Breakfast with the Beak

It’s the end of our show, and the beginning of everything! We’re telling the story of the the star stuff that makes up all of us, the generations of stars where those atoms were forged, and the pile of hot rocks that we ended up calling home. And we get in a few last shots […]

It’s our penultimate episode, so we’re cleaning house! That means going through every topic left on the list and giving each of them the 8 to 12 seconds of attention they deserve. And why stop there? We’re also revealing the contents of our top-secret emergency topics list, reviewing all 156 previous episodes, and – against […]

Hey, remember Strong Bad? If you do, have we got the show for you! If you don’t, you’re going to learn a lot today. We’re taking a voyage through internet history to a time when Homestar Runner ruled the world! When word of mouth mattered more than insincere retweets! When we hadn’t yet squandered the […]

Well, it doesn’t get much further from Taylor Swift than this. We’re taking a harmony joy ride with a rock ‘n’ roll prophet, searching for meaning in the music of Wesley Willis. Willis taught us all how to battle demons through obscene bestiality ballads and unfiltered autobiography, and we’re passing that knowledge on to any […]

We’re venturing outside our demographic, and Taylor Swift is our guide! Can we learn anything from America’s pop-country sweetheart? Or will we just make a bizarre web of connections between her, Michael Bay, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, and all her ex-boyfriends and then insist it all makes sense? Guaranteed to contain zero Taylor Swift songs; […]

This week, we’re trying to wring humor out of a really scary disease that we don’t know all that much about. And that should be fun, right? We trace the history of the Ebola virus from its humble origins to its brush with fame in the 1990s and beyond, and develop acute hypochondria in the […]

In a hollow tree somewhere, elves are baking cookies with magic. At least that’s what Keebler’s commercials would have us believe. It’s a journey into the world of advertising, the darkest corners of fandom, and the office where they decide how many spider parts can legally go into your food. Plus a bunch of crap […]

We’re headed down south (in spirit) to pay a visit to Dollywood, the Dolly Parton-est place on Earth! Will we avoid the obvious jokes? Actually yes, because there’s a whole lot more to talk about. It turns out Dollywood is a magical place full of grannies and taters, old-timey craftsmen and a man named Big […]

We all know Purple People Eater, the novelty song. But how about Purple People Eater… the movie? Oh, it happened, and we’re spending our 150th episode trying to figure out why. Whether you’re a fan of early rock ‘n’ roll, wacky car wash hijinx, or wiener dogs, there’s sure to be something in this movie […]

The Manitou! We can’t even call it a famously bad film, because it never quite got famous, but we’re watching it and discussing it. Thrill to the tale of a fortune-telling Tony Curtis, a shaman in a sad wig, and their slow, confusing battle with a wee magic fellow. Find out what we think about […]

It’s one of the great internet success stories: a novel posted on the web, which became a real book, which became a movie. And now John Dies at the End has somehow become this podcast. We’re not just reviewing the movie; we’re looking into its curious history, debating what it means for internet culture, and […]

These days, you can’t tell a story about one kind of monster without every other kind of monster trying to steal the spotlight. But which creature deserves to have its story told? We’re looking at a couple of the most popular, in hopes of finding out how vampires became sexy and how werewolves wound up […]

We’re getting downright educational this week! Bedbugs have made their homes in our fair city, and we have the inside scoop from a real-life ex-exterminator. Where did these tiny bloodsuckers come from? How can you protect yourself? Who can we blame? Guaranteed to feature at least one very uncomfortable host, plus a nice bit about […]

We’ve been tasked with reviewing the career of one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, and we don’t know his work. The solution? How about an all-day Kurosawa movie marathon so we can talk half-knowledgeably about a handful of his best-known films. We got our brains melted by Rashomon, our senses overloaded by […]

It’s time for our annual holiday special, and you know what that means: we’re completely half-assing it. As in, barely even bothering to make sense. Instead, we’re more concerned with weaseling out of the latest topic, debating the premise of old arcade games, and maybe – just maybe – arguing with a certain sock. Basically […]

Is it possible for two people on the internet to discuss the career of David Bowie without getting distracted by Labyrinth? It turns out, no, that is not possible. But we get to a lot of other good stuff before that! For example, tales of the golden age of anything-goes radio and a hierarchy of […]

Reincarnation is definitely one of the nicer afterlife options, so obviously we’re trying to think of funny stuff to say about it. And that means mocking psychics, recapping forgotten supernatural romantic comedies, and debating whether or not microbes have souls. Presented with a cherished belief held by millions of people, how long does it take […]

