Fun Size Episode 57 – The SJW/C.H.U.D. Alliance

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We’re joined again by Tobiah Panshin to dig into some movie talk. Is there really a hard divide between popcorn blockbusters and what Martin Scorsese calls “cinema”? Will the shadow of the pandemic change anything about movies going forward?

And we talk about the oddity of Zack Snyder’s 4-hour cut of the Justice League film, and how it inexplicably exists beyond all probability — both through the world-changing crises, scandals and events that even made its creation possible, and probably made critics and audiences kinder to it.

CORRECTION: Ava Duvernay turned down directing Black Panther, not The Eternals.

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Episode 46 – Wonder Twins by Mark Russell and Stephen Byrne

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“Wonder Twin powers — Activate!”

This month, we’re balancing teen angst and superheroics with returning guest Paul Hix of Waiting for Doom – the Doom Patrol Podcast to gush over over the hilarious satirical DC Comics maxi-series: Wonder Twins!

Exiled to Earth from the utopian planet Exxor, super-powered teens Zan and Jayna must now juggle high school with their after-school internship with the heroic Justice League! But they must also grapple with strange new Earth concepts like crippling debt, shocking inequality and mass incarceration; and they begin wondering if beating up costumed criminals and throwing them in jail is really making the world a better place…

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Fun Size Episode 56 – “The Customer is Always Right”

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We continue to work the registers with Tobiah Panshin, going to places both weirdly metaphysical and painfully mundane.

First, Mike thinks it might actually be preferable to live in a hypothetical computer simulation than a “real” universe. What is real, anyways? Does that make our programmers gods?  Is the act of creation inherently selfish — and if it is, does that even matter?

Then, we look at a recently unearthed-on-YouTube reality show, Airline, about ticket agents and flight attendants weathering often-drunken customer abuse and demands. It triggers all sorts of all-too-familiar customer service flashbacks. Plus, Mike remembers that one time he almost got into a fight at the airport.

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Episode 45 – Willow

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Adventure doesn’t come any bigger than this.

We’re back in the studio and ready to cross swords with Tobiah Panshin, the author of The Game Master: A Guide to the Art and Theory of Roleplaying, and dive into George Lucas and Ron Howard’s high fantasy tale of magic and child endangerment: Willow!

When a diminutive farmer, Willow Ufgood, finds a baby princess prophesied to destroy the evil Queen Bavmorda, he is recruited by magical forces to be the child’s guardian. Now, aided by a roguish swordsman, a wise sorceress, and an annoying pair of impish brownies, Willow must overcome his fears and save the entire realm from evil.

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Fun Size Episode 55 – Jerkbeast

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We’re continuing our talk with Patrick Johnson, and we’re waxing nostalgic.

We look back at the sliding timeline of The Simpsons and try to count the anachronisms as they pile up. But nothing could prepare us for the existential crisis triggered as we realize that under current show continuity, Homer Simpson is now a Gen-Xer.

We also reminisce about our brief time as public access TV producers on the Seattle Community Access Network. We dealt with shoddy equipment, a menagerie of conspiracy-minded weirdos, and a city council budget crunch that ultimately killed the station. We’ve got boxes full of Pepe!

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Episode 44 – Fight Club

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“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

In the first Single Serving Selection in over a year, we are Jack’s complete lack of surprise. We’re stealing human fat from dumpsters and peeing into fancy soup with friend of the show Patrick Johnson. This month, we’re breaking the first two rules, because we’re talking about 1999’s Fight Club.

Is this David Fincher dark comedy a brilliant and scathing satirical deconstruction of toxic masculinity and how disaffected men can be drawn into extremism and violence? Or is it a shallow and pretentious edgelord glorification of the same thing? Or is it somewhere in between? We dig into the cult film we all adored as young twenty-somethings and dissect it under the harsh light of 2021.

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Fun Size Episode 54 – Birds Aren’t Real

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We’re joined by Australia’s own Paul Hix from Waiting for Doom – the Doom Patrol Podcast, to dig into the latest and strangest conspiracy theory: Bird Trutherism!

Counterfeit avians? Feathered Cameras in the Sky!? Why does it feel like the desire to answer serious questions in the most unserious ways has gone frighteningly mainstream?

Has the legalization of marijuana in many states left us doomed to a future where pot smoking will be branded tragically…uncool?

And we get an opportunity to grill our Aussie guest on an outsider’s view of American culture and cuisine. Do we have things that scare and confuse others as much as vegemite does us? (Spoiler: yes, we do.)

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Black Ops Episode 20 – Difficulty Is Kind of the Point

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After over a year, we’re back with a new Black Ops podcast, we join Joe Preti to continue our conversation from last month.

We talk about Mike’s acquisition of a hardcover omnibus collection of the 1983’s Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, a remarkable creation of a pre-internet age and a time capsule of a time gone by, and wax nostalgic for why obsolete continuity can be a treasure to revisit.

We dive into one of the more contentious discussions on the topic of video games: difficulty settings. Where some games like Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls strive for unforgiving challenge, other games are trying to make themselves more accessible and less frustrating through “Story mode” difficulty that doesn’t try to murder you.

And then there’s the Battletoads jet ski level…

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Fun Size Episode 53 – Rest in Piss, You Piece of Shit

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In our latest plot to lose any conservative listeners, we’re back!

