Need a playlist to keep your whole family happy on your end-of-summer road trip? We got you covered! Just go to: bit.ly/JJHOFORTHEROAD! Want to hear Jesse’s summer music picks? Find it at: bit.ly/SUMMERSONGSFROMJESSE!

Thank you for being a Maximum Fun Member! 

The legendary Butt Fumble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82RIfy-gRa4

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of massive federal legal consequences, for the E! Channel in the 2010s and for the main TV networks in the 1950s, sparked by nail polish.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Golden Globes: Did Elisabeth Moss kill the E! red carpet Mani Cam? (Entertainment Weekly)
• It’s Time for the Mani-Cam to Die (New York Magazine)
• link to the E! Channel blog post trying to spin the middle finger incident, with headline "Elisabeth Moss Flipped Off the E!'s Red Carpet Mani Cam at the Golden Globes (and We Loved It)"
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: The Middle Finger
• The Quiz Show Scandal: Charles Revson (PBS American Experience)
• Encyclopedia Britannica entry for Charles H. Revson, American businessman
• Encyclopedia Britannica entry for Clever Hans, horse

Keep up with this show all week long on instagram, tiktok and bluesky.

This show was produced by Julian Burrell for Maximumfun.org

LINKS:

Hi, Strangeness pod
https://www.histrangenesspod.com/

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of two Spartans who blew their city's minds, with the astounding insights of "talk short" and "un-Spartan fighting."

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Sparta: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Superpower by Andrew Bayliss
• Never Retreat, Never Surrender: The Incredible Spartans -- an interview with Prof. Paul Cartledge, professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge (Popular Archaeology)
• Sparta Was Much More Than an Army of Super Warriors (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Brasidas and the Un-Spartan Spartan (The Classical Journal)
• Sparta Without the Spartans (The New York Times)

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of the world's most amazing honey. Enjoy the stories, and go out and get some if you want it!

RESEARCH SOURCES:

The Blue Ridge Honey Made ‘by Bees and Angels’ (Gastro Obscura)

Tupelo Honey (Gastro Obscura)

Mad Honey (Gastro Obscura)

What's all the buzz about? These bees turn kiawe flowers into 'Molokai Gold' (Hawai'i Public Radio)

What Makes Hawaii's White Kiawe Honey Unique? (TastingTable.com)

The Mystery of the Red Bees of Red Hook (The New York Times)

Blue and green honey makes French beekeepers see red (Reuters)

Honey Bees on Notre-Dame’s Roof Survived the Fire (Smithsonian Magazine)

Ligurian Honey (Atlas Obscura)

Pure Ligurian bees protected on South Australia's Kangaroo Island as world-first sanctuary since 1885 (AdelaideAZ.com)

Take it easy,

Doug :{

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of "the father of taxonomy", his improvements in our naming and respect for life, and his accidental eternal mis-naming of honeybees along the way.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

Overview: Honey Bee (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

The Language of the Bees: An Interview with Hugh Raffles (Cabinet Magazine)

The Beautiful Complexity of Naming Every Living Thing (Atlas Obscura)

The Perry Bible Fellowship: "Amends"

book excerpt: "Have Animals Souls? The Late-Nineteenth Century Spiritual Revival and Animal Welfare", from 'Anti-Vivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain: A Social History' by A. W. H. Bates

Linnaeus and Race -- easy read (The Linnean Society of London)

Op-Ed: How Scientific Taxonomy Constructed the Myth of Race (Sapiens Magazine)

Recommendations mentioned in this episode:

Thrifting for DVDs (or living next door to a video rental place) 

San Francisco tourist and general recs: Musée Mécanique, Public art works of Ruth Asawa,

Alcatraz, Angel Island, Golden Gate Park, DeYoung , Japanese Tea Garden, State Bird Provisions

Minneapolis food recs: Gai Noi, Diane's Place, Hai Hai, trying a Juicy Lucy Burger

Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 lakes

The Only Rule Is It Has to Work by Ben Lindbergh

Stolen Season by David Lamb

Toy Story 3 (is the best Toy Story)

Starting to explore David Lynch coming from Twin Peaks try Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart

The Appointment (1981)

The Hidden (1987)

Lodge 49 

The Chair Company   

Widow's Bay 

Truly Madly Deeply (1990)

Big Night (1996)

Babette's Feast (1987)

Local Hero (1983)

Waking Ned (1998)

School of Rock (2003) 

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Boyhood (2014)

Breaking Away (1979)

You Can Count on Me (2000)

Broadcast News (1987) 

Babe (1995)

This episode was also caught on video! Watch that version on YouTube.

Thank you for supporting Go Fact Yourself and Maximum Fun.
Tell your friends that they can too!

 

Appearing in this episode:

Stacy Keanan, Drew Lynch, Jake Anthony, and Matt Marr  from episode 194

Timothy Simons, Vic Michaelis, David Javerbaum, and Sonja Sohn  from episode 195.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Helen Hong

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next live-audience shows in LA by YOU!

The one, the only, Flan King: https://www.instagram.com/flan_king/

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topics of a prog rock landmark, a city-wide googly eye prank, and a baffling ultramarathon, all sparked by real-life roundabouts.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• The Inspiration Behind 'Roundabout', The 1972 Hit Song by Yes (The Wall Street Journal)
• The Story and Meaning Behind “Roundabout” by Yes, a Song that Made the Best of an Eventful Road Trip (American Songwriter Magazine)
• ‘Googly Eye Bandit’ in Oregon Comes Forward (The New York Times)
• The Roundabout Art Route (city website of Bend, Oregon)
• Australian teen charged over allegedly sticking googly eyes on 'Blue Blob' artwork (BBC News)
• A man ran 415 circles around a roundabout, a 36-mile ultramarathon (NPR)
• California man runs an ultramarathon in roundabout (Canadian Running Magazine)
• Roundabout FAQs (city website of Healdsburg, California)

Brea and Mallory answer book recommendation requests from MaxFun members! Email us at readingglassespodcast at gmail dot com!

Reading Glasses Merch

Recommendations Store

The Reading Glasses Book!

Links -

Reading Glasses Facebook Group

Reading Glasses Goodreads Group

Wish List

Newsletter

Libro.fm

To join our Discord channel, email us proof of your Reading-Glasses-supporting Maximum Fun membership! Join us here!