This week, we’re breaking format all over the place, inviting a guest into the Breakfast Kitchen to discuss her own topic. And we’re asking the hard questions. Can Plinko ever be made truly handicap accessible? Is Pat Sajak a Highlander? Do people want to see oiled-up hunks on game shows? How sturdy are those sets? […]

Comparing a real news story to a piece of satire is basically a cliche at this point, but that doesn’t mean the resemblance isn’t there. Real people still get fooled by fake stories, and real stupidity is more carefully documented than it’s ever been. It’s entirely possible that this is the episode that ends up […]

You dared us to talk about it, and we took the bait! That’s right: a whole show about the mysterious, seemingly impossible structure on Donald Trump’s head. How does it work? What does it look like when it hasn’t been styled? Is it a wig, a combover, or some kind of animal companion? And what […]

Every now and then, someone unexpectedly bursts into flames, and science has never been able to explain why. Except it totally has, and we’re going to explain it too. It’s a story that spans continents and centuries, involving the history of tobacco farming and candle-making, techniques for building houses from dung, and the sad fate […]

This week, we’re looking at our favorite (and least favorite) film adaptations of books, and hopefully coming up with a formula for not screwing it up. And yes, that means some unfavorable comparisons between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, but it also means Douglas Adams and Truman Capote and Harvey Pekar, and […]

This week, we’ve been asked to tell the world the true meaning of Valentine’s Day, and we sort of make an attempt at that. Sure, we get hung up on the horrors of ensemble romantic comedies for a while, and debate the qualifications for sainthood, and try to write a better Farmer’s Almanac, but it’s […]

We love a good old-fashioned topic about weird animals, and they don’t get much weirder than cephalopods. They change colors, they solve puzzles, they fight whales, and they’re basically the closest thing we have to intelligent aliens. So of course we love them! We also waste some time talking about Halloween music and picking fights […]

How exactly does a musician capture one’s heart? Because that’s basically the question we’ve been asked, and we’re going to make some sort of effort to answer it. Does our listener love Regina Spektor’s talent? Her willingness to experiment? Her total lack of media coaching? Her cool friends? We’ve got ideas, and a whole lot […]

Dystopian game shows are hot right now. Or at least we’re all predicting that they’ll be hot in the future. But the trend dates back at least to the 1980s, when Arnold Schwarzenegger fought for his life against a bunch of heavily armed gladiators on the abandoned streets of Los Angeles. It’s a tale of […]

Strap in, because this one is going to get stupid. We’re traveling back to the futuristic year 1994, when the only thing standing between Earth and an invading alien army was a group of Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters. From Beverly Hills. Yes, somehow this was a real show, as well as the topic that finally […]

Once in a great while, we stumble into a situation too awesome to ignore. Topics? Bah! We just got back from watching a real-life carnival barker set off a human-sized game of Mousetrap. Obviously we’re talking about that. And robots, and go-karts, and artisan peanut butter, and guitars made of tennis racquets, and homemade jewelry, […]

The word “meme” has been around since the 1970s, but it took another twenty years for everyone to decide they liked it. Since then, it’s been applied to basically everything, but is that really appropriate? We’re pretty sure we know. We’re also looking at the sordid fall of a memetics journal, the continued relevance of […]

Russian literature isn’t exactly known for its optimism, but we may have wrung some joy out of a story that kills its main character on page one. Before there were inspiring stories of hope in the face of impending death, Tolstoy gave us a tale of social niceties, modest ambition, bureaucracy, and God, and he […]

It’s another musical episode, and this week we’re telling an entire generation to shut the hell up. We examine the horrible secrets of Billy Joel’s big list of stuff that happened, from the overly broad references to the slightly cheated rhyme scheme. Could this song be written today? Could it be written again next week? […]

Things are about to get non-Euclidean and kind of gross, because we’re talking about H.P. Lovecraft and his possible connection to the wild world of obscene tentacle illustration. Was he a major influence on the form, or is it just Rule 34 working its dirty, dirty magic? Does anyone get laid in Lovecraft-land? Does it […]

If you could take characters from one work and put them in another work, which ones would you choose? More importantly, how would you make it as funny and/or stupid as possible? We’re a lot more interested in the latter question, and we find a few decent answers to it. If you’re interested in festive […]

We were promised a plague, but what we got was a few weeks of harmless bugs minding their business and occasionally chirping. Where were the decimated crops? The blotted-out skies? The children carried off by the swarm? Funny story: cicadas don’t do any of that. Luckily, they’re still big and gross, and we can probably […]

