Succotash Epi352: Last Clips Before Hiatus
Apr 18, 2023
Can you feel it, listener? I can. I can feel it. The warm, sultry breeze of our impending Succotash hiatus is gently wafting around the next bend in our feed. I’m your every-other-weekly-host Marc Hershon and welcome to Episode 352, which I’m calling “Last Clips Before Hiatus” because, well, it’s our second-to-last episode before we take a break BUT the last one in which we’ll be featuring clips. I’ll tell you more about what our LAST show before jump the tracks is going to be like toward this end of this blog entry but, for now, let’s share this time together as just another in the long lines of Succotash episodes where we feature clips from other comedy soundcasts across the internet.
Before I get to what I have in store for you, let’s recall what
Epi351, Tyson Saner’s final solo hosting
episode before the break, was like last week. His was the first
episode to officially enter our 12th year of
soundcasting. We started in April of 2011 so Tyson got the glory
and the honor of being the first of us to break the tape on year 12
with “The Penultimate Pre-Hiatus Show”, which featured clips from
comedy soundcasts Holidays After Dark, What Went
Wrong, and Bit Weird But Fair Enough (I Guess).
Tyson wrapped up that episode with a very sincere thanks and
farewell for now and I think you’ll get a great deal out
of listening to that installment of the show.
As for me, I’m intending to go out with
this show as it was originally conceived: By featuring a collection
of clips from soundcasts that we’ve not featured before. Sure,
we've occasionally dipped back into the same pool now and again to
feature some faves – but our overall design and intent has been to
bring you what’s fresh and new, at least our ears and quite
possibly yours. Bearing that in mind, I have clips from
Literally with Rob Lowe, a new sitcom soundcast called
Popcorn For Dinner, and a show from across the Pond in
England – a well-regarded standby there called Always Be
Comedy. Since this will be our last opportunity to do so for
awhile, I’m going to feature an audio essay from comedian and
friend of the show Dan St. Paul, from his
Slices blog, entitled “Slave to the
Machines”.
This lovely cavalcade of clippage is brought to you, as always, by
Henderson’s Pants and their new Bottoms Up Cargo Pants, a recent
introduction designed by our own announcer, Bill Heywatt, for that
discriminating boozehound on the go.
As I said, toward the end of this episode I let you know what’s in
store for the final-final episode next week, as well as a few
wrap-up thoughts from my brain and my heart as we hit our
12th year anniversary.
CLIPS
Is there more of a consummate celebrity in the entertainment world
today than Rob Lowe? He’s an actor who has
created an indelible brand for and of himself, he’s never really
had any controversy around him, and he’s basically a Hollywood
homegrown talent who’s been around since he was a kid. A few yeas
ago he started popping up as a guest on a number of soundcasts and
it wasn’t long until he pulled the cloak off
of Literally, the show he hosts every week, mostly
talking to friends that he pulls right out of his own cell phone.
He recently talk with Levar Burton,
famous for playing Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next
Generation. Before that, he broke through as Kunta Kinte, a
young slave on the Roots miniseries. And he talks a bit
about both those experiences in this clip.
This next entry is brand new. It’s only been out for about 8 or 9
weeks at this point, which means its first season is coming to a
close and you can binge it. Because it’s one of the first full-on
soundcast situation comedies that I’ve heard. Popcorn for
Dinner is, first of all, produced by one of my favorite
production outfits on the planet, which is Kelly&Kelly out of
Vancouver, Canada. We’ve featured other shows from them before,
including This Sounds Serious and Dexter Guff is
Smarter Than You. This new offering is largely written and
created by comedian Maddy Kelly –
no relation to Pat Kelly or Chris Kelly, who ARE related, but maybe
it helps to have them set a show up if your last name IS Kelly. It
features former Nickelodean star Ciara Bravo as the narrator, and
stars Maddy Kelly, Charlie Foster, Jillian Ebanks and Ben Fawcett as four friends in
their early 20s as they try to make it on their own, despite the
fact that none of them know what that looks like...at all. It’s got
all the tropes that make classic sitcoms identifiable including a
laugh track. It’s meta, it’s corny, it’s funny and – after I
listened to the first three episodes, I was pretty much hooked. The
clip I have for you is from Episode 6 and I picked the very opening
of the show so you can easily pick up on the vibe – they have the
opening teaser scene, the set-up for the episode and your get to
hear what the main characters each sound like.
