The Colin McEnroe Show

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation — with our old friend Chion Wolf at the helm this time! — winds around to family shorthand, tech bros, bunkers, bodies, adventures… Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These sho...

This year is the 50th anniversary of  A Chorus Line  and  Chicago  and the 10th anniversary of  Hamilton . Meanwhile, new Broadway shows are struggling to make their money back. This hour, we take stock of stage musicals today, learn how they’re developed, and ask about their status in our culture. GUESTS: Alexander Gemignani:  Actor, music director, orchestrato...

COVID has caused more than 7 million confirmed deaths (and estimates of the actual total go well past 20 million). Here’s the even worse news: It wasn’t the truly devastating pandemic epidemiologists have feared for decades. But here’s the good news: We learned every possible lesson from COVID, and now we’re utterly prepared for the next big pandemic that’s inevitably...

This hour, a look at words and usage and grammar and language and all that fun stuff. Have you noticed how we Americans have become “so bloody keen on Britishisms?” Ben Yagoda joins us to talk about his book, Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English . Plus, there’s been an update to The Chicago Manual of Style . We take a look at the CMOS , in particular, and bang on...

We once did a show about beer jingles, which is a great example of how a product becomes a culture. Cereal as a culture, is off the charts. There’s the box, there’s the prize, there’s the character, there’s the jingles, there’s the commercials. Most of us can probably sing some jingles and discuss favorite cereal personae from our childhoods, which makes it kind of we...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. This hour, the conversation winds around to Bad Bunny, the Supreme Court, recycling, midges, nominative determinism, speed cameras, the government shutdown …...

One Battle After Another  is the 11th feature film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It is written and produced by Anderson and inspired by the novel  Vineland  by Thomas Pynchon. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, and more. It is the widest release, the widest opening, and the highest-grossing opening of Anderson&rsq...

Numbers are so fundamental to our understanding of the world around us that we maybe tend to think of them as an intrinsic part of the world around us. But they aren’t. Humans invented numbers just as much as we invented all of language. This hour, we look at the anthropological, psychological, and linguistical ramifications of the concept of numbers. And we look at one philosophical questio...

The 2025 winner of The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in a few weeks. President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants it. This hour we look at the history of the Nobel Peace Prize and its status in our world. We learn about past winners, how winners are selected, and ask about its relevance. GUESTS: Jay Nordlinger:  A political journalist and music critic. He is a Senior Resident...

Most of the Western world is organized by alphabetical order, which is so much more than the 26 letters that make up the alphabet. Alphabetical order is an organizing principle that allows us to save, order, and access thousands of years of humankind’s most precious documents and ideas. Without it, we’d never know what came before us or how to pass on what’s with us. It’s u...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to Bridgeport’s socialist former mayor , Sneaky Pete and our show on psychics , the possible link between double jointedness and neurodivergence , the state of streaming, Ta-N...

The singer and songwriter Nick Drake died in 1974. He was just 26, and he remains a bit of a mystery. He recorded three albums but played very few shows. There is no known film or video footage of him. But his music is maybe more popular now than it’s ever been. It shows up on movie soundtracks, in TV shows, in commercials. And then there’s Nick Drake’s mother, Molly Drake . It t...

Sophocles' play  Antigone  was originally performed around 441 B.C.E., but the themes in the play still resonate today. This hour, we revisit the story of  Antigone , and ask what it can teach us about compromise, wisdom, extremism, grief, and more. Plus, a look at how modern productions are exploring new ways for audiences to engage with the ancient Greek tragedy. GUESTS: Elizabeth...

The myth of the great white , exacerbated by the 1975 megahit Jaws , is false. Great whites are not the aggressive creatures still portrayed in popular media. We’re more likely to survive a shark bite simply because sharks don’t like the way we taste. They spit us out if they accidentally mistake us for a seal. We have a higher risk of getting hit by lightning than killed by a great wh...

How do you feel about your neck? Maybe you only think about it when you’re sore from sleeping wrong or from sitting at a desk all day. But for centuries, humans have worried about their necks, decorated them with jewelry and clothes and ties, and exploited their weaknesses with knives and garrotes and guillotines. This hour, a look at necks — human and animal. Plus, the history and sym...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we’re doing another one. In other words: Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EDT hour about whatever you want to talk about. 888-720-9677. Plus, now you can watch our calls shows Yo...

In July, after CBS canceled The Late Show , President Trump posted that “Jimmy Kimmel is next.” And now his administration seems nearly to have made that happen . And: The Paper is a sequel to and spinoff from the American version of The Office set at a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. It stars Domhnall Gleeson, Sabrina Impacciatore, Chelsea Frei, and Oscar Nunez reprising his role as Oscar...

There is perhaps no figure more emblematic of the paranormal than the psychic. Able to predict the future, see into the past, and even communicate with the dead, the psychic’s (supposed) awesome gifts are matched only by his or her ability to withstand skepticism and ridicule. But are our misgivings towards these intuitives justified? Is it merely smoke and mirrors which they’ve learne...

It's been over one hundred years since J. M. Barrie first told the story of Peter Pan, Wendy, and Neverland. Since then, Peter Pan has been adapted countless times, and become a constant reference point in popular culture. This hour, a look at the lasting cultural and psychological impact of Peter Pan. GUESTS: Maria Tatar:  Professor of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. Her latest...

President Donald Trump has been using the phrase “common sense” a lot. But it turns out that this is nothing new for politicians. This hour, we look at how common sense is used in politics. Plus, is there really such a thing as common sense? We dig into what it means and if it’s possible to teach it to artificial intelligence. GUESTS:  Sophia Rosenfeld: Walter H. Annenberg P...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation — with our old friend Chion Wolf at the helm this time! — winds around to tilting at (actual) windmills, which way you should put the silverware in your drying rack, reactions to the...

Laura Nyro’s most famous compositions — “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Stoney End,” “When I Die,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Eli’s Coming” — are jewels of mainstream music, and her covers of songs like “Jimmy Mack” and “Gonna Take a Miracle” are legendary. But she was uncomfortable under the spotlight a...

It has been 24 years since the sunny late summer Tuesday morning that changed basically everything. This hour, a look back at September 11, 2001, and its long shadow, still darkening our days a bit now. We talk to a historian about the generation that has lived its life in a post-9/11 world and a critic about the influence of 9/11 on and in our popular culture . GUESTS: Lindsay Ellis: An author, v...

The history of sugar is a complicated one. Once available to only the rich and powerful, sugar now shows up in everything from cereals and soups, to cigarettes and body scrubs. It is known to both have medicinal qualities and to contribute to a variety of health problems. This hour we trace the history of sugar and discuss how the sugar industry may be driving a global addiction to the sweet subst...

The U.S. Postal Service was one of our earliest experiments in democracy. The vast transportation networks that led to more than 30,000 post offices remain at the heart of many communities and still reach into the most remote parts of our country. Today, a look at the past and the future of the post office. GUESTS: Winifred Gallagher: Author of several books including How the Post Office Created A...