Bucho

-- Bobby reminds me of Zach Galifianakis for some reason. Maybe it's his tone of voice and the fact he's hilarious. Also particularly loved Scott's Hollywood Facts this episode. They're always fun but this time they were magical fun. And Mother of Cthulhu was Ozzie Patinkin superb. That wasn't a question but the answer is still yes. -- Random highlight: The plane break false alarms. "That's a jet ski." "It's a transformer." "It was a bumble bee." I was laughing my parts off. -- Then when the Blood Vessels arrived I about exploded with explosions. Nothing short of magical.

I agreed with the chaps that the Ham Radio sketch didn't land like it was meant to and LOVED how they articulated their thoughts on it but their critique made me WANT to hear from Brett about why he'd made the decisions the judges raised questions over. This was the first time I've heard Brett but I didn't hear any disrespect in his responses, just the desire to explain where those decisions - however misguided they might've been - had come from. I support that expression because it's intriguing. I'm not a comedian or podcaster myself but that nuts and bolts stuff fascinates the bejebus out of me.

Yeah, good call JW. I've heard Myq Kaplan talk about stand-up contests in a similar way, where a joke guy like him has an advantage over comics who deal in longer form bits because contests start out requiring very short sets. I guess podcasting is the same, in that some shows naturally fit into being able to carve out a two minute section of punchy content while other shows, even if they may actually be more entertaining over the length of a full show, will suffer because of contest format and not because of talent. Then again, I wouldn't change anything about the format of The Challenge, I think they've got it about right and it's entertaining the way it is.

Caroline's explanation of the relevance of sound issues was dead on and I'm stoked that TVZ Chris has stepped up to the plate and embraced that constructive criticism. Sound quality is fundamental to audio entertainment and delivering a podcast show with crappy sound is like delivering a TV show with out-of-focus video or a piano recital on an untuned instrument. It's unreasonable to expect the judges to simply ignore the primary element of the medium when that element goes some way to obscuring what they've been brought in to judge.

This was the first episode I listened to of the Challenge. I was drawn in when I saw that The Godfather and The Gateway were The Guests and over the course of the episode their superb commentary and Matt Besser's brilliant hosting really hooked me to want to follow the show from here on.

Love that Myq Kaplan. LOVE him. Those Sklars are pretty damn great also.

I seventh Pardo, Richter, Burress, Kroll, Weird Al, The Bammer, Samberg, Sklars, Sharpling, Reggie, Hardwick, JT and Hot Saucerman. I also nominate Wolfpal Mr Jesse Thorn, with a particular ear towards his taking a gander at the chart for his beloved hip hop. And I'd love to hear what chemistry Myq Kaplan and Wewe have with each other, let alone Myq's take on the music charts given that he's a muso himself.

Wewe's hilarious. Fact! Kulap's adorable. Fact! The show is an unalloyed delight. FACT!

I liked the episode a lot too - playfully abusive Jeff was fun. So much for claiming you're not funny. Between work and travel I've listened to between 30 and 50 hours of podcasting a week since I discovered them in 2005 when, like Frank Pulaski said, the vast majority in the comedy section were a loooooooooong way from professional. Then within a week, sometime in September or October of '05, I discovered Keith and The Girl and The Sound Of Young America, two shows which were a significant cut above the rest in terms of both production quality and funny. KATG were the first show I found in the comedy section at Podcast Alley (there was no podcast section in iTunes back then) that seemed to have really decided that comedy podcasting could be done in a professional way. They took the simple conversational format and added in guest comics and pretty much blazed the trail that Pardo, Carolla, Maron and co would later follow them down. In fact I first heard about The Sklar Brothers from comedy uber-nerd Keith Malley mentioning them on KATG, but it was TSOYA's magnificent Earwolf associated Jesse Thorn who pointed me towards both Comedy Death Ray and Sklarboro Country, and from there I tuned into The Wolf Ded and Who Charted. Whole lifetimes have passed since I first heard KATG and TSOYA, the true pioneers of professional comedy podcasting, and I'm not the least bit surprised that both Jesse and Keith and Chemda have been making their full-time livings from podcasting for a number of years now.

Loved listening to you two yap about this stuff. Onwards and upwards!

Edgar was great and Joe was fine and Scott was as lovely as ever. But as much as I enjoy me some Matt Besser I don't need to hear Martin Riley again.