As You Know

Let's attempt to untangle the mess of a franchise that none of us are even sure if we like that much by discussing Star Wars: Clone Wars--the only canon non-movie from before the Disney merger. What are your favorite Star Wars names? Would Yoda be an ethical hooper? Does Star Wars still need to exist? We try to answer those questions and more.

We're going to podcast at the Rivoli! Fresh off the success of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, we trek up north to discuss the Canadian cult series from which it spawned. Much like the film, we have so many questions about how this was made.

Easily on the shortlist of funniest TV shows ever made, 30 Rock is a show near and dear to our hearts. So join us as we try to take a closer look at it but mostly reel off our favorite jokes and gags.

Our long-delayed trip to Westeros is finally here for your listening pleasure. Ian and Stephen try their best to explain the massive global phenomenon that was Game of Thrones to a man who never saw the appeal. This episode almost certainly has the most proper nouns of anything we've done.

We're back in the Ryan Murphy mines to talk about the most cursed show of the 21st century, Glee. Let's examine the weird clashing of earnestness and cynicism at the heart of the show, some questionable political forecasting, and a sneaking suspicion that our stars aren't actually all that good at musical theater.

We are belatedly kicking off the new year with Animaniacs, a cartoon about horrifying creatures terrorizing the good, hard-working employees of Warner Bros. with toon violence and low grade assault. Many great jokes that also have us asking "who is this for?"

Our first foray into SyFy original programming is The Magicians, a show that if nothing else was really going for it all the time. We're divided on the quality of the series, the concept, and if "railing" is a purely physical act. But we love the talking rabbits.

For possibly the first time since NGE, we covered a show that ended with a movie that we actually liked. Adult Swim's most celebrated(?) series, The Venture Bros. had a long and strange history and is a difficult to describe pastiche of 60s adventure cartoons and comic books, but remained funny throughout. This episode could just be a list of character names.

In the wake of the success of Lost, networks greenlit many of their own attempts to capture that vibe. Maybe none were more notable than Heroes, which was huge for a minute and then promptly forgotten. Let's remember some 2000s guys.

We're off to Puppetland as we try to explain the phenomenon that was Pee-wee Herman, one of the most inexplicable great comedy personas in history. Would you move into a house where every object is alive? Can we do any of the various Pee-wee voices? And can Ian make it through the podcast without saying the Word of the Day?

Good evening, ladies and ghouls, it's spooky season so we are taking a look at the classic HBO anthology series Tales From the Crypt. We debate many important questions, like "Should the Cryptkeeper be canceled?" and "Why is the last episode of this an animated twist on the Three Little Pigs?"

Stephen debuts a new character as we discuss Jason Momoa's post-apocalyptic fantasy series about a world where almost everybody is blind. This somehow existed for three seasons but you have probably never heard of it! Baba Voss

The last show we discussed ended with demons being released from Hell and encroaching on the greater Copenhagen area, so we thought we'd lighten the mood with a bizarre sitcom about dinosaurs and how they're just like us. Except that it ends with the world ending and the implied death from starvation/exposure coming for every character, including a catchphrase-spewing baby. Not the mama! Gotta lov...

We're going to continental Europe for the first time in a minute to talk Danish enfant terrible Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom. It's Twin Peaks meets ER but really mostly trying to be the former. There's a lot of Danish-Swedish beef that we don't really understand. And a lot of unrelated talk about a certain move that improv comics are way too fond of doing.

The South got something to say...but we only have a little bit to add about classic sitcom Designing Women, about a group of interior designers in Atlanta sniping at each other (and the showrunners, it turns out). Like all discussions of shows we didn't find to be rich texts, we do start talking about Hideo Kojima.

Remember when Mozart in the Jungle won a billion Golden Globes for its first season and nobody knew what it was? We're investigating the Amazon Prime original, which ran for three more seasons after that! Did you know orchestral musicians have sex? That's more or less the premise.

We could not find the British cop show Heartbeat, so we pivoted to discuss Travis's favorite comedy of all time: Curb Your Enthusiasm. We get into the ups and downs of a show that ran for a quarter of a century while staying mostly the same, the inherent confusion of having some celebrities play themselves while others play fictional characters, and the genius of ending your show the same way you...

Last time out we covered a show that became a beloved action franchise, but how about a beloved action franchise spawning a TV show? The short-lived Sarah Connor Chronicles ask the big questions: What if there was a hot Terminator (please ignore T3)? Or a Scottish accented one? Are these changes enough to make it better than all of the 21st Century sequels? This episode also has Ian and Travis get...

We all know that Cleveland rocks, but does The Drew Carey Show? Especially episodes that don't involve Cleveland Rocks? We took a closer look at one of our favorite "after school basic cable syndication" shows to see how it holds up. This one's for everyone in Solon, Parma, Lakewood, etc.

To modern audiences it's Tom Cruise's big action franchise, but for us it's time look at Mission: Impossible's '60s TV origins, and all that entails: Espionage! Cool dead drops! Anti-Communism! Brownface! Apologies for the janky audio in this one, there was a file issue so we had to use the backup.

We're taking it back to our millennial childhoods with Yu-Gi-Oh!, a show where nothing much happens except for card games represented by holograms. We recorded this right after the Luka Doncic trade so there's a lot of basketball talk too.

Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH-nuh-nuh, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH-nuh-nuh, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH-nuh-NUH, DUH-NUH

Put on your fedora and eat a sandwich loaded with a jar of jalapenos, because it's time to talk Fringe, the cult X-Files knockoff with a mad scientist, a cow, Pacey from Dawson's Creek and more.

Finally, 130-odd episodes into this podcast, we're talking about the twisted mind of Ryan Murphy. We've picked the terrible show that launched a career of other terrible shows, Nip/Tuck, which dives into the world of plastic surgery with sledgehammer subtlety. We're talking cartel pedophile fratricide. We're talking outrageously poorly aged trans plotlines. Serial killers are involved. This man is...

Coming at the crest of a wave of unasked for TV adaptations of movies, it's TNT's Snowpiercer, based on the Bong Joon-Ho movie which itself is based on the French comic about class war on a train that circumnavigates a frozen Earth. The guy from Clipping/Hamilton is here. Jennifer Connelly is here. There's a polycule train car. You get the idea.