 

Books Mentioned - 

The Plague and Dr. Caim by GE Gallas

The Plague Tales by Ann Benson

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Saints of the Household by Ari Tison 

The Falling Sky by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste

The Twisted Ones by T Kingfisher

Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of modern warfare, the way night vision goggles are now basic table stakes, and one deadly night-attacking combat drone that is now a "mama drone" in daylight.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Taliban, Islamic State arm themselves with weapons US left behind (The Conversation)
• Taliban shows off 'special forces' in propaganda blitz (France24.com)
• Taliban Forces Are Getting Their Hands on Night Vision Goggles and Lasers (Popular Mechanics)
• Israel Found a Way to Make Soldiers Invisible (Popular Mechanics)
• 10 Years Ago, A Night Vision Of The Iraq Invasion (NPR)
• Fort Hood Officials Are Searching For More Than 100 Missing Night Vision Goggles (NPR)
• Press Release: Man Arrested for Theft of Military Property (U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of North Carolina)
• Former Green Beret Behind a Failed Coup in Venezuela Is on the Run (The New York Times)
• These Ukrainian Drones Don’t Just Kill. They Deliver Oatmeal Cookies. (The New York Times)
• Ukraine says its Vampire bomber drone is such a nightmare for Russian troops they call it the 'Baba Yaga,' a mythical evil creature (BusinessInsider.com)

LINKS:

Acting For A Cause

https://www.actingforacause.org/

Take it easy,

Doug :{

Alex Schmidt, Katie Goldin, and Jason Pargin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of fish using "ladders", the drawbacks of that "ladder" infrastructure, and a new alternative system where fish use "doorbells".

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• What is a fish ladder? (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
• Scientists’ Best Idea for Saving Endangered Fish Isn’t Really Working (Smithsonian Magazine)
• What is the 'salmon cannon' and how do the fish feel about it? (The Guardian)
• Fish Doorbell: the underwater livestream saving fish in the Netherlands (BBC Discover Wildlife Magazine)
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Eels

Thanks for supporting JJGo and Maximum Fun! 

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of White Sands National Park, its unique gypsum Galapagos, and why U.S. military explosions might make it the least disturbed national park for the rest of U.S. history.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• The Mysteries of the Sands: White Sands National Monument is more than a great place to play. Among its shifting dunes, scientists are unearthing an ancient history teeming with mammoths, dire wolves, and sloths. (New Mexico Magazine)
• White Sands National Monument Created -- 1933 (Today In Conservation)
• This National Park Is a ‘Waterless Sea’—and It Has Giant Sand Dunes That Glow Pink and Blue at Sunset (Travel & Leisure Magazine)
• Herbert Hoover's National Parks (U.S. National Park Service)
• White Sands National Park: Geology: Gypsum (U.S. National Park Service)
• White Sands National Park: People: Apachean (U.S. National Park Service)
• White Sands National Park: Places: White Sands Missile Range (U.S. National Park Service)

LizToonkel.com

Recommendations mentioned in this episode:

Wim Wenders' Perfect Days (2023)
Andrew Ahn's Driveways (2019)
HBO's Somebody Somewhere 
All Creatures Great and Small (new and old)
Visiting Fort Worth, Chicago, Pittsburg, Detroit
White Linen Pocket Squares (it's all you'll ever need)
#19 at Langers, Philippe The Original, "The Sandwich" at Roma Market's Pasadena, Egg Slut 
Fred Clause, Violent Night, The Christmas Chronicles, Deadly Night (2025), Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Bad Santa 
Alison Roman's Youtube Channel 
Cookbooks from: Nancy Silverton, Nigella Lawson, Samin Nosrat, Ina Garten, Ruth Reichl's "Applesauce Cake Glazed with Caramel" and "Bolognese Sauce"
The Recipe with Kenji and Deb 
Corre Larkin's TikTok page and recipes Hot Stove League on Netflix
Sugar (2008)
Eephus (2024)

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of a medical breakthrough, a constitutional amendment, and John Tyler's previous stubbornness invented a new version of the Presidency in the late 1900s.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Amdt25.2.6 Presidential and Vice-Presidential Vacancies Before the Twenty-Fifth Amendment’s Ratification (Cornell Law School)
• 25th Amendment: Presidential Disability and Succession (U.S. National Constitution Center)
• Diagnostics & Testing: Colonoscopy (Cleveland Clinic)
• A Brief History of Colonoscopy (Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News)
• John Tyler and Presidential Succession (White House Historical Association)
• REAGAN TRANSFERS POWER TO BUSH FOR 8-HOUR PERIOD OF 'INCAPACITY' (The New York Times)
• Bush Will Temporarily Hand Reigns To Cheney (The Washington Post)
• Bush has 5 polyps removed during colonoscopy (NBC News)
• For 85 minutes, Kamala Harris became the first woman with presidential power (CNN)
• Pence was on standby to ‘take over’ during Trump’s unannounced Walter Reed visit, new book reports (CNN)

Thank you for supporting Go Fact Yourself and Maximum Fun.

Tell your friends that they can too!

Appearing in this episode:

Shani Wallis  from episode 192.99

Erinn Hayes, Jordan Carlos, Professor Anne Goldgar and Kathleen Turner  from episode 193.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Helen Hong

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next live-audience shows in LA by YOU!

LINKS, ETC:

Cecilia D’Anistasio’s 2019 Kotaku article that very clearly saw the Esports bubble for what it was

Join the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpod

Triple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/

If you have any disputes, questions, or anything else you’d like us to read send it in at maximumfun.org/jjho. And don’t forget the secret members only pass phrase!

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of the first (normal) subway in the United States, and why it might be the most impressive and responsible project of the entire 1890s.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Boston Subway (American Society Of Civil Engineers)
• Moving the Masses: Urban Public Transit in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia by Charles W. Cheape
• Boston Builds The First U.S. Subway System (New England Historical Society)
• The Horse Flu Epidemic That Brought 19th-Century America to a Stop (Smithsonian Magazine)

Thank you for supporting Go Fact Yourself and Maximum Fun.
Tell your friends that they can too!

Appearing in this episode:

Claire Tobin, Kyle Ostendorf, Jeanine Tesori, David Lindsay-Abaire, Jordan Morris, Jesse Thorn from episode 192.

Eric Winter, Dree Hemingway, Ben Schaffer, Robert Mark Kamen from episode 191.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Helen Hong

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next live-audience shows in LA by YOU!

