Dec 28, 2021
For the final time in 2021, dear listener, hello from me, your every-other-weekly host Marc Hershon. Since you downloaded or are streaming this, you’re probably not surprised that you are listening to Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, and this is Episode 285, our last installment of the year.
Did you miss last week’s penultimate episode of the year, #284? With our co-host Tyson Saner? It’s not too late to flag it down and shove it into your ears. He featured a quartet of clippery from such soundcasts as Web Crawlers, Triple Click, No Dogs in Space, and How Did This Get Made? You can grab it from any number of popular podcast download and streaming destinations, including Apple & Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, the Audible app, YouTube or our favorite haunt – namely, this show’s homesite – SuccotashShow.com
I was thinking of doing some kind of countdown for this year-end episode but having already contributed to Vulture.com’s This Year in Comedy Podcasts countdown reviews – you can read my write-up on Smartless, which came in at No. 9 – I feel like I’ve already slogged through a bunch of shows. Instead, I’ve plucked four clips from shows that really don’t have much to do with one another. They’re not all even necessarily comedy soundcasts but they are entertaining as hell. And I don’t believe we’ve ever featured any of them before. Hang on for samplings from Film Threat, Hysteria, Majoring in Everything, and You’re Wrong About. Our last show of the year is appropriately sponsored by Henderson’s Pants timely Auld Lang Slacks.
Reflecting back on the year – the second year in which the COVID pandemic has become a regular participant in everyone’s lives, either directly or indirectly – I’m curious to see if we here at Succotash - Tyson, Bill Heywatt, Joe Paulino, and the rest of the staff that keep this dreadnought trundling along – should be looking to change anything to increase the interest in or the enjoyment of the show. COVID kicked us in the rear and got us to finally make Succotash a regular weekly show, dropping pretty much every Tuesday. And although we’re still describing ourselves as “the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast”, both Tyson and I have wandered a bit afield from that in our choice of clips to feature. The shows are roughly a half-hour now, except when there’s an interview, which tends to go a bit longer. And we’re still sponsor-free, with the exception of our fake benefactor, Henderson’s Pants.
So what do YOU think? Are you happy with what you’re getting for free here? Do you want more clips per show? Less clips? More interviews? More commercials (yeah, right!) We also have a Patreon page waiting in the wings that you would be able to get some kind of bonus content and also help to support the show – should we fire that up? Do you want Succotash merch? Personal appearances? Our ATM PIN numbers? Just let us know. You can email either of us at marc@SuccotashShow.com or tyson@SuccotashShow.com. You can ping us on the socials @SuccotashShow on both Twitter and Instagram. Or you can call the Succotash Show & Runaway Truck Ramp Hotline, at 1-818-921-7212. However you want to reach out, we’d love to hear what you think of the show as we head for our 11th year of soundcasting, and how we can make things better or, at least, different.
Okay. ‘Nuff said, Let’s launch into this Farewell to 2021 passel of clips, shall we?
CLIPS
Film Threat
The
first clip comes from a show hosted by an old friend of
Succotash, Chris Gore. He
used to host a show called PodCRASH, in which he featured
himself guesting on other people’s soundcasts that he would turn
around and play on HIS show. But Chris’s first love was as the
publisher and editor of Film Threat magazine years ago, a
great alternative look at movies and the film business, which went
through a number of ups and downs and it went out of publication
but Chris then resurrected it as a website and soundcast. Our clip
comes from the Film Threat episode that dropped last week
on December 20, in which Chris and his guests discussed
Isolation, an anthology of nine tales of terror focused on
people in isolation as they attempt to survive a deadly global
outbreak. Sound familiar? Chris’ guests are filmmakers Nathan Crooker and Larry Fessenden and, in this clip,
they talk about how the project came about and how they started
putting it together.
Hysteria
The
next show I also clipped from last week – an episode of
Hysteria, with co-hosts Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco. Erin is a
political commentator and comedy writer, while Alyssa is a formar
White House Deputy Chief of Staff. The description of the show on
their homesite says that they are joined by a “bicoastal squad of
funny, opinionated women to talk through everything from
reproductive rights to romcoms.” Last week, in their episode
entitled, “Love Me, It’s Christmas!”, the hosts teamed up with
comedian/actress/writer Naomi
Ekperigin, and comedian Megan Gailey to delve into “all of
the wonderful, insane, problematic, magical, batshit holiday movie
tropes.” The clip has them sifting through the Lifetime holiday
move, The Christmas Setup, a love story featuring two gay
male characters (played by a real-life gay male couple), and a
movie mom portrayed by Fran
Drescher. There’s a taste of Hysteria,
which you can find pretty much everywhere soundcasts are found. You
can also find your way to their homesite by clicking through to our
homesite, SuccotashShow.com, and then finding and clicking on the
Hysteria title in our blog post for this
episode.
Majoring In
Everything
Are
you one of those people who probably doing TOO many things in your
life and having trouble focusing on how to put everything in
perspective? Andrea Jones-Rooy not only has
a Ph.D. after her name but she is also the host of Majoring In
Everything, a soundcast that is “for people who don’t know
what to do with their lives because they are interested in too many
thing, and especially things that seem unrelated,” according to the
show’s descriptor. Her guest in the show’s third episode, which
dropped a couple of weeks ago, entitled “How science and stories
will save the world, featuring Dr. Moiya McTier!” She is described
as an astrophysicist, folklorist, science communicator, and
all-around hero. In our clip, Dr. McTier talks about how she like
to trick people into learning, and how to teach yourself in sort of
the same way.
You’re Wrong About
Journalist Sarah Marshall has an
obsession with the past. Particularly those events and people in
that past that have gotten kind of a raw deal as far as how people
think about them nowadays. So she like to deep dive her way into
those topics with a guest and try to see if there a straighter
story to be told. Most recently, in an episode of her soundcast,
You’re Wrong About, entitled “Winter Book Club: The
Amityville Horror with Jamie Loftus”,
Sarah tells her guest host, Loftus (who is also soundcasting on
Aack Cast, The Bechdel Cast, and My Year in
Mensa) about The Amityville Horror. Is it a haunted or just
big and drafty? And how the tale is a Christmas story! Our clip
gets into how the book differs from the movie and how that can make
quite a difference.
That metallic squealing you can imagine I’m hearing right now is me scraping the bottom of the barrel because I’m out of clips. And just like that, the ball drops for this most recent year of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. As long as you’re probably putting the finishing touches on your New Year’s Resolution, why not pop a note in there to download and listen to this show each and every week of 2022? Heck, go one step further and vow that you’re going to rate and review Succotash on Apple and Google Soundcasts. Why not? It’s free! It’s fun! And I’m begging!
Much like I’m begging you to check back in this very same feed next week for Succotash Epi286 when Tyson Saner returns with some more tasty soundcasts tidbits for you in the just-born new year. Do it to it. As the executive producer of this endeavor, I want to give a great big thanks to Tyson for being on this journey with me. We’re not making any money off this project and I greatly appreciate him putting in so much time and effort to craft his episodes.
Dear listener, I am wishing you a happy, safe, and reasonably sane 2022. With the Omicron variant raging right now, please take extra care during those New Year’s Eve shindigs. Mask up, vaxx up, and treat people better than you have in the previous year. And, just in case anyone should have to ask you if you have heard anything good lately, won’t you please pass the Succotash?
— Marc Hershon