🪝INTRODUCING...THE HOOK!

🍭 👂 10 podcast episodes that will hook you 🌈 🤸‍♀️

Artwork by Arielle Nissenblatt

Bonjour.

Today is Monday, December 1, 2025. This is not a normal issue of Podcast the Newsletter. It’s, like, the coolest issue of Podcast the Newsletter so far, and it’s one that I didn’t write.

In my years of trying to get people to listen to more podcasts I’ve noticed that new listeners don’t know where to begin when they find a new show. One fix could be changing the tech and allowing podcasters to highlight top episodes in listening apps. The low-tech version of that is what I have done here, reach out to podcasters with long-running shows and ask them to tell me about the episode in their backlog that they think will hook a new listener. That’s the hook. Below, ten shows I’ve loved for quite a long time and exactly where to start.

xoxo

lauren

PS. Let me know what you think about this idea and I will do it again. Fill out this form if you’d like your show to be considered.

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Twenty Thousand Hertz, “How “Ba da ba ba ba took over the world”

In this episode, we reveal the surprising backstory of McDonalds’ ubiquitous “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle, from its humble beginnings at a German ad agency, to its “Trojan Horse” marketing campaign, to being sung by globally famous pop stars, and finally becoming one of the most successful and long-lasting jingles in history.

In many ways, this really is “classic Twenty Thousand Hertz.” It tells the unexpected story of a sound that virtually everyone has heard (likely hundreds of times). It’s quirky, breezy, and jam packed with ear candy. It’s eye opening, but never preachy. And at the center of it all are two charismatic, amusing protagonists with a challenge to overcome. I’d like to think that all of that contributed to Spotify including it in their playlist of the Best Podcast Episodes of 2021. —Casey Emmerling

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The Allusionist, “Fiona,” part 1 & part 2

People tend to think Fiona is an ancient Scottish name. It is, in fact, not at all ancient – it is Scottish, in a fantastically complicated way. The name’s story – via a mysterious famous novelist, literary and political tensions, gender adventure, and the ever-fraught question of what is authenticity - may be unexpected, but it is a beautiful one.

The Scottish poet and performer Harry Josie Giles had appeared on The Allusionist in 2020, talking about coining new vocabulary in Scots language to express queerness. When she contacted me a couple of years later about Fiona, I was thrilled.

I worked on these episodes at an upheaved time in my life, packing up to move from the UK to Canada, while my father was dying of Parkinson’s Disease, bit by bit over many years, then suddenly all at once. My mother, brothers and I rushed to his bedside. He lay down for the last time, said his last words, ate his last food (a sip of melted ice cream), closed his eyelids for the last time… then DID NOT DIE. For ten days, he snoozed his final snooze, a sort of pre-humous shivah, and I sat deathbedside editing Harry Josie Giles’s gorgeous, soothing voice so tenderly telling this story - a balm for me in the extraordinary circumstances.

Between Fiona parts 1 and part 2, on the same late November day all the stuff was moved out of my flat to be shipped to Canada and another phase of life ended/began, dad died at 4.36am. We walked outside into the crisp darkness and I’d never seen such bright stars in England before. When the sun came up and revealed a normal Friday, the night felt fictional

Maybe I should have taken time off work to emigrate, or to process the death. I didn’t. That week and a half of my life was so unreal that I need Fiona to confirm to me it actually happened. —Helen Zaltzman

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Switched on Pop, “Invasion of the Vibe Snatchers”

Ever get that nagging feeling that new hits aren’t that new? You’re not imagining it. Billboard Hot 100 interpolations have MORE THAN DOUBLED in five years. We’re talking OneRepublic whistling their way to the Top 20 by borrowing from 2006. Nicki Minaj riding Rick James to #1. Publishers dropping hundreds of millions on old catalogues, then hosting “songwriting camps” that crank out six different versions of “Closing Time” alone. Why does it work? Mix TikTok’s culture-mashing superpowers with streaming economics that favor instant recognition, and you’ve got pop music literally eating itself. After this episode, you’ll never hear a “new” song the same way again. —Charlie Harding

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American Hysteria, “12 Ft Skeleton”

Home Depot’s 12 ft. Skeleton decoration first premiered in the fall of 2020 and sold out immediately, the nationwide obsession fueling an underground black market. Memes and tweets made ‘Skelly’ the hottest Halloween fad of the last three years, and for some reason, the internet’s biggest crush. For this episode, we not only explore how the craze around this big old bone daddy unfolded, but we will also take you through our centuries-long bizarro relationship with human skeletons, both the fake and the very real, and consider the role they have played in the development of dark humor, the kind that made Skelly a massive star. I think that this episode is a great example of how American Hysteria combines modern popular culture with its historical precedents, similar stories that are often shocking, fascinating, strange, and forgotten to time. —Chelsey Weber-Smith

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There Are No Girls On The Internet, “Missy Elliot: Digital Innovator”

