Sleeping with Celebrities

When people have been married as long as Minnesota crop art icon Jill Moe and Sleeping with Celebrities host John Moe have been, they understand and accept that a loving couple need not share all interests. A topic that fascinates one spouse may completely bore and put to sleep spouse number two. Such are the Moes with John’s abiding interest in the consequence-free world of fantasy football and J...

Stephen Thompson is one of the co-hosts of NPR’s delightful Pop Culture Happy Hour, along with former Sleeping with Celebrities guests Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon and future guest Aisha Harris. Aside from being a culturally smarty, he’s one of the founders of the Tiny Desk Concerts, which has played host to some of the biggest names in music playing in a very small corner of an office floor of cu...

In talking about Susan Orlean, many people give her well-deserved credit as being the author of acclaimed best-sellers like The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin, and The Library Book. They don’t mention perhaps her most impressive accomplishment of all: she knows how to get animals to like her. All kinds. Zebras are a bit tricky because, as Susan explains, they are the asshole of the animal kingdom. Susa...

The life of a touring musician can involve a considerable amount of down time. There’s travel, checking into the hotel, sound check, the show, and some schmoozing, but that leaves many hours in the day for maddeningly difficult hobbies. Hamilton Leithauser of the Walkmen and an acclaimed solo career has poured a lot of time into learning chess and, while not on the road, building his own boards. H...

Like, so much. As in, he knows the name of Peter Cetera’s brother. He remembers most of the set list from a concert BY Chicago IN Chicago in 1981. Jimmy, of course, is the host of Never Not Funny, an absolutely essential comedy podcast now celebrating its 20th anniversary, which is about 19 years, eleven months, and three weeks longer than most podcasts make it. Now, Chicago, the band, is not know...

Wil Wheaton knows a thing or twelve about deeply loving a television series. He is part of the Star Trek universe after all, as Wesley Crusher, first appearing on Start Trek: The Next Generation, reappearing in various Trek iterations ever since, and that’s a show that has its passionate fans. Same with The Big Bang Theory, where Wil played a kind of alternate universe version of himself. For Wil,...

We all know Tom Bergeron from various television games and competitions he has hosted over many decades. He was at the helm for Hollywood Squares, emceed Dancing With the Stars, and showed us a great many of America’s Funniest Home Videos (which, oh yes, absolutely was a competition). And he’s still busy with contests today, this time as an expert in the game app Angry Birds Friends, which he play...

The National Football League, with all its attendant huddles and wide receiving and roughings of the passer, is about to begin a new season. And although the touchdowns will make the highlight reels, we here at the show are big fans of the little moments when things don’t work out so well. We like when the punter comes out. So we’re bringing back an episode from a recent Super Bowl with veteran pu...

This episode originally ran July 19, 2023 *** The actor, writer, comedian, and bon vivant Michael Ian Black is an enthusiast of the word game Scrabble and, in particular, the very short two-letter words that can make all the difference in a competitive game. Sure, lots of players want to use long words of seven or even more letters but a well-placed QI or a sly ZA can rack up more points than one...

Zhubin Parang, who has been with The Daily Show since the first time around with Jon Stewart, fully recognizes that among the many characters in the musical Les Misérables, only Javert really has an actual character arc. Only he goes somewhere over the course of the story. The rest kind of hold their ground, face grim adversity, and sing sing sing. That’s all good with Zhubin, he loves the crap ou...

The title of hilarious comedian Francisco Ramos’s new standup special, Still Learning , is not about his constant absorption of new information about episodes of the classic sitcom Seinfeld but it could apply. The special’s title refers to learning about marriage. Francisco is now divorced. But his relationship with Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer is still going strong. Francisco walks us throug...

As the slightly unhinged, or maybe more than slightly, mayor of Las Vegas, Jo Pezzimenti on HBO’s Hacks , Lauren Weedman leaves a hilarious and unforgettable impression, so much so that she’s a nominee for Best Supporting Actress at the upcoming Emmy Awards. Audiences might also know her as Melissa’s sister, Kristin Marie Schemmenti on Abbott Elementary . Frankly, we don’t know what’s up with thos...

Jamel Johnson is a DC native and has been following the Wizards his whole life. He’s seen the rise and fall of Gilbert Arenas, the arrival and departure of John Wall, and everything from Gheorge Muresan to Muggsy Bogues, all without an NBA title in Jamel’s lifetime. Mid-Range is both the title of his new comedy album and the name of type of jump shot he hopes the team can nail as it heads into a n...

