Adoption Pop!

E031 | Shrinking Season 3 (2026) – Adoption on the Small Screen   The Apple TV comedy, Shrinking, follows a group of therapists, their friends and loved ones, all of whom seem to have unhealthy attachment issues, including the characters Brian and Charlie who, at the end of Season 2 (which we covered on Adoption Pop! Episode 30) were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Ava's baby so they could adopt...

E030 | Shrinking Season 2 (2024) – Adoption on the Small Screen   As adopted people, we know a little something about therapy. In fact, fellow adoptee, Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker maintains a directory of licensed mental health professionals who identify as adoptees, and who work with adoptees and adoptive families. But do you know where you won't find any adoption-competent therapists? On the Apple...

E029 | Big Daddy (1999) – Adoption on the Big Screen   Limp Bizkit in the discman, punchlines built on misogyny and homophobia, and Adam Sandler on the big screen… it must by the 90s on Adoption Pop! Join podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer, as we revisit the polarizing humor of Big Daddy, a film that was both a box office success and a 5-ti...

E028 | Little Bird Episodes 4-6 (2023) – Adoption on the Small Screen   In part two of this two-part episode, we cover the last three episodes of Little Bird, the Canadian dramatic series following a First Nations woman adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop as she attempts to reconnect with her family and heritage. Based on real events of the past and present, Little Bird was the w...

E027 | Little Bird Episodes 1-3 (2023) – Adoption on the Small Screen   In part one of a two-part episode, we cover the first three episodes of Little Bird, the Canadian dramatic series following a First Nations woman adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop as she attempts to reconnect with her family and heritage. Based on real events of the past and present, Little Bird was the win...

E026 | Annie (1982) – Adoption on the Big Screen   We think you're gonna like it here on this episode of Adoption Pop! We're just thinkin' about 10-year-old Aileen Quinn in the role that would make her a star—in the film that became the blueprint for a better life. The 1982 big screen adaption of the 1977 Tony-winner, Annie was not well received by critics upon its release. It has just a 50% Rotte...

E025 | Jersey Shore Family Vacation Season 8 (2025) – Adoption on the Small Screen   Before Bravo had a summer house in the Hamptons, MTV had a place on the Jersey Shore, where for six seasons Pauly D, J-Woww, Sammi Sweetheart, Vinny, Ronny, The Situation, and Snooki partied like it was the 2010s. The show spawned seven spinoffs, including Jersey Shore Family Vacation, back in summer 2026 for a ni...

E024 | Virgin River Season 7 (2026) – Adoption on the Small Screen What do you get when you take sweeping mountain views, added to a fictional town of 627 people, with a magical sprinkle from the vivid imagination of a showrunner who is also a proud adoptive parent? You get the wildly problematic, seventh season of the cozy Netflix drama, Virgin River. Listen in as podcast journalist Haley Radke,...

E023 | Law & Order "Charity Case" (2007) –Adoption on the Small Screen For more than 30 years, the people of New York City have been represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. This is just one of their stories. Join podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic...

E022 | Mommie Dearest (1981) – Adoption on the Big Screen   For adoptees, Mother's Day can carry complexity and tough emotions. So we decided to lean all the way into the discomfort with a film legendary critic Roger Ebert called "unremittingly depressing," writing that he could not "imagine who would want to subject themselves to this movie." Roger Ebert obviously never met podcast journalist Hal...

E021 | Wuthering Heights (2026) – Adoption on the Big Screen   We went deep into the canon for this one, dusting off and stitching together a whole undergraduate English literature syllabus (with Cliffs Notes, Sparks Notes, note cards, and whatever else we were using to make it through our book reports pre-Chat GPT) to bring you our take on Emily Brontë's 1847 gothic romance classic, Wuthering Hei...

E020 | The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) – Adoption on the Big Screen   April showers bring May flowers or, in the wonderful world of Disney, they bring you a whole child. The Odd Life of Timothy Green follows young Timothy Green, a boy who appears to have been born from the garden of Jim and Cindy, played by Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner, a couple grieving their inability to have a child....

E019 | Friends "The One With the Donor" (2003) – Adoption on the Small Screen   Adoption Pop! has done sitcoms before, but this is perhaps the mother of all sitcoms: Friends, created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004, and ushered into the mainstream a hairstyle, a pick-up line, and the idea that your friends could be your family. More than 50 million people tu...

