Dispatch Ajax! Podcast

The holiday you know wasn’t born under twinkle lights. It was assembled—piece by piece—out of Star Wars, Sol Invictus and Saturnalia, immigrant folklore and Protestant pushback, department store spectacle and the irresistible pull of a good story. We follow that winding path from Rome’s calendar to America’s shopping aisles, showing how gift giving shifted from communal ritual to commercial engine...

We open with the shock of Carrie-Hiroyuki Tagawa’s passing and step through the moments that defined him: a scene-stealing Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat, a gallery of elegant villains across 80s and 90s action, and a deep, steady practice in martial arts that prized control over violence. That contrast powers the story—how a performer built on breath, precision, and presence could turn wafer-thin d...

A cold lab, stale air, and a wall of children’s drawings signal a mystery no tricorder can soothe: an entire colony erased without a trace. We follow the trail to a being that looks like a celestial snowflake and feeds like a storm—an immense crystalline lifeform that turns living worlds into power. Along the way, a door creaks open on Dr. Noonien Soong’s workshop, revealing not only the origins o...

A cabin shakes in the night, boulders slam the walls, and a furry arm reaches for an axe—a century-old story that still echoes through American folklore. Today we go Squatchin' with Sunbow.  From that 1924 Ape Canyon account to the grainy stride of the Patterson–Gimlin film, we chase the moments that turned Bigfoot from campfire whisper to cultural touchstone, and ask why those 39 seconds won...

What keeps pulling us back to the grid when the box office never quite follows? We dive into the whole Tron continuum—from the 1982 cult seed and the overlooked Tron 2.0, through Joseph Kosinski’s neon‑sleek Tron Legacy and the bridge‑building of Tron: Uprising, to the new red‑glow reality of Tron Ares. Along the way, we tackle the question fans argue and studios dodge: is Tron actually sci‑fi, or...

In a new miniseries all about the weird and/or esoteric we pull the thread back to The Law of One, a 1980s series of channeling sessions where researcher Don Elkins and collaborator Jim McCarty recorded Carla Ruckert in trance, speaking as an entity called Ra. From “intelligent infinity” to densities of consciousness and a sweeping claim that all is one, the material wrapped metaphysics in sci‑fi...

Ever fall in love with a movie’s world while side-eyeing its logic? That’s the neon paradox of Tron. We dive straight into how Steven Lisberger’s Pong epiphany became a Disney gamble that pushed live action, backlit animation, and early CGI into a single, striking language—and why that language still speaks to us. From Moebius-inspired suits to hand-processed frames and vendor tag-teams like MAGI...

We pull the curtain on what happens when iconic slashers, demons, and haunted houses try to survive network constraints, syndication deals, and the long tail of serialized storytelling. From cursed antiques pitched as Friday the 13th to Freddy Krueger moonlighting as a wisecracking host, we map the distance between brand recognition and actual fear. We start with the bait-and-switches: Friday The...

Fog curls over jagged granite and the tide keeps its own secrets—Maine feels like a place where myth, memory, and menace overlap. We head straight for that seam, weaving the state’s stark coastline and Wabanaki dawns into a guided tour of folklore, and true crime. Along the way we reckon with names that linger in the record—Mary Cohen, Constance Margaret Fisher, Malcolm Robbins Jr.—and the ways ge...

Fog rolls in, the horizon narrows, and a silent ship drifts across the bow. We dive into the world of ghost ships, separating verifiable derelicts from enduring legends to understand why the ocean is such fertile ground for fear, folklore, and forensic dead ends. Together we revisit the Mary Celeste with its missing lifeboat and intact cargo, the SS Baychimo wandering the Arctic for decades, and t...

A quiet New Year’s stroll at Miami’s Bayside turns into a story you feel in your bones—a swell of bodies running, a ripple in the air that won’t resolve, and a shape you can describe only in metaphors. We step into that moment on the linoleum, right where curiosity edges past fear, and bring you the first-person rush of a night that refuses to fit the official script. From the intimate details—the...

