I tried it but wound up feeling the same way I do about the many nazi shows they used to play on History channel. I understand we should be wary of the villains of our past, but devoting hours of time laughing and talking about them seems disingenuous to the many many others who suffered from their actions.
If you’re someone who likes these you’ll probably like This Past Weekend with Theo Von. He’s usually got really good guests, and his energy is different than his stand up. I’ve really enjoyed listening.
I never see this mentioned but Darknet Diaries is actually a really informative and entertaining podcast about hacking, the dark web, physical penetration testing (gone wrong), nation-state cyber attacks.
I think 5-4 is the best legal podcast out there. It's refreshing to hear legal takes from a leftist perspective by people that know what their talking about. It helped keep me sane in law school.
Climate Denier’s Playbook is great. After enjoying Rollie’s YouTube stuff for so long it’s nice to see it translates well with bouncing off someone instead of just monologuing.
It's the podcast I'm listening to right now. If you're interested in It you have to listen to it. The storytelling is just soo good. I really recommend the Episodes "Xbox Underground" and "Operation Bayonet"
Most episodes aren't actually about the dark Web and are instead about Cybersecurity.
Upvote for an actual play to try out. I'll happily add:
Redemption (a star wars podcast, just changed their name to smuggler's blues)
Friends at the Table, they play different systems and have fun running them. Players are having fun, but it's not a comedy podcast.
The Magpies, blades in the dark play. Not humor.
And Spout Lore, it started off as the GM trying to have a game with depth and it's a scaffolding held up by dick jokes. (Imagine that however you'd like)
I am not a D&D a person and my husband very much is. He loves actual play podcasts and desperately wants me to love them too, but I just can’t.
Dungeons & Daddies is the solution. It’s pure gold. It’s the first and only podcast I’ve ever joined a Patreon for. (I admittedly do also appreciate many parts of The Adventure Zone, but the daddies are comedy start to finish. No weird sappy awkward dramatic improv taking itself too seriously.)
Love Always Sunny! I just finished all 15 seasons of the show on Disney Plus and am really enjoying the podcast. The Dayman Cometh episode made me so happy.
Man, LPotL has really come a long way in their research depth and quality. Started listening for the true crime but I like their paranormal and cult stuff more.
Some of my favorite ones are their in-depth historical pieces. Their Black Plague and Manhattan project episodes left me emotionally devastated for days afterwards.
I listen to so many, its hard to pick one. My current favourite is probably Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. He does really good podcasts and I've followed him over from his BBC Radio 4 podcast (More or Less) which I also love.
Cautionary Tales is about a major screw up from history and the systemic problems that caused it. It takes away from society's bias to lay blame at the feet of the last known individual involved and looks at the whole causal chain leading up to an event.
She basically interviews scientists about their job and asks all the dumb questions you wish you could ask. She has a huge number of episodes on everything from black holes and dark matter to squirrels to Emojis. And it's all from the perspective of "the study of".
One of my favorite episodes is "Ferro-equinology". The study of iron horses. Trains. I knew trains were cool, but had no idea how cool they really were until that episode.
Her energy is addictive too. Great personality. If you are a part of her patron (which I am) you'll get a heads up before her interviews and she give an opportunity for you to post questions that she'll ask the Ologist.
It's (Probably) Not Aliens-Podcast debunking Ancient Aliens on the History Channel.
The Magnus Archives- Horror podcast about an institute that investigates paranormal activity.
Knifepoint Horror-Horror anthology podcast.
Sonic the Comic the Podcast- A podcast reviewing the British Sonic the Hedgehog comic issue by issue. An interesting look back at 90s nostalgia, even if you aren't British.
The Constant: A History of Getting Things Wrong. Host Mark Chrysler tells stores from the distant to not-to-distant past of people being wrong. Wrong science, crockpot ideas, and more. For example, one episode looks at where people thought birds went in the winter, such as flying to the moor or turning into barnacles. There are 2 different episodes on different doctors that thought sewing animal testicles (one ape balls, the other goat balls) bought great health benefits. Another series of episodes looks at how most forensic techniques (at least before DNA) ante based on pure BS.
Our Fake History: Host Sebastian Major tells the truth about historic myths, be it about people, organizations, or places. Did Shakespeare write his plays? Was the story of the Trojan War based on real history? Was their really a black samurai?
Blowback. I'm only on the first season which is about the Iraq war, and it's great so far. Great use of audio clips from Bush admin officials to prove their points.
The Greatest Generation: a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. Ben and Adam watch an episode of Star Trek and discuss it with lots of dumb jokes. Worth listening from the start!
Defunct, now, but Revolutions by Mike Duncan is an EXCELLENT breakdown of many historical revolutions, including all the major figures and intellectual currents that inspired and led them.
Good recommendation. I have been listening to this before bed for the last 2 weeks and been loving it. I originally just started listening to try to understand how a DnD game actually works, but they are hilarious. Viva La the great wizard Taco!
from Germany. It’s like the weekly newspaper, where a judge and a journalist sum up and talk about what is happening in and around Germany. I like how they put everything in perspective and that not everything is as easy as it seems.
This is so hard to answer because I have so many I love to listen to - which are basically all Australian comedy podcasts. Here’s 10 that I’ve listened to the longest and most frequently:
On The Media is the best news podcast. It reports on how stories are being reported, hence “on the media”, and in the process ends up being the most informative and deep reporting available. Journalists and academics love it, it’s a legendarily good show that started on NPR radio.
