Tuesday, January 25, 2011

CURRENT OBSESSIONS: Growing Old With Comedy Death Ray Radio

A month ago, I couldn't have explained how a "podcast" worked if my life depended on it. I never had any interest in this particular medium, and as a result, never explored any of the terrific shows floating around the digital ether. But IC Bros Peter and Royce changed all that, urging me to check out Earwolf.com's weekly podcast Comedy Death Ray, hosted by longtime comedy writer Scott Aukerman (probably best known for his work on Upright Citizen's Brigade and Mr. Show With Bob And David). Sure, comedy podcasts can be a bit of an acquired taste, but when one's ears grow weary of a constant death metal assault, a simple gathering of human voices--accompanied by frequent humorous allusions and a distinct lack of blastbeats--can be soothing, fulfilling, even a bit rewarding. I won't go into too much detail here, but it is a theory of mine that adults of a certain age tend to abandon "rock and roll radio" for "talk radio" when their lust for life begins to truly fade--and my current addiction to CDR represents that same idea in motion.
Join me, won't you?

A brief collection of CDR's greatest hits as follows:


(Nick Kroll as El Chupacabra)


(James Adomian as Huell Howser)


(Seth Morris as Bob Ducca)


(Matt Besser as Bjork)


(Brett Gelman performs "iBrain")


(James Adomian as Jesse "The Mind" Ventura)

If you are old and boring enough to find this sort of thing entertaining, you might also enjoy Will Franken's podcast Things We Did Before Reality, Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling, Paul F. Tompkins' Pod F. Tomkast, or Doug Benson's Doug Loves Movies. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some lukewarm oatmeal and Murder, She Wrote reruns to get back to.

7 comments:

jethroskull said...

Deathray has a show on ifc too,I think.

Unknown said...

Saw some clips of the IFC show and it looks promising.

Max Evel said...

Had to do a double take on The Selleck.

Cory said...

ifc show is just little interstitial clips in between the shows. i used to go to cdr when it first started back in the day and was a regular audience member when it moved to ucb la. you can still go every wed. and see the best comedy in the world. come early and you can catch doug loves movies.

Anonymous said...

Upright Citizens Brigade rules!!!1

BrundleflyKT said...

The Adam Carolla podcast has become an every day staple of my entertainment. Just the best. Harland Highway is good, with comedian Harland Williams, its good if you dont necessarily have to have crude dick and fart jokes to get a chuckle. Jay and Silent Bob Get Old is good. and i also like the Tom Green podcast. uhh.. dont wanna leave anything out... OH, and any interview with Norm MacDonald. Dudes like Jesus to me.

RiigormortiiS said...

Oh sweet post! I recently got addicted to these things too. Some of my daily diet includes Sound Opinions which are two dorks from Chicago talking about popular music and the Requiem Metal Podcast which are two other dorks from Michigan I believe. They have ties to Decibel mag and and do classic album dissections and such. CDR gets amazing comics on board with every episode. I'm looking forward to some of these others.