๐ฆ Bat volcano ๐ Mr. Los Angeles Leather ๐ how not to kill your husband โ๏ธ hush little baby ๐ถ
๐ญ ๐Happy fifth birthday, Podcast the Newsletter ๐ ๐คธโโ๏ธ
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, June 4. In case this newsletter is too longโฆthis is the audio-version of a โpage-turner,โ I wish I had rationed this but I blew through it, I discovered a new podcast kink here.
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xoxo lp
๐q & a & q & a & q & a๐
Connor Ratliff and James III are the hosts of Tiny Dinos. (They do a bunch of other cool stuff, see the full article for everything.)
Please tell me the origin story of this crazy podcast.ย
CR: James loves the Jurassic movies, and we had been talking about an idea for a comedy feature involving people running from dinosaurs.ย But it was the kind of idea that would be hugely expensive, we would essentially be trying to make a movie that is as big as Jurassic Park.ย So then, we started talking about โwhat if we did a show where we made really tiny dinosaurs, and it could be an Adult Swim-type thing?โย We were thinking the dinos could be little stop motion animated characters, like something out of Pee-Weeโs Playhouse.ย Then my Dead Eyes producer Harry Nelson came to me and said Hyperobject was looking to make a few comedy podcasts, did I have any ideas?
Doing it as a podcast, it would be even easier because we can just use music and sound effects to create the dinosaurs, we donโt even need animation.ย It never really occurred to us that we couldโve made our big Jurassic Park-type comedy as a podcast because by that time we had fallen in love with the idea of secretly making tiny dinos.
How are you two different / alike in real life?ย How are you two different / alike when it comes to your characters on the show?
CR: The โJamesโ and โConnorโ on the podcast arenโt really all that similar to our real personalities โ we just sort of made the big choice to have me be the reckless one and James the one who is more anxious about consequences.ย We leaned into that when we were improvising the pilot and went from there.
J3: I think I would be freaked out to bring dinosaurs back to life but would ultimately be thrilled about it. So, in that regard me James and โPodcast Jamesโ are very similar. But outside of that, Iโd like to think I am more happy-go-lucky than the character in the podcast.
CR: I am less happy-go-lucky than โpodcast Connor.โโ
This might expose how little I know about improv but how do you prepare for each episode? Did you world build a little before you started? Did you set some rules? What do guests know in advance?ย
CR:ย For the first couple of episodes, we didnโt tell any of the guests what the podcast was called or what the premise was, we just said we were two scientists who had a secret project.ย We wanted to see what would happen if the guests were completely in the dark about it.ย But then we started mostly telling people, because we didnโt want it to become repetitive.ย ย
The only preparation we really do is to try to come up with a broad idea of who the guest characters might be, and thatโs mostly so we donโt end up doing the same kind of character dynamic for multiple episodes in a row.ย And every now and then, we will think of something that weโd like to have happen and we will plant the seed for that.ย Like, with Aaron Read, for instance, we knew we wanted him to play my brother, and that he would be dropping by the podcast to promote his band.ย Usually, it will be even less than that โ โdo you want to play a neighborhood watch person, or our landlord?โ and then the person will pick one and weโll start improvising.ย ย
Often the guests will only know the premise and that our characters live in a duplex.ย And as far as โrules,โ itโs really just that everybody has to actually react as if the tiny dinosaurs are real, because they are real in the made-up world of our show.ย ย
J3:ย Iโm saying this and no I wonโt do anything about this, but I wish I knew more about science or at least googled a science term or two before we start recording.
And donโt worry about exposing how little you know about improv. I think this podcast also exposes how little I know about improv.
What is your ultimate goal for the podcast? I see there is merch, but not nearly enough. I want a t-shirt. Action figures? Theme park? A movie about the theme park? A podcast about the movie about the theme park?
CR: For me, the main goal is to just keep doing the podcast for as long as itโs fun for us and people are enjoying it.ย Iโd like to imagine that we will do it for years and years and that it will get crazier with each new season.ย I know we wanna do some live shows, and I really love the idea of it developing enough of a following to tour it as a live show.ย I also started a Google Doc to start doing some very very preliminary notes for a potential companion book, because I think itโs fun when podcasts have companion books.ย ย
But as far as it moving into other mediums, I think weโre obviously open to it โ we wouldnโt turn down the chance to turn it into a TV series or movie.ย To be perfectly honest, Iโm super aware that those other things would be more lucrative and also probably less enjoyable/more exhausting.ย The fun thing about making this the way weโre making it is that we are doing it more or less exactly the way we want to, and I wouldnโt want to move it to a bigger arena unless weโd have a similar level of creative control.ย Or enough money that I can stop worrying about money.
