🏝️ Paradise dispute 👧 kid chaos 📺 puppy heaven 🐶 that post-it note 💔
🍭 👂I've been gone for two weeks so we have SO much good stuff to go over! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, April 29. In case this newsletter is too long…a true-crime series I blew through here, soooo many tips for audio creators from Eleanor McDowall here, Beef and Dairy gets the Dead Eyes treatment here.
xoxo lp
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
David Nadelberg
David Nadelberg is a writer and producer best known as the creator of Mortified, which began life as a stage show and evolved into a podcast, book series and various TV adaptations. He’s also been a contributor to Snap Judgment (episode Lost in Vegas) and has produced the kid’s podcast, Ooh You’re in Trouble. He’s currently a story producer on Rock that Doesn’t Roll, a show about the surprising history of Christian rock.
Describe Mortified in ten words or less.
Mortified is a podcast where adults share the embarrassing things they created as kids-- diaries, letters, poems, lyrics-- in front of total strangers.
When I found out the show was done I threw myself onto the floor and threw a tantrum then fell asleep in a puddle of my own tears. But it’s coming back! Explain!
Yes, the new season is a blast. We’re celebrating the project’s 20th anniversary all season long with behind the scenes peeks, specials guests, new formats, and moreover, lots of laughter. Last year, my producing partner Neil Katcher and I really needed a change of pace, so we put it on hiatus to work on other projects.
How has the podcast part changed in 9 years?
While the show’s premise has remained consistent, one of the things I love about producing it, is that we are always trying new formats within it. We’ve done curveball episodes that offer audio documentaries (ep 196), game show formats (ep 176), celebrity interviews (ep 106, 198) and beyond.
So it went from stage show to book to TV to game…what’s next? What’s your biggest dream?
Neil and I have been secretly making pilots for new shows and working on other non-Mortified projects-- films, TV, books. I’m very excited to tackle new adventures.
Does listening to Mortified make you less embarrassed about your own mortifying moments?
It makes me celebrate it more. In fact, our first episode of the new season (ep 253) is an origin story about Mortified’s creation. It began as a result of a love letter that I wrote in high school but was too afraid to send to my crush. The episode features never-before-heard audio from Mortified’s debut show. We’re devoting the entire season to Mortified’s 20th anniversary, so it is finally the right time to share it.
Which Mortified episode has stuck in your mind?
My favorite episodes are ones that showcase the elaborate and brilliant fantasy worlds that kids create-- especially kids who are struggling in life. A few of my favorite episodes that achieve this include: an episode on Lord of the Rings fandom (ep 148), an episode on Horse Girls (ep 185), and an episode about Will Seymour (ep 47), who, as a kid in the 1980s, essentially created a precursor to podcasting-- a subscription-based radio show. If you watch our 2018 miniseries, The Mortified Guide (currently streaming for free on Tubi and Amazon’s Freevee), there’s an episode that features a heartbreaking tale of a boy, Shawn, who escapes into a fantasy world filled with drawings of unicorns.
How do you prep storytellers?
Everything is curated by a story producer who works directly with the participant in the weeks before they get on stage. We work with them to figure out which excerpts to share and moreover, what context to provide. It’s a very collaborative, hands-on process.
Any cool listener / fan stories you’d like to share?
The best letters are ones where a listener tells us that the show inspired them to make a change in their life. Over the years, we’ve had people reveal they reconnected with a long lost parent, they’ve become more open (sharing their own stories with people), and even that a story in the show inspired them to come out of the closet. Our goal is to make people laugh and feel connected to each other. Learning it’s impacted people in larger ways is amazing.
What other podcasts have you worked on?
Currently, I’m helping produce Rock That Doesn’t Roll, a show about the history of Christian pop music. It’s a fascinating peek into a genre that few people discuss. As someone who was raised Jewish, I find myself learning something new each episode.
