Are You Sh!#ing Me?

A 1987 flop about a farm boy, a giant, and a Sicilian swordsman became one of the most quotable movies ever made. Here's why that almost didn't happen. It made $25.5 million. Ranked 41st at the box office that year. By every normal metric, it flopped. Then VHS happened — and it became immortal. Behind the camera was a different story: a giant who physically couldn't lift anyone, a lead...

Everyone knows Area 51. Everyone thinks aliens. But the real story is somehow even stranger. This week on Are You Shitting Me? , Brett uncovers the truth behind America's most famous secret military base—from decades of government secrecy to one Facebook joke that nearly convinced 2 million people to storm it. Were they hiding extraterrestrials... or something even more unbelievable? Grab a be...

People Were Terrified of Tomatoes for 200 Years (Are You Sh!#ing Me?) For 200 years, Europeans and early Americans were convinced tomatoes were deadly. They called them "poison apples" and wouldn't touch them. Turns out the tomato was innocent the entire time — and the real culprit is a lot more embarrassing. In this episode of Are You Shitting Me?, host Brett breaks down the bizarre...

Finland has 5.5 million people, 188,000 lakes, five months of darkness, January temperatures around 20°F... and somehow it's been ranked the happiest country on Earth for nine straight years running. Not Switzerland. Not Denmark. Finland. In this episode of Are You Shitting Me? , host Brett digs into what's actually going on in Finland: a country with more saunas than cars (3.3 million sau...

What do greed, bad business decisions, a terrible movie tie-in, and a New Mexico landfill have in common? The Video Game Crash of 1983. In this episode of Are You Sh!#ing Me?, Brett dives into one of the biggest business disasters in entertainment history. Atari was printing money, arcades were packed, and video games seemed unstoppable. Then the industry collapsed almost overnight. Discover how a...

The Parental Advisory sticker on your favorite album? Yeah — that came from four Washington wives, a Senate hearing, and one very unfortunate Prince song. In this SILWARR, Brett breaks down the moment the U.S. government decided words in music were a national threat — who started it, which artists got caught in the crosshairs, and why the whole thing spectacularly backfired. Short, sharp, and slig...

A Belgian inventor walks into a fancy London party in the 1770s with a world-changing invention, a master plan, and absolutely zero regard for physics. What happens next is either the greatest product launch fail in recorded history — or the most spectacular party entrance anyone has ever attempted. Either way, someone's paying for the damage. Are You Sh!#ing Me is the show where history's...

Everyone learned George Washington had wooden teeth… except he didn’t. In this episode of Are You Sh!tting Me? , Brett uncovers the disturbing truth behind one of America’s most famous myths. Washington’s dentures were made from things like hippopotamus ivory, metal springs, animal teeth, and even human teeth — and they were so painful they actually changed the shape of his face. From one survivin...

You already know Andrew Jackson was unhinged. Duels. Brawls. A whole bullet situation. But nobody warned the mourners about the parrot. Brett found the story of Poll — Jackson's African grey — and the one detail every history teacher leaves out. We know what happened at that funeral. We know why it happened. We just don't know exactly what was said. This is a two and a half minute SILWARR...

Chuck had knee surgery. That should’ve slowed him down. It didn’t. Now he’s gone quiet, sending cryptic texts, and somehow turning recovery into… content? Where is Chuck?! Cheers! #AreYouShittingMe #PodcastComedy #FunnyPodcast #KneeSurgery #RecoveryGoneWrong #ComedyPodcast #Storytime #PodcastLife #FunnyStories #WhereIsChuck #RelatableHumor #ComedyGold #ViralPodcast #InjuryFail #ContentCreation #ay...

The real story of Weird Al is stranger than his fake biopic. The accordion came from a traveling salesman and a polka name coincidence. His record deal came from the band he parodied. "Amish Paradise" dropped without Coolio's permission due to a miscommunication nobody can fully explain — including Weird Al. And when Prince's management sent him a telegram telling him not to make...

The biggest musicians in history weren’t just talented—they were absolutely wild. From Mozart’s bizarre humor to Elvis’s shocking death, The Beatles’ controversy, and more… these stories will make you say “Are You Sh!#ing Me?” Cheers! #MusicHistory #Mozart #ElvisPresley #TheBeatles #MichaelJackson #FunFacts #WeirdHistory #PodcastLife #AYSM #DidYouKnow #RockHistory #PopCulture #CrazyFacts #aysmpodc...

