BPR's Curiosity Morning (CANADA)
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
Curiosity Morning Today, We're Curious About... Canada 🇨🇦 Today on Bit Public Radio, host Jane Kane welcomes border officer Mark Hadley to answer one simple question: What exactly is Canada? The answer, it turns out, is... surprisingly complicated. As Jane and Mark explore our neighbors to the north, BPR correspondents uncover an international bagpipe smuggling operation, questionable border security practices, suspicious hockey interference, and the diplomatic complexities of pouring maple syrup on complete strangers. Along the way, listeners learn almost nothing about Canada—but...
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Mystery Pod | PodCAT Town – Yanaka, Japan
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
What happens when you drop a troupe of improvisers into one of Japan's most charming neighborhoods with absolutely no rehearsal and one simple rule: Everyone has to be a cat. Inspired by the real streets of Yanaka Ginza—Tokyo's famous "Cat Town"—this Mystery Pod sends the BIT Players on a feline adventure through hidden cat statues, cat cafés, souvenir shops, quiet cemeteries, and the neighborhood's iconic staircase. From there... things get wonderfully out of hand. Luxury cat hotels, CatTok influencers, alley cats, podcasts within podcasts, cardboard box commercials, organized crime,...
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BIT Public Radio (BPR) - Misconception
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
Today on Bit Public Radio, Host Luke Bovard explores the strange and unpredictable world of misconception. Correspondent Angelina Washington reports from Troy, New York, where a Flag Day celebration honoring Uncle Sam escalates into civic confusion, alphabet panic, and unexpected papal involvement. Next, Mandy Keyes investigates food misconceptions at a farmer’s market in Pashook, Iowa, where a simple question about tomatoes leads to nightshade conspiracies, unusual educational materials, and some deeply confusing ideas about reproduction. Finally, in her first-ever field report, Gail...
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Podcast Town | The Villages, FL with Mike Roth
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
Episode Description This week on the Bit Improv Comedy Network, Billy and Gail head south — spiritually, geographically, and possibly medically — with Mike Roth of The Villages, Florida, who gives them a guided tour of America’s most aggressively recreational retirement wonderland. Mike walks us through The Villages’ astonishing scale, its golf cart culture, its town squares, nightly dancing, festivals, clubs, rumors, loofah lore, pickleball intensity, and the particular magic of a community where everyone has a hobby, a schedule, and apparently a transportation-based signaling...
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Podcast Town+ | Farmington, MI
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
This week on the Bit Improv Comedy Network, Billy and Gail kick things off with Mayor Joe of Farmington, Michigan, whose generosity and good humor are on full display as he shares the city’s history, its Quaker roots, its famously welcoming small-town vibe, its abundance of coffee houses, and the distinctive character that makes Farmington feel like its own little world — before graciously allowing the BIT Crew to do what they do best: lovingly satirize it all. From there, things spiral beautifully into a full-on podcast-town fever dream, where civic pride, local personalities, and...
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Professor Michael Delaney | Guest Monologist
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
The BIT Improv Comedy Network – Mainstage Professor Michael Delaney Visits Dobbs Ferry This month on Mainstage, host Billy Merritt welcomes longtime collaborator and improv legend Professor Michael Delaney to talk about one very specific place: Dobbs Ferry, New York. What begins as a casual conversation about a small Hudson River town quickly spirals into a wildly improvised audio adventure featuring cursed skeletons, extremely unreliable restaurant hours, entrepreneurial ghosts, and a Dalmatian with a Revolutionary War résumé. Michael shares stories from his years living in Dobbs...
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Jay Sukkow | Improv Icon + Guest Monologist
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
Jay Sukow’s Glenwood stories spark a full-scale town meltdown featuring pizza wars, gossip culture, jailhouse romance, and a rapidly disappearing population. First, an apology. Billy was scheduled to host Jay. Billy refused to take the interview. There may have been… financial tension. Gail stepped in. Everyone survived. The Town Jay takes us back to Glenwood, Illinois — a place where: Everyone knows your business The Glenwood School for Boys is a constant threat Teens sneak beers in the forest preserve Deep dish is strictly for tourists Real Chicago pizza is tavern-style....