E018 | Family Ties "Baby Boy Doe" (1984) – Adoption on the Small Screen   We have Pop! Star Judi to thank for taking us on this journey to a time when adoption jokes got the studio audience roaring, lying to kids passed for good parenting, and one real mother was all that anyone was allowed. No, we're not talking about 2025; we're talking about 1984! Join podcast journalist, Haley Radke, filmmaker...

E017 | Adopted (2009) – Adoption on the Small Screen   Why would we spend an hour talking about a film that went straight-to-video, has a 31% on the Popcornmeter, and not enough critical reviews to have received a Rotten Tomatoes score? Because that film is about adoption, of course! Join podcast journalist, Haley Radke, filmmaker, Kristal Parke, and cultural critic, Sullivan Summer, as we celebra...

E016 | The Truman Show (1998) – Adoption on the Big Screen   Long before we all had front-facing screens in our pockets—even before it would have occurred to us to use the term "front-facing screen"—there was somebody born to be on camera: Truman Burbank. The first baby to have been legally adopted by a corporation, Truman and his namesake show were watched, loved, and protected by millions of fan...

E015 | Philomena (2013) – Adoption on the Big Screen   A young woman shamed, banished, and indentured—yet faith survives for Philomena Lee who, after 50 years of separation, embarks upon a search for the son she was forced to relinquish inside one of Ireland's notorious mother and baby homes. Podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer take on Philo...

E014 | Song Sung Blue (2025) – Adoption on the Big Screen Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of bein' a king, and then became one? Well, except for the names, and a few other changes, you've got the Hollywood adaptation of a little-known documentary profile of the Milwaukee Neil Diamond tribute act known as "Lightning and Thunder." Song Sung Blue hit theaters on Christmas Day in 2025, garn...

E013 | Task (2025) – Adoption on the Small Screen Season 1 of HBO's Task centers former priest, alcoholic, adoptive father, FBI agent, Tom Brandis (played by Mark Ruffalo), who heads up a task force of dubiously-selected young agents as they hunt down a pair of guys robbing violent motorcycle gang-owned stash houses. As melodramatic as the plotline may be, the series quickly became a Pop! favorite...

E012 | Private Practice "Apron Strings" (2012) – Adoption on the Small Screen   The Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice followed OB/GYN Addison Montgomery for six seasons from 2007 until 2013, where she and a who's who of middle-aged eye-candy treated patients at an oceanside wellness center. In a case of art imitating life, Addison, like showrunner Shonda Rhimes, adopts a baby. But when baby...

E011 | Love is Blind UK Season 1 (2024) –Adoption on Reality TV   According to Forbes magazine, around 80 million people, 30% of the adult population in the US, is on a dating app, with 10% of partnered adults reporting that they met their significant other through a dating site or app. Of course, one might skip university, friends, apps, and pokes (ew), and head straight for reality television. W...

010 | Colin in Black and White (2021) – Part 2: Adoption on the Small Screen   Part 2 of an Adoption Pop! two-part episode.  San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick made headlines in 2016 when he courageously took a knee during the Star-Spangled Banner in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, sparking national debate over the role of activism in professional sports. Kaepernick went...

Bonus Pop! | "The Girl in the Middle" (2026) – Advertising Adoption   This is a very special, bonus Pop! episode, recorded as the adoptee community awaits the premier of "The Girl in the Middle," a pro-adoption advertisement promoted by the National Council for Adoption and others, slated to air during the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show—but only if you believe their marketing. (Spoiler: We do not rec...

009 | Colin in Black and White (2021) – Part 1: Adoption on the Small Screen   San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick made headlines in 2016 when he courageously took a knee during the Star-Spangled Banner in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, sparking national debate over the role of activism in professional sports. Kaepernick went on to become a civil rights activist, devoting...

008 | Vivien's Wild Ride (2026): Adoption on the Small Screen   Vivien Hillgrove has been a film and sound editor all her adult life. She's worked with many filmmaking greats: Francis Coppola, Phil Kaufman, Milos Forman, Walter Murch, and celebrated documentary filmmakers Lourdes Portillo and Deann Borshay Liem. But when Vivien's eyesight starts to deteriorate, the shame and loneliness she felt in...