The Colin McEnroe Show

Song Sung Blue is a musical biopic written and directed by Craig Brewer and based on a documentary of the same name. It tells the true story of a Neil Diamond tribute act, Lightning & Thunder. Hugh Jackman plays Lightning, and Kate Hudson was just nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her turn as Thunder.

And: Merrily We Roll Along is a filmed version of the 2023 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondhei...

Greenland is the largest island in the world. Its landmass accounts for 95% of the Kingdom of Denmark, but it’s 80% covered in ice sheet.

Greenland takes up roughly the same area as Alaska and California combined, while its population is roughly the same size as the population of … West Haven, Connecticut.

Oh, and you may have noticed that Greenland has been in the news a bit lately.

This hour: an exploration of Greenl...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one.

This hour, the conversation winds around to politics, Greenland, President Trump, hope, fear … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

MUSIC FEATURED (in order):

• United States of Whatever ...

For many of us, handbags are an essential part of our lives. They allow us to leave the house with everything we need, and they also can be another place to show off our status or style. This hour, we look at the evolution of the handbag. We'll talk about famous "It Bags", how handbags contributed to human development, and the impact of the Walmart "Birkin."

GUESTS: 

• Nancy MacDonell: Fashion jou...

Marty Supreme is the first movie written and directed by Josh Safdie without his former filmmaking partner, his brother Benny Safdie. It is a sports comedy-drama-thriller about a professional ping pong player played by Timothée Chalamet, who just won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy.

And: Good Night, and Good Luck.: Live on Broadway is the recorded version of the li...

Are we as a population getting dumber? How would we know if we were? This hour: stupidity. We’ll look at the history and philosophy of stupidity, and explore how it shows up in our daily lives and politics.

GUESTS:

• Lane Brown: Features writer for New York Magazine, who recently wrote "A Theory of Dumb"
• Stuart Jeffries: Journalist and author. His new book is A Short History of Stupidity
• Shannon Ma...

Touch, grip, read, dance, gesture — what can’t they do? Our fingers are so vital to our everyday life, sometimes it seems they have minds of their own.

This hour, a look at the hidden language of finger gestures, the future of Braille, and the joys and challenges of animating fingers for the movies.

GUESTS:

• Kensy Cooperrider: Cognitive scientist, writer, and host of the Many Minds podcast
• Jonathan McNicol...

Touch, grip, read, dance, gesture — what can’t they do? Our fingers are so vital to our everyday life, sometimes it seems they have minds of their own.

This hour, a look at the hidden language of finger gestures, the future of Braille, and the joys and challenges of animating fingers for the movies.

GUESTS:

• Kensy Cooperrider: Cognitive scientist, writer, and host of the Many Minds podcast
• Jonathan McNicol...

What is the status of expertise in our world? This hour we look at the so called "death of expertise." We talk about the role of experts throughout society. Plus, we learn how to master a skill, and the joy of trying.

GUESTS: 

• Tom Nichols: Staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. He is also a professo...

This hour, America’s Greatest Living Film Critic, David Edelstein, joins us to look back at the year in movies that was 2025.

Plus, The Nose tries to catch up on some of the awards-season movies it’s missed — movies like After the Hunt, Cover-Up, It Was Just an Accident, Jay Kelly, Sentimental Value, Train Dreams, and more.

GUESTS:

• David Edelstein: America’s Greatest L...

There are thought to be about 17 million living flies for every human alive on Earth.

They’re predators and parasites and pests, but they’re pollinators too. They help us solve crimes, heal wounds, and understand genetics and evolution. And they literally help at least one artist paint his paintings.

Also this hour: A look at David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of, you guessed it: The Fly.

GUESTS:

• Jonathan Balcomb...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one.

This hour, the conversation winds around to CDs, records, and consuming music, Buddhist monks, our show, young listeners … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

The Colin...

Wikipedia has lately been under attack, accused of bias and spreading propaganda. And for years students have been told not to trust the source. But are any of those claims fair? This hour, we take a look at the free online encyclopedia, how it functions, and its role in the modern world. We'll ask: can we trust the information we find there? And we'll celebrate the joys of falling down a Wikipedia rabbit ...

Historian Timothy Snyder is the author of the books On Freedom and On Tyranny. This hour we listen back to the conversation we had in March about the latest in our country, and what we can learn from history.

GUEST: 

• Timothy Snyder: Holds the inaugural Chair in Modern European History, supported by the Temerty Endowment for Ukrainian Studies, at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Polic...

As we have every year for at least the last 12 years, to round out the year, we round up the best jazz of the year.

GUESTS:

• Jen Allen: A pianist, composer, arranger, and educator; her new album is Possibilities
• Noah Baerman: A pianist, composer, and educator; in 2025, he has released a four-volume series of albums called Right Now
• Gene Seymour: A film, television, and music critic

The Colin McEnroe Show is avai...

Lists feel especially suited to the digital age, but humans have been creating lists for a long time.

So why are we drawn to lists?

This hour, the art and the utility of the list.

GUESTS:

• Matthew Dicks: A West Hartford elementary school teacher and the author of Twenty-One Truths About Love

• Dan Kois: Editor and writer at Slate, where he recently wrote the list “The 50 Greatest Fictional ...

On the night of December 4, we went to Watkinson School in Hartford, put 11 performers together on the stage there, and let them rock their way through 27 holiday- and holiday-adjacent classics.

We’re turning that two-hour performance into two radio shows over the two holiday weeks. Part onepremiered on Christmas Eve.

And this hour, live from the Foisie Family Amphitheater at Watkinson, it’s part two of our annual holid...

On the night of December 4, we went to Watkinson School in Hartford, put 11 performers together on the stage there, and let them rock their way through 27 holiday- and holiday-adjacent classics.

Our plan is to turn that two-hour performance into two radio shows over the two holiday weeks.

This hour, live from the Foisie Family Amphitheater at Watkinson, it’s part one of our annual holiday spectacular!

GUESTS:

• Jim Chapdel...

This hour is about self-checkout technology and its impacts. We'll debate its pros and cons, look at the history of self-service at grocery stores, and talk about the future of technology in stores.

Plus, we'll learn about the psychology of "weak ties," and the value of talking to strangers in places like the checkout aisle.

GUESTS: 

• Christopher Andrews: Associate Professor and Chair of Sociolog...