We’re chatting with Joe Preti, who offers his defense of the much-maligned and frequently buggy Cyberpunk 2077. We dig into the often unreasonable expectations of both gamers and game companies, and why the video game industry exploits their workers and releases unfinished, broken games.

Is online gaming inevitably toxic and ugly? Are we doomed to racism, selfish teammates and endless griefing? Can we bake solutions into the programming of the games themselves?

And why does it seem like everyone on the political Far-Right from Ben Shapiro to Steve Bannon to Adolf Hitler, is a medicore failed artist, movie producer or screenwriter?

And we say goodbye to a dead radio icon with all of the respect and dignity he deserves.

NOTE: The Skype audio was not up to our usual standards, but we still think it’s listenable. Our apologies! No apologies are offered to Rush Limbaugh.

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Fun Size Episode 52 – The Show That Launched a Thousand Vasectomies

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Broadcasting live through the smoking ruins of the ‘Quar, we’re back! Again! This month, we’re joined by Patrick Johnson to try and make sense of it all.

We dig into everything from obscure – but real – DC Comics characters, to the limits to which Casey’s kids can make him rewatch the LEGO Batman Movie.

And we look at the massive outpouring of parental joy and relief at the cancellation of the infuriating PBS children’s show Caillou. How has that show influenced and modeled bad behavior in kids, and has the impact of shows like Beavis and Butt-Head and MTV’s Jackass had a similar negative effect on older viewers?

And finally… is the age of the movie theater, at last, dead?

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Fun Size Episode 51 – Existential Dread and Animal Puns

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It’s a Captain Picard Day miracle!

After a five-month hiatus, we’re back….ish. We’re broadcasting remotely with KTQA Radio‘s Sam Mulvey and trying to shake some of the cobwebs out.

Casey meets a wild Keanu and we wonder ponder again the magical unicorn nature of his celebrity namesake. And on the opposite end of the moral spectrum, we predict the inevitable airlock assassination of future space-despot Elon Musk.

We try to unpack media Copaganda, our changing relationship with police-centric media and lament how a lot of the progress made in this year’s uprisings against police violence have slowly rolled back.

Sam fills us in on the radio station he’s been building, and we talk about all the media we’ve been watching and reading from our protective bunkers, trapped in a world we never made.

Also! We have a Discord server now! Join us!

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Mike Returns to the Justice League International: Bwah-Ha-Ha Podcast!

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Mike was thrilled to make a second guest appearance on “the Irredeemable” Shagg Matthews‘ Justice League International: Bwah-Ha-Ha Podcast, covering the Giffen/DeMatteis era of the popular DC superhero team!

On the first half of the show, we paw through Justice League America #36, that finds freelance alien Green Lantern and kinda-sorta member of the Justice League, G’Nort drawn into a confrontation with his deadliest foe: a parody of Marvel’s Silver Surfer!

We get into what makes superhero comedy characters like G’Nort work — or not work — and what level of spoofing can slide into a mainstream superhero title without breaking its sense of reality. Plus, Mike just really likes G’Nort. Woof!

Check it out!

Black Ops Episode 3 – Sorry, Richard Roeper [DECLASSIFIED!]

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[As we continue our show hiatus, it has been decided by the fine people who support us on Patreon that we are going to make public — or ‘declassify’ — one of our Patreon-exclusive Black Ops episodes every month. This month, our patrons have personally selected this episode to help fill the gap! Consider it a look back at the ‘Before Times’]

Original Patreon release date: August 17, 2016

We finally check in with our young friend, Sean Duncan — who had managed to go through life without ever having the ending of the 1973 dystopian science fiction movie, Soylent Green spoiled for him. Truly a remarkable feat.

He’s now seen it and lets us know what he thinks of it. Plus, we talk about the social politics of spoilers.

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Black Ops Episode 15 – What Do You Think Alan Moore Did? [DECLASSIFIED!]

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[As we continue our show hiatus, it has been decided by the fine people who support us on Patreon that we are going to make public — or ‘declassify’ — one of our Patreon-exclusive Black Ops episodes every month. This month, our patrons have personally selected this episode to help fill the gap! Consider it a look back at the ‘Before Times’]

Original Patreon release date: July 9, 2019

We chat a bit with Greg Hatcher about Trek, the character of Captain Kirk and why it can be a gift when fictional characters age along with their actors.

We try to navigate the labyrinth of public domain laws to fruitlessly try to figure out what you can and cannot do with with new adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, the Lone Ranger and the Land of Oz, and whether being public domain has produced better material.

And finally, we wax nostalgic for a bygone time when “grim and gritty” was new, and when Alan Moore blew the comic industry’s collective mind by doing a post-modern adult interpretation of a British superhero aimed at children.

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Mike Returns to Ryan Daly’s Cheers Cast!

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Mike returns again to Ryan Daly‘s Cheers Cast, to dig into the eleventh episode of Cheers‘ third season, “Peterson Crusoe.”

Lovable barfly, Norm gets some terrifying medical news and falls into a deep existential slump. When that news quickly turns out to be merely a flaw in the X-ray machine, Norm’s new zest for life causes him to announce that he’s leaving Cheers forever, to live on a beach in the South Pacific. Chickening out on his dream at the last minute, Norm now has no idea how to let his friends at the bar know that he never left town and is currently subsisting on pretzels and beer nuts, living out of Sam’s office.

Check it out!