What podcasts do you guys like to listen to?
Omnibus with Ken Jennings and John Roderick is very entertaining and educational. You’ll either love the chemistry between the hosts or find them insufferable.
Behind the Bastards
Hell yeah. That’s on my regular rotation.
After listening to the RFK episodes, him leaving a dead bear in Central Park makes complete sense.
I like to recommend the episode(s) on John McAfee when people first start Bastards. They’re wild and not nearly as dark/heavy as some episodes can be.
Those were absolutely crazy!
Great podcast. And you can just skip around and listen to ones that sound interesting.
So so good!
Smartless is fun.
Science Vs is short and interesting.
What’s Her Name is great for true stories on historical women you may not have heard of.
If Books Could Kill tears into popular books.
Why Did You Tell Me That goes into interesting topics with comedy.
Last Podcast on the Left is mostly true crime but might cover other interesting true stories. The lads are funny.
No Dogs in Space is a great music one that covers bands in series. Mostly punk and alternative.
I listen to a lot of the BBC Sounds podcasts… possibly because I’m boring and British.
My favourites are:
- In Our Time: 3 academics and a host discuss an academic topic in deep detail. Science, humanities, arts, etc. Some episodes are more interesting than others but depends on your personal interests. I like the philosophy ones because I studied it at university.
- The Today Podcast: UK news and current affairs.
- Screenshot: Film critics Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode discuss the history of cinema by picking a theme or motif to explore per episode, i.e. “Mermaids” was a recent one.
- The Digital Human: explores technology trends and how they affect individuals and society.
The Silt Verses - A fantasy horror podcast where gods are real, spawned solely through belief, feed on sacrifices (usually human), and have been corporatized. It’s amazing and the series just recently finished so there’s no waiting for the next episode to drop. Easily the best podcast I’ve ever listened to.
Sawbones - An awsome medical history podcast by Justin and Dr. Sydnee McElroy. Sydnees part is pretty obvious, she’s a family medicine doctor and she researches and presents historical bits about all the ways we have tried to do medicine throughout history. Justin is just Justin, he’s a podcaster and games journalist by trade so he’s mainly there as a layman and as comedic support.
The Magnus Protocol - Fantasy horor that I’m having trouble expplaining but it’s damn good. It’s made by the same creators that did the magnus archives. When they announced it on kickstarter after the magnus archives was finished they quickly earned over $700,000 so that should be some indication of how much people liked the magnus archives and the budget for the show.
Welcome to nightvale is good.
Been going for quite some time.
Qwerpline is also a good comedy one.
I haven’t listened to any since I no longer spend my work day in the car, but if you’re a dork like me, you might enjoy:
Tales from the Magic Tavern: A man from Chicago gets sucked into a portal and finds himself in a fantasy world of wizards, Orcs, and a nasty little shapeshifting badger. There is a structured plot line, but all dialogue is improvised.
Hey Riddle Riddle: That nasty little badger from Magic Tavern started his own podcast that focuses on riddles. They ask each other riddles and the listener can try to solve them as the hosts figure it out. Also, full of silly improv scenes between riddles
Dungeons & Daddies: Follows a D&D game in which a group of dads and their sons are transported from our world into the Forgotten Realms. The Dads must use their newfound D&D powers to save their children. Very funny, AMAZING STORY. The DM does a great job, and was a lead writer for Borderlands 2, if that means anything to you.
Get Played: Originally they only covered terrible or bizarre video games, but expanded to weird/ mind bending games. They introduced me to some really good underrated Indy games.
Here’s the Situation: Two Improvisors that present each other with scenarios and they just give their honest opinion on it. For example, of you could only eat one candy for the rest of your life, what would it be? What if there was an organized draft (like in sports) and only one person could claim each candy? How much do you think you could sell an actual magic item for on eBay? They ended it years ago, but it was fun to bring the situations back to my family and see what they thought.
I’m an indy game fan, Get Played sounds interesting.
Like I said, I haven’t listened in a while, but I do remember that they convinced me to play Edith Finch, Hypnospace Outlaw, and Onion boy commits tax evasion. All very good games.
But it started as How Did This Get Played? So, the first few seasons are a lot of tearing apart terrible games like Michael Jordan in the Windy City, and James Pond.
Have you tried Dungeons & Daddies? Freddy Wong (Rocketjump Youtube channel) and friends play DnD (Slight spoiler: Hey Riddle Riddle join in for a couple of episodes)Oops, I reread the comment. Great podcast tho!
So good! I haven’t had time to listen to season 2. It’s probably about over by now, last I remember hearing was a cat bus and anthropomorphic calzones.
Last Podcast on the Left - Three guys that covered true crime, the morbid, the crazy and everything in between while cracking dark humor over it all. I used to listen to this heavily from 2017 through 2021. I believe before I just stopped listening. They lost one of their longtime hosts recently to controversy a while back and I haven’t been interested in picking it back up.
The Prancing Pony Podcast - This is an acquired taste because it appeals to fans of Middle-Earth and everything Tolkien. Two hosts offer insight and depth reading of the legendarium, starting from Silmarillion through Hobbit and up to the Lord of the Rings. I think they’re close to wrapping up Return of the King soon. Very informational podcast to get into if you’re a fan of the lore.
Sequelisers - A group of hosts take bad unnecessary sequels to beloved films and attempt to fix them, while offering insight as to why the sequel in question was a bad idea in the first place.
CUPodcast - Again, another acquired taste because this only has a small following and it involves video games. It’s hosted by Pat Contri who is known as PatTheNESPunk on YouTube along with co-host Ian. They basically cover the gossip and general news rounds with gaming.
It’s still good, as always it has its ups and downs but Ed is a wonderful addition to the show. I saw them live in San Diego a couple (?) years ago, one of the best live shows I’ve ever been to.
Please listen to: × Kill James Bond (very funny leftist film critique)
× The worst of all possible worlds (funny absurdist pop culture reviews)
× worlds beyond number (DnD live play podcast)
This American Life has nearly 30 years of excellent content. I know it is popular so maybe not worth mentioning, but I think there is a good reason this OG is still around. It is superb. So many little hidden gems.
One of my favorites is the first section of What Lies Beneath:
A beloved drawing goes missing from Mr. Ablao’s third grade classroom. The class holds a funeral for the drawing, which accidentally unleashes a much bigger feeling than anyone anticipated.
But there are many, many more.
For science communication:
- SciShow Tangents, by Hank Green. Very fun, but most recent episodes have lots of ads. Still very good.
- Ologies with Alie Ward. Interviews with a scientist every week, very informative and interesting.
HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast- Readings with interspersed commentary. Both hosts enjoy the material and their commentary tends to be on topic and stays brief. Good production value with music and editing to keep things tight.
History That Doesn’t Suck - Prof. Jackson goes through US history linearly, one episode at a time. Very tight, but informative narrative structure. Tons of episodes.
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
