Succotash Epi285: The Last 4 Clips of 2021

For the final time in 2021, dear listener, hello from me, your every-other-weekly host Marc Hershon. Since you downloaded or are streaming this, you’re probably not surprised that you are listening to Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, and this is Episode 285, our last installment of the year.

Did you miss last week’s penultimate episode of the year, #284? With our co-host Tyson Saner? It’s not too late to flag it down and shove it into your ears. He featured a quartet of clippery from such soundcasts as Web Crawlers, Triple Click, No Dogs in Space, and How Did This Get Made? You can grab it from any number of popular podcast download and streaming destinations, including Apple & Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, the Audible app, YouTube or our favorite haunt – namely, this show’s homesite – SuccotashShow.com

I was thinking of doing some kind of countdown for this year-end episode but having already contributed to Vulture.com’s This Year in Comedy Podcasts countdown reviews – you can read my write-up on Smartless, which came in at No. 9 – I feel like I’ve already slogged through a bunch of shows. Instead, I’ve plucked four clips from shows that really don’t have much to do with one another. They’re not all even necessarily comedy soundcasts but they are entertaining as hell. And I don’t believe we’ve ever featured any of them before. Hang on for samplings from Film Threat, Hysteria, Majoring in Everything, and You’re Wrong About. Our last show of the year is appropriately sponsored by Henderson’s Pants timely Auld Lang Slacks.

Reflecting back on the year – the second year in which the COVID pandemic has become a regular participant in everyone’s lives, either directly or indirectly – I’m curious to see if we here at Succotash - Tyson, Bill Heywatt, Joe Paulino, and the rest of the staff that keep this dreadnought trundling along – should be looking to change anything to increase the interest in or the enjoyment of the show. COVID kicked us in the rear and got us to finally make Succotash a regular weekly show, dropping pretty much every Tuesday. And although we’re still describing ourselves as “the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast”, both Tyson and I have wandered a bit afield from that in our choice of clips to feature. The shows are roughly a half-hour now, except when there’s an interview, which tends to go a bit longer. And we’re still sponsor-free, with the exception of our fake benefactor, Henderson’s Pants.

So what do YOU think? Are you happy with what you’re getting for free here? Do you want more clips per show? Less clips? More interviews? More commercials (yeah, right!) We also have a Patreon page waiting in the wings that you would be able to get some kind of bonus content and also help to support the show – should we fire that up? Do you want Succotash merch? Personal appearances? Our ATM PIN numbers? Just let us know. You can email either of us at [email protected] or [email protected]. You can ping us on the socials @SuccotashShow on both Twitter and Instagram. Or you can call the Succotash Show & Runaway Truck Ramp Hotline, at 1-818-921-7212. However you want to reach out, we’d love to hear what you think of the show as we head for our 11th year of soundcasting, and how we can make things better or, at least, different.

Okay. ‘Nuff said, Let’s launch into this Farewell to 2021 passel of clips, shall we?

CLIPS

Film Threat
The first clip comes from a show hosted by an old friend of Succotash, Chris Gore. He used to host a show called PodCRASH, in which he featured himself guesting on other people’s soundcasts that he would turn around and play on HIS show. But Chris’s first love was as the publisher and editor of Film Threat magazine years ago, a great alternative look at movies and the film business, which went through a number of ups and downs and it went out of publication but Chris then resurrected it as a website and soundcast. Our clip comes from the Film Threat episode that dropped last week on December 20, in which Chris and his guests discussed Isolation, an anthology of nine tales of terror focused on people in isolation as they attempt to survive a deadly global outbreak. Sound familiar? Chris’ guests are filmmakers Nathan Crooker and Larry Fessenden and, in this clip, they talk about how the project came about and how they started putting it together.

Hysteria
The next show I also clipped from last week – an episode of Hysteria, with co-hosts Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco. Erin is a political commentator and comedy writer, while Alyssa is a formar White House Deputy Chief of Staff. The description of the show on their homesite says that they are joined by a “bicoastal squad of funny, opinionated women to talk through everything from reproductive rights to romcoms.” Last week, in their episode entitled, “Love Me, It’s Christmas!”, the hosts teamed up with comedian/actress/writer Naomi Ekperigin, and comedian Megan Gailey to delve into “all of the wonderful, insane, problematic, magical, batshit holiday movie tropes.” The clip has them sifting through the Lifetime holiday move, The Christmas Setup, a love story featuring two gay male characters (played by a real-life gay male couple), and a movie mom portrayed by Fran Drescher.  There’s a taste of Hysteria, which you can find pretty much everywhere soundcasts are found. You can also find your way to their homesite by clicking through to our homesite, SuccotashShow.com, and then finding and clicking on the Hysteria title in our blog post for this episode.

Majoring In Everything
Are you one of those people who probably doing TOO many things in your life and having trouble focusing on how to put everything in perspective? Andrea Jones-Rooy not only has a Ph.D. after her name but she is also the host of Majoring In Everything, a soundcast that is “for people who don’t know what to do with their lives because they are interested in too many thing, and especially things that seem unrelated,” according to the show’s descriptor. Her guest in the show’s third episode, which dropped a couple of weeks ago, entitled “How science and stories will save the world, featuring Dr. Moiya McTier!” She is described as an astrophysicist, folklorist, science communicator, and all-around hero. In our clip, Dr. McTier talks about how she like to trick people into learning, and how to teach yourself in sort of the same way.

You’re Wrong About
Journalist Sarah Marshall has an obsession with the past. Particularly those events and people in that past that have gotten kind of a raw deal as far as how people think about them nowadays. So she like to deep dive her way into those topics with a guest and try to see if there a straighter story to be told. Most recently, in an episode of her soundcast, You’re Wrong About, entitled “Winter Book Club: The Amityville Horror with Jamie Loftus”, Sarah tells her guest host, Loftus (who is also soundcasting on Aack Cast, The Bechdel Cast, and My Year in Mensa) about The Amityville Horror. Is it a haunted or just big and drafty? And how the tale is a Christmas story! Our clip gets into how the book differs from the movie and how that can make quite a difference.

That metallic squealing you can imagine I’m hearing right now is me scraping the bottom of the barrel because I’m out of clips. And just like that, the ball drops for this most recent year of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. As long as you’re probably putting the finishing touches on your New Year’s Resolution, why not pop a note in there to download and listen to this show each and every week of 2022? Heck, go one step further and vow that you’re going to rate and review Succotash on Apple and Google Soundcasts. Why not? It’s free! It’s fun! And I’m begging!

Much like I’m begging you to check back in this very same feed next week for Succotash Epi286 when Tyson Saner returns with some more tasty soundcasts tidbits for you in the just-born new year. Do it to it. As the executive producer of this endeavor, I want to give a great big thanks to Tyson for being on this journey with me. We’re not making any money off this project and I greatly appreciate him putting in so much time and effort to craft his episodes.

Dear listener, I am wishing you a happy, safe, and reasonably sane 2022. With the Omicron variant raging right now, please take extra care during those New Year’s Eve shindigs. Mask up, vaxx up, and treat people better than you have in the previous year. And, just in case anyone should have to ask you if you have heard anything good lately, won’t you please pass the Succotash?

— Marc Hershon