Sleeping with Celebrities

You may have seen Stephnie (not a typo, she spells it that way) Weir as a cast member on Mad TV or in appearances on Modern Family , Crazy Ex-Girlfriend , and Lady Dynamite . But if you live near Stephnie or happen to be a close friend or colleague, you may also know her from the handmade holiday napkins she distributes to her inner circle. She methodically walks us through the steps of gathering...

Jordan Morris is known to Maximum Fun fans as the funny and engaging co-host of Jordan, Jesse, Go! and Free With Ads . He also makes comics, such as the new Predator: Bloodshed series. It’s all about the Predator, monster sci-fi icon, and his efforts to purchase and install a new shed to put all his blood in. He goes to Home Depot, he tries building one himself after watching YouTube videos, but a...

We’re hundreds of episodes into Sleeping with Celebrities but we’re just now getting a PBS voice on? I know. We’re so sorry. But this will make up for it. The brilliant, engaging, and funny Simeon Lipman from Antiques Roadshow knows more about baseball cards and, actually, punk rock memorabilia than most people will ever know about anything. And his knowledge includes a whole lot of arcane data. L...

The hilarious actor Vella Lovell is a put-upon director of an animal control precinct in the sitcom Animal Control , a role that involves much more animal contact than one would expect for an office job. Turns out Vella, who also played the neighbor Heather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend , has a natural knack for helping animals calm down. This was evident in her long process of introducing a new kitten,...

It is foolish to try to describe the music of the Gogol Bordello and its charismatic frontman Eugene Hütz so we’ll just list the genres Wikipedia uses: Punk rock, folk punk, Latin rock, polka, folk rock, dub, Romani, and Gypsy punk. Wikipedia also uses the adjective “theatrical” and we won’t argue with that. Within the veteran hit band’s whirling storm of musical virtuosity, there are guitars. In...

Actor Todd Stashwick’s IMDb page is miles long, with appearances in Laws & Orders OG and SVU , Angel , Buffy , Courage the Cowardly Dog , The Riches , Phineas and Ferb , and Star Trek: Picard and the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe Disney+ series VisionQuest . He’s also a Bigfoot enthusiast. Not a big foot enthusiast, a fan of the cryptozoological creature also known as Sasquatch. Alert followe...

There are many transportation options in New York. It’s not all subways and taxi cabs that cut in front of you and make you yell about how you’re walking here like in that movie. There are also regular old cars, like the one comedian and writer Jordan Carlos has for getting around that city. He tells us in detail what that’s like, what the sky tram to Roosevelt Island is like, and how complicated...

Rachael Yamagata is an accomplished musician and singer who has recorded several acclaimed albums, including  Starlit Alchemy  just a few months ago, and performed and recorded with the likes of Rhett Miller, Jason Mraz, and Bright Eyes. When she’s not making beautiful music, she’s watching her back yard like a hawk. Like a hawk that takes on several ambitious backyard projects. Relax in Rachel’s...

Instagram can be a minefield of powerful influencers making you feel terrible about not having millions of dollars and a glamorous lifestyle, or, OR, it could be filled with odd things like banjo players plucking away in National Parks. Writer, comedian, filmmaker, and podcaster Akilah Hughes has published a memoir, Obviously: Stories From my Timeline , written for Steven Soderbergh’s  Command Z  ...

We love all of our guests on this podcast and are delighted that they helped amuse you to sleep. There are some among those guests who seem to have an extra-special ability to get what we’re asking for, to grasp the mission, to understand the assignment. They speak in extra hushed tones, they choose astoundingly benign subject matter, they delight and bring forth some nice laughs, they drone, they...

This episode originally ran April 23, 2025. *** Roxane Gay is one of the greatest writers in the world today. Everyone knows this. We’re so thrilled that she agreed to be on our show. Roxane is the author of books like  Bad Feminist  and  Hunger , writes for the New York Times , is a respected social critic and noted professor. All this means that she travels a lot and she joins us, using a very s...

You might know Jon Lovett as the host of the podcast  Lovett or Leave It  or as one of the hosts of the influential  Pod Save America  show. On those shows, Jon and others talk about big events in politics and try to make sense of it all. Which is hard. But it turns out that America itself, the very Constitution of this nation, may have a fatal flaw it in it, a loophole that could be activated and...

We understand that for many people, Jodie Sweetin is forever linked to Stephanie Tanner, the character she played for eight years on  Full House  and four more years on  Fuller House . But we doubt Stephanie was nearly as much into Lego building sets as the real Jodie is. In fact, we seriously doubt anyone is as much into Legos as Jodie. She joins us to talk about some of her favorite sets that sh...

