Rutabaga

@Swirly Bear I don’t think a show can be too good for this contest. I think we can all be sure nothing sinister is going on and Earwolf isn’t using this contest to promote a show they have already chosen as the winner. Therefore the only other alternative is that the shows like Lil’ Dum Dum and Totes Laime aren’t quite at a level that Earwolf would say yes to immediately. In that case, saying you aren’t good enough to be on the network, but you are too good to be in this contest, would be super unfair.

I actually thought the stuff the F+’s guest read this week was very funny, but (once I heard it) I totally agreed with the criticism that they were stepping on the guest. I also think they could take a little more time to set up where things are coming from. Suddenly this guy is reading about what he was reading about, and it was obvious that Marc missed one or two words in the opening sentence and that lost him completely on the whole thing. I think he might have actually enjoyed that if it had been clearer to him. In none of the Challenge clips, as far as I remember, have they ever said this is from a forum about XYZ. Their sound was much better this time than previously and I think they deserve credit for at least trying. People say the sketch shows have a tough time integrating guests, but their show has it much worse. Isn’t there already like 14 of them? . The Fort is baffling to me. Cody Nelson said in this thread: “The Fort has a ton of potential, they've just yet to find and release it.” I couldn’t agree with this more. I love everything about what they are trying to do, but I just haven’t really found any of it that funny. They seem like they want to be a more structured CBB, which is a fantastic idea. I have no right to criticize their comedy any further, but I would just really like them to come out and wow me in the coming weeks. . TV Zombies is on the chopping block for me this week. They are the only podcast left that I wouldn’t listen to regardless of quality. The fact that their show has such a short shelf life is a deal breaker for me. In my mind, podcasts should be almost entirely evergreen. If I fall behind and have to listen to 6 week old news stories and TV show discussions, I am not going to catch up. Podcasting is pretty much the ultimate place for being niche, but they aren’t my niche I guess. I think this challenge could have easily been them interviewing a guest and disproving much of what I just said, but instead it was more a showcase that they seem to be one single thing. . I say Totally Laime, TV Zombies and F+ in the bottom three with Totally Laime getting a lecture, F+ getting a shape up or ship out type final lecture, and TV Zombies eliminated with Matt not defending them too much because he is scared he is being impartial.

I disagree with the idea that Matt’s lack of preparation hurts the show. I think he has been clear he isn’t looking for one set thing. To me, the most interesting part of this whole podcast is hearing Matt talk about what a recurring segment is and isn’t, what a theme can and can’t be, and all the dissecting of the current podcast formats. Or stuff like hearing Paul F talk about how he wasn’t sure what 2 minutes of his podcast he would play during the content challenge and having the judges discuss that. The contestants are secondary characters in this whole thing. They provide the jumping off point for all the interesting discussion. The Host and Judges are the real stars. Getting rid of the process of how they come up with the judging criteria, or the discussion of what the challenge means would make this into just one long public job interview. This challenge was especially weird because no one would force a show to actually have a recurring segment if it doesn’t fit in at all, but a good podcast should be able to at least put something out that fits the challenge, even without set in stone guidelines. I was really surprised Ham Radio went with the movie trailer. I thought Matt’s talk about how everyone does movie trailers, and that it isn’t really unique enough to be considered a recurring segment would dissuade him from it. I like the idea that a recurring segment of a show is something that if someone else did it, they'd basically be stealing from you. I could see him being in the bottom 3 based purely on “song choice” again. Every time I hear the Bob and Dan Cast, I like them more. They have such a cool vibe and some really creative, silly topics. I think I’d love their show if I listened to it, but I’ll only do that if they win this whole thing, so I am rooting for them.

I think the coaching sessions become slightly redundant after the third or fourth podcast gets talked to. Especially because the contestants are just talking about what we are about to hear in the next episode. However, Matt offers some amazing insight and suggestions. One weird problem is that it sort of comes out piecemeal to each individual show. Also, it was more prevalent with this week’s challenge because only a couple recorded new stuff, but even with Matt offering great advice, there may be no way to apply what he says to the actual challenge. I think it would be a little more interesting to hear Matt and someone else discuss what makes a good theme song or what sort of content they personally enjoy and why (sort of a more in depth discussion of how the second episodes start). Let the contestants listen to that and try to use its advice. Obviously you can’t ask each week’s judges to come in twice, but Matt and pretty much any successful podcaster can have a discussion and I think it would be very interesting and informative. I also think this show is going to get better and better as the weeks go on. As less podcasts are around, the more specific and in depth everything will get, and more specificity / depthificity is pretty much always better.

This week had tons of great advice. Jesse’s suggestion of taping individual tracks and then mixing them later sounds like an amazingly simple and good idea that I’d bet a lot of podcasters just never thought of or are too lazy to do. Everyone has a threshold for how bad the audio can be before they turn off a podcast. It will be interesting to see which of the skype based podcasts take his advice to heart and which don’t. If next week TVZ and F+ have almost perfect audio quality, I’ll give them a lot of extra points for effort. I thought The Hammer’s push back on the criticism was going to get him dismissed this week, but it will be much more interesting to see how he deals with it in the long run. I think he has actually missed the mark the most on the two challenges. Not to say that his performance was bad, but that it seemed like he made huge mistakes that he is better than (though I have never listened to his show), so I look forward to seeing how he does in the other challenges. Also, I can sort of see the backlash against Totally Laime for being too much of a frontrunner already without being a huge stylistic leap forward for Earwolf, but that two minute clip made me want to listen to that show way more than any other. They have played the game perfectly so far, and it is probably because their show is very good. All in all I am really enjoying the Earwolf Challenge.

In Doug Loves Movies type controversial fashion I think Scott needs to go back and award Cornballs the win in Hollywood Facts. He answered the question “Would you like to work with Antonio Banderas?” totally correctly (Scott even said so), and should have gotten a point. I am now excited to see Attack the Block, if it is half as good as the last movie Scott spent a whole show promoting (Bridesmaids) then it will be one of my favorites this year.

Really interesting episode. I liked the discussion about whether a show needs to be good right away, or if it has time to grow. I am super on the fence. The biggest problem with the entire podcast landscape is that there are just way too many high quality ones. And, there is probably a high quality one that super fits someone’s exact tastes. That is certainly great for the listener, but I think it puts a huge premium on the quality of every individual episode. Someone can listen to five minutes of a podcast, not like it, then never listen again without ever really missing out on overall entertainment because there are just so many other great choices. At the same time the listener base is growing so rapidly that new and interesting things from an existing show can convert / pull in a new hardcore fan. This is certainly evident with Jeff’s statistic of so many people becoming listeners because of a host being a guest on another podcast or Christine Taylor’s Gateway podcast guests things. I’d be interested to know when Chris feels like he found his voice in the podcasting medium. The first 10 episodes of Nerdist were pretty regular around the kitchen table style shows, but then he started really innovating more than I think “growing”. His live panels that he moderates, the interviews with people for Wired magazine, the new faces standup thing, the muppets, his Terriers slobberfest episode (best TV show ever), the musical episode, all these things were/are awesome, new and different. I think he way underplays how interestingly innovative he has been over the last two years. He is ridiculously killing it on the stand up lately too. “Growth” to me implies a gradual shifting, but I think he is taking big leaps pretty often. The same can really be said about Earwolf, and that is what makes both of them so interesting.