Damon's Steakhouse: https://www.damonsglendale.com

The one & only Galco's: https://sodapopstop.com

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of a country most Americans never think about, featuring what's arguably the richest national brown bear lore on Earth.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Romania's Bear Dilemma: A Call for Thoughtful Management, Not Panic (World Wildlife Federation)
• Photos: Romania’s annual Dancing Bears Festival to ‘ward off evil spirits’ (Al Jazeera)
• The Bear Slayer: During his quarter century of dictatorial rule Nicolae Ceausescu treated the brown bears of Romania almost as badly as he treated the people. Only his gamekeepers saw the grisly reality (The Atlantic)
• Myth of the Week: Callisto (Madeline Miller's website)
• East of the Sun and West of the Moon -- Norway (text upload hosted by University Of Pittsburgh online)
• The Law Protects Them. The Villagers Fear Them. (The New York Times)
• Tooth and claw: protective mother bear cuts off Dracula's castle (The Guardian)

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of 1890s science fiction writers coining the concept of a button that ends the world, more than 50 years before nuclear weapons existed.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing by Rachel Plotnick
• Would you push the nuclear button? (Imperial War Museums UK)
• The First People to Push the Panic Button Were Korean War Pilots (Atlas Obscura)
• A Negotiator Once Suggested Keeping the Nuclear Codes in Some Guy's Chest Cavity (Popular Mechanics)
• Tweet by President Donald Trump in 2018: "North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"
• Is President Trump's Nuclear Button Bigger Than Kim Jong-un's? (Snopes)
• President Trump Presses a Button in the Oval Office to Get a Coke (TIME Magazine)

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of bismuth giving off so little radiation, no one noticed until a dark matter experiment in this century.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Bismuth Not So Stable After All (Science)
• Bismuth breaks half-life record for alpha decay (Physics World)
• SciShow on YouTube: "Why Does Everything Decay Into Lead"

Hear more of the ambient tracks used here on YouTube @danielwilliamgonzalez.

We're cooking up a monthly series where we give tailor-made recommendations to you, our listeners and supporters. 

What can you ask us? Just about anything!

What are the best non-alcoholic beverages?

Are you looking for a streaming recommendation?

What are some essays and books to get into baseball? 

For our very first episode we're joined by Pop Culture Happy Hour's Linda Holmes! If you'd like Bullseye to answer your recommendation questions in the future send us an email at putyouon@maximumfun.org. 

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of our fingers and toes getting pruny when they're wet. No one's 100% sure why!

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Water-Logged 'Prune' Fingers Grip Better (Scientific American)
• Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Get Prune Fingers? (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Why your fingers wrinkle in water -- and what it can reveal about your health (BBC Future)
• SciShow: "Why Do We Wrinkle When Wet?" (YouTube)
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Raccoons

Hear more of the ambient tracks used here on YouTube @danielwilliamgonzalez.

To access the Presale

1. Go to https://www.letslearneverything.com/live
2. Click "Buy Tickets"
3. Click "Use ticket access code"
4. Enter the code "LETSLEARNCHEERFUL"

To get to the secret bonus content discussion channel on our discord, just go to the #bots channel and enter the command "!spidermonkey"

Email us at readingsmutpodcast69@gmail.com!

Reading Smut Merch

Newsletter

As they listen, they’ll share special insights as to how the guests on Go Fact Yourself are booked, how so much of the show comes together at the last minute, behind the scenes stories, and so much more. 

Thank you for supporting Go Fact Yourself and Maximum Fun.
Tell your friends that they can too!

Appearing in this episode:
Mimi Rogers
Matt Rogers
Valerie Moffat

Hosts:
Julian Burrell
J. Keith van Straaten
Helen Hong
Jim Newman

Credits:
Theme Song by Jonathan Green.
Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.
Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next live-audience shows in LA by YOU!

Nina Cortez wrote to advocate for Puerto Rico’s inclusion into E Pluribus Motto despite it not being a state at all. We were happy to not only include the home of the coqui frogs, but to also have it kick off the season!

Sheila Nichols is a public school teacher from New Hampshire. Her third grade class helped establish Apple Cider as the official state beverage of the Granite state.

Speaking of New Hampshire, Lily Foss is a state representative from there! She tells us about her journey to establish an official state small mammal and an official state dance. Plus, she’ll FINALLY explain to us why all of these silly symbols actually matter. 

Produced by Julian Burrell.

Senior Producer at MaxFun is Laura Swisher.

For all things E Pluribus Motto, visit maximumfun.org/mottos-info.

Want to tell Janet & John something about an upcoming state? Or send a voice memo, photo, or cherished memory? There are lots of options:

Email - Emailpluribusmotto@maximumfun.org
Voice Message  - speakpipe.com/epluribusmotto.
Social Media: Instagram and TikTok.

And if you want to purchase Bulletin Board as a small business in any state this season, you can do so here.

To celebrate our members and this auspicious day, the J Squad leads you through a tour of some of our audience’s favorite late-night snacks and corner store concoctions. Popcorns, crunchie munchies, and peanut butter sandwiches (plus one peanut butter munchie that is not a sandwich)! What are our favorites? The answers may surprise you! Let us know if you try any of these! And thank you so much for being a member and helping to keep the show going!

For the inaugural journey, he drove down to Anaheim, California. Home to Disneyland, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and the Paper World Stationery Expo 2026 – which is what he covered.

Why Paper World? It sounded fun, and we asked our audience where they wanted Jesse to go. Paper World was the prohibitive favorite - beating out Lego Conventions, a Renaissance Faire, and more.

You'll hear from sticker collectors, journaling enthusiasts, stamp manufacturers, and many more as Jesse sets out to answer the age-old question of which is better: stickers or stamps?

Thank you so much for being a MaxFun member and supporting Bullseye! We hope you enjoy this fun episode! We had a blast putting it together for you.

Follow Sleeping With Celebrities on:

• Instagram @sleepwcelebs
• Bluesky @sleepwithcelebs
• TikTok @SleepWithCelebs
• John is on Bluesky @JohnMoe

John’s acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback.

Sound Heap doesn't really have a social media presence, but you can follow John-Luke Roberts on:

• Instagram @jlukeroberts
• Bluesky @jlukeroberts.bsky.social

And you can follow producers Lead Mojo on:

• Instagram @leadmojo
• Bluesky @leadmojo.co.uk

Sound Heap x Sleeping With Celebrities was produced by Ed Morrish for Lead Mojo Productions.

Will this new collection be a nostalgic blast from the past, or should these old mini games have stayed in 2005?

Reading Glasses Merch

Recommendations Store

The Reading Glasses Book!

Links -

Reading Glasses Facebook Group

Reading Glasses Goodreads Group

Wish List

Newsletter

Libro.fm

To join our Discord channel, email us proof of your Reading-Glasses-supporting Maximum Fun membership!