Maximum Fun, the network upon which you hear our program, was founded by one Jesse Thorn, who continues to host an improbable number of podcasts on the network. Three, in fact: Bullseye (an interview program with cultural figures, also on NPR), Jordan, Jesse, Go! (where he horses around with Jordan Morris), and Judge John Hodgman (where he is the bailiff to the titular judge. But Jesse’s interests...

The universe is full of all sorts of alien creatures, we just know it. Problem is, they’re far away and, like us, possibly too stupid to invent really cool spaceships in order to visit. That’s why the book Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials was written and illustrated, earning a devoted following that includes Elliott Kalan. The book is a massive compendium of all sorts of aliens culled from sci...

You are reading something that was written in paragraph format, with complete sentences, grammar, nouns, and verbs. That’s not how Ryan Miller of the beloved band Guster likes it. Ryan enjoys lists. Likes reading them, creating them, and relying on the whole idea of ordered verticality. He tells us about the extensive playlist of songs he always keeps handy for his kids, how this list has been aro...

You have to be a slight J.R.R. Tolkien nerd to watch the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film series. They’re long, there’s three of them, and it helps to know your hobbits from your elves. You have to be even more of a fan to read the dense, lengthy Tolkien books. But then there’s Glen Weldon, co-host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, who has read everything Tolkien many times over including The S...

When you’re a Norwegian musician, you get used to hearing a lot of the band A-ha, the biggest ever to come out of the Nordic country shaped like an arm from the elbow down. And that’s fine with Sondre Lerche, the most popular Norwegian solo musicians of all time. Sondre adored A-ha by rarely gets to share all his knowledge. Until this bedtime, that is. Sondre also reads the names of 15 fjords in t...

We have to imagine that the life of an NPR White House Correspondent does not consistently feel relaxed, homey, sentimental, and warm. But you know what does? Field of Dreams , the 1989 Kevin Costner movie about an Iowa farmer with a field overrun by baseball ghosts. Danielle Kurtzleben, a White House Correspondent for NPR, is from Titonka, Iowa (population 491) and has probably seen the movie ele...

Dan Mintz is an actor, comedian, and writer with a new standup special, Well-Rounded Entertainer , premiering soon on YouTube. Dan is best known as Tina Belcher on the beloved animated TV comedy Bob’s Burgers , which has been on the air for 16 seasons. Where can you get burgers besides Bob’s? Trader Joe’s, that’s where. Dan likes to shop there for foods that will please his family and provide nutr...

Dulcé Sloan has been in your American television many times, appearing as correspondent and guest host of The Daily Show , doing stand up on Conan , and voice acting on The Great North . But she doesn’t have much time to watch her own shows because she’s too busy getting chin deep in Korean dramas, studying their patterns, delighting in the long built-up kisses, and talking about them on her new p...

You may have seen the very funny Anjelah Johnson-Reyes in Curb Your Enthusiasm , Ugly Betty , Superstore , or even on the sidelines as an Oakland Raiders cheerleader. Perhaps you’ve seen her comedy specials, including the brand new Ugly Baby , which is about her experiences becoming a mom and, fear not, she is the titular ugly baby here. Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve seen Anjelah in her garden, car...

In the Venn diagram of “heart” and “animation”, the overlap is Rebecca Sugar. Her series, Steven Universe , was more than just the adventures of an unusual boy’s search for identity in a spectacularly imaginative spiritual/paranormal world, it was mind-expanding and profoundly human and humane literature for legions of adoring fans. Rebecca’s non-animation interests are decidedly and literally muc...

A live in-person performance of Sleeping with Celebrities? At a real theater, the Bayfront Theater,  with lights and guests and an audience? At 5pm in the afternoon? Believe it because it happened. We ventured to the home of Rice-a-Roni, San Francisco to join comedy geniuses from all over at the SF Sketchfest. Hear actor John DiMaggio reveal the secrets of voiceover in a mellow voice that he’s not...

Eliza Coupe is an actor who has appeared regularly on shows like Scrubs , where she was Dr. Denise “Jo” Mahoney, and Happy Endings , where she starred as Jane Kerkovich-Williams. She’s also a person who lives much of the time in Joshua Tree, California, dedicating herself to a rather elaborate, daily, hours-long spiritual practice. We’re going to let her go through all that effort while you simply...