Actor and writer Bridger Winegar has appeared in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt , Jimmy Kimmel Live , and as the host of his own delightful podcast I Said No Gifts , where his guests insist on bringing gifts, despite the title and he acts upset but really loves it. Bridger has had his iPhone for a long time, it gets used a lot, and, frankly, it’s pretty worn out. So he needs a new one. But rather than...

The comedian Myq Kaplan has appeared on  The Tonight Show ,  Conan ,  Late Night with David Letterman , and many other television programs. He also hosts two podcasts, has released comedy albums, and has a new comedy special,  Rini , which is also the name of his girlfriend. That’s an unusual name but then so is Myq. He used to be Mike but changed it at summer camp one year and it stuck. You can c...

We were so excited (though we kept it subdued) to meet the hilarious Wendi McLendon-Covey from Reno 911! , St Denis Medical , Bridesmaids , and Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar . Wendi enjoys going to concerts and says it gives her the same satisfaction as travel but it’s shorter and cheaper. You’ll find that listening to Wendi talk about concerts is like traveling or going to a concert yourself bu...

You might know Eddie Pepitone from standup stages around the country, as “The Heckling New Yorker” on  Late Night with Conan O’Brien , as an actor on  Reno 911!  or  Bob’s Burgers , from his brand new comedy special  The Collapse , or from his podcast  Apocalypse Soon . Or if you’re a close follower of people who get worked up about purchasing binoculars and then never really use the binoculars, y...

Allison Raskin has a pretty diverse array of interests. She’s a former Buzzfeed video creator, co-host of the podcast  Just Between Us , and the author of numerous best-selling books, including  Please Send Help ,  Overthinking About You , and the new  Save the Date . How does she unwind from this busy life? By being obsessed with Inspector Gamache, the Quebecois crime solver found in novels by Lo...

Look, it’s okay. You’ll be able to sleep just fine. Sure, witches can be scary but keep two things in mind: witches are pretend so they can’t hurt you and some list-making analytical thinking is a great way to doze off to some shuteye that is guaranteed toad, broomstick, and cackle-free. SwC returning guest Lindy West teams up with Meagan Hatcher-Mays to do the honors. The two of them host the pod...

Can you improvise a musical? Sure, you can. But isn’t it hard to do? Absolutely. That’s why hardly anyone does it. I mean, who wants to do hard things? Well, Jessica McKenna and Zach Reino do. They’re the hosts and creators of Off Book , a podcast where they improvise a whole new musical with each episode. They’ve also appeared on shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Goldbergs, and Comedy Bang! Ban...

Fans of the long-running animated comedy Archer already know Amber Nash as Pam Poovey, the former H.R. director at ISIS. She has superhuman strength and a dolphin hand puppet. Pam does, not Amber. Amber has human strength and we don’t know about the puppets. Amber is the host of the brand new Rephrasing: An Archer Rewatch Podcast here on Maximum Fun. She’s also a devotee of the Vermont Country Sto...

Steve Agee is a beloved actor, writer, comedian, and all-around funny person, seen most recently as John Economos in the John Cena DC Comics series Peacemaker on HBO. You may have caught his work in films like The Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 2. You didn’t see him in Meatballs , the 1979 Bill Murray summer camp comedy, because Steve was just a wee boy back then. Steve has seen M...

We grant you that listening to actual D.C. hardcore music will probably not put you into the best state for sleep. The dulcet tones of Roman Mars, however, discussing said scene? Yeah, that ought to do it. Roman is the creator and host of the beloved and hugely popular podcast 99% Invisible and a public radio veteran so, yes, his voice is as smooth as butter spread on top of more butter. He shares...

Host John Moe leads off this episode by extolling the virtues of foster dog caretaking and he enumerates the many dogs his family as tended to in the last year: Cowboy, Bug, Beans, Ducky, Pork Chop, Radar, and Car Wash. All these dogs were, and all dogs are, eccentric. Then we welcome cartoonist Nathan Pyle, the man who brings you those Strange Planet cartoons where aliens attempt to understand th...

J. Kenji López-Alt knows more about food than you or I put together. He has won James Beard Awards, contributed to  New York Times Cooking  and  Serious Eats , and his books include  The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science ,  The Wok: Recipes and Techniques , and a children’s book titled  Every Night is Pizza Night . But he’s no snobby foody. He pays careful attention to how to stack ing...