Rob Van Dam, Liv Morgan, Bret Hart, MVP, The Godfather, no one is safe from our wildest analysis yet. 

Light one up and join us, beloved MaxFun Member.

Keep up with this show all week long on instagram, tiktok and bluesky.

This show was produced by Julian Burrell for Maximumfun.org

LINKS:

Go to:
EricBrightwell.com

Listen to Nobody Drives In L.A. podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2A3eaVssNwhtRz6BuxbsS9

If you like what you hear, check out our current prequel series The Young Old Derf Chronicles, or the 100+ episodes of Mission to Zyxx in our feed. Thank you for supporting Maximum Fun!

Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/QBr48wCnKzY

Original Music by Eric Near: https://bit.ly/ericnearmusic

Additional Music: “Mutant Club”and “Beginning S” by Holizna: https://holiznaroyaltyfree.bandcamp.com/; “Haunted” by Jahzzar: http://www.betterwithmusic.com/; “Making Clouds” by JMHBM: https://linktr.ee/beatmekanik; “Everybody Keep Running” by Zight: https://zight.cc/;  “Ectoplasm”  by Jason Shaw: https://audionautix.com/; “Bye-xx” by Koi-discovery: https://koi-discovery.lescigales.org/; “Luminescent” by Mindseye: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/MindsEye/; and “Cartoon” by Happiness in Music: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/happiness-in-music.

We also learn about: What are we doing some kind of royal rescue? Ellen is playing a self insert and Tom definitely isn’t, our favorite normalest boy, he’s in his kidney era, could use improvement on licking things, I’m going to make you regret that, how good are we at warhammer, apmhibstagram ribbit and webbedIn, Frogand’s rap, whoa cool normal body, the promise of a follow/collab/unblock, Caroline’s excellent new york accent, you don’t have the rhythmic snapping that’s a signal of unity menace and territorial dominance, we’re going to fucking kill you, captain america shield throw, stealing strawberry’s phone was a big mistake, clip that he said he wanted to lick his feet, we didn’t want to- most of us didnt want to hurt anybody, a chaotic training montage, a broken keropi phone case, do you have games on your phone - i frew up, i think that suggests something about me, the disney princess magical adventures castle, you can’t give yourself a nickname frob, I’d like to ride him like a horse, I can see that the phone case is cracked, lying horribly about a photoshoot to armed guards, the other path seemed more interesting anyway, uh oh you might not be getting in at all, the toll is racial micro aggression I’m sorry, there’s nothing cute about labor exploitation Tom, you can see all of my organs on onlyfrogs, part of the chaos training is I can cook sometimes, cooking montage! toad toad in the hole hole, the perfect fusion cuisine: British and American, why are we cooking in not the ratatouille series, are you flirting with a second amphibian - yeah you fuckin know it, flashback scene off the dome, she was the toad in the hole, tokyo drifting a food cart with suspension, oh god dammit we fell for it, wait is this what I’m like? Caroline sat down on a Thursday and invented a slur, it’s not like you’re going to transform into an evil bigger version of yourself, escape room time baby, he can still be a pervert about engineering, the herpeton, 50 shades of Green, phone bad, he drinks the water that turns the frogs gay, say hello to my unborn offspring, eat that man! maybe you should have tried to be someone else just a little bit, first time I’m seeing another frog’s insides and nym’s are actually pretty cool in comparison, GUYS NOWS NOT THE TIME TO DO A RAP.

Alonso's (ok, Dave White's) Chicken Piccata Pasta recipe

Listen to more Maximum Film!

https://youtu.be/lgvt7pU2ZHE

Alex Schmidt, Ben Harrison, and Adam Pranica explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of Michael Jordan making the number 23 world famous, by accident, while always wishing he could wear a different number.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• For the Love of the Game: My Story, by Michael Jordan and ghostwriter Mark Vancil
• Why Michael Jordan switched from number 45 back to 23 after first retirement in 1995 (CBS Sports)
• The meaning (and luck) behind the most famous jersey number in U.S. Olympic basketball history (NBC Sports)
• Why Michael Jordan once wore No. 12 as his Bulls jersey number (Yahoo Sports)
• Meet Peoria’s Ollie Mack, the man who wore No. 23 for the Bulls before Michael Jordan (The Peoria Journal Star)
• Basketball-Reference.com listing for Michael Jordan
• Yes, They Are Tall. No, They Do Not Play Basketball. (The New York Times) -- this is one source for claims about a high percentage of 7-foot-tall men playing pro basketball.

Appearing in this episode:

Jackie Cox, Dorinda Medley, Robert Picardo and Raúl Esparza from ep. 189.

Seth Rudetsky, Julie Klausner, Sally Taylor, and Ricki Lake from ep. 190.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Helen Hong

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next live-audience shows in LA by YOU!

To get to the secret bonus content discussion channel on our discord, just go to the #bots channel and enter the command "!spidermonkey"

PopHeist: The Eurovision 2026 Boycott, Explained

Grill Skills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbVDQKcxg00

Cold Drinks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ-JBFXh2IU

Hot Drinks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZXeFPpPJeI

Oscar's Letterboxd profile: https://letterboxd.com/ozzymonster/

Take it easy!

Doug :{

To get to the secret bonus content discussion channel on our discord, just go to the #bots channel and enter the command "!spidermonkey"

We also learn about: Actors can be more hard on themselves when learning improv, of course all good American shows start in Britan, improv doesn’t have to be about being funny it’s inherently spontaneous and playful, improv is not difficult - it’s scary, the really happy dog, there are no mistakes, supporting choices is about drawing the target around the arrow, improvisers may be unfunny at parties but they’ll be the best listeners, the triplets in trouble,  I would say upwards of eight, improv is closer to meditation than stand up, Timothy Chalamet presents the Malastoplator, Tim Hughes, getting more creative is getting out of the way of self judgement, Rick clocks that Caroline does not respect Tom, the bone club, specificity makes creativity easier, if you make a meaning out of the details there’s a ton of information in a single line, small simple choices build, everything is interesting if you pay attention to it, teaching improv is trying to prove I’m right and you’re wrong (about your ability), striving play games.

