Serious Fun

Earlier this year, the Oshkosh Public Museum played host to “The Nostalgia Awakens”, a traveling exhibit that holds the distinction of being the largest public display of the original Star Wars action figures and toys ever in Wisconsin. Such a momentous occasion merits an equally momentous podcast – one that cannot be contained in a single show alone! So this week, Serious Fun crosses over with fe...

It's a new fall season of Serious Fun! This week, Bryan sits down with David and Nadia Oxford, retro gaming power couple and co-authors of the new book “Mega Man X: Maverick Hunter’s Field Guide”. In this wide-ranging conversation, the trio discusses how video game fandom has changed since the early days of fansites and message boards, how the Mega Man series has evolved into new aesthetics and fo...

Serious Fun returns yet again with another group dissection session for a Marvel Disney+ streaming show! This time we're breaking down "Falcon and The Winter Soldier" with Serious Fun production assistant Emily Fecteau and, back by popular demand, it's UWGB History professor and Captain America superfan Dr. Clif Ganyard! Join us as we try to put the series into proper historical and canonical cont...

Lordy lordy, Serious Fun is 40...episodes in! So there's a little TV show called WandaVision. You might have heard of it. It's the talk of the town. This week's Serious Fun adds on to that talk as Bryan welcomes two special guests on to talk about the first proper Marvel Studios streaming TV show - the Director of Oregon State's General Psychology program and former UWGB faculty Regan Gurung as we...

We are living in a golden age for globalized pop culture – we have access to television, film, music, video games, books and comics from all over the world on a scale never before seen. Have you ever thought about what it takes to bring pop culture from one culture to another, though? Scott Strichart has – and as the Senior Localization Producer for the Yakuza series at Sega, he has had a hand in...

Serious Fun is back and we're talking with journalist and author Abraham Riesman about his new book "True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee" in a thought-provoking discussion about the fraught relationship between Lee and Jack Kirby, the role of copyright in maintaining celebrity mythology, and the elusiveness of a person's true nature (among lots of other things).

If a wrestling match happens in an arena and nobody's there to cheer - did it really happen at all? These and other questions will kind of be answered as Bryan sits down with Dr. CarrieLynn Reinhard, president of the Pro Wrestling Studies Association, to explore the challenges facing professional wrestling in the age of a pandemic. How are AEW and WWE differing in their approach? Can we still watc...

Serious Fun is back, and this time it's remote! Bryan sits down, at a comfortable distance, with the crew of Psych and Stuff (Ryan Martin and Georjeanna Wilson-Doenges) for another fantabulous crossover, recorded via the magic of the Internet. On the docket: what kind of media are we consuming during the pandemic curfew, and why does it bring us comfort?

It's a very special Life Day gift - a special documentary episode about Star Wars! For the final Serious Fun of 2019, Bryan asks a cadre of fans a simple question: "What does Star Wars mean to you?" The answers will surprise, amuse, and even beguile you! Or you'll find it an agreeable way to spend half an hour. Download it now! (Thanks to Kris Vespia, Georjeanna Wilson-Doenges, Alison Staudinger,...

In 2013, the Red Cross issued a statement calling on the video game industry to reconsider how it presented war and war crimes. Six years later, after the controversial release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, how much has changed? Do video games accurately depict war crimes and their consequences? And as artificial intelligence trains on games like Starcraft, should we be worried about what these...

Serious Fun wraps up Brown County Library Comic-Con 2019 with the third of its shows recorded live at the event! This week, doctoral candidate Marena Bridges and UWGB Psychology professor Dr. Ryan Martin sit down with Bryan to discuss representation in superhero media in light of the Academy Award-winning movie "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse!"

Smell that pine tar and bubblegum, folks - the World Series is upon us! What better way to celebrate than to take some time to learn about the growing field of sport psychology with UWGB's resident experts Dr. Jana Fogaça and Dr. Alan Chu? Well, you could actually watch the game I guess but too bad, this is what we have. And it's a good one! A great one! Jana and Alan discuss mental conditioning,...

This week, Bryan sits down with Hugo and Nebula award-winning science-fiction and fantasy author Martha Wells to talk about her work, including her Hugo Award-winning Murderbot Diaries! Martha and Bryan discuss worldbuilding, getting inside characters' heads, writing for collectible card games, and so much more! This episode was recorded LIVE at the 2019 Brown County Library Comic-Con! Listen now!...

