Succotash Epi248: Celebratin’ TEN YEARS of Soundcasting!

Welcome to this milestone episode of our little soundcast, which is – this week – celebrating TEN YEARS of doing whatever it is that we do. It made only be Episode 248 (maybe we didn’t drop installments quite as regularly as we should have for a big chunk of the past decade…), but it is still 10 friggin’ years of churning out that sweet, sweet soundcast magic.

In honor of that, and the fact that we seem to be solidly on the downward side of the bell-shaped curve coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, the staff and management of this show have decided to return to our original title. Starting with this episode we are, once again Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. As we flip the first page on the next ten years, this is also now officially Season 5 – a fact you should see reflected in the refreshed show logo on the service where you’re downloading or streaming this show.

If you’re a regular listener to Succotash (in or out of pandemic mode), you‘re savvy to the fact that we either play clips from comedy soundcasts around the web or that we do interviews with soundcasts, comedians, comedian/soundcasts, and other show biz folk.

Well, this episode is going to be a little different.

In observance of our decade of soundcastery, we’ve gotten a little self-indulgent. For the first time since we began, we’ve actually pulled together host Tyson Saner, producer/engineer Joe Paulino, booth announcer Bill Heywatt, and me, your humble executive producer and other host Marc Hershon. We cobbled together a multi-studio experience through Zoom and spend about an hour and a quarter talking about the show’s origins, the various features we've done, how Tyson came to us in the early going and got folded into our team, and more.

We re-hash a classic old Boozin’ with Bill segment, in which our announcer almost poisoned himself and me with a noxious concoction so hideous it should have been criminal. Bill also favors us with a live show introduction, a live show close, and a live reading of a commercial from our long-running sponsor Henderson’s Pants – it’s an announcement of their release of a new product in honor of this show’s anniversary, Henderson’s Anniversary Pants.

We also take a few minutes out to pay homage and send out love and healing energies to political and social comedian and commentator Will Durst,  longtime contributor to this show of our Burst O' Durst segment. Will suffered a severe stroke in the Fall of 2019 and is on the super-slow backroad to recovery. He's even getting back up a microphone now and again, and we play a little clip of his appearance from January on the San Francisco Points of View soundcast with Will Durst & Wille Brown.

Will's recovery is a slow and expensive process. You can help out in a very real way by contributing to the GoFUndMe page that has been set up  as way to collect money to offset his hospital bills: https://www.gofundme.com/f/awukk-will-durst-needs-your-help

Finally, interspersed within the show, we play some audio bouquets – well wishes from friends we’ve made during the last 10 years who have been featured either through clips, interviews and, in some cases, both. Those friends include: Cole Stratton, Dana Carvey, Davian Dent, Dean Haglund, Dom Risk, Dr. London Smith, Dr. Norman Trousers, Ed Wallick, Francis Cronin, Geoffrey Welchman, Hunter Block, Jason “Jabs” McNamara, Matt Knudsen, Matt WeinHold, Megan Pentecost, Phil Leirness, River Zambezi, Tommy Royal, and Travis Clark. Thank you, friends, for sending those along!

That’s about it. We will continue to bring you clips of what we find out there in the soundcast wilderness, as well as chats with some of the interesting characters we collect along the way, each and every week. In return, if you’d be so kind as to rate and review Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast on Apple and Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, the Laughable app, YouTube, Podbay, or anywhere else you happen to listen to us.

Next week, Tyson will be back with a sheaf of clips for you in Episode 249, and I’ll be diving in the week after that for Epi250 (!), and so forth. In the meantime, be good to each other and if anyone asks if you’ve heard any good soundcasts lately, p-lease be sure to pass the Succotash!

— Marc Hershon