As far as theme parks go, I hadn't given this any thought but it occurs to me that it would be great to create a pop-up Tiny Dinos theme park with lots of special merch for sale but all of the rides are really small, shrunk down to the size of the tiny dinos.
J3: With the genesis of this podcast being a film idea first and then a TV idea second, I absolutely * NEED* to see Tiny Dinos realized in a form that shows physical dinosaurs. And thankfully, if this just stays as a podcast, we already have that! The animated show promos make me smile. Theyโre such a fun addition to this process. I just love dinosaurs so much (hahah Iโm 12.)
I second Connorโs feelings that anything more than this podcast would be MORE exhausting, not sure if it would ever be enough money to stop worrying about money. I think the only dinosaur property potentially doing that for people is the Jurassic series. And then maybe whoever OWNS Barney?
Are there too many podcasts?
CR: Yes, but thatโs ok.ย Thereโs too much of everything now, a person simply canโt keep up and itโs overwhelming.ย But not every podcast needs to be heard by a million people, and itโs great that so many people get a chance to make one.ย Back in, say, The Golden Age Of Radio, very few people got a chance to put their voice out on the airwaves.ย Now, we have this ever-expanding glut of programming with no meaningful barriers to entry, so you can make something that is absolutely unlistenable and no one will stop you.ย The good news is that there is more high quality stuff than you would have time to listen to if you lived to be a thousand, you just need to know how to find it.
J3: I do more podcasts than I listen to them. So, I donโt think I can have a real opinion on this. But to try to answer this question, I mean, are there too many TV shows? Are there too many movies? Whatโs โtoo manyโ if thereโs always something to consume, whatโs โenoughโ? You canโt watch them all, but thereโs literally something for everyone and still stuff that needs to be made that havenโt been made. For instance, I love time traveI movies, and Iโm the kind of guy that looks at the โif you likedโ category on Netflix or whatever, skips to the third or fourth page and watches the lower budget scrappy movie I hadnโt seen yet over watching Terminator 2 for the twelfth time. My hope is podcasts are like that for podcast listeners. You have an interest but no ones talking about it, maybe you need to just scan all the way down to the bottom or skip to another page on your app to find the one youโre looking for โTiny Dinosโ available wherever you get your podcasts.
๐จIf u only have time for 1 thing๐จ
With a box of his grandparentsโ love letters and a trip to Italy, David Modigliani is investigating his familyโs past during the Holocaust in Pack One Bag, a podcast that, for its first episode, won the 2023 Jury Award for Nonfiction Audio at Tribeca. Using dramatic readings of the letters (with the help of Stanley Tucci,) physical trips to visit his Jewish Italian cousins who survived Nazi occupation of Rome, phone calls, secret Fascist spy documents, personal diaries, blocked bank accounts, and his own love story, David is able to paint a vivid picture of his relatives that decided to flee fascist Italy, and those who couldnโt. How do you walk out on your life in one day? Davidโs trip back to his homeland (which he says feels โboth unlikely and inevitableโ) invites us into a personal story but also a history lesson of a darker side of Italy. (Historians adopted a phrase Italiani brava gente, or โItalians, the good people,โ to describe the belief about the non-existent participation of Fascist Italy in the Holocaust.) November isnโt far away and the idea of fleeing fascism seems even more relevant that it was when David started making this project. But fleeing is part of the Jewish story, and in a moment during Passover with his relatives, David envisions a seance connecting his past and present. Pack One Bag made me laugh and cry. Itโs a pop-up book of history and humanity with huge heart, colorful textures, characters to fall in love with, and a strong sense of place. I donโt know what the audio-version of โpage-turnerโ is but this is it.
hell yeah
โจPodcast the Newsletter turned five last week. Hereโs the first issue. I was reminded because I randomly found the email I sent out to my family and friends to get them to subscribe. The first person to respond was my dad who wrote โI hope I am the first subscriber.โ I responded โYOU WERE #1!โ (He was.) Thanks, Dad. You have been in my corner for 40 years and Iโm sure you are exhausted but please donโt stop now. Also thanks to all of YOU for reading it, commenting, passing along. Itโs the reason I keep doing it, duh. Itโs all for youuuuuu!
โจArielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Hello, John Doe in herย newsletter and podcast.
โจRead Podcast Marketing Tips for Your Sign [via Podcast Marketing Magic.]
โจMark Steadman brought back his podcast List Envy and his podcast newsletter The Big Minute.
โจGet your Tribeca tickets here. Donโt miss the Audio Flux event or In the Dark Live.