This is one of my all-time favorite episodes that we’ve done. It’s also one of our most downloaded, which is no surprise because Missy Elliott is absolutely iconic. She has been changing the digital game since the beginning of her career, pushing boundaries and inventing entirely new sounds. The 90’s were a toxic time for many women in Hip Hop but she thrived on her own terms. She created her own record label, went platinum with her debut album, rocked the fashion world, and continued writing and producing incredible, innovative music. One of the goals of TANGOTI is to challenge restrictive ideas of who gets to count as a “technologist” or “innovator.” I love this episode because Missy is such a great example of someone from outside the traditional tech industry who nonetheless mastered digital technologies to change music, change culture, and make something incredible that brings people together. —Michael Amato

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What Went Wrong, “Dirty Dancing”

What Went Wrong is a podcast about how it’s nearly impossible to make any movie, let alone a good one. Each episode chronicles the wild behind the scenes struggles of box office bombs and blockbusters alike - all while celebrating the magic of moviemaking. A great entry point into our show is our Dirty Dancing episode. It’s got all the makings of a production disaster: stars that hated each other? Check. Budgetary constraints? Check. Food poisoning in rural North Carolina? Unfortunately for Jennifer Grey, check. Find out why Grey and Patrick Swayze’s beef can be traced back to Red Dawn - years before they ever auditioned for Dirty Dancing - and how the film deftly explored the cultural nuances of summering in the 1960’s Borscht Belt. We also discuss Patrick Swayze’s personal struggles that made him both perfect for the role and at times very difficult to work with. Stick around till the end of the episode for an exploration of Jennifer Grey’s career after Dirty Dancing, her infamous nose job, and how a car accident with then-boyfriend Matthew Broderick stole so much joy from what should have been Grey’s moment in the sun. —Lizzie Bassett

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The Stacks, “The Fear of Vulnerability with Jason Reynolds”

In this episode, I talk with best-selling young adult author Jason Reynolds about his book Twenty-Four Seconds from Now . . .: A Love Story which is about a teenaged boy on the cusp to loosing his virginity. This episode offers a balance of book and pop culture conversation that The Stacks is known for, and it invites listeners to engage with books without all the pretentiousness that can come with literary discourse. So sit back and enjoy a conversation about first times and the literary cannon. —Traci Thomas

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Bullseye, “George Lopez”

When folks ask me where to start with Bullseye, there’s one kind of episode Jesse does that we can always count on. Take a guest who’s famous. Not like... George Clooney famous, but a person you know and have a rough sense of what their deal is. And dig way deeper than any other show has before.

George Lopez is probably known to most as a sitcom dad. He’s starred in three sitcoms in which he played more or less the same role: a fictionalized version of George Lopez. A goofy, lovable guy who’s always got a clever quip at the ready. Lopez does that kind of thing really, really well. That’s in part informed by his decades as a standup, playing to big crowds night after night.

When George Lopez came on Bullseye last year, he was promoting his latest sitcom: Lopez vs Lopez. In it, he stars opposite Mayan Lopez, his real life daughter, with whom he’d been estranged for a very long time. Lopez is in his 60’s now. He’s dealt with a lot of health challenges, including a kidney transplant. And I think - when he sat down in the booth - all that conspired to put Lopez in a reflective, heady space. He talked in-depth about repairing his relationship with Mayan, about friends and family members that are no longer around, and about his own trauma frailty.

And, because it’s George Lopez: it’s also really, really funny. —Kevin Ferguson

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The Alarmist, “THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA: WHO IS TO BLAME?”

On this episode, The Alarmist crew (Rebecca Delgado Smith, Producer Clayton Early & Fact Checker Chris Smith) discuss the legendary life and death of Cleopatra with author and podcaster Allison Raskin. Was the Queen of Egypt the victim of the Roman Empire’s heightened insecurities? Perhaps family drama and an insatiable hunger for power had something to do with her downfall? Or maybe a good old fashioned snake bite was to blame? Tune in and hear The Alarmist’s take on this Egyptian icon.

This episode is a great example of how The Alarmist tackles historical tragedies and disasters, making them relatable to the modern-day listener. At the end of the day, we believe history can be more shocking than a television drama and juicier than any gossip magazine out there! —Rebecca Delgado Smith

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Lady to Lady, “Botox Shot to Space”

We just hit 666 episodes (hehe devil emoji) at Lady to Lady and boy are our mouths tired! One of our more recent faves is episode 636 - “Botox Shot to Space” with guest Jackie Zebrowski of Page 7 and Last Podcast Network. This episode really encompasses what our show is all about by immediately getting into a discourse about getting medically evaluated via our neck, back, pussy and crack. We discuss what vices we’d like to be remembered by when we die, pine for vintage reality TV, and address the never-ending question of whether to embrace the Botox or go au natural. Every episode we give advice to a caller who has called in with a Lady Problem, and this time we help out a caller who is having boomeresque computer issues while trying to buy Beyonce tickets. Truly it’s over an hour of women being raw, hilarious, and talking about real shit while also being idiotically silly at the same time - aka, what Lady to Lady is all about! —Babs Gray

✨ I love you!