The Occasionalists Podcast

Volume 2 of The Luigi Tapes, and our final minisode of the month, finds us tackling what the trial could be like and how the people will react to the quagmire as it unfolds in real time. Certainly, this will be a normal, non-insane trial. Right?! We wrap up the episode by delving deep into the new media studies classes we'll be teaching this coming fall semester. Our first media subject that we an...

Our final episodes of In The March of Minisodes are here, and what better way to unwind a great month than with a totally chill and noncontroversial piece of news that concluded the tumultuous year of 2024? Chemma rejoins the pod as we go elbow-deep into one Luigi Mangione and the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. We tackle the fallout of the murder and the ripple effect it's a...

Greg Cherry returns to talk about comedy's not-so-funny side and things that do not tickle our collective funny bones. Also, I got a lead on a hot new family band that everyone simply MUST check out!

Greg Cherry rejoins the program as we dig into the world of standup comedy, navigating tricky subjects and what makes us laugh. Also, Greg fills us in on this hot new act he saw out in Colorado. They sound like a talented troupe!

Our final ten-minute episode is a challenge of sorts: change my mind that you CANNOT have singular favorites of anything or let me change yours. Good luck!

It's a day late, but our next entry for our month-long minisode extravaganza is here!  We are now in the 10-minute episodes and by golly, if we didn't get close to being appropriately brief this time. We start off this week's episodes with a discussion on the hidden complexities of being a sports fan. Or at least, another way to think about the investment and identity of being a fan.

We are back with another completely failed attempt at a 5 Minute Episode, this time on TV ratings! We spend this nearly 20 minutes 5-minute info blast on the startling decline of TV ratings in America and note some interesting patterns in the data.  Give it a listen and learn a little something!

We are already into the third month of the year, folks! Which means, we are back to one of our classic themes, In The March of Minisodes. Unlike last year, there is no daily podcast challenge. This year, it's two short episodes each week of the month.  HOWEVA, we will start off the month with super-short episodes and gradually increase to the normal length of a minisode. For the first week, we are...

For our final episode of Franchise February, we are pulling out the big guns (perhaps a Colt Python, amirite?!) and going to one of the true juggernauts in TV history. The show that revolutionized what horror on television could be and kicked off a new wave of zombie entertainment worldwide: The Walking Dead. Few shows have reached the heights the main series reached and dominated the pop culture...

Another brand-spankin' new episode for Franchise February is here! What better way to work in a little video game talk than to bring Greg Cherry back to talk about an all-time great game franchise, The Legend of Zelda! A childhood favorite and one of Nintendo's vanguard games since the 1980s, Zelda is still at the forefront of innovative gameplay mechanics, storytelling, and good old-fashioned fun...

Welcome back to the next installment of Franchise February: a deep dive into the Star Trek universe.  WARNING: THIS IS FOR UBERNERDS ONLY! Was Star Trek better back in the day? Or are we blinded by nostalgia? Is the current era of Trek too dark? Too violent? Not nerdy enough?! We answer all of these pressing questions and more. Beam us up, Scotty!

We're officially entering our first true theme month this year as we dive head first into franchise town with....drum roll!....FRANCHISE FEBRUARY!  We are kicking off this month of critiquing massively successful works of commercial art with a deep discussion on the most profitable and popular movie franchise of all time: The Marvel Cinematic Universe. We are also talking about one of the.....movi...

One final Loose Ends episode finds us exploring the Random Thoughts of a podcasts past. Basically, here's a bunch of stuff we thought about doing but never did for one reason or another. Will we ever do it or will we just talk about doing it? Yes!

Cleveland sports is on the menu for the penultimate installment of Loose Ends.  Because we really don't do that much sports talk on the pod, it felt like a good time, with football season winding down and basketball season heating up, to get a little talk in about the Cavs and Browns and how each franchise is trending in different directions. Don't worry: the Guardians and Buckeyes were not left o...

We are tying up another Loose End this month as a friend of the show and hockey correspondent, Rob Nugent, returns to talk about the marriage of sports and music.  Which teams are making the grade when it comes to a rocking stadium experience? Who is failing? And who is trying to hard? Plus, what would we do if we were in charge of the playlist for our favorite teams? Press play and find out!

Happy 2025 everyone! We are kicking off the new year with a more recent staple, Loose Ends. Despite having a full year-in-review episode, there's still stuff that we missed. Whether it's an idea that never came to fruition or a guest host that we couldn't pin down, something falls through the cracks. Our first episode of the new year (and new musical theme!) revisits last year's theme, in which we...

And here it is! The #1 episode of 2024 has us going back into The Vault again. This time, we are safely preserving the stoner classic Dazed and Confused with hockey correspondent Rob Nugent. A fun dive into Gen X filmmaking and a look at stars well before they were stars. 

Everyone out there needed another taste of Thrones, it would seem! Coming in at #2 on the countdown, Game of Thrones Redux. Recalling the days of us when we were a Thrones podcast, it was fun to revisit such an important show with several years of distance from the end.

Coming in at #3 on the countdown...our fatal fourway drinking deathmatch, which saw the whole crew get together for some drinks, wrestling shenanigans, and lots of adult beverages. 

Our review of the secret cyberpunk movie Upgrade from Totally Not Australia is coming in at #4 on our countdown of the most popular episodes of the year! It's underrated and underappreciated, and it's a rare movie where the villain thoroughly wins. 

Counting down the top 5 most popular episodes of 2024 has us cracking open The Vault and deep-diving into It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the greatest sitcom ever made. You can quote me on that.

For our final new episode of the year, we look ahead at what could be for 2025.

The title is pretty self-explanatory as we take a look back at the year in podcasting. The highs, the lows, the drunken arguments with friends. What a great year it was!

For our final Political Rewind episode, we go all the way back to almost the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Do you guys remember that? April 2, 2020, we were but innocent babes wading through a very shallow pool of political shit that was about to become a tidal wave of misinformation and distrust in all of our institutions. Good times! More importantly, we pitch our coronavirus movie...

Our next Political Rewind episode has us looking at one branch of a villain archetype we established years ago: The Body Politic. The Body Politic was the inspiration for last year's Fright Fest as we looked at the cross-section of horror and politics and found that there is much more crossover than people would think. This Fright Fest episode looks at The Elites, the individuals in the ruling cla...