๐BTW๐
๐๏ธI listened Animal in its entirety, in one go, and I wish I hadnโt. I wish I had rationed. The series, hosted by Sam Anderson, looks a different animal in the eye for every episode, opening with a story about a lost hamster named Mango and a dog named Walnut. Itโs a story that gets Sam thinking about animals, letting go, fatherhood, loss, life and death, order and chaos. He travels all over the world to fling adorable pufflings off cliffs, swim with manatees, attend a ferret competition, track down the last known Japanese wolf, and enter a bat volcano. Itโs a very personal audio tour of the animal world, with episodes containing audio of Samโs adventures, his own storytelling that I love so so much because heโs so so good, and lessons on life that arenโt preachy or annoying. (Let go and hope for the best; if we canโt save manatees we canโt save anything; we are all going to die; absolute chaos can force absolute presence.) The writing is sharp and specific and certain moments have stuck with me. The music is beautiful. Animals is a reminder that animals are magic existing beside us. The episodes are all wonderful, but I rank them from favorite to least favorite: Bats (maybe thatโs because itโs the last one I listened to,) Puffins, Walnut, Ferret, Wolf, Manatee, but let me know what you think after you listen to it slowly, maybe one per day. Treat yourself. (Puffins gets bonus points because at the end, Sam shares a death metal song about catching puffins.) Listen here.
๐๏ธWhen I heard there was going to be a podcast about Nancy Brophy, the romantic suspense writer who murdered her husband after doing a lot of dumb and incriminating things (like writing an essay titled โHow to Murder Your Husbandโ) I was excited. Not about the murder obviously, but I do love a story that touches upon my old stomping ground, the publishing industry, in any way. Add that to my list of podcast kinks. Happily Never After opens with an investigator on her beach vacation reading one of Nancyโs novels to see if she dropped any clues about her crime that could be used against her. (She did.) Nancy also did a lot of other funny and dumb things, so while we donโt get to be happy that her sweet, quiet, mushroom-foraging husband was murdered, we can be really happy he didnโt get away with it. The host is good (former true crime reporter and romance novelist who was in Nancyโs writerโs groupย Heidi Joy Tretheway) and the script is good (Nichole Perkins is in the credits.) I love the cover. Listen here.
๐๏ธI have raved about Shima Oliaeeโs The Competition, which I loved. But have you listened to James Kimโs The Competition from 2017? For each season, James infiltrated a different competition, following the contestants until one is crowned winner. Season one brought James to The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which involved a lot of impressive piano playing and some young pianists. The best part of this season wasnโt the competitors or the competition, it was hearing the judges talk about the performances, explaining music in a way Iโve never heard. Or explaining why one competitor was better than the next. (I couldnโt really tell.) The second season about Mr. Los Angeles Leather couldnโt have been more different. This time we couldnโt hear the competitorsโ art, we could only imagine their outfits, which youโd think would be frustrating but it was fun. These guys had fascinating back stories and outrageous things to say. (โI can do your makeup and kick your ass.โ) This season was super exciting and moving. It made me want to make a piece like this, though Iโd surely wilt from exhaustion. There hasnโt been an episode in six years but I donโt care, Iโm still hoping for another one someday. Listen here.
๐๏ธYou think Jamie Loftusโ Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) episode about Slide Cop is just going to be about how and why that story went viral but it was about so much more. On her mission to โfind his pig ass,โ Jamie dives deep into he lack of transparency in policing in the US, mail fragility, copaganda, Boston as a vibe, a physics lesson in slide projection that none of us could understand, how this is so funny and pro-Palestine protests also, somehow. She spoke to journalists, called the police herself, and even went down the slide. (This Boston girl walks the walk.) Finding the cop is harder than you think itโd be, so then the story becomes about that and why. Slide Copโs 16th minute of fame isnโt over until Jamie finds him. She is going to find him. Listen here.
๐๏ธLingthusiasm is a super smart language podcast that I have to slow down to 1x speed when I listen. You arenโt going to learn one theory or concept per episode, you are going to learn tons of facts about etemologies, accents, and be led to the top of several rabbit holes you can go back to explore on your own. Itโs academic but pumped with fun. The Word Magic episode was extra fun, touching upon so many invisible aspects of words, but especially about spellsโhow the magical kind of spell and the written kind are historically linked, and how language shapes reality. They go over Felicity Conditions, (โan excellent drag name,โ) performativity as applied to gender, the โherebyโ test, plus they dig into a Rainbow Rowell novel. I had this epiphany listening, like โwoahhh, words are likeโฆmagic?โ...the kind of epiphany that made me feel like I was 21, on drugs in the attic of my college off-campus house realizing I have hands.ย Listen here.
