The Best Stuff In The World

Our guest Kellian Adams Pletcher joins to discuss the new interactive, immersive tiki show she has written, Cthulhu Luau, in advance of its sold-out run! We also discuss Kellian's origin in the swing music scene, her long-running seasonal show Club Drosselmeyer, the immersive theater scene in the Boston area, and why she doesn't like Sleep No More as much as I do. Check out Cthulhu Luau here: http...

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K) can be a difficult show to explain to people who haven’t seen it. Wisecracking robot puppets making fun of cheesy movies, mad scientists, invention exchanges, and more. I could not believe something as smart and funny and silly as this show existed when I discovered it. I’m joined to discuss MST3k by two people who are as smart and silly as the show its...

We're talking to a couple of the talented folks behind the new immersive theatrical company Artemis is Burning about their upcoming show The Death of Rasputin , which will begin performances at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island on April 17, 2025, for a limited run. Ashley Brett Chipman, who conceived of the show, and her co-director Hope Youngblood discuss the inspiration behind the show and...

Fenway Park organist Josh Kantor joins Kevin to discuss his experience as a baseball organist for a team as beloved for the Boston Red Sox, the origins of his interest in both music and baseball, taking social media requests from fans, Stevie Wonder's "Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants" album, his pandemic-era streaming show "The Seventh Inning Stretch", playing onstage with his musical he...

We're discussing the work of someone who may be America’s greatest living cartoonist - YEAH I SAID IT - Jaime Hernandez! Jaime is best known for his groundbreaking work in the Love and Rockets comic book series and the LOCAS stories which are contained therein. LOCAS follows the tangled lives of a group of primarily chicano characters, from their teenage years in the early days of the California p...

Musician/filmmaker/artist Rebecca Kopycinski joins Kevin to talk about her recent installation/performance The Thotbot Implantation Center, which is one piece of a larger multimedia narrative. Rebecca has created an entire dystopian storyworld through podcasts, installation art, immersive theater and performance. As she explains on her website, the project unfolds through a series of multi-platfor...

We are discussing the work of the great David Lynch. A filmmaker, writer, visual artist, and musician, Lynch spent decades crafting a unique cinematic language that blends the unsettling with the poetic, the surreal juxtaposed with images that could be either nightmarish or heartbreakingly beautiful. There was no one like him and like a lot of people who were affected by his work I was devastated...

Overture! Curtain! Lights! In this episode of The Best Stuff in the World we’re taking a look back at the classic Looney Tunes shorts. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were the umbrella titles for the short cartoons produced by the Warner Brothers studio from the early 1930s through the 1960s, although we’re mostly discussing the shorts released during what I think of as "the golden era" from the...

We're diving into the career of the great Charles Entertaiment Chaplin on THE BEST STUFF IN THE WORLD! Chaplin is one of the masters of silent film comedy, blending humor, sentimentality and social commentary - usually channeled through his iconic Little Tramp character. I’m joined this time by writer and podcaster Mike Gordon and artist Denise Lhamon to talk all things Chaplin - the short films,...

We are discussing THE SIMPSONS, the long-running animated sitcom on the FOX network. I’m joined for the episode by my friend Frank Burnham and by Derek B Gayle of the Glitterjaw Podcast Collective . The cover version of our theme song that starts the show this week is by Iron Reverb , the music project from my friend Luke MacPherson. If you ever want to email this podcast you can contact me at gle...

As the celebrated immersive theater show Sleep No More winds up its epic run in New York we're joined by original cast member Careena Melia (who originated the role of Hecate) to discuss her experience with the show, creating one on one scenes, the show's magical Boston run and what actually happens when you find Hecate's damn ring. Spoilers for the production abound, so proceed with caution. Scre...

We're diving deep into the eccentric and pioneering world of Kool Keith, one of the most influential and enigmatic figures in hip-hop. Keith has been around since his time in the 80s with the group ULTRAMAGNETIC MC’s and he first came to my attention for the album he released under the Doctor Octogon name in 1996, which was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. We get heavily into what’s so great...

