Podcasts that nobody knows about

general
1

Hey so.

Apart from the obvious podcast that we all enjoy (lol), what are some other Good Ones that folks won't necessarily find on Your Podcasting Service of Choice's recommended list?

I don't listen to a whole lot of music these days (except incidentally, or in the background), but I sure do listen to hours and hours of podcasts.

What defines a good podcast? Well, for me, I want it to feel like a conversation I've overheard at a bar. One that's so engaging, I can't help but want to be a part of it. The topic of conversation is almost incidental, if the hosts' chemistry is good and the banter is fun. Or, if it's a single-person podcast, sincerity and passion and a unique voice are all I need.

Let me recommend a few that I've been enjoying lately.

[Fanti](https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/fanti/) _FANTI is a place where nuance reigns supreme with energetic, complicated, and sometimes difficult conversations that bring deep knowledge and thoughtful perspective to the things we love and rage about, from the White House to the Real House(wives)._

[The Anthropocene Reviewed ](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed) _John Green reviews facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale._

[霜降り明星のオールナイトニッポン0 ](https://www.allnightnippon.com/shimofuri/)(Shimofuri Myoujou no All Night Nippon Zero) _Technically a weekly radio program hosted between the hours of 3 and 4 AM by one of Japan's currently-most-popular manzai duos, Shimofuri Myoujou, but available as a podcast._

[LeVar Burton Reads ](http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/) _This one is actually extremely popular but it's LeVar Burton reading you amazing short fiction, so if you're not already listening to it, come on._

***

Bonus. Video game-related or -adjacent, in case you've run out of insert credit show episodes to listen to:

[Watch Out For Fireballs](https://www.watchoutforfireballs.com/)

[Waypoint Radio](https://podbay.fm/podcast/1159170164)

[No More Whoppers](https://nomorewhoppers.tumblr.com/)

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Lost in Criterion is a podcast where two friends who are distinctly not film buffs try to get through the entire Criterion Collection in order. I love it because it‘s not often that you get to hear a skeptical perspective on these films, most people either don’t watch them or give them undue reverence.

http://withtwobrains.com/lost-in-criterion

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There‘s a lot of good podcasts that come out of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) that aren’t nearly as well known outside of Canada as I think many of them deserve to be.

[_The Debaters_](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thedebaters) brings on comedians to debate random meaningless topics such as Plate vs Bowl, ? vs !, and is William Shatner the Greatest Actor of All Time? Can sometimes dig deep into Canadian culture but I think its pretty accessible to non-Canadians too.

[_Under the Influence_](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence) is a fascinating podcast about the history, methods, and stories of the marketing industry from a lifelong veteran.

I also enjoy [_Because News_](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/becausenews) but this one is definitely much more Canada-centric and won't play to international audiences that well.

Recently [_The Vinyl Cafe_](https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-71-vinyl-cafe) started to release more episodes from its back catalog of radio shows. The show ended it's 21 year run in 2015 after the creator, Stuart McLean, passed away from cancer. It's a touchstone of Canadian broadcasting and something I grew up listening to every week.

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@polygull#4616 I know how you feel about The Vinyl Cafe. I had the final episode of the show, the Christmas show that ended up being his final recording, sitting on my phone for years before I could get the courage to listen to it. Stuart's passing felt like the voice of my childhood leaving the world.

On a more positive note, if you ever get the chance to attend a live recording of The Debaters (once covid is over of course) I _highly reccomend_ doing so. I went to one when I was living in Saskatoon and it was some of the most fun I've had at a show.

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Ended now, but on a cultural analysis front I would suggest Supercontext. Which while it tackles relatively familiar cult-y pop culture, by applying the lens of how the thing was made and how the thing was released to / received by the public, the hosts get to some interesting insights into the work. I knew a lot of the material or creators they covered so it was actually nice to consider the work from a vantage point beyond close reading.

I'll also put in for the [Sherds Podcast](http://www.holdfastnetwork.com/sherdspodcastl) as the only literary podcast that ever clicked for me. I can't vouch for every episode as I haven't read every book they've covered but on the ones I have (Dhalgren, Ridley Walker) or even the ones where the synopsis of the book interested me (Ice), the high production values in terms of sound editing and the level of insight really grabbed me. Again, cult-y stuff, but much more obscure, and the re-enactments from the material are a bulls-eye on my love of radio dramatizations.