Alex Schmidt and Andrew Ti explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of the most famous false teeth in human history, and their stranger-than-fiction reality.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• The 9 Deadly Diseases That Plagued George Washington (PBS News)
• Were George Washington’s Teeth Taken from Enslaved People? (JStor Daily)
• George Washington’s Dentures (Encyclopedia Virginia -- Virginia Humanities)
• William L. Clements Library: George Washington Letter to Dr. Baker, May 29, 1781. Henry Clinton Papers. (University Of Michigan)
• Mount Vernon Stops Selling Souvenir Washington Dentures Over Ties To Slavery (DCist)
• Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth A. Fenn
• Setting Aside The Incorrect Claim About Herd Immunity (Defector.com)
• The Uncanny Artifice of George Washington (Talking Points Memo)

Appearing in this episode:

Jay Mohr, Chase Masterson, Linda November and Jim Beaver from ep. 187.

Matt Walsh, Kali Reis, Mark Verheiden, Mike Werb, and Charles “Peanut” Tillman from ep. 188.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Helen Hong

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next

 live-audience shows

 in LA by YOU!

To get to the secret bonus content discussion channel on our discord, just go to the #bots channel and enter the command "!spidermonkey"

Things we talk about:
The Frog Image Ella Sent Us
You Are a Frog Oneshot

We also learn about: Caroline’s frog license, 3 toads in the meta, frogs are super killable, it’s good to be a player, immediately PVP, would you like to see my gallbladder? the sweetest npc voice, m’lday, one day you’re not going to say “frog-sized”, alien Mr. Burns, there’s multiple romance routes, normally I’m the weird one, normal sized inhaler, JRR Toadkin, the very angry firefly, Caroline’s heart puzzle, actually this hat is camp now, oh that makes sense Caroline is DMing this one, amphibstagram, fingered friends, Nym’s trickshot, we solved frog racism, the horror of a bug too big to eat, this is my everest, I definitely know what a hamburger sword is, I know the sound of those wonderful feet anywhere, are you a foot or an eye guy, maybe the real food was the friends we made along the way, is that the largest model in the 40k series - not that you would know that you’re a frog, guys  there never was a monster - maybe society was the monster, wait Tom’s not DMing this one the monster can’t be capitalism, Chekhov’s tin man figure, and some say on that day his gallbladder grew three times its size, our new friend Customizable, I just really like being pissed on ya know, we fill out the kink column.

Alex Schmidt and Joey Clift explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of Jim Thorpe's daughter Grace, who is surprisingly little-known beyond the fact that she's Jim's daughter.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Life Story: Grace Thorpe -- 1921-2008 (The New York Historical Society)
• Grace Thorpe Protected Native Lands (Smithsonian American Women's History Museum)
• Alcatraz Occupation (U.S. National Park Service)
• Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Water Towers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwSuPXMHhaE&list=PLd2EbKTi9fyX3ok5IlSxLLjvwcYl2brlq

Alex Schmidt, David Bell, and Tom Reimann explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of a collective artistic choice nearly 2000 years ago, and how that turned yellow into a European color of betrayal, prostitution, discrimination, and more.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Yellow: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau
• The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair
• The murky history of the colour yellow (BBC)
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: The Number 13
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: The Color Blue
• Villains Fandom Wikia entry for Count Dracula as portrayed by Wes Craven

Alex Schmidt and Tom Lum explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of a lie about one of JFK's most famous speeches, and how the lie caught on, and exactly why it's impossible for it to be true.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Where the Myth of JFK’s ‘Jelly Donut’ Mistake Came From (Smithsonian Magazine)
• "Ich bin ein Berliner": A Kennedy Mistake? (American Heritage Magazine)
• Remarks of President John F. Kennedy at the Rudolph Wilde Platz, Berlin, June 26, 1963 (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library And Museum)
• One example of a Pfannkuchen (or Pfannkucken) recipe, from DaringGourmet.com

Join us as we take you back to some of our favorite places from across the world of wrestling, including a movie premier, Netflix HQ and the basement of SoFi Stadium. There are lots of tales of what happened on our amazing journeys and we're happy to take you with us.

Alex Schmidt and Ellen Weatherford explore two obviously incredibly fascinating topics: the one story that laid out most of the garlic lore for vampires, and the one plant (plus skunks) that became the namesake of the Midwest's biggest city.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Bram Stoker’s Dracula: bats, garlic, disturbing sexualities and a declining empire (The Conversation)
• Chicago Mysteries: Place of Wild Onion: Where Does Chicago Get Its Name? (WTTW Channel 11 PBS)
• Encyclopedia of Chicago: "Chicago" (Chicago Historical Society)
• The real Dracula? The bloodthirsty life of Vlad the Impaler (BBC History Extra)
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Frankenstein (1818 novel)
• Just The Zoo Of Us 123: Vampire Bats w/ Nate Marshall!
• Just The Zoo Of Us 313: Turkey Vulture

Appearing in this episode:

Anjali Bhimani, Paul Feig, Jon Weidman and Maureen McCormick from ep. 185.

Al Madrigal, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Blanca Pacheco, and Glenn Gordon Caron from ep. 186.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Helen Hong

Ashly Burch

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Alex Schmidt and Robert Brockway explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of a do-gooder, a British government scheme to exploit him, and how that made the number 13 dominant in American numerology for all of time.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Establishing the Georgia Colony, 1732-1750 (Library Of Congress)
• Ocmulgee Mounds: The Georgia Colony (U.S. National Park Service)
• The road to a slave-free Georgia: the little-known history of state founder James Oglethorpe (The Guardian)
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Indigo
• King George II (New Georgia Encyclopedia)
• This Day In History: February 22nd 1819: The U.S. acquires Spanish Florida (History.com)
• Dick Cheney, former Republican vice president and supporter of marriage equality, is dead (Advocate)
• Portman for gay marriage after son comes out (Politico.com) -- on the episode, Alex inaccurately says former Senator Rob Portman has a gay daughter. It's actually a gay son. Apologies for the error.
• Facts About The United States Flag (Smithsonian Institution)

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of a diplomatic incident in the Pacific world, its unique reliance on the cute concept of finger-crossing, and why it feels like it's from a totally different era despite happening in 2019.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

'Fingers crossed': Samoa PM hopes Australians will vote for climate action (The Guardian)

Scott Morrison brings a chunk of coal into parliament – video (The Guardian)

Federal Election 2019 Results: Coalition to form majority government as Labor looks for new leadership (Australian ABC News)

Australia fires: PM Scott Morrison sorry for Hawaii holiday during crisis (BBC News)

How February 2022 redefines extreme floods in Australia (Nature)

Inhofe brings snowball on Senate floor as evidence globe is not warming (CNN)

In The War On Protein, We Have Been Humiliatingly Defeated By Protein (Defector)

Melting Ocean Ice Affects Sea Level – Unlike Ice Cubes in a Glass (NASA EarthData)

Ted Cruz flies to Cancún as millions of Texans freeze in the dark (The Guardian) -- Ted Cruz was vacationing in Greece when the deadly Texas floods broke out. His office says he took the first flight home. (The Texas Tribune) -- note: we taped this before microbloggers surfaced photos of Ted Cruz fleeing a January 2026 freeze in Texas. We're referencing two major previous instances of similar behavior.

