Love Hate Relationship

Love: Man Bags Alex takes his time this episode to talk up Man Bags. He discusses their practicality, the contents of his own (spoilers: mostly charging cables, allergy meds, and weapons), and why it's weird as hell that carrying stuff is controversial to some. Andy meanwhile mentions the time he almost lit himself on fire and gives a passionate defense for kilt-wearing. Hate: Meme Culture Andy br...

Love: Band of Brothers Andy starts this episode off with a segment on his favorite war-centered anything, the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers . He discusses its remarkable cast and the ways in which it succeeds and comes up short presenting the realities of war in a compelling narrative while Alex takes the opportunity to defend the miniseries as a format and dissect why World War II is the "easy"...

Love: Bob's Burgers Alex takes his Love segment to discuss Loren Bouchard and  Jim Dauterive's Bob's Burgers . He talks up the brilliant cast, how the show has kept fresh after 10 seasons, and mistakenly refers to the character of Marshmallow as Cinnamon (all apologies to the BB super-fans). Andy mentions his crush on Kristen Schaal, and everyone reminiscences about the glory years of The Sim...

Love: The Hobbit Andy gets literary for this Love segment, and brings in one of his most formative and favorite books of all time, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit . He talks about his personal connection to it as a memento of family-bonding, how influential it's been to the fantasy genre, and how just friggin' good it is as a book. Alex discusses his struggles with the larger LOTR series (despite a go...

For episode 35 of Love Hate Relationship, Alex and Andy are proud to welcome Twitch-streamer, uber-nerd, and longtime friend of the podcast, Matt Caulder, for a Triple Love Special all about the X-Men. They begin with a discussion of how each of them came to awareness and appreciation of the franchise (spoilers, the 90's animated cartoon, and its excellent theme song feature heavily) and how that...

Love: Footloose Alex takes his turn at the Love this episode to talk about one of his absolute favorite movies of all time, 1984's Footloose . He and Andy sift through which parts of it are ridiculous 80's cheese, and which are subtle, nuanced performances and writing choices. There's also a lot of love for John Lithgow, the entire soundtrack, and sweet, sweet little Willard. Hate: Mathcore Andy o...

Love: Big Mouth Andy breaks in this episode to talk about the Netflix original animated series, Big Mouth . He and Alex defend it in the face of a fair amount of anecdotal criticism over the weird animation style and the gross-out humor, discuss how damn educational and witty and body-affirming it is, and even touch on the modest controversies it's drummed up (with casting, not with the skull-fuck...

Love: Missy Elliott Alex finally breaks his embargo on music-related topics to talk up who he considers to be one of the most underrated rappers in Hip Hop, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott. Alex calls out all of the sexism, body-shaming, and club-jam snobbery that keeps her out of most GOAT conversations, Andy discusses his own Top 5 at the start, and shout-outs are made 2015's forgotten hero, Left Sh...

Love: Animorphs Andy takes the love section this episode to talk about one of his (and it turns out Alex's) favorite childhood sci-fi book series, Animorphs . They talk about how despite being written for younger audiences, it still managed to hit on hard science fiction concepts and frank discussions of war, child soldiers, and philosophy. Andy talks about being scared of some of the more evocati...

Love: House to Astonish Love Hate Relationship finally circles enough around itself to make a podcast a topic for its podcast ( McElroys notwithstanding). Alex's love this episode is Scottish comic book podcast, House to Astonish . He talks about how much mileage and longevity it's gotten out of simply being two incredibly smart and funny people talking into a microphone about a topic they are bot...

Love: Bat Out of Hell Andy comes to the table this episode to talk about one of his favorite albums of all time: Meat Loaf's 1977 debut, Bat Out of Hell . He and Alex discuss its early stages as a Peter Pan-inspired stage show, the weird and wonderful writing of composer and songwriter Jim Steinman, Andy's crush on background vocalist Ellen Foley, and both of them turn in their music nerd cards fo...

Love: Kevin Smith Alex takes the Love this episode, and uses the time to talk up all-around Internet Darling, Kevin Smith. He and Andy discuss the ups-and-downs of his turbulent movie career and how he's parlayed that into work in TV, comic-book writing, and a truly outrageous number of podcasts. Alex highlights his being a fan and a good dude in front of everything else in his public persona, whi...