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I‘m going to try to stick to my personal nexus of “favorite” and “obscure” here, since in the past I had a long commute and would listen to a lot of podcasts. So I’m picking two long dead shows on the theory they probably dont get recommended too often anymore.

https://archive.org/details/Destructomundo_Podcast

Destructomundo is a defunct program that was first launched in 2005. In each episode the hosts discuss a different type of apocalypse and how to prepare for it. Dont let the southern accents fool you, the hosts are surprisingly well-read and knowledgeable on science fiction, and the advice they give tends toward the practical. Good chemistry between the hosts means that I dont even mind that much when things start to get off topic, since it's usually still interesting.

http://twilightsmoothness.com/

Twilight World Of Ultimate Smoothness is a 2015 6 episode miniseries event. It is hands down the best narrative podcast I've ever listened to. The plot follows a R&B radio DJ at the very end of his collapsing career. If I said much more than that I would be spoiling things, but it gets VERY surreal. The main character is a James Urbaniak-esque exploration of resolute denial in the face of failure.

Edit: okay I changed my mind I will recommend one contemporary show that I dont think people know about: Pop Mom

https://soundcloud.com/popmom?ref=clipboard

I first heard of John Teti when I was using the (gone but not forgotten) Gamological section of The AV Club.

The show was originally known as "Mom On Pop", but was rebranded when he left The Onion at the end of 2017.

The premise of the show is simple. Every episode he interviews his mother about a piece of pop culture, and she reviews it.

His mother is very candid and a bit of a stubborn curmudgeon but in a way that's amusing. They will regularly spend 10 or so minutes at the top of the show talking about her recent interactions with the post office and other foibles of small town life. It is a show that has occasionally been therapeutic for me, as someone who does not have a friendly relationship with his mother.

Edit 2: Insert Credit being "The ONLY video game podcast" is barely a joke, as others have noted.

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gotta give a shoutout to the Michael & Us podcast - a chill lefty movie podcast that originally started as a re-evaluation of the work of Michael Moore, but expanded out from there: https://soundcloud.com/michael-and-us

one of the hosts of Michael and Us also does a podcast called [The Important Cinema Club](https://soundcloud.com/the-important-cinema-club) which has become a go-to podcast about film for me

there haven't been many episodes but i'm really interested in this fringe game history podcast by Jeremy Penner, who is one of the people who runs the website Glorious Trainwrecks: http://fringe.games

also check out my also very sporadically updated podcast [The Blood Zone](https://thebloodzone.libsyn.com) about some cult film, music, and games stuff i like

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Gotta rep for the selectbutton gaiden family of podcasts:

[Super Nintendo Exploration Squad](https://shoutengine.com/SuperNintendoExplorationSquad/) Is 3 casts in one with the same rotating characters. One reviewing SNES games, Book of Megadrive reviewing Megadrive games, and Away Team where I gather friends to review thoughtfully garbage. You don't get more insight into what 16bit games mean Anywhere else.

[Hinge Problems](https://www.hingeproblems.com) is my own stupid video game cast with no structure or segments. I am still proud as hell of it. Listen to the Shenmue Live episode to hear a better case for Shenmue than you will anywhere.

[No Rangers Allowed](https://norangersallowed.libsyn.com/episode-33-pearls-before-swine) is a real play DnD cast where the adventures try to inact real structure change to the world and not just kill the big monsters. It started off as barely a podcast so I have linked an episode that showcases the best of the players and DM's and the characters personalities. I love it dearly.

[Friendly Fire](https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/friendly-fire/) finally one I am not involved in but I think is the gold for long form audio criticism. This is exactly what I am for when trying to dissect a work through disscussion. It's a war movie podcast with three white males so that's a strike (just like Hinge Problems is two white males). But it is absolutely a step up from recount the plot or just breaking down the discussion into categories.

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https://soundcloud.com/sleazoids - Sleazoids is a podcast I listen to on and off where two guys watch a double feature every other week (every week if you sub to their patreon) of genre movies. Usually the double feature will have some sort of loose or tight theme around both movies (whether the films are related or just similar in some ways or totally different sometimes!) It's been a pretty neat resource for me as far as finding neat obscure trash to watch.

https://www.idontevenownatelevision.com/ - I'm not actually sure how popular IDEOTV currently is but I don't hear people talk about it too often. Basically just two guys read a bad book and trash on it for like an hour and a half. They read a lot of trash all across the board, but its usually terrible genre thrillers and such. Episodes I really like include _God's Debris_, Scott Adams' (Dilbert guy) weird book where he tries to explain the big bang as god exploding or something? As well as _Get in the Van_, Henry Rollins' autobiography of his time in Black Flag, kind of an edgy and fucked up look into his life which they rag on quite a bit.

https://soundcloud.com/wrestlesplania - Wrestlesplania: initially one female wrestling fan explaining to her best friend every week a new cool thing about wrestling. Really good way to learn about wrestling outside of WWE if anyone is interested. I only listened to the first 20 episodes or so back when they were coming out but Kath and Rachel are really chill people and good twitter follows imo. Plus, it was a good resource for me just starting to get into wrestling.

https://www.badendpodcast.com/ - Y'all might know Bad End because Tim was on it back in December (and that's the reason I know about it) but its basically just three games journalists just catching up and talking about stuff they've been playing and new releases and such. Can't say much else about it, its just a source for news on newer games I may not be totally interested in. I like there end of the decade episode where they talk about itch.io and indie games, some really interesting stuff.

