Podcasts

I do love me some podcasts. According to the playback stats on my podcatcher I spent >10% of my time listening to them in the last 2 years, and 2023 looks to be even more.

🏳️‍🌈 - featuring at least one openly LGBTQ+ host or character

Pop Culture

Disney & Related

There are a bunch of podcasts out there about Disney. I’ve personally found them to be very hit and miss, most are about planning trips and managing with kids, niether of which am I interested in. Of the ones I’ve tried, I liked these best.

The Disney Dish with Jim Hill

Informative

The big one: A wonderfully irreverent but loving take on Disney news and history. Len Testa is the owner of Touring Plans, which gathers huge amounts of guest sourced data on live wait times and survey results to populate the annual and amazing Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. Jim Hill has long been a powerhouse in Disney media and history. They’re not afraid to criticize The Mouse or its keepers, but never lose site of the joy they make that keeps us all coming back.

Shmersday, ’this is why we don’t get media passes'

If you like this:

• part of the ‘Jim Hill Media Network’

Poor Unfortunate Podcast

🏳️‍🌈

Conversational / Informative by episode

A pair of New York Millennials share their love of disney, particularly broadway. They rotate through a roster of different show formats with varying levels of research and analysis vs casual opinion, but they’re all fun. Several different suggestion for fun games you can play with your friends, or activities to do at home when you need a little more Disney magic in your life.

Podcast: The Ride

Conversational & Informative

3 LA comedians and frequent guests discuss all manor of theme parks and related experiences. This is one that I recommend flipping through the back catalog for a few that sound interesting to try it out.

I survived the CityWalk Saga and the Downtown Disney Ordeal, can you?

Disney Princess Deathmatch

Complete

Conversational

Ratings of each Disney princess. Casual, but fairly analytical. I think this is the first place I heard about the concept of an ‘I want’ song, which is one of their categories.

If you like this:

• Same hosts: Disney Villan Deathmatch, Fathoms Deep, Mighty Fine Shindig

Disney Villian Deathmatch

Complete

Conversational

A followup to Disney Princess Deathmatch, this time with Villans! They changed up the format for this one, with a head to head bracket instead of ratings, but similar style and lots of fun.

If you like this:

• Same hosts: Disney Princess Deathmatch, Fathoms Deep, Mighty Fine Shindig

Foolish Mortals - A Haunted Mansion Podcast

Informative

A Deep Dive on the Haunted Mansion and it’s international siblings. Not very many episodes so far, but very intresting and informative. Lots of backstory.

Fine Tooning with Drew Taylor

Informative

‘Animation news and commentary’ by Drew Taylor and Jim Hill.

This one covers the whole animation industry, not just Disney, but they’re such a big player they tend to come up at least in passing every episode.

If you like this:

• part of the ‘Jim Hill Media Network’

Looking at Lucasfilm

Complete / Continuing?

Informative

If you like this:

• part of the ‘Jim Hill Media Network’

The Universal Joint

Informative

Not Disney focused, obviously, but Universal is such a close competitor these days Disney comes up plenty here too, and the Universal parks stuff is interesting too.

If you like this:

• part of the ‘Jim Hill Media Network’

Other

Smash Fiction

🏳️‍🌈

Complete

Conversational

Don’t let it’s complete status scare you away! There are hundreds of hours of delightful insanity to enjoy! On standard episodes the hosts each represent a fictional character and argue it out to see who would win in the agreed upon scenario.

Try it out by flipping through the list and finding a few episodes that look interesting to you and starting there. While there is something of an ongoing, overarching plot, it’s mostly just used as flavor to set up the scenario, you won’t miss too much by diving in the middle. If you enjoy it, I do highly recommend starting from the beginning, particularly with the Extraordinary league episodes.

I blasted through the entire series in a few months and proceeded to track down everything else the hosts and several of the recurring guests have done.

“Less thinking, more yelling”

If you like this:

• Miles covered Twilight as the Unspoiled host with Natasha on her Unspoiled Network, but it was a Patron exclusive show, not sure if it will be released now that it’s complete.
• Miles and MeganBob host The NXT Wrestling Fan, worth a try even if you have zero interest in wrestling.
• MeganBob and occasional guests Marrisa Bond and Hub are writers for Garden Plots with Skelator. Miles appears occasionally as well.

The NXT Wrestling Fan

A Podcast of Fights and Feels 🏳️‍🌈

Complete / wrapping up

Conversational / Informative

Definitive proof that the personality of the hosts is way more important than the topic. I have zero interest in wrestling and haven’t watched any of the discussed episodes, but this one has quickly become a top favorite. Highlights include Bob’s Breakdown, Women’s Wrestling History and the tag team The Ascention. I’ve genuinely gained a much greater appreciation for the complexity and storytelling of both wrestling and romance novels.

Keywords: #Buttwatch, Turnbukle

If you like this:

• Miles covered Twilight as the Unspoiled host with Natasha on her Unspoiled Network, but it was a Patron exclusive show, not sure if it will be released now that it’s complete.
• Miles and MeganBob were both on Smash Fiction, which has sadly wrapped now, but is amazing insanity and I love.
• MeganBob and occasional guests Marrisa Bond and Hub are writters for Garden Plots with Skelator

Unspoiled! A Song of Ice and Fire

Conversational

A slightly different format for Unspoiled, this time Natasha has read the books and seen the HBO series, but RoShawn has only seen the seires.

If you like this:

• Natasha runs Unspoiled, a whole podcasting network covering various shows and series in a similar format to this one.
• Natasha and RoShawn also cover Dresden Files, which is on my list to get around to.

