I spent hours mainlining impeachment coverage this week. But I’ll only subject you to a bit of impeachment-podcast mania.
This week’s counts: 38 notable guests, 13 new podcasts, seven deep dives and one impeachment podcast roundup.
Pod Take of the Week
“I felt like that was Hollywood putting their little spin on [it, saying] ‘At the end of the day we compete and it’s not about winning and it’s about your family and your love.’ No, it’s about winning.”
Listen: This Movie Changed Me: A League of Their Own: Jessica Mendoza (13:31)
- That’s fired-up ESPN baseball analyst Mendoza, weighing in on the still-heated 27-year-old debate about whether Dottie (Geena Davis) dropped the ball on purpose to let her little sister score the winning run of the World Series.
- Mendoza played against her sister as a softball player in college, and she’s got strong feelings about competition, sibling rivalry and what would cause a catcher to drop a ball.
- Spoiler: She’s team On Purpose.
Go Deep
1) Impeachment
Listen: The Latest, Rubicon, Impeachment Inquiry, War Room: Impeachment, Impeachment Explained, Impeachment: A Daily Podcast
- In order, those pop-up podcasts are from: The New York Times, Crooked Media, The Washington Post, Steve Bannon, Vox and NPR. If you’re looking for daily analysis of the televised hearings and other developments, they’ve got you covered.
- Or, listen to the best impeachment primer of the week: A Third Grader’s Guide to the Impeachment Hearings from The Daily. Leo asks the best questions.
2) Behind Bars with “Felicity Huffman”
Listen: 14 Days with Felicity
- The satirical narrative podcast imagines two weeks behind bars with the actress and college admissions scandal centerpiece.
- Binge time: 2 hours, 11 minutes.
3) Asteroids
Listen: On a Mission
- “Earth is in a cosmic shooting gallery,” according to the NASA podcast. The second season explores that troubling reality, as well as other stories about asteroid exploration.
4) “The Mandalorian”
Listen: Binge Mode
- The Ringer’s binge crew goes all in on the first episode of the Disney+ “Star Wars” series.
- “Mandalorian” episode length: 39 minutes.
- Podcast episode length: 1 hour, 43 minutes.
5) Prince’s Technological Legacy
Listen: Function with Anil Dash
- A multi-part series on “Prince’s complicated relationship with technology” and how he harnessed tech in his music.
6) The Betz Sphere
Listen: Odd Ball
- It’s a five-part series about “a UFO investigation, a mansion in the woods and how one shiny object sent a Jacksonville, Florida family into hiding” in 1974.
7) The Mueller Report
Listen: The Report
- If you want to avoid the impeachment hearings, here’s one option: Lawfare’s 15-part deep dive into the Mueller Report.
- Binge time: 13 hours, 31 minutes.
Guest Appearances By…
($L) = On Luminary, behind a paywall. (S) = A Spotify exclusive.
Adams, Scott The Adam Carolla Show
Albom, Mitch Kickass News
Apatow, Judd Armchair Expert
Besser, Matt Forked Up
Black Keys, The Broken Record
Black, Lewis You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes
Burr, Bill Life is Short with Justin Long
Charlamagne Tha God The New Yorker Radio Hour
Coben, Harlan Wheels Off
Damon, Matt The Bill Simmons Podcast
Dodgen-Magee, Doreen Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness
Donovan, Landon Planet Futbol
Duplass, Mark The Hilarious World of Depression
Foer, Jonathan Safran Armchair Expert
Garlin, Jeff Kickass News
Gladwell, Malcolm The Joe Rogan Experience
- The No. 1 ranked episode on iTunes this week goes 2 hours, 45 minutes with two podcast heavyweights.
Hale, Tony WTF with Marc Maron
Ho, Bong-Joon The Awardist
Holyfield, Evander Hotboxin with Mike Tyson
Jamil, Jameela As Me with Sinead
Kondabolu, Hari On Second Thought with Trevor Noah ($L)
Mullally, Megan Bullseye
Norton, Edward The Moment with Brian Koppelman, Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air
- He’s still hanging around.
Odom Jr., Leslie Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!
Ohanian, Alexis Recode Decode
Plame, Valerie Work in Progress with Sophia Bush
Platt, Ben Las Culturistas
Robbie, Margot The Big Ticket
Rudd, Paul Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
Slate, Jenny The Cut on Tuesdays
Smith, Alexander McCall The Strategerist
Taylor, Lili WTF with Marc Maron
Trump Jr., Donald The Adam Carolla Show
Vanzant, Iyanla Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations
Wachs, Stephanie Wittels An Arm and a Leg
- The writer and podcast host talks about fighting to change a Texas law regarding coverage of hearing aids for kids.
Whitaker, Forest Bullseye
Williams, Terry Tempest But That’s Another Story
Notable New Podcasts
1) Hunted
- The debut audio fiction series from TV producer Dick Wolf’s Wolf Entertainment stars Parker Posey, who pursues “criminals in one of the most treacherous and violent manhunts in United States history.”
- It’s No. 9 on iTunes.
2) Food Actually ($L)
- Host Tamar Adler “travels and talks her way to uncovering essential — and meaningful — truths about food.” It’s from Pushkin Industries.
3) The Score: Bank Robber Diaries
- The true-crime pod covers the life and evolution of Southern California’s most prolific bank robbers, the “Beirut Bandit.”
- WBEZ produces this three-part series that “takes an inside, detailed look at Beyoncé’s emergent career to tell the story of how a little girl from Houston, Texas, became the biggest name in modern music.”
5) Field Noise
- It’s “about the audible world and how we hear it,” and how “[e]ven though we share the sonic environment with those around us, we don’t all hear the same things in the same ways.”
- Bello Collective’s Galen Beebe writes, “The show is really good, but so is everything around it—the website, the Instagram, the newsletter. A+ new indie.”
- Another Pushkin Industries pod tells true stories “of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos,” and each of them has a moral.
7) Motherhacker
- Carrie Coon, Pedro Pascal, Alan Cumming and Tavi Gevinson are among the stars of Gimlet’s fiction pod about Bridget, who “starts vishing over the phone for a shady identity theft ring in order to support her family.”
- All nine episodes dropped Wednesday on Spotify. Only the first two episodes are on iTunes.
8) Dog Tales
- The Parcast podcast focuses on “the true stories of heroic canines that have gone above and beyond their ‘best friend’ duties.”
9) Uncommitted: Iowa 2020 (S)
- As the U.S. presidential campaign speeds toward the primaries, VICE News and Spotify team to “tell in-depth stories about the Iowa caucus, what Americans there are fighting for, and what they want our next president to fight for too.”
10) Illegal Tender
- The Yahoo! Finance pod, which will release mini-season every month, covers the “mysteries of the business and financial world.”
11) The Women
- Host Rose Reid interviews “remarkable trailblazers, getting the core of who they are as people & professionals.”
12) Brad Behavior
- Fashion Police’s Brad Goreski conducts “candid interviews with other celebs and friends.”
13) Greeking Out
- The National Geographic podcast offers “kid-friendly retelling[s] of classic ancient Greek myths.”
And One to Look Forward To: In Bed with Nick & Megan (Dec. 2)
- That would be Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally, and it’s true. They’re literally doing it from their bed.
- The pitch: “Cozying up with their famous friends, your favorite couple provide a funny, revealing, and very candid look into their relationship and life at large.”