I’m not sure how long Always Be Comedy has been cranking
out episode in Britain but, given their list of guests, it’s been
going awhile. Hosted by comics James Gill and Tim Lewis, they
invite other comedians in to chat and to curate their dream gig – o
talk about all the elements that they would bring together to make
a dynamite boffo show. This clip doesn’t quite get to that part of
the hosts’ chat with guest, England comedy legend Stewart Lee, which is well worth
strapping in for given his experience. Instead, Stewart waxes on a
bit about some of his contemporary veteran comedians.
Which brings us to the end of our featured clips this week and
right up to the doorstep of comedian and friend of the show
Dan St. Paul. He’s been writing
these humorous essays for his “Slices” blog on Substack for a while
now, and I had him record a few and then added some music and
effects to them. That was impetus enough for Dan to turn to his pal
Jimmy Goings and really get into producing them.
Here’s his latest, entitled “Slave to the Machines”.
That is going to do it for this final solo episode before our
Succotash hiatus begins. As I teased at the top of the
show, I can let you know that next week, for our 12th
Anniversary Show, Tyson Saner and I will be joining forces to
celebrate the blessed event. Joining us will be longtime friend of
the show who we first met in Episode 36 back in the Fall of 2012,
Travis Clark. We’ll look back and
reminisce not just about Succotash but also about
soundcasting and how far it come since we first fired up the mics
in 2011. That’s next week, in this very same feed, so don’t miss
it!
As for me, I am sometime startled to wake up and discover
this Succotash thing has been going as long as it
has. I’ve made a lot of friends, literally around the globe,
through the network of soundcasters out there. I think one of the
things that we’ll do as we sail into our 12th year is
that I may just have to stop beating the drum to call these things
soundcasts instead of podcasts. We gave it a valiant effort. I
don’t think anyone would deny us that. We’ll see.
I have to thank Joe Paulino, first and foremost,
which helped me breathe life into this concept through the auspices
of Studio P, his “home of the hit” in Sausalito, California. And
for introducing us to Bill Heywatt, our erstwhile
and often tanked booth announcer. Scott Carvey,
one of Dana Carvey’s brothers,
created our theme music from me sending him a jazz tune I liked and
doing his own interpretation of the concept so we could have some
music free and clear. Kenny Durgis is our booth
assistant who, frankly doesn’t do much more than complain but we
gotta acknowledge the little guy.
More than anyone connected to the show, my heartfelt and deep
gratitude goes to Tyson Saner, who went from contributing a few odd
clips now and again to becoming the show’s Associate Producer to
full-blown host, slipping into the Big Chair for several years
while it stepped into the background as Executive Producer and got
to take a big breather.
I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my wife, the lovely and
talented Debra Hershon. While she’s never spent a
moment hanging around this show, if not for her support and giving
me the space to create and shave time off of our personal time –
sometimes on while on vacation and sometimes even urging me to head
to LA or shows in San Francisco so I could get interviews and such,
this show certainly wouldn’t have happened.
Finally, of course, there’s you. Our listener. Whether this is the
very first time you’ve filled your ears with Succotash or
if you’ve been with us for every one of the 352 episodes we’ve
dropped, this has always been intended for you. As a wayfinding
tool to help you hack through the soundcast wilderness to find fun,
new shows to listen to. And whether it was from those heady early
days when we actually would show up on the front page of Apple’s
downloads or, more often bouncing along with just blips on the
download radar, we know that you’ve been out there putting up with
our audio shenanigans. So thank you, thank you, thank
you.
We’ll be here next year with that 12th anniversary show.
And then Tyson, Bill, Joe, and I are going to take a little break.
Catch our breaths and figure out how and when we’ll return. This
show maybe exactly like you hear it today. Or we may change up the
format and try some different things. Hang in there and we’ll let
you know what’s what.
And in the meantime, if in the next week or so you have someone tap
you on the shoulder while you’re working out in the gym and they
ask what you’re listening to on your earbuds, won’t you please pass
the Succotash?
— Marc Hershon