Unspoiled Twilight

Complete - Patrons only Conversational

If you like this:

• See other Unspoiled podcasts for more Natasha or SmashFiction & The NXT Wrestling Fan for more Miles.

Fathoms Deep - A Black Sails Podcast

Complete

Conversational

Episode by episode commentary and discussion of the Stars series Black Sails. It’s been a while since I listened to this one, but it was interesting and pulled in a decent amount of historical and artistic context. Also includes a number of interviews with cast and crew, including most of the main actors.

Same hosts: Disney Princess Deathmatch, Disney Villan Deathmatch, Mighty Fine Shindig

Mighty Fine Shindig

Complete

Conversational

Fairly in depth episode by episode review of Firefly.

Same hosts: Disney Princess Deathmatch, Disney Villian Deathmatch, Fathoms Deep

Narratives

Garden Plots with Skeletor

🏳️‍🌈

Skeletor (from He-Man) records a Gardening podcast with the assistance of his longsuffering audio minion, I mean producer, and interjections by his various henchmen. No familiarity with He-Man necessary (I don’t ahve any) though I’m sure there’s some fun jokes for those in the know.

If you like this:

• Many of the character voices and writers were on Smash Fiction, see that entry for more on it’s delightful insanity

The Adventure Zone

🏳️‍🌈

One of the big ‘Live Play’ DnD podcasts, and with good reason. Up to several seasons, each with independent story arcs at this point. The first arc was so popular it’s several books into being converted to print, and well deserved, it has a tighter plot and one of the top endings of any media I’ve experienced.

If you like this:

• The hosts are park of the Maximum Fun network and most of them do at least one other podcast on other topics. My Brother, My Brother, and Me is the big one from the boys, but I’ve never been able to get into it personally.

Welcome to Night Vale

🏳️‍🌈

One of the classics, with good reason. Prairie Home Companion set in a friendly desert community that would be at home in any HP Lovecraft novel. The first hundred or so episodes has a fantastic and super tight story, it gets a bit more meandering after that, but still weird and wonderful.

If you like this:

• Good Morning Night Vale is a behind the scenes podcast following along episode by episode, but started several years after the fact.
• Alice Isn’t Dead and Within the Wires are by the same writing team.
• The Black Tapes has a similar supernatural feel, but set in a world closer to our own.

The Black Tapes

Complete? - Seasonal

Creepy as hell. Do not recommend in the dark, alone, or if easily creeped out. Do recommend highly despite this.

Limetown

Complete

Also Creepy as hell.

Alice Isn’t Dead

🏳️‍🌈

Complete

Making & Creativity

Note all of these are complete or very infrequent. This is a hole in my podcasting right now, recommendations welcome

Evan & Katelyn Podcast

Complete? very intermittent

Conversational

Make Do

Complete?

Conversational

Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project

Complete

Informative

Edu-tainment

Singing Bones

Complete

Informative

Monologes are an unusual podcast format with good reason, they’re hard to pull off well, but Claire Testoni does so beautifully. Unfortunately this one seems to be well and truely dead, even the website has expired now, I’m not sure how long Apple podcsts and such cache episode audio, so this one might be difficult to impossible to find at this point. It’s a shame, because this one was a real stand out. Well researched discussion of fairy tales across history through today, interesting writing, lovely narration and clean editing.

We Have Concerns

‘Award winning science-comedy podcast’

Conversational / Informative

Delightful but casual discussion of a recent science news article. Generally based entirely on the one article, so not super deep or informative, but a great jumping off point for implications and a broad perspective. Always a fun one either way.

The Anthropocene Reviewed

Complete

Informative / Memoir

John Green reviews a thing and

If you like this:

• John Green and his brother Hank (The Vlog Brothers) are 2 of the original big Youtubers, there is a near infinate amount of stuff out there from them.
• They made a book out of it

99% Invisible

Informative

Another one of the big names in podcasting, and well deserved. Painstakingly researched and crafted stories behind the everyday objects you never think twice about.

If you like this:

• The team making 99PI occasionally produce mini series that are broken off as separate podcasts. Some of these include: Articles of Interest
• They wrote a book! The 99PI City

Stuff the British Stole

Seasonal Informative

A fascinating look at the complicated history of British imperialism and how that’s shaped western museums. Each episode follows an item from the British Museum, its history and its meaning to its home culture, both then and now.

Cautionary Tales

Informative

Interesting stories about things that have gone wrong, why, and what we can learn from them.

The Dollop

Informative

American (and some Australian) History at it’s weirdest.

If you like this:

• The also did a short series of live UK episodes for their UK tour, posted under The Dollop - England & UK

Other

‘2 Dudes Talking’

Cortex

Conversational

Podcasters CGP Grey and Mike Hurly talk about whatever they feel like. Occasionally entrepanurial, frequently gamey, always the first thing I listen to when there’s a new one. And my recurring home when I need so motivation to get off the couch and back to making things.

‘All this and Moretex’

Hello Internet

Complete

Conversational

YouTubers CGP Grey and Brady Haron discuss being youtubers, tavel, dogs, and whatever else they feel like.

The Mighty Black Stump, Plane Crash Corner, Papercuts

Other-est

Meddling Adults

Conversational

Adults try to quickly solve mysteries from childens books and shows for charity. References such childhood favorites as Scooby Doo, Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew.

No Such Thing as a Fish

Informative

From the researches of the british quiz show QI (Quite Interesting), this funny and quick-fire trivia show will give you plenty of random facts to confuse your friends with.