I’m also wrapping up work on a new audio documentary about a very unusual and quirky story involving Neverland Ranch. It’s a labor love that I made with Neil. Last year, I produced a story for Snap Judgment. I’m not sure where this new story will end up yet. It’s not technically a Mortified story, but we might just wind up sharing it in the show’s feed.
What are you most proud of that you’ve done / worked on?
I’m still very proud of Ooh You’re in Trouble, an educational show I made for kids ages 9-13. It’s one of the best professional experiences of my life. In a way, it was like making “Mortified Junior Edition.” (Which is also a fun idea to consider.) It’s a show where people share true stories about a moment in life when they broke the rule and what that taught them. Secretly, however, it was a show about ethicals. It’s aimed at kids but adults love it too. Parents often told us how it fostered philosophical conversations with their kids. We still get messages from fans begging us to make more. If we can find a company to get behind it, I’d reboot it in a heartbeat.
Sadly, the kid’s podcast world is tricky. Advertisers are still skittish about the genre, and when they do fund shows for kids, it’s usually a show that is aimed at a much younger audience. Television has lots of shows for 11 year olds, podcasts not as much. I love making content for kids and how to do more of it.
Are there too many podcasts?
I’d say there are not too many podcasts, however, there are too many redundant podcasts. One reason I love Neil Brennan’s show Blocks is that he put a unique spin on the format of longform celebrity interview shows.
That said, the real challenge for the podcast industry is not too many shows-- it’s the barriers of discoverability. Platforms like Youtube, Instagram and TikTok are amazing at exposing audiences to new content. Podcasts apps, however, remain antiquated in their efforts to get listeners to sample new shows. This has a domino effect that hurts the industry. It makes launching a new show harder than ever. In turn, it forces podcast networks to rely more on launching shows that are hosted by people with large platforms. It also means networks are less risk averse when it comes to launching new formats. That’s simply not the case with Youtube or IG-- even streaming services like Netflix-- where I’m constantly discovering and sampling something new, often from talent that I’ve never heard of before. Podcast apps have struggled to remedy this over the years but if the industry wants growth, it means fixing this issue.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
🎙️For this season of Deep Cover, The Nameless Man, Jake Halpern is taking us through a backwards investigation of a murder that occurred in 1989. Two federal agents, who have a murder but no victim, find an accomplice eager to spill, start to follow the thread of a strange rumor about the murder, piece things together, and finally come up with some answers for a family who has been wondering who murdered their son for more than thirty years. There are a lot of things that make this a great podcast. It opens with the mysterious investigation by an unlikely fed duo (two almost ministers who call themselves “The God Squad”) before unlocking the victim’s side. (Can you imagine learning that the death of your loved one was a sickening hate crime, and not a drug-related shooting as you were told?) I love the writing in this podcast that gets thoughtful about forgiveness, conviction, cold cases, and having a murder but no victim. Also Jake has this way of telling a story that makes it feel, man I don’t know a better way to say it, up close. Like everything got really serious all of the sudden and you’re sitting with him at a bar and he’s telling you something he should not be telling you that you almost cannot believe. He’s a captivating storyteller who also gets great stories from everyone he talks to. None of the things that happen about this story are true crime tropes you’re used to. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s surprising and will keep you on the edge of your seat.
hell yeah
✨Marketing Lessons from Fiction Podcasts [via Podcast Marketing Magic.]
✨In The Dark and Transmission Roundhouse have just launched a call out for this year’s “What’s New?” listening event! They’re looking for audio work in any style from new audio producers, or more established makers who are experimenting with a new format. Pay is £50 for every selected piece, which will played in an event in August. They accept pieces in any language and any genre. They’re looking for creative audio more than conversational podcasts. Submit one work under 15 minutes and up to three under five minutes by May 17th here.
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted The Competition in her newsletter and podcast.
✨Every time someone starts a new podcast newsletter, a fairy gets new wings. Subscribe to Wil Williams’ new very exciting thing, Podcast Promise.
