then we've always had a rather high opinion of ourselves...)

Original show host and executive producer Marc Hershon, along with co-host Tyson Saner, booth announcer Bill Heywatt, engineer/producer Joe Paulino, musical director Scott Carvey, and booth assistant Kenny Durgis have been keeping the flame alive o'er these many years.

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  2. Succotash Clips Epi136: Clippin' Like There's No Tomorrow

Jul 31, 2016

Can it be? Yes! It’s me! Marc Hershon, your host and SPF30 sunscreen for Epi136 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast. We’re back once again with a Succotash Clips episode, with an installment jam-packed with fresh clippage.

A couple of things before we get into the meat of this show…

NOT CLIPS

First of all, I’m thinking of starting a campaign to change the generic name of “podcast” to “soundcast”. There are three trademarks in the US for soundcast but two of them are for audio equipment and the third is for a teleconferencing service. So if we all start using soundcast now to describe the podcast experience, there’s a good chance we can keep it in the public domain. (We’ve talked on the show before about how the podcast name was coined around the iPod from Apple, a device that is no longer even produced. And it will do away with the even more awkward “video podcast” which isn’t really even a thing – the video folks can just have videocasts if they want that for a name.)

Secondly, it looks like I’ll be participating in an upcoming celebration of the 40th anniversary of Spaghetti Jam in San Francisco. Spaghetti Jam was an early improv group/pickup game where pretty much any of the San Francisco-based improvisers at the time could drop in, including folks like Robin Williams, Jim Crenna, Lorenzo Matawaran, Michael Bossier, John Elk, Debi Durst, and a whole bunch of others, including yours truly. Well, we’re getting what’s left of the Jam back together for one night. On Sunday, September 11th, we’ll be at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. For more info, Check out the Spaghetti Jam page on Facebook. 

And finally, I’m also beginning to get prepared for this year’s 5th Annual Los Angeles Podcast Festival. Last episode I had a brief interview with Chris Mancini, co-host of the Comedy Film Nerds podcast and co-organizer of the LA Podfast. And in that talk we mentioned that I will be on-hand to moderate the Podcast And Journalism panel, which is going to be great fun. It’s going to be on at 2 PM on Sunday, and the panelists include Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer from the Criminal podcast and Jefferson Graham of USA Today.

All right, that’s about me. Now let’s get to the good stuff.

For Succotash Clips this time around, we’ve for snippets from Big Question, Comedy Film Nerds, Fake The Nation, Here We Are, Monday Morning Podcast, Psycho Pshow, WTF and the most recent entrant into the Podcast Graveyard to date — the Taco Tuesday Podcast, our buddies in Killeen, Texas, who decided to shut it down just this week with their 100th episode.

Add to that a double dose of our Burst O’ Durst segment with political comedian and social commentator Will Durst, whose been all over the Republicant and Democrap Conventions the past couple of weeks, a brand new spot from Henderson’s Pants and we will toss in a little closing ditty from friend-of-Succotash Abner Serd.

CLIPS

WTF
I’m reviewing the episode out this week of WTF with Marc Maron, who has Jane Lynch in the garage as his guest. I think she’s hilarious and she also seems pretty level-headed and decent as a person. In this sample from the show, she’s talking about hoW she first met director and comic/actor, Christopher Guest, then later ended up in his Best In Show movie.

Big Question
Our next clip comes from the Big Question podcast and was submitted directly to us through our direct upload link. The note that accompanied it tells us a bit about the show and goes a little something like this: “Saw your requests for submissions on Twitter and figured that we’d throw our collective hats in the ring. The Big Question podcast has been in operation for slightly over a year and brings a weekly dose of no holds barred comedy and discussion. The four regular hosts are joined by a ever-changing collection of guests where we discuss a mass of topics from having sex with David Cameron for money (epi 2) to flatmates cleanliness problems (epi 33) to the inner workings of gay culture with our regularly occurring friend Rocchi." 

