Succotash Epi305: Clips On A Whim

Howdy, listener! As our esteemed announcer Bill Heywatt has so aptly stated, you're listening to Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast, and I am Marc Hershon, your host for the 305th edition of this 11-year-old audio entertainment production series. But I am only one of two hosts of Succotash. The other is Tyson Saner, and the two of us usually switch off hosting every other episode of the show so that this awesome task doesn’t become too overwhelming and, also, so we can take time sampling and harvesting the finest – or at least most interesting – of what the legions of comedy soundcasts have to offer. Sometimes we even stray off the track of pure comedy offerings when it comes to genres.

If you missed last week’s Episode 304, Tyson was serving up samples from a trio of shows which included Hello Wonderful, Prolly Shoulda Known Better, and That Happens. You can still catch that installment at places like Apple and Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Audible, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Podchaser.com, Podbay, YouTube,and on our own homesite, SuccotashShow.com.

Apologies, by the way, for the late dropping of this episode. I got a little overwhelmed with real world stuff and so it took a while to get to all the listening, clipping, and assembling this week’s show, which is entitled “Clips On A Whim”, I’m offering snippets from a quartet of soundcasts, including Entry Level, Last Things First, Parks and Recollection, and Timesuck!.

I keep vowing to find our show some real sponsors to help pay for all the expenses we have that it takes to keep this show up and running but so far we still only have our one, long-running and completely fictional advertiser Henderson’s Pants, makers of fine trousery since 1683,a and this week we are touting their exotic Chillin’ Churidars.

CLIPS

Last Things First
Let’s start with a show that’s been around longer than Succotash called Last Things First, hosted by journalist-comedian Sean L. McCarthy. A product of his homesite, TheComicsComic.com, this show has almost 400 episodes under Sean’s belt, and it’s totally engaging as he interviews comedians and other funny folks about what they consider historic firsts and lasts in their lives and careers. He recently talked to Bruce McCulloch from Kids in The Hall and, in just 30 minutes, they get pretty deep. In this clip, Bruce talks about their movie Brain Candy and also about some of the live shows.

Parks And Recollection
I didn’t really watch the NBC sitcom Parks And Rec, during its original run on TV but ended up loving it when my wife and I binge-watched the hell out of it during the pandemic lockdown. Now there’s a watch-along soundcast for it, in the vein of Office Ladies for The Office. It’s Parks And Recollection, hosted by actor and series regular Rob Lowe, along with writer/director Alan Yang. They do a one-for-one episode breakdown of the show and they’re currently up to Season 3. I clipped their show about episode 5 from that season, entitled “Media Blitz”, and the guys talk about this being the first time the show gets into a local morning radio show called “Crazy Ira & The Douche”.

Timesuck! with Dan Cummins
Dan Cummins is the host of Timesuck!, which is more than a comedy soundcast. He’s a funny guy, but some of the episode dip into some pretty gruesome stuff – true crime and murder topics – but then he has episodes about cryptids and UFOs and cults and, well, with almost 300 episodes, each running between 2 and 3 hours in length, Timesuck! covers an amazing array of topics. Our clip is from Episode 286 from March of this year, entitled “Betty White: More Than A Golden Girl”. It’s an amazingly in-depth retrospective of her life…with a few detours that may not be entirely factual.

Entry Level with Brooks Wheelan
Entry Level with Brooks Wheelan features the host, a comedian who has the distinction of being a cast member for a single season on Saturday Night Live (from 2013-2014), who talks to people – mostly fellow comedians but also just regular folks - about not just their careers but specifically what jobs they held just before deciding to getting into whatever their main endeavor became. Our clip comes from Brooks’ recent Episode 231 where his guest was Mitra Jouhari, an actor, comedian, and writer who you may know from her Adult Swim show the Three Debras and she also co-hosts a soundcast with Joel Kim Booster called Urgent Care. Shortly after moving to New York to pursue her still-defining itself career, Mitra took a gig working in a mattress store.

Time for me to get out of here and upload this late entry. Don’t forget that Tyson Saner will be back in this same feed next week with Epi306. In the meantime, if you’re running late for a flight  with your earbuds danglin gout of your ears as you jog down the airport concourse and somebody heading the other direction asks if you’ve heard anything good lately, won’t you please pass the Succotash?

— Marc Hershon