Sofa King Podcast

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about a strange case of True Crime known as the Chowchilla Bus Kidnapping. In 1976, three men (Frederick Woods, James Schoenfeld, and Richard Schoenfeld) did the unthinkable. As bus driver Ed Ray was driving 26 children back from a pool outing, the kidnappers boarded their school bus and held them at gunpoint. Then, the children and Ray were forced...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we turn our eyes to the heavens and talk about Solar Flares. These nasty little critters blast off of the sun in eleven year cycles and can wreak havoc with high tech equipment. In the past, people didn’t care much about this phenomenon. For one, they didn’t have telescopes to see them, and even once they did, they just didn’t matter. But now, living in a...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at MTV. This little upstart cable channel first aired in 1981with very little content but a big dream. It fulfilled those dreams and then some. There would be no 1980s culture without MTV. The music, the fashion, the videos, all of it was first seen here. It low-key launched the careers of people like Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Spike Jonez, and Joh...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the king of the chase scene, Burt Reynolds. Reynolds gave us classic movies such as Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, and Hooper and became an icon and sex symbol for decades. From the disturbing Deliverance to the porn-heavy Boogie Nights, he ended having a wide range as an actor. He fell off the scene for a while and had a...

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about one of the greatest actors of all time, Christopher Lee. This legend played Dracula and was in little known film series such as James Bond, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars. What’s more impressive is that in WWII he became a spy, a Nazi hunter, and a member of the infamous SOE—The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. After he mastered spy craft...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall. This wall was both a symbolic and physical barrier between Soviet and Western ideals for over 30 years. After WWII, Germany was divided into four parts, each run by a different nation. Berlin was divided as well, and it served as the most important border-crossing and battle ground for the Co...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the wonderful world of ants. Experts suggest that there are up to ten quadrillion ants alive on the planet, roughly 25% of all life on earth. They are highly organized, intelligent, social, and…creepy. They talk to each other via sound and pheromones. Ants grow crops, they go to war, and they even farm aphids to milk them for honeydew. Their siz...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about Satan. It only made logical sense for our 666th episode to talk about Lucifer, the Prince of Lies. So where do his origins begin? As with most Christian beliefs, he starts pre-Christianity as a series of malevolent gods and human adversaries who merge to one supernatural baddie. He is never physically described in the Bible, and...

This is one of the largest public government retractions and alleged cover-ups that exist in the realm of conspiracy theory. The actual facts are that a press release came out from the US Air Force on July 8, 1947, claiming a “flying saucer” crashed thirty miles outside of Roswell. Then, on July 9, the Air Force changed their story and infamously said it was a weather balloon. The story pretty muc...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the truly gonzo life of the one and only Hunter S Thompson. Thompson was a journalist who became famous for his crazed drug-fueled antics and anti-authority stance. Born in Louisville, Kentucky to a middle class family, his father died while he was a teenager, and his mother was left very poor and became an alcoholic. During this time, Thompson...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about Sputnik. Sputnik was the first man-made satellite to ever orbit the earth, and it started the Space Race and made the Cold War grow even hotter. It was designed by the Soviet Union using a system of interlocking governmental agencies. Sputnik was far ahead of its time, and it freaked America (and the rest of the world) out. The r...

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the Grandfather of Glam, David Bowie. He was hands down one of the most important artists of his life time, experimenting with every new style of music and instrument out there. He was one of the main influencers on the androgyny of the 1980s, and his most famous persona, Ziggy Stardust, was a creature that made fun of itself. He was an often...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the sinking of The Kursk. The Kursk was a Russian nuclear sub and was declared “unsinkable.” However, a constantly declining military budget let their navy start to fall apart. On Aug 12, 2000, during a massive fleet-wide training exercise, the ship fell silent. Well, not exactly silent since seismographs on the other side of the world reported...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about one of the most famous structures on planet earth—The Great Sphinx of Giza. The Sphinx is old. It is really old, but nobody knows exactly how ancient it is. Popular beliefs put it at 4500 years old, built by the Pharaoh Khafre. Others say it was built by that pharaoh’s father, Khufu. Yet others claim it was discovered by Khufu an...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about one or the boldest cult leaders to ever live—James Strang. He proclaimed himself the King of Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, and from there, he ran an empire of lumber theft, polygamy, and even piracy across The Great Lakes. He wrote diaries in a made up language (that took a century to decode), forged documents and holy artifact...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about one of the loudest voices of Generation X, Henry Rollins. He was the front man for the epic punk band Black Flag and later the front man for the Rollins Band. He was in icon of the 80s and 90s, known for his temper, tattoos, and timbre. Henry Rollins sang against the establishment and fought against what was corrupt in society; he fought agai...

Daves not here man ... Classic This episode peels back the lid on the very popular conspiracy theory involving the use of fluoride in municipal drinking water. The common conspiracy theories get pretty crazy and talk about Communist plots and argue that Nazis used sodium fluoride to keep prisoners of war and concentration camp victims docile. We talk about those theories and whether they have been...

Daves not here man..... On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we look at a guy who may be the worst Brit to ever live, Jimmy Savile. Jimmy Savile was a media personality and radio host (think Ryan Seacrest or Dick Clark in the States). He had a hit-maker radio and tv show that every musician wanted to be on. He also had a BBC television series that made the dream of ill children come true. He...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at the achievements, impacts, and allegations against the original Hip-Hop mogul, Russell Simmons. A young Simmons fell in love the new art form of rap and immediately took charge of the genre’s future. He signed Kurtis Blow from his dorm room on to a label that didn’t exist, and he hustled every DJ in New York until he got him a recor...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about phobias. Everyone is afraid of something, but that doesn’t make it a phobia. A phobia is technically a form of anxiety disorder that lasts more than 6 months. These can be common and reasonable things like snakes or spiders, or truly bizarre things like a fear of belly buttons or a fear of long words. What causes Phobias to exist? How many pe...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the best looking man in a bow tie, Pee-Wee Herman. Pee-Wee is played by the comedic actor Paul Reubens, and though he seems like an inevitable and overnight success, he worked on his comedy and this character for well over a decade before he blew up in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. He went to Cal Arts to study acting (alongside The Hasselhoff, I m...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we hit you with some cryptozoology and talk about the Beast of Exmoor. This creature has been spotted thousands of times since the 1970s. It gained popularity in 1983 when a farmer lost almost 100 sheep in the course of three months. It got so bad that the British Royal Marines were deployed in “Operation Beastie” to try and kill or find foren...

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we look at the man single handedly responsible for the popularity of Area 51 and gray aliens, Bob Lazar. In 1989, he gave a sensational interview to reporter George Knapp. In it, he talked about his time in an facility called S4 and his work figuring out how alien space craft worked. There were 9 flying saucers there, and they used Element 115 to distort s...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we try our hand at the Guinness Book of World Records. This childhood favorite started back in 1955 when there was no such thing as the internet, and encyclopedias only covered serious topics. It was launched by Sir Hugh Beaver who worked at Guinness, and he hired the McWhorter brothers to write it. One of them was assassinated by the IRA, but...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at one of the worst environmental catastrophes of the modern era, the Bhopal Disaster. The Indian city of Bhopal was home to a Union Carbide Corporation chemical company. They made pesticides using a very lethal substance called MIC gas. On December 2nd, 1984, 40 tons of this deadly concoction burst into the air over the city of a million people. I...