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@whatsarobot

Roderick on the line is great, it played much better in 2015 but its still kinda funny.

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@Criminyjimjims#5276 Kath and Rachael are great. The few times we have hung out at wrestling stuff have been really fun.

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So many things to listen to! I have no idea what is and isn‘t popular (aside from This American Life I guess), so I’ll just share podcasts I like that aren't Insert Credit!

[The Purple Stuff Podcast](https://dinosaurdracula.com/blog/category/purple-stuff-podcast/) is one of my absolute favs! It's a lot of good spirited geeking out over pop culture that should appeal to anyone who reads Dinosaur Dracula. It might seem kind of "nerd-basic" to hear two guys talking about how much they like Batman Returns or Gremlins or something, but I think it's a blast and each episode gets at least one good laugh out of me.

[Anime World Order](https://www.awopodcast.com/) is all about anime (obviously) run by three people who have been working professionally writing anime reviews and the like for many years. The hosts are definitely oldschool anime fans and they know what they're talking about. I really appreciate hearing the perspective of older anime fans because usually my tastes are pretty different from what most teenagers are watching. It's a lot of fun and helps me feel like I'm staying on top of the world of anime.

[The Anime Nostalgia Podcast](https://animenostalgia.blogspot.com/) is another anime podcast, but especially dedicated to anime from pre-2000. There's a lot of gushing with love for older things, which I think is extremely fun to listen to and there are also some good informative episodes (solving the mystery of Miami Mike and a reflection on the anime penpal scene)

[Retronauts](https://retronauts.com/) is a podcast dedicated to old video games. I FEEL like this is probably well known, but I'm not really sure! I was definitely late to the party and didn't start listening until about a year ago (still catching up). Each episode explores a different topic in the world of retrogaming; I think it's both fun and informative with hosts who know what they're talking about.

[Tear Them Apart](https://tearthemapartpodcast.home.blog/) is comic book writer/artist Evan Dorkin's horror movie podcast. There aren't too many episodes and some of the early ones can be kind of rough. I like hearing these guys talk about what they do and don't like about horror movies!

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Here's a new one : Cinema Oblivia.

“Your home for discussions on disregarded, tossed aside, thrown away, outdated, out-of-fashion or otherwise unremembered films.”

Hosted by James Eldred aka Lost Turntable.

There's only been three episodes sofar: Flash dance, Streets of Fire & Sorcerer.

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Jean Shepard Archived Radio Show

Its a fairly extensive archive of recorded radioshows by Jean Shepard, made famous by A Christmas Story. Its interesting hearing musings from such long ago.

[8-4](http://8-4.jp/blog/?lang=en)
It's more or less just daily video game news. 8-4 is a localization company based out of Japan. Fun group of guys.

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@whatsarobot#4605 I had the privilege of hanging with LeVar at a party when I was only 16. He's such a wonderful person. He was wearing a Kente Dashiki (I think) and brought a drum.

I've listened to most of the stuff listed here, but nowadays I'm more in like with @shane , with the overload of content online, I am asking myself more often "does this annoy me? how does ______ affect my mood, actually? what am I gaining from this?" and find myself cutting out most everything.

The most popular ones I can truly always rely on are **NPR Consider This**, **Mbmam**, and The Al Franken Podcast.
Here's a list:

  • - The Poundcast, Doug Loussenhop is the secret third point on the Abso Lutely Tim and Eric triangle, he's the true genius behind what they do. Cohosted by Brent Weinbach, who is the host of--
  • - Legacy Music Hour. NPR-style calm voice, dry humor, and lots of video game music. I've hung out with Brent and Doug L in person at various musical events.
  • - Super Marcato Bros. probably my best recommend here. Discussing the music theory of video games. Just check it out.
  • - Singing Mountain, a one-man show about video game music. I've contributed to this show, specifically the Twin Peaks episode.
  • - The Empty Bowl, Justin McElroy co-hosts a meditative podcast about Cereal. You may want to check the entire McElroy family line of podcasts, there's a lot of little weird ones. 'Til Death do us Blart is where, once yearly, they watch Paul Blart Mall Cop and review it annually.
  • - Video Game History Hour. If you're here, you should already know about Frank Cifaldi's podcast
  • - Tim Heidecker's Office Hours is good to put on sometimes, but often the callers are terrible. It's just comfort food for me sometimes. I miss seeing Tim and Doug in person.
  • - Goosebuds. A podcast hosted by Paul of Continueshow where they read and review Goosebumps books and TV episodes.
  • - We The Unhoused, exactly what it sounds like. A podcast hosted by an unhoused man from Los Angeles covering and interviewing the life of Unhoused people everywhere. I recommend this to anyone to get a better perspective. I myself have been unhoused for 12 years.

