The Weirdest Thing

They're BAAAAAACK! After an unexpectedly long hiatus, The Weirdest Thing finally returns to your ear holes. In this episode, Scotty and Amelia celebrate the 40th anniversary of Stephen King's "IT" by delving into the strange history of "evil clowns": where do they come from, why are they so scary to us, and do they exist in real life? Spoiler...yes, they do.

Welcome to a very special episode of The Weirdest Thing Podcast! Burlesque performer and producer Frisky Business joins Amelia and Scotty to talk about the upcoming New Mexico Burlesque Festival (February 12-14 a the historic Kimo Theatre in Albuquerque). Frisky talks about the history of burlesque, discusses their own journey from being a fan to becoming performer, and the three cover topics like...

Netflix's new limited series "His & Hers"--starring Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal and based on the 2020 novel by Alice Feeney--is one of the hottest things on streaming right now. It seems like everyone is talking about it (those twists!). But the series has divided critics and viewers alike: is this "quality" TV (taut suspense, powerful performances, an eye toward social...

What happens if you discover something so diabolical, so terrifying, and so frankly preposterous that it cannot possibly be true? What if nobody--not your friends, not your family, not the press, not even the entire nation--believes you? Are you simply crazy? Do you need professional help? Maybe even involuntary commitment? What happens when you're proven to be right? This is what happened to Mart...

From a celebrated "Star Wars" series to some true-crime documentaries, Scotty and Amelia use this Pocket Size episode to touch on a few of the pop-culture items they didn't manage to get to in their 2025 wrap-up.

Filmmaker Rob Reiner and photographer Michele Singer Reiner were more than just another Hollywood couple--they were passionate activists and progressive power brokers. In this episode, Scotty and Amelia celebrate their lives, their work, and their considerable influence. They also delve into two of Rob's most popular films: 1984's "This is Spinal Tap" and 1995's "The American Presid...

We're closing out another year at The Weirdest Thing Podcast, so Scotty and Amelia are here with a look back at some of their most significant pop-cultural events of 2025. There are TV shows like "Dying for Sex" (Hulu) and "Death By Lightning" (Netflix), movies like "28 Years Later" and "Wicked Part 2," ruminations on Leonardo DiCaprio's squinty face, new po...

On this (admittedly beefy) Pocket Size episode, Amelia and Scotty present a bit of a companion piece to their earlier "Teenage Hijinks!" episode with another entry in their ongoing series about Movies They Just Don't Make Anymore, by looking at the uniquely 80s subgenre of "Kids on Adventures!" flicks. To that end, they consider three specific entries: 1985's "Goonies&quot...

Gordon Lightfoot cemented her in the public consciousness, but the tragedy behind the song was very real. This November marked the 50th anniversary of her sinking, as well as the 29 lives that were lost one stormy night on Lake Superior. On this episode, Amelia tells Scotty and the listeners about the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

Yes, yes, Scotty and Amelia know that there's no shortage of science fiction movies to be found at the multiplex or on your streaming platforms. But there's a particular type of one-shot, grown-up sensibility sci-fi blockbuster that has become increasingly rare, and they've decided to take a look back at two shining examples: Steven Spielberg's 1977 classic "Close Encounters of the Third Kind...

Not all heroes wear capes...or even walk on two legs. This week Scotty tells Amelia and the listeners about the early days of the Space Race, and some of its non-human pioneers (and sacrifices) in the name of "progress." There was Albert II, a rhesus macaque monkey who became the first mammal to travel into space. There was Ham, a chimpanzee who flew aboard the Mercury-Redstone 2 rocket....

Amelia's back! Having returned from parts unknown, she and Scotty return to their series on Movies They Just Don't Make Anymore by considering the "adult shenanigans!" subgenre...i.e. movies about legitimate grownups getting up to, well, shenanigans. To that end, they look back at three movies from their youth: 1987's "Three Men and a Baby" (starring Tom Sellick, Ted Danson, an...

Welcome back! Sort of. Amelia remains in an undisclosed location, so in this episode of A Weirdest Thing Podcast, Scotty invites his good friend/real-working-screenwriter Ellen Huggins onto the show to talk about their grad-school days in Boston, their time in the film-industry trenches, the importance of geek "third spaces," writing sexy thrillers for Lifetime and Tubi, what goes into a...

