The Next Best Thing

The Rainbow Connection, Eye of The Tiger, 9 to 5, Philadelphia...what do all of these iconic movies songs have in common? They all LOST the Academy Award for Best Original Song! In this episode, we go over all of the songs we've come to know and love that SHOULD have won an Academy Award, but didn't! Hold onto your butts. 

The 3rd installment of our series on the Trump administration, and it's incremental undoing. In this episode, we cover the State of the Union address, and the release of what has come to be known as the Nunes memo. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Once upon a time, winning a debate came down to one thing: cold, hard facts. Whether the topic was US Foreign Policy or "who was better: Tom Brady or Joe Montana," it didn't matter. Whoever came prepared with more facts and evidence always won the day. Sadly, those days are over... Living in our current "facts don't matter" society, winning a debate takes much more than before. In this episode, we...

The conclusion of our look into who Vladimir Putin really is, and why he worked tirelessly to see that HIllary Clinton did NOT become the President of the United States. 

Recall step by step how Vladimir Putin came to see the United States as an enemy, how U.S. intelligence came to believe he targeted the 2016 presidential election, what could have been done to prevent it, what it means for the future of American democracy. Scary stuff.

John William Schiffbauer, former Deputy Communications Director for the New York Republican State Committee, returns to the show to discuss the current state of the Republican Party, and why through it all, he remains a loyal member of it. Catch The Next Best Thing LIVE, every Monday night from 10-Midnight on Radio Free Brooklyn! 

Stories of the strange, scary and unexplainable on this Halloween episode of The Next Best Things. Listen LIVE every Monday night from 10-Midnight EST on Radio Free Brooklyn. 

According to Gallup, about 8 million Americans claim to have had a near-death experience (NDE), and many of them regard it as irrefutable proof of an afterlife. Skeptics insist those are merely anecdotal, and easily explained away by the biochemistry of the dying brain, pumped up by morphine and stress. The truth is, though, NO ONE knows for sure. Listen as we explore some of the various experienc...

The second half of our definitive list of the scariest movies of ALL TIME. Not for the faint of heart..! 

An excellent horror movie is truly one of the hardest films to make. That's why there are so few of them. If you glanced at what's come out in the past 20 years, you might think that what makes a movie scary is the amount of diced body tissue flying around the screen. Shock value has its place, but what really unsettles isn't blood and gore, it's that ominous sound from around the corner, the inde...

Some call it the most notorious haunted house in the world. So famous, in fact, that the name of the town in which it stands has become synonymous with horror: Amityville. To kick off our "Haunted Halloween" series, we revisit the violent, potentially haunted past, of the house that sits at 112 Ocean Avenue. Warning: NOT for the faint of heart. 

Jonathan met Kevin Necciai when they were both studying Vocal Performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Since then, Kevin has served a full term with the Peace Corps in Rwanda, performed in various roles around NYC, worked as a voice coach and music director, and is in the process of building a career as a stand-up comedian. They talk about all that and more in this episode of...

Where were you on September 11th? If you were alive on that day in 2001, then you have a story to tell, and likely a vivid image locked indelibly in their hearts. On this 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we reflect on how it all went down, how the world has changed, and most importantly, remember some of the stories of those we lost much too soon.

No Birthday would be complete without a clown, am I right? Join Jonathan on his 30th birthday, as he discusses the joys (and pitfalls) of Facebook, Hillary Clinton's new book, and who will go down in history as the one, TRUE Pennywise, the dancing, murderous clown.

All professional sports leagues have their scandals. Racist owners in the NBA, MLB's steroid era, Lance Armstrong's entire career..? The NFL is no stranger to controversy. On the contrary, the league seems to attract it like a magnet. From Spygate to Deflategate, to rising stars being convicted for murder, there's one thing the NFL will never be able to hide under the rug: their game can destroy i...

Racism, sexism, bigotry and homophobia--they're all very real. We saw some of it on full display recently in Charlottesville, Virginia. What happens, though, when humor, wit and/or good intentions are mistaken for spite and racism? When political correctness and true bigotry are suddenly indistinguishable? That can only lead to 1 of 2 things: a world where EVERYONE is a racist, or a world where no...

Zachary Mabry won our hearts as Porky in the 1994 film The Little Rascals, but what has he been up to in the 23 years since? He joined Jonathan to talk about that, what it was like making the film, working with Donald Trump, and more! #RadioFreeBrooklyn #TheNextBestThing #TheLittleRascals #Nostalgia #Porky #Movies #NBT

Part two of the definitive list of Best Broadway Musicals of ALL TIME! #RadioFreeBrooklyn #TheNextBestThing #Broadway #Theatre #Drama #Music #MusicalTheatre #NYC

Musical theatre combines the thrill of live music with the compelling storytelling and drama of watching a TV show or film. Sometimes, when done with incredible care and sensitivity, the combination of the two can lead to something transformative. Join Jon as he takes you through his list of the 21 BEST Broadway Musicals of all time! #RadioFreeBrooklyn #TheNextBestThing #MusicalTheatre #Art #NewYo...

Cam Perron has been featured on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel not once, but twice! He joined Jonathan to talk about how he went from being a kid collecting baseball cards, to one of the nation's leading authorities on Negro League Baseball.

Luigi DiGangi is a comedy writer, sketch performer, and one-third of the comedy team known as Gibbon Brain. He stopped by the studio to talk with Jonathan about what he and his guys have been up to, what's on the horizon, and just life in general. #TheNextBestThing #RadioFreeBrooklyn #GibbonBrain #Comedy #Podcast #FunnyorDie #Radio

John Jastremski is an up-and-coming star on WFAN, New York's premier Sports Talk Radio stations. Since 2011, he's hosted his own show, JJ After Dark, during the overnight hours, but as Jonathan points out in their interview, that's likely to change in the near future. We also covered what life is like for JJ outside of the sports realm, and what his future plans may be. #RadioFreeBrooklyn #TheNext...

Charles Busch is a playwright, actor, screenwriter, and one of American theatre's most famous drag artists. While known to most Broadway playgoers as the author of THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST'S WIFE and the book of TABOO, Busch really earned his star-status for early works like VAMPIRE LESBIANS OF SODOM, PSYCHO BEACH PARTY, and THEODORA, SHE-BITCH OF BYZANTIUM. Jonathan was thrilled to have a chance...

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, between the short window of December 2015 to March 2017,, nearly 50% of all young Republicans left the party. John William Schiffbauer was not one of them. He quit his job as Deputy Communications Director of the New York State Republican Party, and advocated hard against voting for Donald Trump, but he remains a dedicated member of the Repub...

Arguing with umpires is as old as baseball itself. In recent years, however, blown calls have gone from simply being "part of the game," to becoming a real problem. Why? Because we now have the technology to see every missed call, down to each individual pitch. It seems no one would find this information more useful than the home plate umpire, and yet they're literally the ONLY ones MLB doesn't sh...