The Whatnauts

Episode 23. It's Halloween and we're re-telling mundane anecdotes from our past podcast episodes as bizarre "scary" "stories." Listen to chilling tales of a key you have to carry around without knowing what it's for, getting conned by a mischievous ghost kid, soda-related cryptids, a secret message from a Big Mouth Billy Bass, a cool guy named Chet, being stuck forever in a car wash, the Pizza Hut...

Episode 22. Kyle narrowly escapes jury duty. Melissa has outsmarted your haunted house and wants something weirder. We pitch a haunted house based on old commercials and a new adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis to go up in theaters alongside the four Beatles biopics. We catch up on pop culture like Vision Quest, You Can See Everything, the trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs, and why the new Star W...

Episode 21. If a criminal on the loose is "at large," is a criminal in prison "at small?" Kyle teaches us about the new Marvel Comics app. Melissa teaches us about mutant corn, which sadly is not a new X-Man but a real agricultural phenomenon. We talk about fear vs. will in the end of Lanterns, Robert Pattison screaming in Primetime, and how Digger was made for weird art kids. We also discuss rece...

Episode 20. Finally, Melissa makes good on her threat to make Kyle watch Sam Raimi's Darkman! This 1990 movie is an original story that plays on pulp comic tropes, featuring goons galore, vats of acid, and a hero who may be more monster than man. This leads us to discuss Jingle All the Way, a museum of henchmen, Tuxedo Mask, why DC Comics character The Question looks like that, and other stories w...

Episode 19. Kyle reveals the surprise rapper behind the mask. Melissa goes to hold music jazz hell. We theorize about the mysteries in Lanterns and try to describe the plots of bizarre new films The Rivals of Amziah King, Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma, and Buddy. We also discuss Kimi's legendary win in Italy, Double Doom, how the Emmy awards take three days, Gorilla Grodd, Molecule Man, a...

Episode 18. Kyle is ready to explain Kingdom Hearts to anyone on demand. Melissa time travels back to 1904. We saw The End of Oak Street and discuss its role as Coke Zero Jurassic Park, the big snake, and what if your husband snuck away to his secret dinosaur wife. Most of the episode is Disney parks and entertainment news out of D23! We cover a LEGO Werner Herzog, robots who dream of having a bea...

Episode 17. We're talking about all the -Men today: Spider, Wonder, Plastic, Wicker, etc. Kyle has finally finished the under-discussed Apple TV bottle drama Servant. Melissa is bringing back Mad Libs. We discuss Spider-Man: Brand New Day, where we'll see a Spider-Man next (and which one??), and what if Sandman is the literal bedrock upon which Battle World is built. We also cover the trailers for...

Episode 16. It's a monumental episode as we discuss massive film news and films shown massively. We talk about The Odyssey, and Melissa traveling to Indianapolis to see it in 70mm. Marvel revealed new heroes at their Comic-Con panel, but we still have questions: What do those Latverian witches mean? When will the X-Men play baseball? What if the new X-Men are all teens and Charles Xavier is only 2...

Episode 15. To prepare for The Odyssey, we watched Interstellar, another Christopher Nolan movie about a dad on a long journey to get back home. We discuss corn, robots, how do dust storms work, Topher Grace jump scares, and why they didn't go to the bikini babe planet. We promise this is a serious discussion sometimes. We also talk about the final season of The Bear, which felt good and had all o...

Episode 14. It's our annual trivia night spectacular, where Kyle and Melissa make each other answer questions like: What is Sir Mix-A-Lot's CB radio codename? Which actors played minor supporting roles as unimportant vampires in the Twilight movies? Join us for the thrill of competition, the joy of learning! We also discuss: Gordon Gekko, fake Russian accents, the most embarrassing thing to do in...

Episode 13. We've seen two surprising Formula 1 grand prix races but the biggest shock is learning Monaco has a Steak n Shake? We debate suspending your disbelief to the awe of Disclosure Day vs. nitpicking why Josh O'Connor has so many USB drives, and discuss Widow's Bay excelling at both horror and comedy, a crime show that ends in an interpretive dance, locking yourself out of the house and com...

Episode 12. Welcome to the Bosch Crawl, where we go to a divorced dad's boat to watch an episode of Bosch, and then go to another divorced dad's boat to watch another episode of Bosch. In recent media, we talk about Mandolorian & Grogu, I Love Boosters, Backrooms, Spider-Noir, and in old media, Melissa explains Cape Fear, a movie that inspired an episode of The Simpsons that inspired a play, a...