๐๏ธMaxFunโs newest, Primer, explores a genre of music from outside the English-speaking world, giving you aโฆI donโt know what word should we use???โฆprimer??? for the most important records and artists in that genre. The first season is all about Japanese City Pop, and the first few episodes will have you thinking about what could possibly make you fall in love with a song, artist, or genre other than the musicโthe cultural, linguistic and historical context of the songs. If you donโt speak Japanese, how can songs in Japanese make you feel like youโre โone of those glam Japanese women with blow dried hair and perfect makeup wearing a power blazer sitting in the lobby of a hotel?โ (Iโm quoting Linda Marigliano, who was featured in episode one.) Or how can music that you donโt know the words to make you feel a nostalgia for something you never had? I would have known this was a MaxFun show with my eyes closed. MaxFun shows often celebrates unbridled joy and obsession, which is something I appreciate. Listen here.ย
๐๏ธFor Twenty Thousand Hertz, Dallas Taylor and producer Leila Battison made an episode driven by their experiences trying to get their kids to sleep with nursery rhymes and songs. That was one of the reasons I listened, too. (You wonโt realize how few songs you know the actual words to until youโre trying to sing a baby to sleep.) Dallas and Leila go through the real and surprising origin stories for Baa Baa Black Sheep (taxes,) Jack and Jill (taxes,) Mary Mary Quite Contrary (torture?,) Ring Around the Rosie (a religious ban on dancing,) and also did you know that Humpty Dumpty wasnโt an egg, he was a siege cannon? This will really make parents wonder, โwhat the hell have I been singing to my baby?โ or โwhat did my parents sing to me?โ This is a really a fun language and history episode, tooโthese songs and poems are an echos of our past. I got this jolt of excitement thinking about people 500 years ago singing these same songs, or versions of them, in weird smelly little shacks. Itโs also about the sorry, pain, and melancholy of these oral traditions, and the naรฏvetรฉ filter they get put through when we sing them in a childrenโs song. Listen here.
๐๏ธAnyone podcast-nerdy enough to be reading this should subscribe to Ad Infinitum, which is all about audio advertising. The latest episode, in conversation with Wonderyโs Ray Harkins and Nathalie Chicha (producer of the 2023 Ambie Award-winning podcast "I Hear Fear,") was all about the craft of audio sponsorship, something I donโt think about closely enough. But now I want to. They brought up stuff I donโt usually think about (but maybe you have.) If youโre scripting for an ad break, how do you storytell to get people to stay through it? Does writing around ad breaks get you to think more creatively and make your writing better? Can ads enhance your story? Is that realistic? When is :30 better than :60? Host Stew Redwine also runs through some ads for some ratings and critiques and if you are still reading this paragraph you will think thatโs a really fun game. Listen here.
๐๏ธBen Smithโs Semafor Media newsletter (media industry news and journalism trends) is my favorite newsletterโitโs even better than this one. Ben launched a podcast with his former Times colleague Nayeema Raza, Mixed Signals, that will use media as a window into politics, culture, and tech for the next 20 weeks only. Media, โthe worlds biggest conspiracy theory,โ is super confusing right now and it will get more confusing as we get closer to the election. Ben and Nayeema are Mulder and Scully. The truth is out there. Listen here.
๐๏ธJames Erringtonโs Centuries of Sound is a project to create an immersive audio mixtape for every year of recorded sound from 1857 to the present. For the 80th Anniversary of D-Day (June 6,) James presents an 82-minute sound collage using more than a hundred separate sources to allow you to experience D-Day as it was experienced at the time. New recording technology, a wide variety of coverage and the preservation instincts of generations of historians mean this is one of the first historical events able to be recreated in this way. James worked with over sixty hours of audio to put together this narrative journey through the day and its immediate aftermath, as experienced by the soldiers themselves, radio journalists, politicians and even members of the public. The podcast / blog post with full track-listing can be found here.
๐๏ธI love you!
๐ฆ From the Archives ๐ฆ
[From August 10, 2020] Bizarre Albums reviews the weirdest albums ever made in a positive way. Host Tony Thaxton isnโt making fun of them, heโs glorifying them for all their weirdness. The episode on The Shaggs tells a fascinating story about three teen sisters forced into the music industry by their father in 1969, despite the fact they had no musical experience, or even interest in music. The album is so bad it goes past bad and back to good (Kurt Cobain called The Shaggs one of his favorite bands.) You really have to listen to this episode, to hear the story and the music. Because listening to the music without hearing the context is pretty puzzling, and the story is even better than the album.
Happy anniversary !
Binged all of Animal too โ its podcast magic!