What happens when you have so much money that the laws of normal life just... stop applying? In this episode of Are You Shitting Me? Something I Learned While Avoiding Real Responsibilities , Brett breaks down one of the most unhinged (and somehow totally believable) facts about Mike Tyson — the man literally owned full-grown Bengal tigers in the 1990s. Not at a zoo. At his house. We're talkin...

What happens when the biggest pop star on the planet gets dethroned… by a band that basically refused to exist on the internet for 25 years? In this episode of Are You Sh!#ing Me? , (Something I Learned While Avoiding Real Responsibilities) Brett dives into one of the wildest chart battles in music history—when Taylor Swift’s Lover was dominating the world… until Tool showed up like absolute legen...

What do you do when you break your leg mid-concert in front of thousands of fans? If you're Dave Grohl, you get stabilized backstage and come right back out — seated in what fans would later call the "Rock Throne" — and finish the show anyway. In this episode of  Are You Shitting Me? Something I Learned While Avoiding Real Responsibilities , Brett discovers there are levels to toughn...

What happens when a bouncer, bodyguard, and motivational speaker are all the same person? You get Mr. T — and somehow it works. In this episode of  Are You Shitting Me? Something I Learned While Avoiding Real Responsibilities , Brett breaks down the surprisingly deep legacy of Mr. T: from his early days in security to his real-world work with at-risk youth and his trademark brand of tough-love men...

Bobby Leach went over Niagara Falls in a steel barrel in 1911, broke both kneecaps, fractured his jaw, spent 23 weeks in the hospital, and lived to tell the tale for 15 years — only to slip on an orange peel in New Zealand and die of gangrene. A 63-year-old schoolteacher beat him to the jump AND outlived him. This is a real historical event. Are you shitting me? A dumb thing Brett learned while av...

Brett was supposed to be doing something productive. He was not. Instead he found the story of Pope Stephen VI, who in 897 AD decided the correct response to a papal grudge was to exhume his predecessor's corpse, dress it in robes, prop it up on a throne, and hold a full criminal trial. The dead pope got a lawyer. Was found guilty. Had his fingers cut off. Got thrown in a river. The living pop...

In this episode of Are You Sh!#ing Me? (Something I Learned While Avoiding Real Responsibilities) , Brett explores the lost original footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and how NASA accidentally recorded over it during the 1980s. Learn how the tapes were erased, how the footage was later reconstructed from global broadcasts, and why one of humanity’s greatest achievements no longer exists in its...

That creepy bird-mask plague doctor you put on your front porch every Halloween? That was a real outfit worn by actual physicians in 17th century Europe. The beak was stuffed with herbs and dried flowers because they believed good smells would cancel out the plague. It did not work. Hundreds of thousands of people died. The leather suit maybe helped a little — kept the fleas off. The aromatherapy...

Celebrate National Beer Day with a wild true story that sounds completely made up—but isn’t. In this solo episode of Are You Sh!#ing Me? , Brett dives into the shocking history behind April 7, 1933—the day beer became legal again in the United States after 13 years of Prohibition. From the passing of the 18th Amendment and the strict enforcement of the Volstead Act, to the rise of speakeasies, boo...

Brett was avoiding something today. He doesn't remember what. Doesn't matter. What matters is that in 1919, a 2.5 million gallon tank of molasses exploded in Boston, sent a wave 15 feet high through the streets at 35 miles per hour, killed 21 people, drowned horses, and left the entire neighborhood sticky for decades. Are You Shitting Me? — something learned while avoiding real responsibil...

Brett was supposed to be doing something productive. He was not. Instead he fell into the documented, historically verified story of Joseph Pujol — a completely normal man with an abnormal talent who performed at the Moulin Rouge, out-earned the most celebrated actress of his era, and made women faint from laughing too hard. Doctors examined him. He was fine. He was just built different. This is t...

ALL NEW AYSM !! We're back! (Finally) What do microwaves, potato chips, Velcro, Viagra, Popsicles, and Post-it Notes all have in common? They were all invented completely by accident. In this episode of Are You Sh!#ing Me?, Brett and Chuck dive into some of the most famous accidental inventions in history—the discoveries that happened when scientists, engineers, and even kids were trying to do...

Ever think your job sucks? Meetings, emails, annoying bosses, and “per my last message” energy? Cool. At least you’re not drowning in human shit. In this episode of Are You Sh!tting Me? , Brett dives into the grossest, most horrifying jobs throughout history—and suddenly modern work complaints don’t seem so bad. From medieval gong farmers who shoveled human waste by hand, to tanners soaking hides...