Comedy Film Nerds
The other chief source for our clips here on Succotash Clips is our noble Associate Producer Tyson Saner. From his lair in an undisclosed location somewhere where in the northern reaches of California, Tyson is constantly slicing and dicing delectable chunks of podcast goodness. We have several he’s cooked up this week and the first is from the aforementioned Comedy Film Nerds podcast, hosted by Chris Mancini and Graham Elwood. It's from from epi317 back in April, and features guest Geoff Tate.

Monday Morning Podcast
Another show I reviewed for Splitsider this week was the Monday Morning Podcast with Bill Burr. What a funny guy Burr is. And I admire his ability to just hold a mic and freeball his way through an hour without a co-host, a sidekick, or any other sort of production elements. I mean, he can’t read a spot worth a damn but, other than that, he’s on a level that includes Greg Proops and maybe Greg Fitzsimmons back when he occasionally didn’t have a guest. Get up to Splitsider.com if you want to read my review and here’s a snippet from the episode I reviewed, where Bill’s talking about Rudy Guilliani and cops.

Psycho Pshow
Tyson sliced us off a hunk of the Psycho Pshow – both of those words start with “P”, by the way, hence their tagline, “The World’s Worst Named Podcast – which is hosted by VJ, Chaidez and Toly. (No idea if I’m pronouncing those names right, by the way. Except maybe VJ because, really, how can you screw up initials?) I don't even try to describe the conversation in this 5-minute clip. I think they maybe were driving or walking somewhere while they were recording it. I can’t even tell.

Fake The Nation
There’s a new US comedy panel show that revolves around politics and current events. It’s called Fake The Nation and is hosted by Negin Farsad. Every episode she has a couple of comedically-inclined guests to help her comb through the nit and the grit of American and international politics. I mentioned Episode 3 this past week on Splitsider, when the talk was mostly about the political conventions and her guests were Dean Obeidallah and Nato Green.

Here We Are
Comedians are just curiosity seekers like the rest of us. I mean, with podcast such as Professor Blastoff (may it rest in peace), The Infinite Monkey Cage, Talk Nerdy and many others, the hosts are often comics just looking for answers. Tyson clipped us off some of the Here We Are show, hosted by comedian Shane Mauss. And in his Epi77, Shane talks up music and psychology with guest Daniel Levitin, who is a cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, best-selling author, musician and record producer.

Taco Tuesday
This past week saw some friends-of-Succotash toss in the virtual towel. Podcast Dan, Adam Wolf and Dave In The Cave over at the Taco Tuesday podcast hung up their mikes. They managed to hang in for their centennial, Epi100, but some siutations with their physical studio space as well as what they perceived as low listenership, finally decided them on closing up shop. Normally we wait until a show’s been in the ground for a year or more before we feature it in the Podcast Graveyard, and I have a feeling these guys will be back in one configuration or another. But for now, we feature — literally — the last few minutes of the podcast that was Taco Tuesday.

Tall Tales & Shaggy Dogs (The May Bee Song)
So I got a note from our favorite acapella song stylist, Abner Serd, host of the Tall Tales & Shaggy Dogs podcast. Abner says, “Hi Marc - A few months ago, I tagged you in a song called 'Reflections on a Snowflake,' while acknowledging that it didn't pack as much humor as some of the others. Same goes for this one - it's all yours if you decide to use it, but I understand if it doesn't quite fit. Here is my latest little ditty, called The May Bee Song.”

In closing, I did something this week that I don't think I've done since Succotash kicked off over 5 years ago, and that is take a long, hard look at our download numbers.

Guess what? They suck!

I mean, they're not horrible but they're not the kind of numbers that advertisers drool over. So if I can infringe on your delicate sensibilities to PLEASE get up to iTunes in good haste and give Succotash a 5-star rating and a few sentences of a glowing reviews, I will promise to redouble my efforts to churn out this show on a regular, weekly basis. But it's going to take a team to pull this off, otherwise we might just have to go the way of our friends at Taco Tuesday, bust a gum machine, and get the hell out of here...

— Marc Hershon