Sooo many Trump emergency pods this week. But I won’t let it bog down the newsletter. The counts: 53 notable guests, 12 new podcasts, five deep dives and one Shakespeare reference.
And one more thing: Sunday’s #ShareYourBudsSunday, a day to share your love of podcasts with family and friends. Learn more from #ShareYourBudsSunday co-founders and friends of the newsletter, Earbuds Podcast Collective and Podcast Gumbo.
Pod Take of the Week
“It’s like they’re trying to rescue and preserve the last remaining copy of ‘Hamlet’”
Listen: Culture Gabfest: Iconic Staircase (26:29)
- That’s Stephen Metcalf, joking about HGTV’s sugary, much-hyped renovation of the Brady Bunch house on “A Very Brady Renovation.”
- HGTV marshalls eight hosts to join with the six Brady “kids” for a reno project: turn the real-life house that represented the exterior of the Brady home into a replica of the house depicted on the show’s set.
- My take: I’m so here for it. I love the collision of Slate’s over-intellectualization of “The Brady Bunch” and my own deep childhood love for the show.
Go Deep
1) President Trump and the Impeachment Inquiry
- Emergency pods spawned even emergencier pods all week. I didn’t keep up. I followed the revelations about the whistle-blower’s complaint against President Trump and his Ukraine-related actions in real time.
- If you need to catch up, the six top-ranked Trumpy pods of the week, per iTunes, are:
- The Daily: ‘I Would Like You to Do Us a Favor’
- The Daily: The Whistle-Blower’s Complaint
- The Daily: An Impeachment Inquiry Begins
- The Ben Shapiro Show: Whistleblower Comes Up Empty
- FiveThirtyEight Politics: The Whistleblower’s Complaint
- Pod Save America: ‘Rudy Likes Club Drugs’
- Bonus: The audio version of the whistleblower’s complaint against President Trump.
2) Living with Sharks
Listen: Outside Podcast
- A 44-minute deep dive into the “extreme reactions” humans have to “living alongside one of the world’s most terrifying predators.”
3) “The Shawshank Redemption”
Listen: The Rewatchables
- A 1-hour, 50-minute dive into the movie that’s been playing on a loop on cable for almost 25 years.
- The Ringer crew breaks it down with special guest, Bill Simmons’s dad.
4) “Do the Right Thing”
Listen: Deviate with Rolf Potts
- A 56-minute dive into another iconic American movie. Wesley Morris guests.
- Morris says: “The importance of ‘Do the Right Thing’ out-lives all of the arguments against it. It embarrasses its critics, in a lot of ways. Spike Lee really is having the last laugh on this one.”
5) Skylab
Listen: American Innovations
- The pod kicks off a series on America’s first space station, known to one of the engineers that worked on it as “the little redheaded bastard out behind the barn.”
Guest Appearances By…
($L) = On Luminary, behind a paywall. (S) = A Spotify exclusive.
Allen, Byron WTF with Marc Maron
Ansari, Aziz Last Day
Apatow, Judd Thick Skin with Jeff Ross
Aukerman, Scott The Three Questions with Andy Richter
Blunt, James The Dan Wootton Interview
Booker, Sen. Cory The New Yorker Radio Hour
Brown, Karamo Naked with Catt Sadler
Burns, Ken Longform Podcast
Calcanis, Jason Inside Podcasting
Cannon, Nick ExpediTIously
Carden, D’Arcy The Good Place, Comedy Bang! Bang!
- Janet!
Cummings, Whitney Work in Progress with Sophia Bush
Donoghue, Emma Bookworm
Duca, Lauren The Gist
- RHCP bassist talks music, Lakers.
Francis, Dillon The Ron Burgundy Podcast
Gaffigan, Jeannie WTF with Marc Maron
Gaffigan, Jim Armchair Expert
Galifianakis, Zach Off Camera
Garofolo, Janeane Filling the Void
Gladwell, Malcolm The goop Podcast, The Jordan Harbinger Show, Full Disclosure
- Gladwell continues the pod rounds to promote his new book.