Spooky Season continues as Scotty and Amelia do a deep dive into the new Netflix series "Monster: The Ed Gein Story." They discuss the infamous legacy of "The Ghoul of Plainfield," and then talk about their mixed feelings about the series itself--from its uneasy handling of the true crime elements of the story, to its somewhat more successful attempts at grappling with Gein's i...

Amelia is officially moving us into Spooky Season with one of the most infamous mysteries from the September 11 tragedy: the strange disappearance of Dr. Sneha Anne Philip on September 10, 2001. Was she one of the many unidentified victims of the terrorist attack? Or is there more to the story? Amelia tells Scotty what is known--and still unknown--about Doctor Phillip's life and this case.

Have y'all noticed how NOT funny most modern romantic comedies are? Amelia and Scotty have. So they look back at the romcoms of their youth and highlight two of their favorites--1987's "Overboard" (starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell) and 1993's "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (starring Mike Myers and Nancy Travis)--and discuss how these films exemplify a unique blend of roman...

We've got a very non-spooky episode to get y'all gently primed for Spooky Season. Scotty gives a very quick primer on the history of "spiritualism," and then tells Amelia about how one of the movement's most famous adherents--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle--allowed himself to be adorably hoodwinked by a pair of quite imaginative young girls. Yes, this is the story of the Cottingley Fairies.

Scotty and Amelia are starting a new series on the Pocket Size episodes of The Weirdest Thing. Thinking back to the movies of their youth, they realized there are entire subgenres of films that They Just Don't Make Anymore. So this week they're taking on the first of those genres--the "Teenage Hijinks" movie--by looking at three examples in particular: "Adventures in Babysitting&quo...

In our last full-sized episode, Scotty told the story of a real-life psychopath who inspired a notorious television character. Well, this week Amelia has her own tale of a notorious criminal mastermind who gave birth to a TV scammer. Fans of HBO's "The Gilded Age" may not know that one of its characters is inspired by "the Queen of Ohio" Cassie L. Chadwick--aka Elizabeth Bigley...

A jetpack pilot going splat. A naked German guy going...well, splat. An epic (and low-rent) prank involving a drone and a Halloween decoration. One of the greatest (faux) movie trailers ever. Here are just a few of Scotty and Amelia's favorite viral Internet videos of all time.

While Scotty continues to maintain that David Simon's "The Wire" (2002-2008) is the greatest television show of all-time, NBC's under-seen but critically acclaimed "Homicide: Life on the Street" -- which ran from 1993 to 1999 and was based on Simon's 1991 nonfiction book "Homicide: A Year On the Killing Streets" -- is often seen is its spiritual predecessor. And, like...

We lost a few real ones recently, including Chuck Mangione and Malcolm Jamal Warner. But Scotty and Amelia are gathering aboard the Crazy Train this week to pay tribute to the metal god himself, Ozzy Osbourne. They discuss his legacy both as a singer and as a man, and consider the triumph of his final concert mere weeks ago with Black Sabbath. No more tears, listeners! It's the Prince of F*cking D...

SURPRISE! In a follow-up to the last episode, where Scotty and Amelia discussed the brand-new horror novel "Come Knocking," author Mike Bockoven decided to crash the podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about the book, his previous hit "FantasticLand" (2018), his work as a journalist, writing, horror, theatre, the Internet, fan culture, and more! WARNING: This episode contai...

For better or worse, as younger Gen Xers Scotty and Amelia came of age with the advent of reality television. So for this week's Pocket Size episode, they take on three of their favorite reality shows. Scotty starts with the one that created the template by talking about those first three groundbreaking seasons of "The Real World," from 1992-1994...and then laments what could have been i...

In a rare book-related episode, Scotty and Amelia discuss the brand-new horror novel "Come Knocking" by Mike Bockoven, which--similar to the author's previous book "FantasticLand" (2018)--purports to be the journalistic account of a live performance-turned-"Lord of the Flies"-style massacre. Structured as a series of interviews with those involved, Bockoven's novel ex...