Episode 11. Our main course today is reviewing the graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, an inspiration for the upcoming Supergirl movie. We talk about the plot and prose style borrowed from True Grit, how the Superman movie could affect Supergirl's origin story, the mystery of Comet the Superhorse, what rocks eat, and other Coen Brothers movies that should be r...

Episode 10. We're drinking bottomless champagne and reading from the BIG book of Gundam. Kyle saw an F1 race in IMAX, where the aspect ratio was wrong and everyone looked squished but the race was too exciting to leave! Melissa saw Infinity Saga in Concert at her local symphony, where everyone erupted into applause for Captain America's beard. We discuss Beef S2, Mother Mary, our first look at Cla...

Episode 9. Kyle went to a Harlem Globetrotters game and we demand comedy versions of more sports! Get joke writers in to punch up your football game!! We also want to see someone recreating old Buster Keaton antics live in an arena!!! Melissa describes an enraptured audience watching Babe: Pig in the City on the big screen. We discuss The Drama, The Diplomat, and how we need more movies besides Ja...

Episode 8. We're going back to the moon! Here's another great idea to help humankind: retell everything from Blackberry to Lord of the Rings in the style of How It's Made. We go all over seedy LA with discussion on Crime 101, Nightcrawler, and Hacks. Melissa has been to the real office where they filmed the corporate thriller Arbitrage, which is "Uncut Gems for boring people." Kyle makes sure we r...

Episode 7. We watched season one of the Hulu mystery series Paradise, to coincide with the release of season two! Secret Service agent Xavier Collins is trying to solve the murder of the President -- a crime that poses even more danger when all of America has been reduced to a community of 25,000 living in a bunker city deep below the Rocky Mountains. We discuss questions about how the bunker work...

Episode 6. It's the week after the Oscars, time to rank all Best Picture nominated movies on if they had more legs or more wheels! Melissa recaps the awards and her own performance in her movie fantasy league. Kyle recaps a terrible week involving a room full of loose computer parts. We discuss the leg scene in The Secret Agent, Ryan Gosling's high clown art in Project Hail Mary, recording your ow...

Episode 5. Last year, Kyle successfully explained Formula 1 racing to Melissa, converting her into a fan who watched a whole season of any sport for the first time. History was made that day. Now, as a new F1 season begins, we explain it all again! If you don't know anything about F1, we're here for you with a very detailed PowerPoint. This is the rules, the teams, the drivers, the curses and mira...

Episode 4. When was the last time you jumped? How old is Old Faithful? Who would you cast as Cotton Eye Joe in The Cotton Eye Joe Movie? Why has no soda company sold a soda that's all sodas put together? Is it simply too powerful?? Kyle describes an RPG that's inspiring him to make more music. Melissa tries to get ready for an "Eyes Wide Shut" scenario, which is how she describes getting invited t...

Episode 03. Kyle really plays with some hamburgers. Melissa got stuck in a car wash. We catch up on the TV we've been watching recently, from the nostalgic charm of Home Movies to the horndog hockey of Heated Rivalry, and are surprised by new seasons arriving for Apple TV+ hidden curios The Drops of God and Sugar. We also talk about trying to wear glasses to look cool, the hassle of untangling you...

Episode 02. For the first review of the year, we discuss Wim Wenders’ 2023 film, Perfect Days, but not before we debate if 2 inches of snow constitutes being "snowed in," and compare our matching LEGO race cars. Perfect Days is a delightfully simple movie, about a man's solitary but happy existence cleaning the public toilets of Tokyo, listening to soft rock, and taking pictures of leaves. We also...

Episode 01. Welcome to a new era! The Whatnauts is a pop culture gabfest with a decade of history behind it. Your hosts Kyle and Melissa kick off the new podcast with context on our past shows, traditions, trends, and running jokes, and how this new show is the same conversations in one more streamlined package. New mask, same task! We discuss our favorite media from 2025, talk about our story tro...

We're celebrating 10 years of The Whatnauts with an end of the year "grand prix" because you can call anything a grand prix, there's no rules stopping you! Two people talking about pizza can be a grand prix!! Kyle sees a chicken. Melissa sees a big glove. Between the two of us, we've seen Tenet 3.5 times and Interstellar 1 time and we're going to try to understand both. We also give out the yearly...

Starting in 2026 we are smashing all our podcasts into one. A single show. A single RSS feed. We are still going to be doing the same kinds of things we have done on other podcasts in the past, but now all on one show. This is just a "zero" episode to get our RSS feed up and running as well as provide a little more context as to what we are doing and why. So go subscribe, and we will see you on th...