I haven't listened to any since I no longer spend my work day in the car, but if you're a dork like me, you might enjoy:
Tales from the Magic Tavern: A man from Chicago gets sucked into a portal and finds himself in a fantasy world of wizards, Orcs, and a nasty little shapeshifting badger. There is a structured plot line, but all dialogue is improvised.
Hey Riddle Riddle: That nasty little badger from Magic Tavern started his own podcast that focuses on riddles. They ask each other riddles and the listener can try to solve them as the hosts figure it out. Also, full of silly improv scenes between riddles
Dungeons & Daddies: Follows a D&D game in which a group of dads and their sons are transported from our world into the Forgotten Realms. The Dads must use their newfound D&D powers to save their children. Very funny, AMAZING STORY. The DM does a great job, and was a lead writer for Borderlands 2, if that means anything to you.
Get Played: Originally they only covered terrible or bizarre video games, but expanded to weird/ mind bending games. They introduced me to some really good underrated Indy games.
Here's the Situation: Two Improvisors that present each other with scenarios and they just give their honest opinion on it. For example, of you could only eat one candy for the rest of your life, what would it be? What if there was an organized draft (like in sports) and only one person could claim each candy? How much do you think you could sell an actual magic item for on eBay? They ended it years ago, but it was fun to bring the situations back to my family and see what they thought.
Have you tried Dungeons & Daddies? Freddy Wong (Rocketjump Youtube channel) and friends play DnD (Slight spoiler: Hey Riddle Riddle join in for a couple of episodes)
So good! I haven't had time to listen to season 2. It's probably about over by now, last I remember hearing was a cat bus and anthropomorphic calzones.
Like I said, I haven't listened in a while, but I do remember that they convinced me to play Edith Finch, Hypnospace Outlaw, and Onion boy commits tax evasion. All very good games.
But it started as How Did This Get Played? So, the first few seasons are a lot of tearing apart terrible games like Michael Jordan in the Windy City, and James Pond.
Knowledge Fight - a podcast all about Alex Jones. Over 900 episodes, so a huge backlog of you enjoy it, but you can just start with the most recent episode.
Revolutions - does a deep dive on 10 different major revolutions. You can start from any series beginning, but I would recommend listening in order. French, Haitian, and Russian are my three favorite.
Thanks, this list is great. I haven't heard of most of these except for Brodie Robertson. I've been watching him on YouTube since he first started growing out that abomination of a beard.
I listen to a lot of the BBC Sounds podcasts... possibly because I'm boring and British.
My favourites are:
In Our Time: 3 academics and a host discuss an academic topic in deep detail. Science, humanities, arts, etc. Some episodes are more interesting than others but depends on your personal interests. I like the philosophy ones because I studied it at university.
The Today Podcast: UK news and current affairs.
Screenshot: Film critics Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode discuss the history of cinema by picking a theme or motif to explore per episode, i.e. "Mermaids" was a recent one.
The Digital Human: explores technology trends and how they affect individuals and society.
Not so much a podcast but I've just finished listening to the BBC radio comedy series "Cabin Pressure"
Turns out it's quite dangerous to laugh that hard when you're driving, not recommended
Written by John Finnimore and has Benedict Cumberbatch as the pilot, but Roger Allam and Stephanie Cole absolutely steal the show with their sarcasm and banter
This American Life has nearly 30 years of excellent content. I know it is popular so maybe not worth mentioning, but I think there is a good reason this OG is still around. It is superb. So many little hidden gems.
A beloved drawing goes missing from Mr. Ablao’s third grade classroom. The class holds a funeral for the drawing, which accidentally unleashes a much bigger feeling than anyone anticipated.
I liked Opt Out a lot, but in recent years it has quite few episodes. It's main topic is privacy and related technologies, in every episode they have a guest related to the current topic.
The Greatest Generation - Star Trek rewatch podcast. Rekindled my love for the greatest franchise in history. Hosts approach the show from a tv production background
Spout Lore - the best real-play podcast, in my opinion. Dungeon World with incredible world building despite almost everyone being named Greg
Blank Check with Griffin and David - film analysis from the film critic for the Atlantic and Arthur from the Tick / Orko / Watto, covering a director's entire filmography each series
Marvel by the Month - Reading every Marvel comic, one month at a time. Has a gaggle of comic book industry legends as regular guests, talks about the context in which the comics were written, theme and interstitial music are bangers
The Silt Verses - A fantasy horror podcast where gods are real, spawned solely through belief, feed on sacrifices (usually human), and have been corporatized. It's amazing and the series just recently finished so there's no waiting for the next episode to drop. Easily the best podcast I've ever listened to.
Sawbones - An awsome medical history podcast by Justin and Dr. Sydnee McElroy. Sydnees part is pretty obvious, she's a family medicine doctor and she researches and presents historical bits about all the ways we have tried to do medicine throughout history. Justin is just Justin, he's a podcaster and games journalist by trade so he's mainly there as a layman and as comedic support.
The Magnus Protocol - Fantasy horor that I'm having trouble expplaining but it's damn good. It's made by the same creators that did the magnus archives. When they announced it on kickstarter after the magnus archives was finished they quickly earned over $700,000 so that should be some indication of how much people liked the magnus archives and the budget for the show.
Talk of the Devils (Manchester United podcast)
The Athletic FC (general football)
Kino Kingdom (movie podcast by two of my friends)
By Far The Greatest Team (football history, my uncle is one of the hosts)
The Rest is History (er, history)
Doom Tomb (doom metal)
Page 94 (UK politics)
HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast- Readings with interspersed commentary. Both hosts enjoy the material and their commentary tends to be on topic and stays brief. Good production value with music and editing to keep things tight.
History That Doesn't Suck - Prof. Jackson goes through US history linearly, one episode at a time. Very tight, but informative narrative structure. Tons of episodes.
Omnibus with Ken Jennings and John Roderick is very entertaining and educational. You'll either love the chemistry between the hosts or find them insufferable.
Every drag queen podcast, as well as Nicole Byer's Why Won't You Date Me? which has a lot of drag queen guests,will teach you more about sex than you ever had any idea about. A sex therapist telling Vanjie not to use Tic-tacs to douche with is absolutely wild.
The biggest difference between Joe Rogan and Sam Harris is that Harris ought to know better. Platforming scientific racists like Charles Murry is the opposite of intellectual inquiry.
It's motherfuckers like him who've turned the skeptic community into safe spaces for open bigotry. And worst of all, he's known to impersonate a philosopher.