For this episode we’re exploring one of the most iconic and enduring games of all time: Dungeons & Dragons! For 50 years, D&D has captivated players with its mix of imagination, strategy, and storytelling. When the game’s at its best it can function as this really fun way to do collaborative storytelling - it can seem life and death while also providing a lot of fodder for dumb jokes with...

 We're discussing one of the most influential films ever made—the 1920 silent horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari . Directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, Caligari is a film that not only redefined the horror genre but also helped lay the groundwork for German Expressionism in cinema. It’s got twisted abstract sets, eerie visuals, and one of the first horri...

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey. We are talking THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW with special guest Greg Bell! Rocky Horror was originally a U.K. stage show that fused what was going on in the glam rock scene with old science fiction b-movies. The show was written by Richard O’Brien and was enough of a stage success that it was then adapted into what’s probably the most...

We're joined by Cash the Composer to talk about their new immersive/interactive musical Fantasmagoriana! What’s Fantasmagoriana about? In the summer of 1816, at the Villa Diodati, Lord Byron, his personal physician John Polidori, his friend Percy Shelley, Shelley's fiancée Mary Godwin, their infant son William, and Godwin's stepsister Claire Clairmont, gather together on holiday. After a drunken n...

Doctor Who first aired on November 23, 1963, making its debut on BBC One. Initially conceived as a children’s show with educational elements, it quickly evolved into a groundbreaking science fiction series that captivated audiences of all ages. The story revolves around the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, who travels through time and space in the TARDIS, a time machine that looks li...

We're talking with Carly Dwyer and Tristan Reynolds from Intramersive Productions about their upcoming show DAEMONOLOGIE, SIGNALS AND SIRENGS! Daemonologie is an interactive, open-world theater anthology that explores the intersections of gender, social change, and the supernatural. The series encourages audiences to engage with the events around them, and the audience determines the ending, so no...

120 Minutes was an alternative music show that aired on MTV on Sunday nights from Midnight to 2am, playing some of the formative acts of the day (The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Smiths), introducing us to exciting new bands, and - particularly in the years before Nirvana hit big with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - acting as an oasis for those of us interested in music that sat slightly outside of the mai...

Kevin is joined by Shaun Rosado (of Popcycled Baubles ) to continue their discussion of Chris Claremont's epic run as writer of The Uncanny X-Men! Picking up where we left off in the previous installment, the two discuss The Asgardian Wars, the Wolverine mini-series with Frank Miller, the arrival of artist Jim Lee, the Brood, Magneto, Kitty's Fairy Tale and, of course, that one weird issue where C...

I'm joined by Shaun Rosado ( Popcycled Baubles ) to discuss Chris Claremont's seminal run as writer of the Uncanny X-Men comic book from 1975-1991. Claremont did come back a few times after that but we limit our discussion to that initial run and its ancillary titles, which is a good thing because we talked so long that I felt I had to split this episode into two parts rather than stick you all wi...

Bloom County is a newspaper comic strip by Berke Breathed that originally ran from 1980 to 1989. (It returned with new strips in 2015.) The comic and its characters Bill the Cat, Steve Dallas, Opus the Penguin and many others would satirize politics, culture and the comics page itself. Like Peanuts the strip had children with adult vocabularies and personalities who interacted with animals but unl...

Kevin is joined by filmmaker David Bettencourt and film superfan Bryan Murray to discuss Sam Raimi's 1987 horror/comedy classic Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn ! Evil Dead 2, which stars the great Bruce Campbell, is credited with inventing a new film genre - splatstick, which combines physical humor reminiscent of The Three Stooges with the extreme gore that was gaining popularity in the 80s with splatt...

G.I. Joe is the code name for America's daring, highly-trained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world! It's also a toy line, a cartoon, a series of comic books, and a nostalgic touch point for dudes of a certain age. Kevin is joined by two such dudes: Richard Chicago Borges (of Borges fame) and...

Kevin is joined by author Jane Duffus to talk all things regarding the Sarah Records label. Jane's new book, These Things Happen: The Sarah Records Story, tells the story of the record label, the bands who released music on it, and the people and culture who were affected by it. Sarah was started in 1987 by Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes in Bristol (United Kingdom) - they put out 100 releases, mostly...