jeffullrich

Please, no more spoilers. I hate deleting comments. Thank you.

Please, no more spoilers. I hate deleting comments. Thank you.

I'm with Bucho on this one.

@Rutabaga Great post, I wish I had time to respond properly right now but I don't. But I love that you wrote it. Thanks!

Thanks Julia and Steve! To everyone else, where's my comments, yo? This was my favorite episode yet, let's talk about it!

Are you talking about Yourcast? If so, go to the contact page and email tech support. Thanks for joining!

Another gem.

Well it looks like Earwolf is going to lose Dirk as a listener because he's right, Totally Laime is going to win because, well...I've fixed it. Here's the back story...Elizabeth Laime and I are having an affair. I've been in love with her for years. She wanted to have a successful podcast so I put together a plan. I would convince my wife (who didn't know about Elizabeth until right now) to let me quit my job and invest all of our money in a podcasting business. I then infiltrated the comedy world, starting first with Scott Aukerman, so that I could create Earwolf. But since Elizabeth didn't have a "big name", I couldn't just add her to Earwolf, it would have looked suspicious. So I spent an entire year adding other shows, biding my time, waiting for my chance. In the meantime, I was casually mentioning to all the comedians I know that they should be a guest on that great "indie" podcast, Totally Laime and they fell for it. I would stock her show with people I planned on guest judging the Earwolf Challenge, which no one else knew about yet. Then I convinced Scott that we should do the challenge, hired producers and even got Matt Besser to host. I wanted it to look as much like a real, legitimate reality show as possible. And my plan was working. No one knew of my love for Elizabeth (sorry Andy) and the comedians never put two and two together that I had suggested they guest on TL. As you can see, my strategy has paid off. TL will win, finally get to have a successful podcast and no one will know that I was behind the whole thing. The annoying thing now is that I'm broke and all I have to show for my efforts is this stupid podcasting network that I never wanted anyway. It's a small price to pay for love. No thanks to Dirk and J Pangelinan for blowing my cover.

Damn, you beat me to the first comment!

How has no one commented on this episode yet??!?!? This was genius! Do you guys realize that Seth was playing the other character too? Seth is just too good at what he does. And great job of editing by Dustin.

Tig just kills me, always.

You nailed it Caroline. Zoom!

@Daniel - Thanks for making me laugh.

Hopefully mid-September. Andres has been working his butt off on this, but I pulled him off of the project today to work on something even more important. He'll keep making progress but not as fast. It's too bad to wait on this, but I think everyone will be excited by what else is coming. Details in the coming weeks!

If you guys aren't careful, this will turn into a podcast before long...

One one of The Wolf Den episodes I suggest that we have open source revenue generation. David emailed me and requested I create a forum topic for it. So here it is, post any and all ideas you have for how Earwolf can increase revenue (and profits). Have at it!

Thank you Sean, I really appreciate the kind words. And thanks for supporting us with the purchase of the shirt, it really helps!

@Everyone - I can see the points made after I posted. It can just get frustrating to know all the details and the in's and out's of things and then read opinions that are based without that information. No one's fault, it just kind of got to me today. But your points are well taken. @Niall - Thanks for at least giving it a try, it's definitely not for everyone.

I'm listening to the new episode now, it'll be out tonight at midnight PST! Thanks for listening Michael, sorry I've been gone for the past few weeks.

Warning - This post is going to come off as both defensive and harsh...because it is. I love the challenge and especially the board activity. It's great to read what everyone thinks. But I have a few things to get off of my chest. 1. It is unrealistic to expect the judges to listen to any of the shows before they get there. We are very fortunate that all of the judges take the hour to commute round trip to the studio and also spend 2 hours recording. 3 hours for free from people like Howard and Marc is very generous. On the weekend (we record on Saturdays) no less. When they aren't otherwise on tour working their asses off. I'm not going to send them a file and say, "Please spend another two hours listening to samples of these 7 podcasts." They would tell me to go fuck myself, and rightfully so. That doesn't even include Matt, Frank and Peter who do WAY more work than anyone else. I doubt many accountants would be willing to work for free on Saturday. 2. Yes, we could and maybe should explain each show to each judge, but again, that's prep work they don't have time to do or keep straight, or it makes the show 10 minutes longer which, believe me, would piss most people off. We already require quite a time commitment. If you want the best in the world as judges, you have to accept the limitations. Otherwise, you'd get very different judges who would not be able to offer the same high quality insight that has made this show great. 3. There is no bias in favor of Totally Laime. Maron has been on the show, yes, but he doesn't listen to his own podcast, much less anyone else's. I know this for a fact. And they are not "friends". TL is in LA and people do their show. They are not friends with any of the judges. I agree with everyone else that this was not the best week for TL, but I still laughed more than most of the other submissions. I don't think there has been any "free passes" and it pisses me off that it was suggested. 3a. We went through a million podcasts before we chose these ten. In a perfect world, we would have discovered the genius of the guy living in his parents basement in Cleveland. Great story. But guess what? He either doesn't exist or isn't interested in being on the challenge. So we picked the best 10, not the most obscure. I'm 100% sure that has made for a better show, even if TL isn't "raw". 4. To say "Earwolf would probably like a sketch podcast." is insulting. This show is about itself; pushing into new ground and having fun along the way. With integrity. I'm not looking for a new show out of this, we are rewarding the winner with a spot in our network. Big difference. If it were the way you suggested, this Challenge would have been run VERY differently. I have no say in who gets eliminated each week and we're going to welcome the winner, regardless of the show format. Because it will be funny and they will have won. 5. Let's not forget this is a competition with rules that each contestant must follow. Is it perfect? No. I came up with the challenge concept and most of the challenges and I stand behind them. What other competition only makes each contestant submit their specialty? You don't see people on Top Chef who do great Italian refuse to make Thai food. That's part of what stretches each contestant and makes for a more interesting show. The contestants knew this before they signed up. Okay, I could go on but I'll stop. I care a great deal about this show and just want to make sure everyone here understands why things are the way they are and know that a TON of time was put in to thinking this thing through.

We're working on both!

@Bucho - I probably am too sensitive to criticism, but I don't really agree with your second point. I think the main point of the show is to have high quality conversation with crazy talented people about what makes a great show. At the end of the day, the funniest submissions will advance, regardless of the challenge structure. I think the looseness of the challenges is part of the content I find most compelling. I am very tough to please, and I am thrilled with the quality of this show. It's being executed very well and, as has been well documented, has never been done before. I'm enjoying hearing everyone figure it out. And reading the reactions too

@Fanta - Thanks for the suggestions. Basically, it's nearly impossible to book the judges for ONE show, much less 10. The caliber of judges we have are not the kind of people sitting around waiting for something to keep them busy for 5 hours a week. Also, this doesn't pay. We're fortunate that Matt sees the value and puts in all the time that he does, to get one or two more people at his level to do the same would be very difficult. I won't even get into the scheduling nightmares this would cause. So, I guess I'm saying I doubt this will change if we ever have a second season.

@Brendan - Just to be clear, each and every show has a chance to win. There is no agenda. Matt has complete autonomy and the guest judges are just that, guest judges with their own opinions. I don't like the idea that there is some "producery" bullshit going on here, it couldn't be further from the truth. We invited each show to compete because we thought it was possible they could be a good fit for Earwolf.

@Fanta - Finally, some controversy on the Forum! Thanks for letting us know what you think.