Succotash Epi348: A Spring Bouquet of Clips

Happy Vernal Equinox, Succotashians! I’m your every-other-weekly-host, Marc Hershon, and thanks for plucking Episode 348 out of the soundcastosphere, an episode I’m calling “A Spring Bouquet of Clips” because, well, this show is dropping close to the first day of Spring!

Speaking of Spring, something that’s springing up very soon is the 12^th anniversary of Succotash, the Comedy Soundcast Soundcast. Your co-host and mine, Tyson Saner, will be joining me for a celebratory episode where we’ll look back on the show’s dozen years. We’ll have some clips from shows, classic Henderson’s Pants ads, some congratulatory messages, and more!

It's still not too late if YOU might want to record a quick message with your thoughts and/or feelings on our 12^th anniversary! We’d love to play it on the big celebration show! You can call it in, to our Succotash Show and Runaway Truck Ramp Hotline, at [phone] OR record it and upload the .wav or MP3 file to us at http://hightail.com/u/Succotash!

The aforementioned Mr. Saner was here last week, hosting Episode 347, entitled “Hollywood Adjacent”, and he featured clips from such soundcastery as How Did This Get Made, Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, and Nooner Podcast! I’m not sure where you get your servings of Succotash these days, but know that you can always get it fresh from a bazillion soundcast distribution points on the internet and, as always, on our homesite at SuccotashShow.com.

My Spring Bouquet of Clips for you for this episode includes FOGO, Tell Me About It, and The Best Show. In addition, I have another drop-in from comedian Dan St. Paul with a selection from his Slices blog, this one called “The Thai That Unbinds”.

At some point during the proceedings, we’ll be rudely interrupted by our booth announcer, Bill Heywatt, and an unimportant message from our free-loading, free-wheeling sponsor Henderson’s Pants and their new Random Pants, for a truly captive-ating fit. Oy.

Let’s just get started, shall we?

CLIPS

FOGO: Fear Of Going Outside
I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t depend on my own wits and taste when it comes to trying to find out about everything available in the expanding soundcastiverse. I read reviews. I skim “20 Best Comedy Soundcasts This Year!” lists (although they NEVER use the Soundcast word.) And I get email from PR people. One PR “regular” is Kathryn Musilek from Shark Party Media. And she’s been telling me for a while to check out the FOGO: Fear Of Going Outside soundcast. So I finally did. And it’s terrific! Hosted by Ivy Le, “the most reluctant host ever”, according to the press release. It goes on: “Most nature shows are hosted by reckless white men, but avid indoorswoman Ivy Le is an Asian mom with severe allergies.” I listened to the first couple episodes and it was intriguing to hear the exploits of Ivy as she really wants to try to embrace the great outdoors. In the second season, she’s really pretty much looking at her comfort zone in the rearview mirror. In Epi5 of the new season, with the help of Jesse Griffiths, a renowned chef/hunter, Ivy sets out to butcher an entire hog!

Tell Me About It
Succotash listeners have run across Adal Rifai, the host of this next new show, called Tell Me About It, a couple times. First back in 2015 when we clipped Hello from the Magic Tavern in Epi113, where he plays Chunt the Changeling. And again at the end of 2022, in Epi334 when we snipped Hey Riddle Riddle, in which Adal is the co-host. His new show, Tell Me About It, is couched as a game show, with Adal playing himself as an eccentric billionaire who challenges his guests to talk about, argue about and, eventually, defend a topic or thing they love dearly to try to climb the Most Interesting thing scoreboard against previous and future guests. The questions are absurd-ish, the scoring even more so, none of it made any easier because of Eric Silver, Adal’s butler, who tries to keep things running smoothly. In our clip, the guest is friend of Succotash and one of the creators of San Francisco Sketchfest Janet Varney, who you may know from Avatar: The Legend of Korra, and her own soundcast, The JV Club. She’s onboard to shove her interests in minatures up that scoreboard but first, she has to help host Adal understand what miniatures even are… 

The Best Show
I’m not sure how, in 12 years of doing this show, we missed clipping the Best Show with Tom Sharpling. It’s not obscure by any means — it was originally a terrestrial radio show — plus I’ve heard of it for years, and have heard Tom Sharpling on other soundcasts. He’s big friends with Marc Maron, too. I guess what finally grabbed me was tht he managed to get an interview with Matt Berry, who I am a huge fan of, and you probably are, too. He’s a British comic and actor, and he’s a regular on the TV series version of What We Do In The Shadows. ‘Nuff said? In this snippet of their convo, Matt talks about having to decide between pursuing music or comedy…or did he?

Slices: The Thai That Binds
I played one of these essays in my recent Epi346, from comedian Dan St. Paul’s Substack “Slices” blog. He’s back with a tale of his first foray going after a Thai massage. Check it out…

Clips. An Essay. And a pants commercial. Who can ask for more? As I’m already a day late dropping this episode, I’ve not got time to dip into the TweetSack this time, but those social handles will keep another couple of weeks. If you’re hurting for more Succotash, Tyson Saner will be back around this corner in less than a week with Episode 349 and then it will be just one or two more shows before our 12^th Anniversary show!

Thanks so much for listening. And, speaking of listening, if anyone asks you if you’ve heard anything good lately, won’t you please pass the Succotash?

—    Marc Hershon