Gorsuch, Neil The Strategerist
- The George W. Bush Institute pod talks to the Supreme Court Justice.
Hurd, Will TED Talks Daily
Hyland, Sarah Celeste & Her Best ($L)
Izzard, Eddie The Open Ears Project
- The comic and actor raves about “Clair de Lune.”
Kander, Jason The Al Franken Podcast
Khanna, Parag The TED Interview
Klobuchar, Sen. Amy Radio Atlantic
Kurtis, Bill Go Fact Yourself
Leonard, Franklin Hear to Slay ($L)
- Convo with the founder of The Black List.
Levy, Dan Thirst Aid Kit
- Co-creator of “Schitt’s Creek” guests as the beloved former Buzzfeed pod re-launches at Slate.
Ling, Lisa The Tim Ferriss Show, Work in Progress with Sophia Bush
Ma, Jeff The Dave Chang Show
MacKaye, Ian Sound Opinions
- Fugazi founder talks about the band’s debut album, “Repeater.”
Meltzer, Brad Kickass News
Morales, Natalie Yo, Is This Racist?
Olson, Elizabeth UnStyled
Penn, Sean ID10T
Phillips, Lou Diamond Latino USA
Pierson, Rich How I Built This with Guy Raz
- Convo with the co-creator of meditation app Headspace.
Puddicome, Andy How I Built This with Guy Raz
- Same as above.
Schilling, Dave Culture Kings
Sedaris, Amy Life is Short with Justin Long
Silverman, Sarah Last Day
Soderbergh, Steven Inside the Hive with Nick Bilton
Starr, Martin Curious with Josh Peck
Thornton, Billy Bob The Bill Simmons Podcast
Van Ness, Jonathan It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders
Warner, Sen. Mark Recode Decode
Will, George The Axe Files ($L)
Wilson, Mara The Hilarious World of Depression
Wilson, Rainn You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes
Zellweger, Renee The Big Ticket
Notable New Podcasts
- The No. 8 pod on iTunes is a fiction pod that focuses on a night watchman who’s “terrified to discover that everyone in the world who went to sleep the previous night has died. Now he and a band of survivors must stay awake and uncover the secret of this global epidemic, before they fall asleep.”
2) Points South
- The tagline for the Oxford American podcast is simple and cryptic: “Southern Stories. Southern Songs.”
3) Lost at the Smithsonian with Aasif Mandvi
- The comedian is also a “pop culture fanatic,” and he “gets up close and personal with the most iconic artifacts at the National Museum of American History.”
4) Past Gas
- The Donut Media pod focuses on the “craziest stories from all of automotive history.”
- It’s a “narrative podcast from Brooklyn Deep about how race, class, and power shape American cities and schools.”
6) Last Day
- Host Stephanie Wittels Wachs — sister of the late comedian Harris Wittels — reflects on the opioid crisis and “zoom[s] in on a person’s last day of life, exploring how they got there and how we, as a society, have gotten here.”
- The pod from Morning Brew features interviews with “thought leaders, CEOs, and high-profile experts.”
- Greg Jenner hosts a “history podcast for people who don’t like history or who forgot to learn any at school.” It’s a BBC Radio 4 production.
9) Next Question with Katie Couric
- The TV host returns to podland with a show about “the people, movements, and issues changing our lives and redefining our world.”
10) Frontier Tween ($L)
- The “coming-of-age scripted comedy series from Team Coco” follows the journey of “12-year-old poet Tilly Mulch’s life on the untamed prairie.”
11) Metaphysical Milkshake ($L)
- Hosts Rainn Wilson and Reza Aslan “tackle life’s big questions – What is spirituality? How do we walk through the world? Is Gen Z facing an epidemic of loneliness? Does money make rich people evil?”
12) Vocal Point ($L)
- Martina McBride interviews “country music legends and her musical contemporaries, sharing life and music stories with each other and listeners.”
And One to Look Forward To: The Road Taken (Oct. 2)
- Vampire Weekend’s rhythm section kicks off a 10-episode series about the realities of touring musicians.