💎BTW💎
🎙️Stories of Sound is a new series that asks audio storytellers why and how they do what they do. The episodes I listened to (there are two so far) felt like juicy lectures. I listened several times to the Eleanor McDowall one to squeeze out all of Eleanor’s wisdom. If you listen to my podcast recommendations you have heard Eleanor’s work all over the place. Short Cuts is a favorite. Eleanor explains how Field Recordings was actually a “fuck you” (she didn’t say that, I did) to the men-talking-to-each-other podcasts. Like, she’d rather listen to a FIELD than that. But what emerged from that kind-of joke is a beautiful thing that really became even more meaningful and purposeful during the pandemic. She talks about thinking about sound in cinematic shots and explains how to imagine a Maurice Sendak book—he doesn’t say over-complicate the storytelling with words and pictures at the same time. Oh…one more thing I grabbed: When interviewing, she lets the silence hang for five seconds after the other person is done talking and see what happens. Have I convinced you to listen to this yet? There’s so much more. Whether you’re an audio maker or enjoyer or marketer or whatever you’ll love it. I have been listening to things differently since I heard it for the first time. Listen here.
🎙️Thank goodness someone is doing a podcast on Kid Nation, a 2007 reality TV show that plopped a bunch of kids aged 8 to 15 in Bonanza City, New Mexico to build their own society without any adult supervision. (Split Screen: Kid Nation.) I never saw the show but have been picking up pieces from this disaster story for years but am really enjoying immersing myself in it, with all the details. (The winners of one of the challenges got to decide whether the kids would get seven more outhouses or a TV to watch whenever they wanted; another winner got to choose between a BBQ or toothbrushes…one girl came home with six cavities!) And we’re not just getting this good stuff from anyone. It’s Josh Gwynn, who has worked on wonderful things at Pineapple and is the host of Back Issue. It’s a real exercise in not being judgmental hearing from the dad who saw no problem signing away his eight year old’s rights to a TV crew without any way to contact her, but isn’t that what all podcasts are? An exercise in not being judgmental? We haven’t gotten to the part where one of the kids accidentally drinks bleach but I have always wondered how exactly that happened. Listen here.
🎙️I was a speaker for Sounds of New York, and right before my session on marketing I got to hear Shima Oliaee and Eleanor Kagan discuss Shima’s new nonfiction serialized podcast The Competition, and I was completely transfixed hearing her talk about her approach to storytelling and the project. Shima followed 50 high school seniors to Mobile, Alabama to record zillions of hours (?I think? I was transfixed, not taking notes) as they competed for the Distinguished Young Women crown. During her talk, Shima said so many wise things that would make anyone want to be an audio journalist. And it really put me in a terrible spot! To jump up there, right after her, and say “that was inspiring, now who wants to talk about marketing!?" Anyway The Competition is just dang fun to listen to but also a story about this strange period of time when girls say goodbye to their childhood and are confronted with adult things. (Something unexpected unfolds that forces the competitors to choose sides and grow up.) As an observer unfolding these individual stories, Shima, who was in this competition when she was a teen, is both protective of them but also grossed out that she has to teach them these lessons. These girls, by the way, are not the girls you envision when you think of beauty pageants. The competition is an amazing audio documentary and a story about how women, whether they go through this particular competition, have been trained to make themselves palatable to people in power. And so many other things. Listen here.
🎙️When I heard the beginning of the premise for The Price of Paradise, “ex-Bunny girl Jayne Gaskin buys the desert island of her dreams online,” I thought, “wow I wouldn’t have thought that was a very good idea at all!” Well, it isn’t. The Price of Paradise is about a land dispute basically, but more importantly what happens when you drag your family to a small island you’ve colonized, sleep with the builder you’ve hired, and then get kidnapped by him after you’ve fired him for sleeping with the cook. This story is so nuts I thought my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets several times. Episode one starts out with this terrifying image of a burning boat and a family escaping for their lives. It will drag you in. The narrator (Alice Levine, British Scandal,) has a good sense of humor and brings a lot of personality to this already colorful story. I find myself constantly checking for the next episode. Listen here.
