September 10, 2018
THE LIST
This episode was released back in August 2014, but it feels just as relevant and informative four years later. Not surprisingly, this is one of the less humorous Dollop episodes...and probably still the funniest Ferguson-centric piece of media that respectfully considers the origins and manifestations of institutional racism.
There are jobs that just don't need to exist. Like, a lot of jobs. But isn't a mediocre daily grind better than an overly stressful one? TLDL: psychology says no. Please do L, though, and revel in how good you’ve got it or begin plotting how you can wring purpose out of the superfluous career you’ve chanced upon..
Advertising creep is real, and promotional content may soon become nearly indistinguishable from interactions with peers. Would that be so bad? Listen in for a taste of the legal and ethical implication of friends becoming even more blatant shills for corporate entities..
"I gotta stack cheese, I gotta stack cheese, I need a cavernous surplus of cheddar from a dairy support program costing taxpayers around $2 billion a year in my khakis" - The federal government channeling the classic ditty '2Gs' circa 1980. It’s an almost inconceivable, beautifully told parable of supply and demand and self-sufficiency in America.
Podcasts are great at telling fascinating stories and essential stories. Radiolab is brilliant at doing both. This left me in awe of what humanity has accomplished in tandem with nature.
HONORABLE MENTION
SOMETHING NEW
Bubble, a new show from Maximum Fun, is serialized fiction. But it almost feels like the podcast equivalent of a comic book. It is both comedic AND sci-fi AND doesn’t fall flat on its face. The show follows Morgan, a transplant in a city called Fairhaven that feels like an analog to any number of hipster enclaves in any western metropolis. I projected the characters into existing images of such neighborhoods in New York and Washington, DC, but the specific locale isn’t essential. More crucial is Morgan’s upbringing in the “brush,” the source of both her inner conflict and external struggle against corporatization of urban spaces. This quasi-governmental body furthers the divide between city-dweller and rural residents that initially seems political but spills over into real consequences for people and other beings regardless of their origin. This conflict mostly reads like a critique of capitalism and the ubiquitous dredge of the sharing economy. The story doesn’t totally compel me as much as the other aspects of the show, but in episode 7 we get a tantalizing twist that piqued my curiosity about where the story will go next.
I won’t spoil anything more about plot, particularly when there is so much production-related stuff to parse! First off, the music. One time-warpy sound effect pops up over and over again to signify a scene change, and it feels straight out of an old-timey superhero TV special. This is a fun way to set a show apart, but since it also plays at the end of every installment I found my attention wandering later into an episode trying to anticipate the ending. Another aural quirk was the adbreak, which does disappointingly interrupt the action (very common in all podcasts, but especially distracting in fictional shows). I do appreciate that the ads were either pushing other Maximum Fun shows or prompting listeners to make a pay-what-you-can donation to support Bubble. Generally, though, there is a lot of rich sound design to complement the small army of characters that pop up throughout the show.
The expansive, star-studded cast collaboration may be the most notable aspect of Bubble. Producers brought together a list of six principal actors and 40 guest stars, many of which will be familiar to listeners of Maximum Fun shows like My Brother My Brother And Me, Go Fact Yourself and Judge John Hodgeman. It’s tough to corral so many different moving pieces, but the novelty of a large cast doesn’t in itself ensure a podcast will turn out a coherent final product. In this case, however, the quantity of talent (including healthy writing, directing and producing teams) foreshadows the high quality entertainment value that builds and builds. From the outtakes that act as a coda to each episode, it is evident that these folks had a blast crafting this product. There is an almost improv-like “yes-and” sensibility that connotes a boundless participatory glee. That sense of buy-in is evident throughout the other Maximum Fun vehicles I’ve encountered, and it is palpable in every corner of Bubble.
Where Bubble really seems to win big is in the target audience - it is primed to appeal to a large cross-section of people while remaining very distinct. The showpage claims to be for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Welcome to Night Vale, Portlandia, and Broad City. I’m not familiar enough with Buffy to comment on the appropriateness of that touchstone, but the self-aware hipsterism of Portlandia and young-urban-adultism of Broad City is absolutely evident throughout. Welcome to Night Vale is also a worthy comp, if for no other reason than the shared science-fiction-y universe setting for a fictional show. I’d wager the biggest corollary is to fans of comic-lead podcasts (those that typically consist of riff-interviews and are primarily personality driven). Bubble is as focused on piling up the joke count and cultural references as it is on crafting a narrative arc. This might scare away those listening for a traditional audio drama (which, for the most part, tend to skew to the serious side of things) but ultimately both humor and an intriguing tale prevail. If any of the ingredients appeal to your taste, try a couple episodes with an open mind and you may find yourself eagerly awaiting a continuation to this new level of texture in the podcast universe.
I won’t spoil anything more about plot, particularly when there is so much production-related stuff to parse! First off, the music. One time-warpy sound effect pops up over and over again to signify a scene change, and it feels straight out of an old-timey superhero TV special. This is a fun way to set a show apart, but since it also plays at the end of every installment I found my attention wandering later into an episode trying to anticipate the ending. Another aural quirk was the adbreak, which does disappointingly interrupt the action (very common in all podcasts, but especially distracting in fictional shows). I do appreciate that the ads were either pushing other Maximum Fun shows or prompting listeners to make a pay-what-you-can donation to support Bubble. Generally, though, there is a lot of rich sound design to complement the small army of characters that pop up throughout the show.
The expansive, star-studded cast collaboration may be the most notable aspect of Bubble. Producers brought together a list of six principal actors and 40 guest stars, many of which will be familiar to listeners of Maximum Fun shows like My Brother My Brother And Me, Go Fact Yourself and Judge John Hodgeman. It’s tough to corral so many different moving pieces, but the novelty of a large cast doesn’t in itself ensure a podcast will turn out a coherent final product. In this case, however, the quantity of talent (including healthy writing, directing and producing teams) foreshadows the high quality entertainment value that builds and builds. From the outtakes that act as a coda to each episode, it is evident that these folks had a blast crafting this product. There is an almost improv-like “yes-and” sensibility that connotes a boundless participatory glee. That sense of buy-in is evident throughout the other Maximum Fun vehicles I’ve encountered, and it is palpable in every corner of Bubble.
Where Bubble really seems to win big is in the target audience - it is primed to appeal to a large cross-section of people while remaining very distinct. The showpage claims to be for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Welcome to Night Vale, Portlandia, and Broad City. I’m not familiar enough with Buffy to comment on the appropriateness of that touchstone, but the self-aware hipsterism of Portlandia and young-urban-adultism of Broad City is absolutely evident throughout. Welcome to Night Vale is also a worthy comp, if for no other reason than the shared science-fiction-y universe setting for a fictional show. I’d wager the biggest corollary is to fans of comic-lead podcasts (those that typically consist of riff-interviews and are primarily personality driven). Bubble is as focused on piling up the joke count and cultural references as it is on crafting a narrative arc. This might scare away those listening for a traditional audio drama (which, for the most part, tend to skew to the serious side of things) but ultimately both humor and an intriguing tale prevail. If any of the ingredients appeal to your taste, try a couple episodes with an open mind and you may find yourself eagerly awaiting a continuation to this new level of texture in the podcast universe.
From: Maximum Fun
Recommended for: Common brush imps, doom squids, and everyone in between.
Drop Schedule: Seasonal, One-off drop (All episodes available now)
Average episode length: 30 minutes
Rating: Gotta Have It
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