I have about an hour commute to work each day, and it becomes very easy to get sick of the “music” on the radio.
Some folks enjoy listening to audiobooks on their travels, my salvation from the top 40 crapfest is Podcasts!
I recently had an acquaintance ask me what a podcast was, and I gave the basic description of people talking about different subjects that are then available to download and listen to at one’s leisure. Thinking about the ones I personally listen to (Mostly in the comedy or entertainment genre) there is such a varied array of types of podcasts available for consumption, that I will be doing a series of overviews of my favorite ones that I believe are worth a listen. The first Podcast I will write about is the one that started it all for me (and was one of the earliest podcasts out there) Debuting February 5th 2007, and is still going strong nearly 8 years, and 312 episodes later: Smodcast
To begin, a little history on the podcast. The 2 guys in the pod are Kevin Smith (Clerks) and Scott Mosier (Smith’s Longtime Producer) The 2 men met when Kevin decided to go to film School in Vancouver B.C. and became friends, after Kevin Dropped out and went back home to Red Bank New Jersey, He decided to make a movie Maxing out his Credit cards and and brought in people he had met while at film school including Scott and made Clerks for the now famous sum of $27,575
Now anyone who knows much about Kevin Smith knows that along with his skill as a writer, he is one heck of a public speaker, heck he has made a side career out of it, releasing 3 “An evening with Kevin Smith” specials to DVD where he does Q & A’s with a sold out crowd.
He still sells out his panel Every Year at Hall H at San Diego Comic-con regardless if he has a new project or not to plug because people love to listen to the man and his stories.
The Podcast itself is basically the 2 men Talking each other up, being silly and coming up with ridiculous scenarios and stories. They also like to discuss fascinating stories that they come across and re-enact what they think may have happened.
They have several “Go-to” subjects that seem to get the most attention: Hitler, Jaws, Harry Potter, Jesus, and pretty much anything Canadian.
Kevin has come up with a unit of measurement on the pod to measure tall or long items in units of Jaws’s, (due to his obsession of the film) which of course someone on the net made an app for:
Probably the most interesting thing about the podcast is that in recent years you can actually see the creative process of how 2 longtime friends just being goofy for an hour on mic each week leads to so many other creative things happening.
The 2 were discussing a news story out of the UK last year about a man who was marooned at sea and was saved by a walrus, then was rescued and missed the walrus so offered free lodging to anyone who would spend 1 hour a day in a walrus suit so he could feel like he was with his lost friend again (the story was fake) but Smith and Mosier ran with the theory of this becoming very dark and the man Sewing the unwitting lodger into the walrus suit and you actually hear the idea for his next film Tusk happen live on the podcast.
Now Tusk was not a success at the box office, but appears destined for a cult following. More importantly though, Tusk opened doors for Smith to finance his eagerly awaited Clerks 3. It also allowed Smith to work with Johnny Depp on several films including the upcoming Yoga Hosers.
There have also been many of their funniest scenes animated by Steve Stark into a collection called Smodimations
featuring hilarious skits from Back to the future:
Harry Potter:
and more.
Kevin and Scott are the main hosts but there have been Many guest to the show including Jason Mewes, Russell Brand, Felicia Day, Mitch Albom, Lisa Kudrow, and many others.
Kevin is also one of the Most Prolific Podcasters out there and has 5 Weekly podcasts that he does (some of which I will be discussing on upcoming articles) and has spawned a Television show on AMC based off of a “Spinoff” Pod (which I will discuss later as well).
If you are looking for a funny podcast, you really can’t go wrong with Smodcast and you ought to check out Smodcast.com
And go check out all the pods available including my favorite pod Tell Em Steve Dave which I will discuss next time.