🎙️I’m really loving the audio documentary of MTV, Who Killed the Video Star, hosted by former MTV VJ Dave Holmes and bringing in voices from people you’ll definitely recognize if you were glued to the TV in the 80s and 90s. Dave outlines all the unlikely paths it had to take to make it what it is today, how basically young people, and their ongoing fight to make content for them, shaped culture long before it was able to shape youth culture. In the early days, every pivot MTV made was a response to something else happening in TV. So if you were there on the journey, you’ll find yourself thinking that’s why they did that! From learning about how the very first music videos were made to how we ended up turning the character on the MTV viewers, this show is a nostalgic, fact-filled ride that, thanks to Dave’s narrating, feels warm and cozy to me. If you weren’t there, listening to this show will probably seem stranger than fiction, but it’s an important part of history if you want to understand the path our media has taken. With so much Dave in my ears, I have also been going back and listening to his other shows, Homophilia and Troubled Waters. Listen here.
🎙️I don’t think you have to love dogs to be absolutely tickled with joy to witness dogs playing and roughhousing at a dog park. The new Dog Parkology is taking a look at another aspect that makes them so precious—the importance of dog parks as public spaces that allow us to deepen our connection with nature and even other people. Dog parks haven’t changed for 50 years, but what we know about dogs and their relationships to us has, and these spaces are more important than ever. This show is pushing us to evolve our thinking and get really creative about what a dog park can be, and imagine what that could do for us all. (If a dog park has gotten you off your phone for even 15 minutes, you should be eternally grateful.) I don’t think I had truly thought about cool dog parks are until I listened to Dog Parkology. I went from thinking that I liked them to convinced that they are underrated slices of heaven that have the potential to save the world and need to be protected with every fiber of my body. And I don’t have a dog. Listen here.
🎙️Listening to an episode of Every Outfit about an episode of Sex and the City is always better than watching an actual episode of Sex and the City. I mean if you haven’t watched the TV show do that first, but I’d rather listen to Chelsea and Lauren (they’re the ones behind the viral IG account Every Outfit on Sex and the City) rehash every moment of an episode than watch it again on TV. They recently covered The infamous Post-It episode—Berger dumps Carrie via Post-It, which overshadows Charlotte’s engagement and Miranda’s skinny jeans and all the hysterically wry comments from Samantha. This is the episode they go to Bed and smoke weed and get arrested. How does it happen in one episode? This is an episode of TV to cherish and it’s one to study with Chelsea and Lauren. Listen here.
🎙️Episode one of HUMO: Murder and Silence in El Salvador has the elements of your run of the mill true crime story. (There’s a woman being chased by a psycho killer, a house of horrors, a hidden mass grave, etc.) But really, this podcast is about something much bigger—El Salvador’s issues with violence, government corruption, mass disappearances, media censorship, and the grip gangs have on the country. (When I heard the fun fact that 1 in every 100 Salvadorans are in a gang, and many more live under their rule, I had to rewind it three times. I couldn’t believe it.) Daniel Alvarenga is the host of the English version, but you can listen in Spanish, where host is Bryan Avelar, who has fearlessly been breaking a lot of this news. This show starts out gruesome and terrifying, then gets completely heartbreaking (you hear from mothers who are hoping their kids are dead instead of missing because being kidnapped is probably worse than death,) then moves to the history of El Salvador and the history of journalism in El Salvador. In fact, in the final episode we hear how Bryan has to flee while making the podcast because of a gag law that prohibits media from talking about gangs. Bryan’s work could get him a 15 year prison sentence. This is a gruesome story, but told with top notch journalism, and fun audio elements make the story leap from the page and will capture your attention. Listen here.