Horror doesn’t hand down commandments from a mountaintop; it scavenges from headlines, folklore, and fear, then welds those scraps into images we can’t shake. We open the vault on a Halloween favorite to map where the genre’s “rules” actually come from—Lover’s Lane, masks without faces, babysitters on the edge, clowns that cross lines, and formless things that fall from the sky. The trail starts w...

What if vampire movies weren’t just capes and candlelight, but living ecosystems of ideas—about infection, class, desire, grief, and the high that won’t let go? We pulled on that thread and followed it everywhere, from neon-soaked action to art-house melancholy, from airplane sieges to centuries-long love stories. Along the way we map how Blade built a sleek underworld of boardrooms and blood bank...

Here's s sneak peak of the first of Spooktember's horror specials! In this one Jake breaks down some underseen - sometimes cult - Vampyre (Vampire) Films and media. 

Dive into the remarkable transformation of America's longest-running comic book franchise as we explore how Archie Comics evolved from wholesome teenage stories to groundbreaking horror, genre-bending crossovers, and multimedia dominance. The year 2009 marked a pivotal turning point when John Goldwater Jr. took the reins following the passing of the previous leadership. What followed was noth...

Ever wonder how a blue video game hedgehog became the star of the longest-running licensed comic book in history? The saga of Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog series offers a fascinating glimpse into the intersection of gaming culture, corporate licensing, and passionate fandom. Born during the heated console wars of the early 90s, Sonic was Sega's answer to Nintendo's Mario. As we...

In accordance with Star Trek Day we bring you a special episode of Memory Gamma! Once considered an enemy of the Federation, a member of the Augmented Klingon generation, Kor, has a complicated and eventually venerated legacy - at least within the Klingon Empire.   In this episode we explore the long and storied legend of the mighty Kor, the Dahar Master, and his place in Star Trek lore. 

Archie Comics represents one of the most fascinating paradoxes in American pop culture – a property deeply associated with mid-century nostalgia that has somehow remained culturally relevant for over eight decades. This exploration takes you from Archie's origins in 1939 to its surprising evolution as one of the most experimental publishers in modern comics. Before Batman dominated box office...

What makes a machine human? When does an algorithm become more than just ones and zeros? In this fourth installment of our artificial intelligence in pop culture series, we tackle the profound philosophical questions raised by science fiction's most compelling AI narratives. We begin with Star Trek's Data—the "fully functional" android whose quest to understand humanity mirrors...

We begin by exploring the curious case of droids in the Star Wars universe – conscious beings treated as property and slaves despite their clear personhood. The moral contradiction is striking: characters form deep emotional bonds with these synthetic beings while simultaneously accepting their status as possessions. This paradox raises profound questions about how we define personhood and the eth...

Nostalgia colors our perception of beloved franchises, sometimes more powerfully than any objective quality measurement could. We dive deep into how childhood memories shape our connection to stories like Star Wars and Star Trek, and why it's perfectly valid for people to hold differing opinions about which iterations of these franchises succeed or fail.

In this episode, we explore how artificial intelligence has been portrayed in popular culture, from the replicants of Blade Runner to the feminized AI of Ex Machina. We examine the fundamental philosophical questions these stories raise: What constitutes life? What separates consciousness from programming? At what point would we need to recognize an artificial entity as deserving rights and autono...

In this previously unreleased episode we muse over James Gunn's 'Superman'. This Superman exists in a world that immediately feels more "comic booky" than previous iterations – complete with Superman robots, a super-powered dog, and pocket dimensions that defy explanation. It's a deliberate step away from the gritty realism of previous DC films, embracing the fantasti...

The passing of Jim Shooter marks the end of a contentious yet undeniably influential chapter in comic book history. From teenage prodigy to Marvel's commanding editor-in-chief, Shooter's nine-year reign from 1978 to 1987 fundamentally transformed how superhero stories are told and sold.

Though the geopolitics were a complicated web of interconnected parts, certain events before, during and after Earth’s 3rd World War are undisputed. At least, today.  One of the most infamous figures in Human history is Colonel Phillip Green - a key player in the build-up to war and the literal fallout to follow. He’s viewed - rightfully - as one of the biggest villains ever to walk the Earth. As...