Serious Fun makes its return to the Brown County Library Comic-Con in the first of a trio of shows recorded live at the event! This week, Bryan sits down with comics artist and writer and creator of the series “Mae”, Gene Ha. Gene talks about his life, his start in the industry, his major comics and storytelling influences, the challenges and benefits of publishing a book on Kickstarter, as well a...

If you missed Serious Fun, good news - it's back! If you didn't - I'm very sorry! But this is the first new Serious Fun of the new season and we spend it with special guest Dr. Patty Williamson of the Central Michigan University School of Broadcast and Cinematic Arts. Bryan and Dr. Williamson talk about the summer in film, from the chokehold Disney has on the medium to the impact of streaming on t...

It only took them eleven years but finally a female hero is frontlining a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie! This week Bryan sits down with CU Boulder media studies professor and Captain Marvel superfan J. Richard Stevens to talk about the new movie, Carol Danvers' turbulent publishing history, and the feminist lessons the film provides for everyone. It's a whole flerken lot of fun! Sound credits: A...

This special episode of Serious Fun is a recording of a February 27, 2019 discussion of the film "BlacKkKlansman" featuring Bryan and Dr. Vince Lowery. The discussion was recorded after a screening of the Academy Award-winning film, and covers a wide variety of topics concerning how the film talks about race and racism in our contemporary climate, how it performed at the Academy Awards, its histor...

Professional wrestling and comics are perhaps two of the purest art forms known to humanity, and much like the proverbial peanut butter and chocolate, when smashed together end up being quite tasty indeed. This episode of Serious Fun speaks with Lan Pitts, one such confectioner of this treat and writer for Boom! Studios' WWE comics series. Bryan and Lan talk about writing for comics, finding the s...

You've spent all season arguing about whether it was a Christmas movie, but is it possible Die Hard is...so much more? This week we're launching a new subfeature on Serious Fun just in time for the holidays called Overthinkin' It! Bryan is joined by Dr. Ryan Martin (UWGB Psychology) and Dr. Michelle McQuade Dewhirst (UWGB Music) for a deep-dive, overthought analysis of the action classic Die Hard...

After a brief and largely unplanned hiatus, Serious Fun is back! This time around, Dr. Carr talks to representatives from the UWGB Anime Club about anime, anime fandom, and more! Ntxhee Yee Thao and Jacob Huempfner share their favorite shows, talk about the business and process of creating anime, and reflect on their fandom and the friends they made along the way.

It’s a special all-Frankenstein, all the Franken-time episode of Serious Fun! This episode stitches together two of Bryan’s presentations on the legacy of Mary Shelley’s work as part of our on-campus celebration of the novel’s 200th anniversary. First, gasp as Bryan talks about the surprising way Shelley’s work has been reinterpreted by pop culture icons you might not expect! Then, thrill to a dis...

Another great year of Brown County Library Comic-Con episodes comes to a grand finale with a special Phoenix Studios crossover event! Bryan joins forces with the powerful minds over at Psych and Stuff (represented here by Dr. Ryan Martin and Dr. Chuck Rybak) to talk about supervillains, psychology, mental health, and political philosophy! Is Killmonger justified? Does Lex Luthor have a complex? Ca...

Serious Fun at the Brown County Library Comic-Con continues as Bryan sits down with the Scribe award-winning author John Jackson Miller! Miller, the writer of countless comics, novels, and more for franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, and the Simpsons talks about the challenges of working in established universes, the process of writing comics in a digital age, the perils of focusing too...

The first of our three-episode series LIVE (to tape) from Brown County Library Comic-Con is here! Bryan sits down with local artist Carli Ihde to talk about her style, her experiences working in art forms ranging from murals to pumpkins, her time at the Kubert school and working in the comics industry, her advice for aspiring artists, and her thoughts on drawing powerful women. It's funny, it's in...

The COUNTDOWN TO COMIC-CON at the Brown County Library continues on Serious Fun! This week - Bryan sits down with UWGB Psychology professor Dr. Regan Gurung to talk about comics and superheroes across borders as well as his own experience with the medium as a child growing up in India. What can Superman tell us about the immigrant experience? How can comics explain and find commonality across cult...