"Homestuck Made This World" is a critical analysis of the webcomic Homestuck that morphs into a discussion about how the culture of the Internet changed immensely from 2008 to 2015.
"Lavar Burton Reads" is as it says, a podcast about an actor reading science fiction pieces.
The first season of Good Assassins is incredibly gripping. It tells the story of a Jewish spy after World War 2 who spends months befriending a Nazi who escaped justice known as 'The Butcher' with the goal of killing him. It's a roller coaster
By far Completely Arbortrary. A podcast about trees and tree related topics. The host are great, one of them you might recognize from the podcast Ologies if you are into science topics.
The hosts compliment each other well and deliver a funny, educational podcasts with fun series for certain months. Highly highly reccomend
Chilluminati. Jesse Cox who was previously on co-optional with Total Biscuit talks paranormal, internet stories and true crime. Jesse is a skeptic, his stoner co-host is way too into it and the third guy is neutral and just kind of laughs at it all. Better than it should be due to the balance.
Timesuck. The long form, research based style is a refreshing departure from a lot of the content I consume most days. Plus, each week is a different topic, so you get a good mix of history, cults, serial killers, and a little bit of everything in between.
I listen to way too many to name, but the two I always move to the top of the queue when they drop are Fright Pub (three very funny friends drink and talk about horror movies, to much hilarity) and Film Reroll (a bunch of talented actors and improv folks reenact and rewrite popular movies using tabletop dice mechanics).
Recently the latter did an insane reroll series of Memento that they recorded in chronological order and then re-edited and released in reverse order like the movie. In their E.T. reroll, they succeeded in getting E.T. off the planet and involved in an interstellar war. For Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, the GM invented a whole system for randomizing their trips back in time based on their phonepad keypresses, leading to a completely different set of historical figures collected for their final project. Truly nutso levels of craft and effort go into these episodes.
It's an actual play podcast run in game systems designed mostly for story generation, operated by people who who know there's no such thing as a monster, and I'd never seen anything like it.
They ran some seasons in a post-fantasy-apocalypse world, some in a Star-Wars-meets-Gundam science fantasy world, and one recently in a Western sort-of-horror setting. I started at the beginning, with Autumn in Heiron, featuring orc archivists who work magic using extremely specific shopping lists, undead pastry chef boyfriends, and an "evil" alignment of "destroy something rather than trying to understand it".
But for the impatient you can start with Marielda. Marielda is a series of heists by a crew of illegal knowledge dealers, in a fantasy city that sounds like New Orleans, patrolled by living statues and ruled by a god who forged the sun, whom our players proceed to fight.
The sci-fi side, which is running its fourth season now, starts with COUNTER/Weight, a game set in the aftermath of a mecha movie never made. It features a character who is "what if Han Solo used to be Beyoncé", psychic hackers, and mechs who might be gods.
Also there's no sponsors because the GM is too punk for that.
Brother and sister duo that read mean, outrageous and plain weird product and place reviews. Very funny.
Mysterious Universe
OK buddy this is the podcast that radicalized me. Its also low key turned into a rightwing antivax conspiracy fest, but seasons 1-25 were good. Just stop listening when covid arrives. Moderately funny, good if you like paranormal stuff.
Lets talk about sects
Not funny, actually usually horrifying, but its a great resource for anyone interested in learning about cults around the world and the shit they got up to.
Because that always comes up: Yes, the name is making fun of QAnon because it's not true. They started out talking about Epstein, and that's an actually true pedophile conspiracy.
Kerning Cultures should be on the list of everyone who likes 99PI and This American Life. It's like those two shows had a baby and it grew up in the Arab world.
For Spanish speakers I recommend 'Las Hijas de Felipe', about medieval/modern History (herstory?). They usually cover mundane things, rather than battles or empires.
I was a huge fan of The No Sleep Podcast specially during the early seasons. But recently they've been trying so much unnecessary stuff which kind of takes away the whole fun of listening to it. They also started advertising brands after every story.
Definitely recommend listening to the first few seasons though if you like horror.
The Unmade Podcast - Podcast about podcasting ideas
Smashing Security - IT security news
Eagle Nine: Locked - Story podcast
World's Greatest Con - Season 1 is about misleading Nazis on DDay, Season 2 is about Game show cheating, Season 3 is about infilitrating research about the paranormal.
The end of Radiolab was so rough. They got pushed into doing some more serious reporting and it started to lose its charm...and then the drama that finally shut it down was a bummer.
I wish Alex Goldman would start a new show with a similar format. I liked PJ as a host but Alex carried it for me.
Love James and Jimmie on Small Town Murder. The amount of research that goes into each episode is absolutely insane for the pace that they pump out episodes, and those two dudes balance each other out well.
I especially admire how it never comes off as being disrespectful of the victims' stories, which is a common enough problem in the true crime genre that makes me steer clear of a lot of shows.
I'll have to check out the others listed! The rest are all new to me.
WTF with Marc Maron is a comedy podcast of interviews with comedians, actors, writers, and musicians. They’ve hosted some great guests such as Cillian Murphy of Oppenheimer.
Stuff You Should Know. Also a comedy podcast that is essentially a literature review on a plethora of topics covering everything from whether Mallory summited Everest to how HIV works.
CodeSwitch
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Stuff You Should Know
Stuff You missed in History Class
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (more of a radio show but I like it anyway)
Yeah super great guests like Jordan Peterson and RFK. Yikes.
Rogan ran out of interesting fringe guests years ago. Now he hosts a platform for mostly nutjobs to promote their easily-refutable conspiracy theories while he replies with "Wow"