Succotash Epi262: Revisitin’ 3 Old Faves Plus 2 New Faves

I am Marc Hershon, your every-other-weekly-host for Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, and this is Ep262. I’m calling it “Revisitin’ 3 Old Faves Plus 2 New Faves, And A Sad Goodbye, Too.”

Before we jump into the deep end, I want to remind you that, if you missed last week’s Epi261 “Clippin’ My Way Back To You”, with my illustrious co-host-at-a-distance Tyson Saner, in which he featured clips from Girls 1 Kitchen, Strange Times, and Round Springfield, you can still fill your ears with it up at Apple & Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, and pretty much everywhere else in the known soundcast universe.

For this week’s installment, I have a sack stuffed to the gills with not three, not four, but FIVE clips from – as the title intimates – 3 faves, which are namely Wheelbarrow Full Of Dicks, Story Worthy, and Monster Party. In addition, I have clips from two shows we’ve not featured before: 91 Donkey Lane, and Death is Hilarious. We’re sponsored this time around by Henderson’s Pants new Poncho Pantz, which would be welcome news for all of those folks suffering from unseasonal flooding going on around the world if these pants weren’t fictional in nature.

RIP MAT GEORGE

Before we wade into this week’s clippage, though, I wanted to take a few moments out to get to the “Sad Goodbye” part of this episode’s title, and observe a sad milestone we passed this past week. Podcaster Mat George died this past Saturday morning in Los Angeles, the victim of a hit-and-run traffic accident. Mat was 26 years old, and the co-host of She Rates Dogs along with Michaela Okland. Known for his Twitter and Insta feeds under the handle @matchu-chutrain, the soundcast he did with Michaela brought the popular social media page SheRatesDogs to the soundcast world — and listeners’ worst dating stories along with it. The milestone I mentioned is that fact that, in most of the accounts of Mat’s death, he is being identified as a “podcaster”. Our podcast, or soundcast, medium has been around for almost 20 years now but it’s only now being recognized as a profession and I think that, through his untimely passing, Mat is the first among us to have the status of “podcaster” dignified by the mainstream press.

In honor of Mat George, we've got a short clip that includes his final sign-off from the last episode of She Rates Dogs to drop before his death. Gone too soon at the age of 26, rest in peace Mat George. He and Michaela’s show is very entertaining, and I urge you to listen to She Rates Dogs from wherever you get your soundcasts.

CLIPS

WFOD
The inspiration for playing the next clip came up on Twitter this past week, when I saw the the account for WFOD, or Wheelbarrow Full of Dicks, as it is actually called, had retweeted a tweet from Spreaker, which had asked them, “Has your podcast received any media coverage?” They answered, “We were featured on Succotash Show twice!” Which is true: First in Epi47 back in 2013, and again in Epi100 in 2014. (They were also mentioned in Epi141 for their wrong side of the argument position of Soundcast vs Podcast, when they said “soundcast” sounds “silly”.) Well, Mike and the gang, clearly your stance was wrong as the world has long since embraced “soundcast” BUT we’re not sore winners at Succotash and we are pleased and proud have having run the soundcast gamut along with you lo these many years. So hoping that the third times the charm, here is a clip from the most recent episode of Wheelbarrow Full of Dicks, in which the crew reminisces back to the beginning of the pandemic and a little old felon named Joe Exotic.

Story Worthy
So one of the reasons I even saw the tweet from Wheelbarrow Full of Dicks was that it got re-tweeted by longtime soundcast friend Christine Blackburn. We have only ever crossed paths in real life at the old LA Podcast Festivals, but she’s always been game to recommend soundcasts and help connect me to folks to interview for this show. And her show, the Story Worthy soundcast, is one of the longest running story-telling shows out there. And she’s done a great job of gamifying the format over the years and in various kinds of judged settings, including Story Smash, which you can catch on YouTube. (See the blog entry for this episode at our homesite, SuccotashShow.com, for clickable links to the show I’m mentioning as well as the socials for the people themselves!) So, anyway, I figured it was high time to clip Christine’s show. This snippet comes from recent Episode 684 featuring guest comedian and video director Gary Robinson. They’re chatting about how some celebrities become so heavily identified for a defining role.

Death Is Hilarious
Now I certainly don’t mean this episode of Succotash to be a downer, what with the memorial notice about Mat George up top and all, but I had received a note this week from Rachel Diamond, a PR assistant for a soundcast called Death Is Hilarious, asking if I’d give it a listen and consider playing a clip. So I listened and I liked it and I clipped it and it’s here. Hosted by Tawny Platis, a widowed comedian who lost her husband George just a couple of years ago, and helped by her friend Sam Peterson, she was determined to channel her grief in helping herself and others to heal, find relief, and the power to laugh again in the face of death and other trauma. This clip is from a recent installment where Tawny chats with alt New York comic Ben Wasserman about dealing with the passing of his father.

Monster Party
Getting back into the swing with one more old fave this show, it’s a clip from a recent episode of Monster Party. Hosted by a quartet of my old chums Matt Weinhold, Shawn Sheridan, Larry Strothe, and James Gonis, they usually sit around or, more recently because of the pandemic, Zoom around with a guest and go to town on horror, suspense, and sci-fi movies. They recently had a phenomenal “get” of a guest, actor Steve Railsback, and they talk extensively with Steve about his long career in movies and TV. A film that he became well-known for was 1980’s The Stuntman, in which he starred with Peter O’Toole, and directed by Richard Rush. In this clip, the guys talk to Steve about that project and he gets into what it was like working with the likes of O’Toole and director Rush. (NOTE: If you download THIS week’s episode, you’ll hear yours truly – that’s right: Me, – guesting on the show for a couple of hours or so yakking about movies in the theme of “Summer Scare-cation”. A ton of fun and you can grab it everywhere online.)

91 Donkey Lane
Rounding our our true handful of clips – that’s 5: One for each finger – is 91 Donkey Lane, a very funny sketch-ish soundcast that feastures the misadventures of Robert Bacon and Nate Lopez who become roommates in an apartment at 91 Donkey Lane, a place described as “magical but very dangerous.” This clip is from the episode entitled “Total Recall”, and featured Robert trying desperately to get away on a “mind vacation” so he can relax. This requires the same technology seen in the movie Total Recall, and the doctor helping him sounds suspiciously like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And the first place he travels to is the version of Mars featured in the Total Recall movie.

Too many clips for us to get to the Tweetsack this week — sorry Tweety — but we’ll hit it next time.

Remember to listen for me on this week’s edition of the Monster Party soundcast. If you have seen any of friend-of-Succotash comedian Dana Carvey’s Instagram postings lately, @TheDanaCarvey, and see him using these kind of flat photo puppets of Joe Biden, well, that’s MY handiwork! For reals. We used to make these bizarre puppet videos years ago and he’s started to do some new ones as part of his soundcast Fantastic! With Dana Carvey. So he called me up and asked me to make up some new ones.

Up next week in this very same feed will be Tyson Saner with another sweaty clutch of soundcast clips for you so be sure to come back around. And don’t be afraid to rate and review our show up on Apple or Google Podcasts, especially with some tasty 5-star reviews.

Stay safe as the summer wears on and the Delta COVID variant spreads out. Mask up inside when you can, wash your hands in a thorough manner – you know that drill – and and if anyone should happen to tap you on the shoulder to ask if you’ve heard anything good lately, please be sure to pass the Succotash.

— Marc Hershon