DISCLAIMER: Andy experienced catastrophic audio issues at about the 4:50 mark, after which his voice sounds more or less like an old-timey radio-show phone call-in. If you're one of our die-hards, we sincerely apologize for the momentary drop in quality and promise you that we've rectified the issue and all will be back to normal next episode. And if you're a new listener, for the love of god, don...

Love: Desmond Child For what he promises will be the last music-related topic he pulls for at least the next few episodes, Alex is using his time here to give some attention to his favorite professional songwriter, Desmond Child. He discusses his history of writing music for everybody from Aerosmith and Bon Jovi to Sisqó, Katy Perry, and Ricky Martin. Andy learns about the weird heterogeneous natu...

For their 25th episode (and one-year anniversary), Love Hate Relationship proudly presents the first-ever Triple Hate Special, all about that bastardly bastion of religious rectitude, Scientology.  Alex takes the helm at the start of the discussion, opening with a brief-ish rundown on the pre-founding-a-cult life of L. Ron Hubbard, told mainly through his lies. Highlights include his time as...

Love: Skyrim Andy takes an opportunity this episode to cover one of his favorite video games of all time, 2011's Skyrim . He talks about its expansive gameplay, the hours of time that he's managed to put into it, and the impressive culture of mods that has kept interest going for all of these years. Alex contributes by talking about his Tetris addiction and enjoying the image of Randy "Macho Man"...

Love: Librivox Alex begins this episode with a discussion of Librivox, an entirely volunteer-run digital library of free-to-access public domain audiobooks. He talks about how he has used it to catch up and/or stomach a lot of the literary classics he either missed or couldn't get through in the past, Andy tells some touching tales of listening to the Harry Potter on CD and finding Nathaniel Hawth...

Love: The Tampa Bay Lightning Andy starts off this episode with a combination public and personal history for his favorite hockey team, the Tampa Bay Lightning. He delves into their founding, a story complete with mediocre performances and Japanese mob connections (really), their eventual ascent into top-tier status through a combination of gimmicks and historically good playing, and Andy's own pe...

Love: John Mulaney Alex opens this episode's Love segment with one of his and Andy's favorite comedians working today, the ever-precocious John Mulaney. He discusses Mulaney's master-craft attention to detail as a writer and performer, Andy makes a lot of the fact that he seems to be bringing back an older-school style of comedy (and wears a suit!), and the two of them touch on the weird commonali...

Love: Neil Gaiman For only the second time in LHR History, Andy and Alex are recording together in the same room, and Andy kicks the occasion off by talking up arguably the greatest fantasy author alive (suck it, Martin), Neil Gaiman. They spend a ton of time talking about his comics, specifically the masterpiece that is Sandman , his forays into the mediums of prose and TV writing, his funky Alic...

Love: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Alex revels in opening this episode with discussing the Amazon original series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . He and Andy dive into the amazing character relationships and casting for this weird period comedy-drama show (Alex Borstein and Tony Shalhoub get particular shout-outs along with star, Rachel Brosnahan), its superb writing (especially the stand-up comedy scen...

Love: Coheed and Cambria Andy starts our latest episode off with a discussion of his favorite contemporary music act, Coheed and Cambria. He and Alex dive into their history, their somewhat unique blending and bending of genres outside of the traditional prog metal with which their associated, and the very fact that they are something of a concept band, with almost all of their albums and projects...

Love: Bass Guitar Alex opens this episode with a discussion of one his favorite musical instruments, the bass guitar. He talks its history, how essential it is to so many genres of music, and its ridiculously inaccurate reputation as basically a dumbed-down, easier version of the guitar. Andy and he talk about their favorite bassists and even find time for an impromptu, research-less, barely there...

Love: Guillermo Del Toro Andy kicks off this episode with the first director to make an LHR appearance, the Mexican master of monsters, Guillermo del Toro. He discusses del Toro's work including his early Spanish-language pieces ( The Devil's Backbone , Pan's Labyrinth ) to horror-fantasy blockbusters ( Hellboy , Pacific Rim ), to straight-up Oscar-winner The Shape of Water . Alex tries to summari...

After the tremendous experience of our Triple Love Special on Robin Williams (available here ), Andy and Alex have decided ten episodes later to try it again with another tragically passed fixture of joy to the outcasts, the incomparable David Bowie. They ground everything in a lengthy, tangent-filled rundown of Bowie's life and career, from his early education in art, dance, and music, to his bur...