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Dinner Party 2 | Everybody's a Podcaster
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
Everybody's a Podcaster Feat. "Terry Gross" It's the end of the year, the end of the podcast, and the end of whatever was left in the fridge. Join us as the BIT Comedy Network wraps up 2025 with one final, chaotic, heartfelt, and slightly undercooked episode of Dinner Party. What's on the menu? 🎧 A "Podcast Party" hosted by the Double Ls (Luke & Laura), where microphones are hot and egos are hotter. 🐟 A shady fish-based gift from aquarium moguls Jim and Janet of "Something's Fishy." 🏛️ An unexpected guest: actual NPR royalty Terry Gross shows up, and things get even...
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Dinner Party 1 | The Crystal Chair
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
Billy and the BIT CREW players wish you the very merriest of Christmases, the happiest of Chanukahs, and a fantabulous and super-fun Holiday Season/New Year. As an homage to "holiday dinners." Billy insisted that we recreate that frenetic and sometimes awkward ritual with a special improv form called "Dinner Party." We even made a theme song. We hope you enjoy this special Christmas edition of Podcast Town. We are releasing a super, secret, double-dog-dared, New Year's bonus edition of DINNER PARTY at the stroke of Midnight on New Year's Eve. Listen to the full version of the song!...
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rabbitHOLE 10 | Live from OSLO! - A Random rabbitHOLE
BIT Improv Comedy Network | MAIN STAGE
Season Two Finale of rabbitHOLE - Live from OSLO! - A Random rabbitHOLE OMG OMG! The BIT Comedy Network's first LIVE show was at the Oslo Impro Fest on October 24th. We have been performing together under the BIT marquee for about two years, but we had never met or performed live as a troupe. Even with the wonky audio (it gets better after the introduction), we think you'll enjoy this RANDOM rabbitHOLE journey through rolling D20s, experimental medicine, the benefits of divorce and hot water, fruits with curative powers, and a costumed heist. (We still don't know if Amber...
info_outlineCuriosity Morning
Today, We're Curious About... Canada 🇨🇦
Today on Bit Public Radio, host Jane Kane welcomes border officer Mark Hadley to answer one simple question:
What exactly is Canada?
The answer, it turns out, is... surprisingly complicated.
As Jane and Mark explore our neighbors to the north, BPR correspondents uncover an international bagpipe smuggling operation, questionable border security practices, suspicious hockey interference, and the diplomatic complexities of pouring maple syrup on complete strangers.
Along the way, listeners learn almost nothing about Canada—but quite a bit about stereotypes, curiosity, and why you should never underestimate the power of a well-played bagpipe.
👀 What You'll Definitely Not See Coming:
- A multinational war on illicit bagpipes.
- Operation Bagpipe Hockey... and its even worse sequel, Operation Baggy Waggy.
- A tourist who mistakes Canada for Europe.
- The surprisingly dangerous legal consequences of making poutine jokes.
- A prison sentence involving hot cocoa, public healthcare, and an alarming number of Timbits.
- Switzerland somehow becoming collateral damage.
About Today's Guest
Mark Hadley joins Curiosity Morning as a veteran U.S. border officer whose entire understanding of Canada has been assembled from conversations at a border crossing... despite never actually setting foot inside the country.
His professional philosophy:
👉 Curiosity is important.
👉 Crossing the border is easy.
👉 Crossing your own assumptions is considerably harder.
Today's Closing Thoughts
Curiosity crossed the border.
Stereotypes forgot their passports.
Everyone owed Canada an apology.
Apologies
BPR apologizes to the people of Canada, Canadians living abroad, border patrol officers, customs officials, RCMP officers, hockey players, hockey pucks, bagpipe players, Scotland, Braveheart, Tim Hortons, Timbits, maple trees, maple syrup producers, poutine enthusiasts, Lake Louise, Southern lawyers, Swiss immigration officials, Switzerland, multilingual citizens, horses named Joke, breakfast diners, ant colonies, prison wardens, public healthcare systems, and anyone who has ever attempted to smuggle anything inside a bagpipe. Also... anyone who genuinely tuned in hoping to learn something about Canada.
Production + Graphics: Hill Kane, Raising Kane Media + Marketing
