Recreational Thinking

Contestants: Matt Amodio, Ben Chan, Adriana Harmeyer

Contestants: Jake DeArruda, Sean McShane, Juveria Zaheer This is a preview of Episode 52 of  Recreational Thinking .

Contestants: Randall Eng, Andy Greeley, Ewan Munro, Ajay Parasuraman, Jeffrey Seguritan, Jayanthi Srinivasan ICE to see you tune in for this latest Directors Set, one so fiendishly challenging that not one but two contestants are seriously considering renouncing their citizenship by the end of it!  From a string of émigrés that causes one contestant to state "I'm all out of Hungarians" (incidental...

Contestants: Jonathan Mishory, Raghuveer Mukkamalla, Jack Rousseau, S. A. Shenoy Join me and four brave playtesters — including one Zooming along the New Jersey Turnpike (not behind the wheel!) — who said "yes" to NO.  Learn about a dizzyingly wide variety of filmmakers, from a professional pickleball player to the mother of rapper-turned-politician "Young Cardamom" to the man who invented the not...

Contestants: Randall Eng, Jing Feng, Andy Greeley, Ewan Munro, Jeffrey Seguritan, Jayanthi Srinivasan Who needs Gukesh vs. Ding when you have Randall Eng and Ewan Munro duking it out for cinematic-quiz supremacy?  But even as we all compete to mispronounce French names that being with "M," it is Jayanthi who comes out on top with the worst pun--uh, I mean, funniest joke of all.  Sadly, those of yo...

Contestants: Dan Blim, Randall Eng, Jayanthi Srinivasan, Ariel Watsky NOTE: This friendly includes 13 images that, for obvious technical reasons, cannot be included; therefore, this audio replay should not be considered a "pure" example of my work.  Keep in mind that the contestants are not big James Bond buffs.  If *you* are, and would like to play this friendly rather than listen to it, please c...

Contestants: Kelsey Barcomb, Mike Cheyne, Greg Fanoe, Patrick Friel, Miranda Onnen, Tucker Warner NOTE: This is a free preview.  Please subscribe to my Patreon to gain access to the rest of the alphab et. I've decided to release three bonus mini-sodes this Thanksgiving (of which this is the second).  Enjoy! Six cinephiles gather in one Zoom room to show off their knowledge of directors with surnam...

Contestants: Kelsey Barcomb, Paige Feldman, Charlie Fritz, Cari Milowicki, Lindsay Sobczak, Tucker Warner NOTE: This is a free preview.  Please subscribe to my Patreon to gain access to the rest of the alphab et. Happy Thanksgiving!  This free preview is what you get, as our six cinephile contestants test their knowledge of Radiohead's "Karma Police," Pretty Little Liars , Mission: Impossible , an...

Contestants: Dan Burgess, Randall Eng, Ewan Munro, Jayanthi Srinivasan, Anupama Srirangan NOTE: This is a free preview.  Please subscribe to my Patreon to gain access to the rest of the alphab et. Five cinephiles gather in one Zoom room to show off their knowledge of directors with surnames beginning with "L."  What happens next will shock and amuse you!  (But mostly amuse.) As always, if you like...

Contestants: Charlie Fritz, Andy Greeley, Lindsay Sobczak, Tucker Warner NOTE: This is a free preview.  Please subscribe to my Patreon to gain access to the rest of the alphabet. Four cinephiles (including our current OQL commissioner!) compete to show off knowledge of directors with "K" names.  A "From the Vault" cut of these questions, featuring yet another Randall Eng vs. Ewan Munro showdown, w...

(Note: That's a letter I, not a number 1) Contestants: Ben Kitchen, Ewan Munro, Devin Rossiter I recently recorded two new Recreational Thinking Lite episodes; the other (with Aaron Levine, Manas Sarma, and my Jeopardy! compatriot Andrew Whatley), will go up as a Patreon exclusive .  But as I'm working through my editing backlog — a lot of new material, much of it featuring J! superstars, is comin...

Contestants: Jing Feng, Andy Greeley, Randall Eng, Ewan Munro NOTE: This is a free preview.  Please subscribe to my Patreon to gain access to the rest of the alphabet. Another little taste of my directors sets!  This set, covering I's and some leftover H's, is one of my hardest, but Randall & Ewan and company are more than up to the task.  Perhaps we'll hear these hardcore cinephiles on an all...

Contestants: Frederic Bush, Chris Miller, Greg Weinstein, Tucker Warner, Dan Blim (whole time); Cliff Galiher, Charlie Fritz (part of the time) NOTE: This is a free preview.  Please subscribe to my Patreon to gain access to the rest of the alphabet. Welcome to my new series!  Written by a serious cinephile (me) for an audience of cinephiles, these questions also work as a starting point for anyone...