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of the early United States maintaining and expanding baffling medieval beliefs about breastfeeding, and the modern United States pushing the opposite beliefs in Latin America for profit.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• The Continuing Controversy Over Baby Formula (JStor Daily)
• Breast Milk as Medicine (JStor Daily)
• Happy Mother’s Day: Kids’ Screen Time is a Feminist Issue (JStor Daily)
• Study reveals no causal link between neurodevelopmental disorders and acetaminophen exposure before birth (U.S. National Institutes Of Health, April 11th 2024)
• Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials (The New York Times)

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of four centuries of art restoration using cheap white bread as a scrubbing tool. They also explore one baffling claim by a Smithsonian historian who says Italians specifically used Wonder Bread.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

1. Storm Over the Sistine Ceiling (The New York Review Of Books)
2. RESTORATION REVEALS MICHANGELO'S GIFTS (The New York Times)
3. Sistine Chapel: Ceiling (Archeoroma.org)
4. link to the essay by historian Arthur Molella, written for the Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian. The key quote we explore and critique: "For instance, while bread had been used since the 17th century to clean the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Wonder Bread proved to be an especially effective sponge in the most recent restoration of Michelangelo’s masterpiece."
5. A fragile heritage: conservation of The Last Supper (Museo del Cenacolo Vinciano)
6. link to image Katie found of a child sleeping on sliced bread in a commercial
7. Bread: A Global History by William Rubel

LINKS, ETC:

Join the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpod

Triple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of "Operation Tamarisk" in divided Cold War Germany, and the "three seashells" joke's profound anthropological relevance.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Cold War Spies Sifted Through Used Soviet Toilet Paper In Search of Clues (Atlas Obscura)
• East Germany: A failed experiment in dictatorship (DW.com)
• Demolition Man‘s Writer Explains How the 3 Seashells Came To Be (Gizmodo)
• YouTube upload of the "three seashells" joke in 'Demolition Man'
• A Brief History of TP, From Silk Road Hygiene to Pandemic Hoarding (Atlas Obscura)

Appearing in this episode:

Christine Lakin, Jon Lovett, Courtland Cox, Captain Lee Rosbach, Dorinda Medley and Alex McCord from ep. 183.

Loni Love, Nick Cho, Siedah Garrett, and Gedde Watanabe from ep. 184.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Helen Hong

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next

 live-audience shows

 in LA by YOU!

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To join our Discord channel, email us proof of your Reading-Glasses-supporting Maximum Fun membership!

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On our special BoCo podcast The Inspectors Inspectors, Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin (co-hosts of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating) recap episodes of The Inspectors. Thanks to your generosity in the past two MaxFun Drives, we're pleased to bring you this new installment in the adventures of Preston, his mom Amanda, and some other characters.

NOTE: BYUTV dot org let their rights to stream The Inspectors lapse. We've only found a streamable version of the show on the Great American PureFlix service, and they only carry Season 2. So we've made a leap forward in time to Season 2, Episode 1 ("Veronica Returns"). PureFlix costs money to view, and requires a VPN for viewing outside the U.S. and Canada.

RESEARCH LINKS:

• IMDb page for The Inspectors (2015-2019)
• Stamping out crime: Postal Service spends millions on TV show about its crime-fighting inspectors (USA Today)
• YouTube upload of Folgers Coffee Brother & Sister Commercial
• Here is one of many examples of USPIS offering cash for crime-solving tips.

Happy Holidays to each and every one of you! - Doug :{

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn are delighted to welcome Richard Kind not once but TWICE. Richard Kind, Paris, bagel orders, Sondheim, Richard Kind, and much more! 

THE PICKS

TV SHOW
Kirk: The Lowdown
Maddy: King of the Hill (Season 14)
Jason: Long Story Short

MOVIE
Kirk: Do The Right Thing
Maddy: Sinners
Jason: One Battle After Another

BOOK
Kirk: The Philosophy of Modern Song (Bob Dylan)/Children of Time (Adrien Tchaikovsky)
Maddy: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
Jason: King Sorrow (Joe Hill)

ALBUM
Kirk: Brad Mehldau - Ride into the Sun
Maddy: Mel Bryant & the Mercy Makers - Every God Forsaken Morning
Jason: Bad Religion - The Process of Belief

KIRK’S ALBUM RUNNERS-UP:
Ty Seagall - Possession
King Gizz - Phantom Island
MARO & NASAYA - LIFELINE
Tame Impala - Deadbeat
Vulfpeck - Clarity of Cal
Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke

PODCAST
Kirk: Fela Kuti: Fear No Man
Maddy: Pew Pew Bang
Jason: The Town

NEWSLETTER
Kirk: Garbage Day by Ryan Broderick
Maddy: The Handbasket by Marisa Kabas
Jason: Game File by Stephen Totilo

LINKS, ETC:
Join the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpod
Triple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

In this seasonally appropriate BoCo ep, husband and wife team Christian and Ellen Weatherford take a break from reviewing animals to roast their least-favorite Christmas song. Don’t worry, though. it is still FULL OF BIRDS.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

An adventure designed by Justin’s daughter, Charlie McElroy, age 6. Join Tommy Pastrami, Little Suzie Buttons-Johnson, and Huey Poor as they try to make their way through the Fruity Pebbles Castle of Torment: A Scary Castle with One Hundred Rats.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

In this roleplaying adventure trilogy from gamemaster Stuart Wellington, The Slopsbottom Three -- Dan McCoy, Elliott Kalan, and fan favorite guest Zhubin Parang – play beachfront restaurant staff, on the first night of summer, trying to make it through a busy shift... but CHAOS is on the menu! (There’s 2 more eps after this one waiting in in the BoCo feed!)

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Host Allan McLeod chats with legendary travel writer and TV host Rick Steves about the simple joys of walking, the transformative power of travel, and his latest book On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Kirk Hamilton, Maddy Myers, and Jason Schreier got together in the same room (this is not the norm as they do not live in the same states) to have some loosely structured debates. Such as: real-time or turn-based strategy? Mario in Metroid game or Samus in a Mario game? And more!