We all have to die eventually, so why not go out with one last zinger? That’s basically the question we’re asking this week, even as we try to pretty it up by calling it educational. We’ve got Karl Marx’s last (short) rant, Voltaire’s deathbed burn, and Socrates’ least graceful dialogue, along with electric chair puns […]

In a way, this is kind of the only topic. Like, anywhere, ever. Se we’re making a serious effort to add something new to the conversation. Inevitably, this leads us into an abyss of fast food mythology, terrible movies, Mormon kitsch, and desperately earnest mask-makers — you know, all the classics. Will this journey through […]

Someone asked us to talk about a forgettable and mostly-forgotten movie from 2010. So we did, and discovered a tale about a bunch of douchebags hiding in a condo, plus aliens or something. Is it absolute garbage, or is it one of those movies that gets everything just wrong enough to be irritating? Which of […]

This week, the very foundations of the show crack and we spiral down into an abyss of terrible ideas. How terrible? How about marsupials teaching you history? Starchy omelets? Lots and lots of eye-gouging? And if that’s somehow not enough for you, we sing. Let that sink in. Subscribe via RSS Subscribe via iTunes Download […]

Well this is awkward. It’s almost Tesla’s birthday, and who should show up on our topic list but his old arch-enemy? What should we say? Do we even understand the principles of electrical engineering? Is being a good manager the same thing as being a good inventor? Can we find something nice to say about […]

Wait, Republican hipsters? Is that even a real thing? Seriously, we spend most of this episode trying to figure it out. It’s a thrilling journey through a world of Biblical breath mints, ugly fonts, drunk Ron Paul fanboys, and Ed Hardy preachers, all set to soothing Brooklyn background noise. Because we may have left the […]

Sometimes, we get a topic that we aren’t quite sure is a topic. So do we just ignore it? Not anymore we don’t! We’re reading your fan mail, answering your weird questions, scolding each other for poor Twitter etiquette, and getting way, way too amused about ham. Guaranteed to feature more maniacal giggling than basically […]

We’ve pitched some movies on the show before, but only when we were distracted from the topic at hand. Now we’ve been asked to come up with them on purpose, and it goes about as well as you’d expect. There are sweater-eating monster-men, superheroines embracing middle age, and big smiley hippo masks, and we expect […]

New Jersey is unfairly maligned, and we’re interested in figuring out why. Kind of. We’re also prone to distraction. But in between fanciful stories about trains, we manage to get some actual work done. Whether we’re exploring the thrilling world of commuting or debating the relative merits of undergoing major surgery just to ride a […]

Hoo boy, we are violating some terms of service this week. It’s not entirely our fault, though; sometimes the topics just get weird, and we have to go along with it. Are we studying a previously unknown school of magic? Debating the role of handcrafted marital aids in ancient civilizations? Inventing something that we guarantee […]

This week, we finally get a chance to play amateur restaurant critic. Yes, we’ve been asked to talk about one of the fastest-growing chains in America, and maybe eat there if we don’t have anything else going on. Will we like it enough to find something nice to say? Will we read the nutritional information […]

To be clear: we’re talking about the show, not the actual theory. And we’re not fans. The question is, does the problem lie with this show specifically, or with the broader failures of traditional sitcoms? Or with you, the ungrateful, unpleasable fans? This one is for everyone who’s been waiting for us to take a […]

You kids just love sending in those movie topics, don’t you? Well, we’re happy to oblige, because that’s sort of our whole gimmick. And this week, we’re going all the way back to 1925 to watch a film that is basically the progenitor of all modern cinema. No big deal. Marvel as two men who […]

Oh goody, it’s another one of those titles that don’t make sense. This time we actually explain it, and I’m happy to say we barely talk about any of the horrors it implies. We do talk about them a little bit, though. So just tough it out, and you’ll be treated to wild stories about […]

Living under the sea sounds cool, right? I mean, as long as it’s safe. And nobody goes crazy. And there are no Gungans around. So maybe it’s not such a great idea after all. But we investigate the subject anyway. That means playing politics with the Little Mermaid, following a lawless privateer to the Snork […]

Garlic! It’s tasty! So tasty we can barely be bothered to talk about it. Not when serious newsmen are looking at their phones and swamp hags are lying to peasants. And when we do talk about garlic, it’s mostly in relation to vampires. So give this one a listen if you want to hear some […]

We horn in on the History Channel’s turf by talking about stuff that’s probably not true, but totally involves Nazis and aliens. Were the mysterious lights that followed World War II fighter pilots just boring old natural phenomena, or were they something more sinister? Can you prove they weren’t? Maybe they’re flying saucers launched from […]