Radio vs. the Martians! is a monthly podcast devoted to a warts-and-all dissection of popular culture.
Mike Gillis and Casey Doran are joined by a rotating panel of their friends for an unflinching — and profanity-laden — look at the highs and lows of popular culture, science fiction, video games, horror, comic books, movies, and everything in between. Think of us as the McLaughlin Group for nerds!
Our 90+ minute long panel discussions are released twice-annually. We’re joined by two guest panelists, and are focused on a particular pop culture franchise, character, filmmaker, actor, comic book series, video game, literary trope, or meta-fictional concept.
We also cover what call “single serving selections.” These are shorter, more bite-sized pop culture topics, where we are joined by a single guest for a discussion of a specific movie, comic book or television story arc, novel or more!
What sort of topics have we covered on our podcast episodes? So far, we’ve talked about:
- Akira
- American Movie
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Batman
- BioShock
- Blade Runner
- The Blues Brothers
- Chopping Mall
- Columbo: Murder By the Book
- Conan the Barbarian
- Condorman
- Django (1966)
- Don Bluth
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Expanded Universes
- The Fast and the Furious
- F for Fake
- Fight Club
- Fighting Games
- The Flintstones by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh
- George Lucas
- Ghostbusters (1984)
- The Green Knight
- Halloween III: Season of the Witch
- Hayao Miyazaki
- Highlander
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Hudson Hawk
- James Bond
- Keanu Reeves
- M. Night Shyamalan
- Nintendo
- Open World Video Games
- Phantasm
- Planet of the Apes
- Professional Wrestling
- Quentin Tarantino
- Return to Oz
- Santa Claus: The Movie
- Shiver: Selected Stories by Junji Ito
- Sin City
- “So Bad, It’s Good”
- Sorcerer (1977)
- Spider-Man
- Star Trek
- Star Trek: the Next Generation
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Steven Spielberg
- Superman
- Twin Peaks
- Uzumaki by Junji Ito
- Vengeance (2022)
- Vertigo Comics
- Vigilante Fiction
- Watchmen
- Willow
- Wonder Twins by Mark Russell and Stephen Byrne
- WWE WrestleMania XIX
- Zardoz
- Zombies
We supplement these discussions with our “Fun Size” episodes — previously called “point 5” episodes — additional Patreon-exclusive conversations with our panelists after the main discussion is finished. We touch on unfocused, non-topic specific discussions on whatever comes to mind, usually 30-45 minutes in length.
Every other month, instead of a regular episode, we’re joined by a single guest to dive into the cinematic library of actor and statesman, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a movie-by-movie master’s course in catchphrases, explosions and wonderfully absurd macho bullshit, with episodes we call, “Podcasta la Vista, Baby!”
In short, we think comics, mutual aid, socialism, Star Trek, science fiction, labor unions, Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, nunchucks, Keanu Reeves, and riots are good.
And we think cops, NFTs, capitalism, Disney owning everything, Ayn Rand, landlords, Elon Musk, and Zack Snyder movies are bad.
Our show’s logo and our panelist bio graphics were created by Rob Kelly. Our show’s original artwork was designed by Kyle Hepworth. Our theme music was written and performed by James Whetzel. Our original theme song was written and performed by Todd Maxfield-Matsumoto. And if you’d like to run an advertisement for our show on your podcast or radio show, you can find it here.
Please, join us!