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of two brothers named Smith, their false first names of "Mark" and "Trade", and how that sparked everything from menthol cough drops to peppermint candy canes.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Poughkeepsie’s Cough Drop History (Hudson Valley Magazine)
• Peppermint Candy's Roots Trace Back To Herbal Healing (Tasting Table Magazine)
• The sweet origins of modern cough drops (The Johns Hopkins News-Letter)
• Plant science at the dinner table: peppermint (Michigan State University Extension School)
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Root Beer

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Former cheesemongers John Hodgman and Jordan Morris basically started a cheese podcast thanks to MaxFun members. There are 3 of these VERY GOUDA eps out, but this is one that started it all. Best to have some cheese snacks ready when you listen to this one.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

It’s probably good to start at Ep 1 for everything Valley Heat- related. But what if we told you that this ep is about freelance insurance adjuster/amateur neighborhood investigator Doug Duguay is once again announcing the Burbank International Synth Boat Dancing Competition on Burbank Lake.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Just when you thought you finally figured out how to tell the McElroy brothers’ voices apart, they go and add another voice: Matt Doyle! The first words of this ep? “Well folks, this one’s buckwild.” 

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Old Derf, star of the new miniseries that just began, hosts a series of one-shot podcast ideas, each submitted by amazing supporters like you. In this episode, the Derfcast answers your burning requests for advice about cat bribes, Knight Life, crunchy high fives, and more!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Jordan Morris, Emily Fleming, and Matt Lieb watch the pilot for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.(And once you’re done with this one, there’s a Part 2 AND another about the musical episode of Buffy!)

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Hosts Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya, and Dimitry Pompée talking about something other than Eurovision in their BoCo each month. In this ep, it’s all about anime. Jeremy takes sides in an age-old conflict, Dimitry's swept away by a Toonami, and Oscar seeks the golden armor from his Columbian childhood.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Austin Taylor and Brenda Snell have a mission. And that’s to watch every main series Air Bud film in order. In 1997, one dog arrived on the scene to change sports history forever. His name, Buddy, a four year old Golden Retriever. 

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Before Troubled Waters, we had International Waters, where comedians from the UK and US competed against each other. Our friends and former writers for IW, Jordan Morris and Sarah Morgan, join Dave for a throwback ep where they play some favorite IW games from back in the day!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

In the spirit of Musical Theater = Wrestling = Musical Theater, Hal Lublin, Lindsey Kelk, and Danielle Radford do a deep dive into the musical Hamilton and recast it with wresters.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Feeling Seen host Jordan Crucchiola is a movie expert, and there never seems to be enough time to really dive into some of the wild, wonderful, WTF movies that come up in the course of the show. One category of film that they can never say enough about? The Erotic Thriller.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

I’m not sure this needs more of a description than the title. Mallory O’Meara and Brea Grant talk about a book brought to you by the author of Smut About Doors (see their 1st ep). But this time it’s Smut About Balloon Animals.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Siblings Sydnee McElroy, Teylor Smirl, and Rileigh Smirl spice up your life with this ep. Rileigh GMs a TTRPG called Spice Punk 1997—yes, that’s right, it’s Spice Girl D&D.

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of a famous author dying by toothpick, a Greek tyrant allegedly being assassinated by toothpick, and the popular false claim that a U.S. President died by toothpick.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Biography: Agathocles of Sicily (The British Museum)
• Encyclopedia Britannica entry for Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse
• Beware the smell of bitter almonds: Why do many food plants contain cyanide? (Washington University in St. Louis "The Source" blog)
• Generations later, President Warren Harding’s sudden death recalled (National Constitution Center)
• The ‘strange’ death of Warren G. Harding (PBS News)
• Ex-President Warren Harding's Love Child Confirmed Through DNA Testing (ABC News)
• Teapot Dome Scandal (History.com)
• Let Us Now Praise the Romantic, Artful, Versatile Toothpick (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Stick Figure: The marketing genius who brought us the toothpick. (Slate.com)

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Hosts Jackie Kashian and Laurie Kilmartin talk about how, while all of comedy is “write and grind,” it can mean different things to different people. Laurie is learning so much about comedy on the REDDIT, and all in the comments! For this BoCo ep they have a glancing comic guest who is having sushi in her car with Pamela Walt.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Ify Nwadiwe (”West Coast Stu” and Stuart Wellington of the The Flop House (”East Coast Ify”) team up to explain one of their passions to Drea Clark and Alonso Duralde: Warhammer 40,000.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

This live episode from the London Podcast Festival features host Benjamin Partridge and special guests Mike Wozniak, Nadia Kamil, and Henry Paker. Plus, the most beautiful jingle you’ve ever heard: The Beef Call Number Song.  (Video BoCo available for this as well!)

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Would you like to live the thrill of being an ER Doctor, with a patient's life or death in your hands? Justin and Dr. Sydnee play through the tutorial of the board game Medical Mysteries: NYC Emergency Room, which lets the player do the exciting work of diagnosing patients. And how does it measure up to a real doctor?

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

In this special bonus episode of Black People Love Paramore, our host Sequoia Holmes sits down with BPLP fan favorite, award - winning journalist Jewel Wicker, and they get deep in Sequoia's business.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

John Moe is joined by Justin McElroy, Hal Lublin, and Laura Swisher for some very light-hearted and delightfully competitive games that are as informative as they are silly. Such as “Antidepressant, Pokemon, or State Fair Food.”

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

It turns out there's a recent CBS crime drama, produced and funded by the United States Postal Service, for educating teens. On The Inspectors Inspectors, Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin (co-hosts of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating) recap the first episode of The Inspectors. (And there are more where this came from!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn play and review Jesse's daughter Gracie's top 5 favorite video games. On today's episode, the Wayne's World video games for Nintendo and Super Nintendo.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Enjoy the goofiest Dead Pilots Society episode ever: the infamous “Weekend Dracula” script that Paul F. Thompkins challenged Steve Agee to write in a weekend. Featuring Paul F. Tompkins, Steve Agee, Andy Richter, Busy Philipps, Mark McConville.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Blair Preston AKA Alexis's dad joins Alexis and Ella McLeod for this very special episode! Blair has some fantastic stories including getting bugs to the Smithsonian, sitting in a pit of rattlesnakes, and his police encounters with a raccoon! We hope you enjoy!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Host Jesse Thorn talks with eight Bullseye listeners with one thing in common: they have a cool job! Hear from robe makers, dark matter scientists, electricians, media archaeologists and more!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

In this exclusive, non-canonical episode of Diary of a Tiny CEO, Tommy Starling - the most successful entrepreneur in the world who's under three inches tall - speaks to the founder of the Beef & Dairy Network about the B&D's WWII origins and how upsetting it is to talk to someone who's three inches tall.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

MaxFun hosts Clint McElroy and Ella McLeod answer trivia about the magic of music in a variety of settings.