🎙️If you listen to The Beef and Dairy Network you know that host Benjamin Partridge owes Ted Danson a huge debt of grain that he borrowed to get the podcast started. It’s an ongoing joke that is the exact kind of ridiculousness that makes The Beef and Dairy Network so weird, unlike anything else, and beef-y and dairy-y. In a coup only comparable to when Tom Hanks was on Dead Eyes, the real Ted Danson made an appearance and he absolutely did not phone it in. Even if you don't know the backstory of the show, it's a great episode for people to start on. Because, honestly, it's just fun to hear the actor Ted Danson yell "I am the Lord of the Sun!" Listen here.
🎙️Attention fellow Disney freaks: For Your Amusement had a fun episode about Dinosaur, the Animal Kingdom ride formerly known as Count Down to Extinction. Ryan Bergara, Byron Marin and guest George Browning go through the ride’s history and take us through the highlights, pointing out some things I love and some things I’ve never thought about. (Dr. Grant Seeker, the man who hijacks the rovers and almost gets a bunch of innocent tourists killed, isn’t a goofball he’s a criminal how did I not see that before?!) They also talk about something so often completely overlooked in the parks: the pre-ride shows that often set up Disney attractions. What goes into them, what they do for the rides, who makes them. It was a conversation I appreciated. Then they run the ride through their series of 10 tests to determine if the ride holds up: the average tourist test, the Leslie Stahl test, the smart phone test, the Tony Stark test, the Hollywood test, the Simpsons test, the signature moment test, the premature detraculation test, the exit poll test, and the fine wine test. (The ride must get a 7/10 to be considered world class.) I listened to an episode of this show last year, loved it, then forgot to subscribe / that it existed and I’m so glad I found it again. I have a lot of back catalogue to go through. Listen here.
🎙️I love you!
Tink Spotlight
Meet Adam Macias, host and creator of That Was Wild
Describe That Was Wild in ten words or less: Wild stories about our wild world from wild people.
Who is it for? That Was Wild is for people who love to hear about the weird and obscure things happening in the world. For the person at the dinner party that wants something fun and funny to talk about that’s for sure to spark a conversation.
Which episode to start with? I would start with Ep 38. - Joey Bragg’s Successful Audition
Favorite listener interaction: Having my family text me about how they love that week’s episode. I’ve been working in podcasting for almost 12 years. I launched a podcast in the “Pre-Serial” era - aka PSE. My family had no idea what a podcast was at the time. Now having launched a new podcast in a time where they are mainstream, having my family say they listened to it and enjoy it is so dang wonderful.
Dream guest: Iggy Pop
Would love to be a guest on: Bad Friends
If I could force one person in the world to listen to my podcast it'd be…On our show we talk to random people on the internet via Chatroulette. If you’ve ever been on sites like Omegle or Camsurf you know what it’s like. We sift out through a lot of random dicks to find people to talk to. I’d like to make any one of those men listen to the show. It would be my dream to one day be on Chatroulette and have some random dude stop doing his thing and lean in to frame and be like, “Dude, I love your show”
What does your family think you do? Because I went to school for music production, My mom for the longest time thought I was a DJ. It wasn't until she heard my show for the first time that she realized that my job wasn’t “professional rave goer.” That said, even though I dont’ drop the beat, I DO drop the pod every Friday wherever you get pods.
📦 From the Archives 📦
[From August 17, 2020] If you’re looking for a horror fiction show, try In Another Room, a collection of interlocking ghost stories, each taking place in a different room of a haunted house, that scan the entire life of the home from the 1870s to today. The experience is pretty transformative—the team put a lot of effort into the sound production—and listening, it feels like you are wandering through a haunted house. Which ghost of the house’s history is around the next corner? It’s a cool idea for a story, especially one to be explored via sound. And I can tell you that there were a few points in which I truly felt scared.