Podcasta la Vista, Baby! Episode 24 – Maggie

A father’s duty is to protect his daughter.

This month, we’re joined by author and chair of the Puget Sound Socialist Party, Chelsea Rustad to explore perhaps the most unexpected and interesting departure from the expected Schwarzenegger oeuvre, an independent zombie family drama: Maggie!

As civilization buckles under a deadly zombie pandemic, farmer Wade Vogel retrieves his runaway teenage daughter, Maggie, after she’s been infected with the incurable virus. Hoping to spare her an inhumane government quarantine and struggling to cope with his inability to protect her, Wade brings Maggie home to care for her in her last days. As her condition worsens, Wade wonders if he can bring himself to do the unthinkable.

Fun Size Episode 50 – It’s Just the End of the World as We Know It

In our double-sized fiftieth Fun Size episode, in the middle of a global pandemic and nationwide uprisings against systemic and racist police violence, we sit down with Sam Mulvey of KTQA radio in Tacoma, to….talk about something something…

Did we mention that Zack Snyder broke the third seal by announcing the release his own — inevitably underwhelming — cut of a superhero movie you don’t remember? What are the limits of escapism in a real world on fire? Is it even possible to watch a cop show with ungritted teeth anymore? We try to keep it together, and dig through the wreckage for some kind of meaning.

PLUS: a major announcement about the show at the end of the episode!

Episode 38 – Return to Oz

An all-new adventure down the yellow brick road.

In our latest Single Serving Selection, we return to the Emerald City and dig into some nostalgic childhood nightmare fuel with librarian and friend of the show, Kit Laika. This month’s topic is Disney’s weird and often terrifying continuation/quasi-sequel to the 1939 MGM classic: Return to Oz.

Dorothy Gale finds herself back in the Land Oz, after being rescued from a mental hospital by a mysterious girl. She finds the yellow brick road is crumbling, the Emerald City is in ruins, and its people turned to stone. Now, with a new group of strange companions, Dorothy must defeat both the villainous Nome King and the evil witch Mombi, rescue the Scarecrow, and restore an exiled princess to the throne.

Because all of the best children’s movies have body horror in them.

Episode 36 – Uzumaki by Junji Ito

“Spirals…This town is contaminated with Spirals…”

In our latest Single Serving Selection, we descend into a mind-bending and stomach-churning modern classic of Japanese manga horror with librarian and friend of the show, Kit Laika, but perhaps you’ll wish we hadn’t. Because this month, we’re descending into madness and body horror with Junji Ito’s Uzumaki.

What begins as a series of episodic tales of a small seaside town being driven to death and insanity by ubiquitous spiral shapes soon becomes a tidal wave of ancient apocalyptic destruction, lunacy, and unavoidable doom.

Apologies for the inevitable nightmares.

Episode 33 – Akira

“KANEDAAAAAA!!!” “TESTUOOOO!!!”

We’ve returned with a long-awaited panel episode! This time, we’re popping some capsules and tearing our motorcycles through the ruins of Neo-Tokyo with Tobiah Panshin and Joe Preti of the View from the Gutters comic book podcast. We’re digging into Katsuhiro Otomo’s groundbreaking 1980s apocalyptic manga epic about psychokinetic powers and mass destruction, Akira.

From its serialized origins in the Japanese Young Magazine to the pioneering animated film, this is a seminal masterpiece of explosions, body horror, secret military programs, and disaffected youth, and it’s cast a long shadow over all of modern popular culture.

Music: 
“Kaneda” from Akira (1988) by Geinoh Yamashirogumi

Fun Size Episode 4 – A Discussion About Sam’s Feelings

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In the first of two Fun Size discussions this month, we sit down with Rebecca Friedman and debate the merits and popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction and video games, and why absent panelist (and spouse) Sam Mulvey will probably never discuss it on the show.

Is the genre inevitably juvenile, and does its recent popularity speak ill of us as a society? Disagreement follows.

[NOTE: Some Fallout 4 spoilers]

Casey Returns to the Video Game Break Podcast!

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Casey makes a second appearance on our friend Carlos Rodela‘s Video Game Break Podcast! This time, to discuss Bethesda’s newest installment in their signature post-apocalyptic open world RPG series, Fallout 4!

They swap their stories of their Fallout 4 experiences, the self-directed open world game experience, and sheer massive scale of the game’s Commonwealth Wasteland setting. So, grab a Nuka-Cola and start blowing the legs off of some feral ghouls!

Check it out!

Radio vs. the Mailbag: You’re No Daryl Dixon!

mad-max-road-warrior-blu-rayThrow a rock in any direction, and you’ll hit someone’s zombie apocalypse survival plan. It’s astounding how ubiquitous it’s become. Everyone these days seems to have an elaborate strategy worked out to stay alive and thrive in the event that civilization falls in the wake of plagues, zombies, robot uprisings, alien invasions, natural disasters, nuclear war or even dragons.

There are even now magazines dedicated to this topic, and I’m not entirely sure how serious they’re intended to be.

But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how high your level is in Fallout: New Vegas, or how many issues of the Walking Dead you’ve read, or how many times you’ve seen the Road Warrior. Most people in the post-apocalypse are kinda…y’know…dead.

That prompts this month’s Mailbag question:

“Be Honest. How would you really fare in a post-apocalyptic setting?”

Here’s what our hosts had to say…

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Radio vs. the Mailbag: Tapping Out!

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There are times when you just give up on a piece of fiction. You walk out of a movie theater before the show is over. You drop a television show from your DVR lists. You take a comic book series off of your monthly pull list. You hurl a book across the room in frustration.

Thought we both pride ourselves on our ability to finish what we start, sometimes…you just have to give up.

In short, you quit. You tap out. You’re just done with it.

That prompts this month’s question:

“Has a Movie, Book, Television Show or Piece of Media Ever Made you Tap Out?”

Here’s what our hosts had to say…

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