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of the invention of exclamation points, their middling status in many centuries of writing, and how recent phenomena raised them to the same tier as question marks and periods.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Word Of Mouth: "Exclamation Marks!! Why do we love to hate them?" (BBC Radio 4)
• The joy of exclamation marks! (The Guardian)
• The History of the Exclamation Point (Smithsonian Magazine)
• In A Word: "The Exclamation Proclamation" (Texas A&M University Writing Center)
• Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Hosts Mike Cabellon, Sierra Katow, and Ify Nwadiwe talk to Bill Oakley (Emmy-winning Simpsons showrunner) about the best condiments, the dark side of Trader Joe’s and how to become a food influencer.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Husband and wife team Teresa and Travis McElroy are joined by the Meme Librarian, Amanda Brennan, who is here to teach us about the history and etiquette of memes!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

With host Tom Lum as their DM, Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper, and Just The Zoo Of Us host Ellen Weatherford team up for a dicey heist in the big apple. Only one catch: they're rats! Can Rex, Tango, and Muriel ratatouille their way to nab the cheddar, or will they crumble like feta?

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Did you know Dr. Gameshow has all of their pre-MaxFun archive episodes available? Like this one with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers playing absurd games submitted by listeners.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Look, sometimes you just need someone to count the sheep for you so you can go to sleep. John Moe is here to lull you sleep with numbers.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

A special extended version of Janet’s interview with Hodgman. This conversation led to the creation of E Pluribus Motto!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

In this landmark BoCo, Mark Gagliardi and Hal Lublin settle the question that's been plaguing travelers since the dawn of commercial flight: should you recline your seat?

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Brea Grant and Mallory O’Meara use this special episode to tell you their book-related secrets they've never confessed on their show. What is their most embarrassing book? What book do they lie about reading? Listen in!

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Graham Clark and Dave Shumka put together the ultimate summer playlist featuring Santana, Alice Cooper, songs that mention the word 'California', and some lesser known artists.

THANK YOU so much to the members who support our shows! We’ve collected some fan favorite eps of Bonus Content, and we’ll recommend an episode or two every day!

Rachel McElroy played the beloved video game chosen by MaxFun members: “Stardew Valley.” Then Rachel and her husband Griffin talk about her experience being the new farmer in town.

Alex Schmidt, Katie Goldin, and special guest Jason Pargin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of New York City and South Dakota becoming the top two candidates for a U.N. headquarters location, and the grieving father who dreamed of a beautiful dinosaur-filled home for world peace.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• The United Nations Headquarters That Never Was -- Take a look back at a proposal to build a massive U.N. headquarters in the remote Black Hills of South Dakota. (History.com)
• Shadows of Rushmore: South Dakota's Bold Campaign to Host the United Nations (99% Invisible)
• United Nations: The First Fifty Years by Stanley Meisler
• The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations by Paul Kennedy
• Inside the Improbable, Audacious and (So Far) Unstoppable Rise of Zohran Mamdani (The New York Times Magazine)
• Grindr Dating App Crashes in Milwaukee During RNC: Everything We Know (Newsweek)
• Massive Grindr outage reports coincide with the Charlie Kirk memorial service in Arizona (Pride.com)
• The Unlikely Nightlife Hotspot at United Nations Headquarters (Atlas Obscura)
• Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Tires

Appearing in this episode:

Lilan Bowden, A Martinez, Damian Young, Laura Silverman, and Matt Walsh from ep. 182.

Hosts:

Julian Burrell

J. Keith van Straaten

Ashly Burch

Credits:

Theme Song by Jonathan Green.

Maximum Fun’s Senior Producer is Laura Swisher.

Co-Producer and Editor is Julian Burrell. Assistant Editor is Valerie Moffat.

Seeing our next live-audience shows in LA by YOU!

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of bone spurs, how they go unnoticed, and how they form in our heels, our ears, and all sorts of other parts of our bodies.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• What Is a Heel Spur? -- Thirty-eight percent of people have the same bone growth that kept Trump out of Vietnam. (The Atlantic)
• Skulls With ‘Surfer’s Ear’ Suggest Ancient Pearl Divers in Panama (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Diseases & Conditions: Bone spurs (Mayo Clinic)
• Online Etymology Dictionary entry for "spur"

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of four ways the government, credit bureaus, non-profits, and TikTok guessers altered millions of Americans' credit scores, within the past couple years, without most people noticing.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Mortgage Lenders Can Use a Second Credit Score. Is That Good for Borrowers? (The New York Times)
• FICO Scores to Include a Shopper’s ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Loan History (The New York Times)
• Diagnosis: Debt -- As some medical debt disappears from Americans' credit reports, scores are rising (NPR)
• Judge Scraps Rule Eliminating Medical Debt on Credit Reports (The New York Times)
• Despite collapse of his forgiveness plan, millions had student loans canceled under Biden (PBS)
• The law everyone is suddenly turning to because of DOGE (Politico.com)
• A TikTok Trend Promises to Erase Student Loan Debt. Heres Why It Doesn’t Work. (The New York Times)
• A Way for People With Low Credit Scores to Raise Them -- A new study finds that tenants who pay their rent on time can see “significant increases” if the payments are reported to credit bureaus. (The New York Times)

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Books Mentioned -
The Bewitching

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore the obviously incredibly fascinating topic of the most famous "circus music", its Czech composer in the Austro-Hungarian military, and the surprising ways his life and the song entered the 20th century.

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Julius Fučík – Czech Republic’s forgotten composer (Radio Prague International)
• The best of Czech classical music, part 3: Julius Fučík’s Entrance of the Gladiators (Radio Prague International)
• A Brief History of Circus Music (WQXR Public Radio)
• The Circus Music That We Know Was Originally a Military March (SOFREP.com)
• Fučík: Florentiner March (The University Of Texas Bands / YouTube)
• Sousa: Liberty Bell (Band of the Grenadier Guards / YouTube)

The panel discusses what made the pairing of wrestling and Pokemon work and why the online discourse that surrounds the two entities is so similar.