Contestants: Meredith MacVittie, Ben Rothenberg, Nikhil Soneja From the semi-logical to the semiological, this episode examines the JAMES BOND phenomenon at all angles, turning a spyglass on the world's most famous spy.  As we celebrate the rich legacy of the Bond franchise while also reflecting on its many problematic aspects, we additionally draw connections to geography, politics, probability t...

Contestants: Randall Eng, Doug Behrend, Darren Munk Play ball!  An episode recorded back in spring is ready just in time for the playoffs, and just like their favorite players, our baseball-loving contestants are all highly skilled contenders vying for a prestigious world championship!  Well, okay, maybe it's not that prestigious, and it's definitely not a world championship (but is the World Seri...

Contestants: Erin Portman, Vince Bacani, Jimmy Davoren I love all my contestants equally, but the moment in this episode when one reasons out the *meter* of the correct answer using her knowledge of prosody is an all-time highlight.  Really, though, there are standout moments from everyone in an episode that covers the 4 C's — curling, Catholicism, cookies, and chess — plus everything from Neil Ga...

Contestants: Michael Rankins, Dave Ross, Nikhil Soneja Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-BATMAN!!!  And WONDER WOMAN!!!  And GREEN LANTERN, plus FLASH!!!  All your favorite DC superheroes and supervillains — okay, well, a decent selection of them — turn up in this topic-specific episode that spans the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and modern Ages of DC Comics.  Plus, we cover the ABCs of science fiction.  (I'm aw...

Contestants: Ben Bass, Matthew Marcus, Henry Stringer and "gate-crasher" Raghuveer Mukkamalla Want to see more of dashing J! champion Matthew Marcus?  Join him and three other fans of Recreational Thinking in the first ever recorded episode of Recreational Thinking Lite !  These were intended as Patreon exclusives, and most of them are, but the public demands More Matthew Marcus!!!, and who am I t...

For the first time, my Patreon followers have something to show for their support other than just a warm, fuzzy feeling!  This past weekend, I quickly threw together seven episodes of what I'm calling Recreational Thinking lite , a fast-and-furious, unstructured, unedited format where everyone works together against my questions and we wrap things up in 40-50 minutes.  It was a total experiment, a...

Contestants: Henry Stringer, Akiva Fox, Nathan Crissey What could be scarier than a "deranged cheese monster"?  Well, for quizzers, it would have to be forgetting the name of someone you've spent time with on multiple occasions, right when you're asked a question about them.  Yes, this episode's clever contestants hit highs and lows, mixing painfully close misses with one of the best "fraud" answe...

Contestants: Dan Blim, Jayanthi Martins, Nick Salyers We may not have pumpkins, but we do crown a Pun King (or Queen?) in this seasonally appropriate episode featuring vampires, Hitchcock, the  Saw franchise, and strained wordplay galore!  From Koopas to Kansas, from Mario to Mitski, from Princess Peach to the Dolphin Princess ... like the humble tomato, this episode traverses the globe, stopping...

Contestants: Nathan Flynn, Bradly Martin, Danny Dogget Full circle!  We recorded this Gilliganverse-heavy episode the day Better Call Saul premiered its final half-season, and I'm releasing it right as that series airs its finale.  Kismet, huh? Welcome to one of our most atypical episodes, as the contestants are recruited not from quizzing circles but from an informal network of podcasters and pop...

Contestants: Mike Jeziorski, Tucker Warner, Jack Rousseau Enjoy Episode 10?  Then you'll love this SUPER SIZED reunion of all three members of that classic lineup, now with 95% less baseball.  Never fear, though, for I Am the Pretty Thing that Writes the Questions, and so we make up for it with more nods to growing up in Illinois than a Sufjan Stevens album, more video games than a Lana Del Rey al...

Contestants: Mike Samuelson, Colin Smith, Ryan Palmer, Dan Schroeder Stay hungry, stay foolish, and stay listening to this SPECIAL CROSSOVER REUNION EVENT in which Recreational Thinking yet again meets The Soccer Thread !  For the first time since Episode 5, the host and the majority of the contestants are occupying the same physical space, and for the first time EVER that space is OUTSIDE!!  Yes,...

Contestants: Matt Jackson, Jenna LaFleur, Ben Rothenberg Buon giorno!   A Jeopardy! legend and two of his DC-area pub-quiz-mates join us in this exhilarating episode, albeit with one Zooming remotely from Rome, and as if by magic a surprisingly high number of questions sprout Italian connections.  (These unconscious mini-themes — last time's was Game of Thrones — are starting to become a regular f...