    • I have been listening to Retronauts since 2008. In the past couple years, their content has become very hit or miss. Episodes can range from very good, to absolute cringe. They tend to make tons of mistakes and talk trash on games that are actually great. It's weird. But Jeremy does a great a job as he can most of the time. Their old theme song was way better than the new one by "chiptune rock band".

    Others I enjoy include such crass, inappropriate and offensive humor, listing them here would probably be a bad idea.
    Here's a couple from back in the day that, although they ended for good, they are golden and due to the nature of the storytelling, you can still enjoy today. I've listened to most episodes multiple times:
    _Fantasy Fiction_
    _Tales From the Tavern_
    both were hosted by my pal Dom Moschitti, once known for appearing on Continue Show and Goosebuds, he's since moved on, he's somewhat of an Auteur Podcaster, has started many good podcasts. Now he's a writer at Cartoon Network.
    Lastly I'll plug _Boy's Bible Study_, a podcast by my friend Ash, where they review Christian Films.

    I've had a long day, I'm tired, I don't feel like adding hyperlinks to any of those. Just google them if you find one that sounds interesting!

    16

    It is hard to know if any of these are popular or not, but a few suggestions come to mind across a range of topics:

    [Astronomy Cast](http://www.astronomycast.com) is billed as "A facts-based journey though the cosmos discussing not only what we know, but _how_ we know what we know", and I think that is an excellent summary and all you need to know if this is for you or not (it is not maths or physics heavy in the slightest, don't be concerned there)

    [A Life Well Wasted](http://alifewellwasted.com) by Robert Ashley was _excellent_. No longer contemporary, however if you haven't heard it before this is the one games related podcast I will suggest you check out.

    [Arms Control Wonk](https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/author/podcast/) is all about nuclear weapons, arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament. They are active in the "open source intelligence" community, and often call out the bullshit that is offered in public by politicians from all over regarding their claims vs what we can see is actually happening. Certainly not a "military buff" type experience, more a "current geo-political news" podcast that happens to be mainly focused around trying to track and limit the horrific devices of total annihilation we seem to love so much.

    I suspect this one is actually popular and people already know about it, but [Hardcore History](https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/) by Dan Carlin is generally fantastic. Publishing volume is low (an episode every couple of months?) however each episode may be 3 or 4 hours long. Episodes are generally available as they are published, but the back catalogue rotates out in to a purchase model. His series on World War 1, Blueprint For Armageddon, was _brilliant_ - to the point I'd even suggest it is worth the $12 or whatever he is asking for access to it now from the archives.

    17

    Stories of Scotland is a wee little podcast hosted by two lovely Scottish ladies that focuses on bits and bobs of Scottish history, with an emphasis on folklore. It's well researched but they keep things light and digestible. My studies have shown that Scottish accents are the most charming and pleasant to listen to in the entire world, and I dare you to listen to this podcast and disagree with my findings.

    18

    This is a plug for a podcast made by several of my good friends and I think it’s rad, if you’re into actual plays and or vampires

    [Path of Night Poscast](https://path-of-night-podcast.simplecast.com/)
    Path of Night is an actual play podcast about a group of roleplayers telling engaging shared stories around the gaming table. Campaign One follows a group of vampires in New Haven, CT, in the year 1999 using the Vampire: The Masquerade system by White Wolf Publishing and Paradox Interactive.

    19

    a lot of people know about this, but possibly not people who hang out here: Cocaine & Rhinestones. ‘A podcast about the history of country music made in the 20th century’

    https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/

    After more three years since the last episode , the 2nd season has started today and begins with a history of pinball.

    20

    Commons, a political/often crime but not always/historical but not always/journalistic podcast about the various kinds of seedy underbellies in Canada. Would be of interest of anyone who perceives Canada as the US‘s dorky non-threatening little sibling rather than an axis of global evil in its own right. I have only listened to newer runs with new host Arshy Mann where seasons of the podcast are focused on different topics, they’ve all been quite fantastic. CRUDE, the one on Canada's relationship to the oil and gas industry, as well as THE POLICE, which is, well, not about the band, were particularly good.

    A fairly adjacently aligned show called [Thunder Bay,](https://www.canadaland.com/shows/thunder-bay/) hosted by Ojibwe comedian/writer Ryan McMahon, is about the crime, political corruption and incompetence, and most centrally the extreme anti-indigenous racism in Thunder Bay, Ontario, one of the only urban centres in an geographic area about the size of the entire country of Spain. Also the city I grew up which made listening to it a trip