The Cracked Podcast

Alex Schmidt is joined by Adam Tod Brown and Chet Wild, the hosts of Unpopular Opinion’s “The 90s Sucked” podcast. They’re exploring huge, meaningful, world-altering ways the 1990s never stopped happening to us. They’ll also reveal which element of the ‘90s stuffs the nation’s landfills to this day, which ‘90s band happily played a show in a living room, and which ‘90s after-effects are most worth looking out for in 2020, ...

Alex Schmidt is joined by Jody Avirgan (FiveThirtyEight, 30 For 30) and Nicole Hemmer (historian, author 'Messengers Of The Right'). Jody & Nicole host a fantastic new podcast called 'This Day In Esoteric Political History'. On this show, the three of them share amazing stories from T.D.I.E.P.H., and from elsewhere, about America facing shutdown-level crises. It turns out the United States often faces pandemics, crashe...

Alex Schmidt is joined by the incredible Andy Daly, star of ’Review’ and all of the rest of TV. This podcast is inspired by Dalton Wilcox’s long-simmering project ‘Bonanas For Bonanza’, a rewatch podcast (theoretically) tackling all 431 episodes of the 1959-1973 Western adventure TV show ‘Bonanza’. It turns out even the earliest 'Bonanza' episodes are quite odd -- which begs the question, how weird can a long-running show ...

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writer & “Creature Feature” podcast host Katie Goldin for a run through animal-specific myths springing up around coronavirus. They’ll break down whether nature *really* is “returning”, what the heck is going on with bats and tigers, and why your housecat is being smart about this situation. Also they’ll reveal some actually-fascinating true animal elements of the world shutting down th...

Alex Schmidt calls up Chicago White Sox play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti, to explore what it’s like simulating a sports season that may never happen outside of his PlayStation 4. They’ll also examine the weird way virtual sports can turn meaningful, discover how Taiwan resumed real baseball a week ago, and dig into sports’ role as a canary in the coal mine of modern American society.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.c...

Alex Schmidt is joined by Adam Tod Brown (Unpopular Opinion, MTV, Playboy) and Dan Hopper (Ranker, The New Yorker, CollegeHumor) for a look at some things COVID-19 put on hold -- specifically the most foolish, inefficient, straight-up bad things in the entire world. So throw on some headphones and have a fun & critical think about everything from the Olympics to April Fools Day to an insanely wasteful daily practice we...

Alex Schmidt is joined by journalist Olga Khazan, author of ‘Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World’. They’ll take a deep dive into personal stories and scientific studies about life as a weirdo. Discover the cultural, social, mental, and physical ramifications of living outside society’s norms. Also stick around for the surprising upsides of that kind of life. Because here’s one way being alive is more ...

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/podcasters Adam Tod Brown (Unpopular Opinion) and Jeff May (Sideshow’s Side Show) for the strangest, silliest, oddest psychological warfare ever plotted by national governments. Discover tales of elected officials and professional militaries dreaming up pranks, toys, holograms, and more bizarre tools for crushing their enemies...even if the execution of those plots would boggle the mind.

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Alex Schmidt is joined by Billy Wayne Davis (Conan, Adult Swim) and Kandice Martellaro (Stan Against Evil, Femmebot PhD) for the silliest minutiae that slipped through the cracks of IMPORTANT HISTORY. Listen for surprisingly wacky elements of World War 2, human spaceflight #1, the Battle of Agincourt, and more events nobody remembers as embarrassing and awkward (even though they should).

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.c...

Alex Schmidt is joined by Siobhan Thompson (Rick and Morty, Dimension 20) and Andrew Ti (Mixed-ish, Yo Is This Racist?) for a trip through the strangest canon ever grafted onto a TV show. They’ll turn up late-season canon decisions that broke entire television universes. Also be sure to listen for strange network promos and a stranger talk show appearance that make your favorite science fiction worlds too bizarre to compre...

Alex Schmidt is joined by Dan Hopper (Ranker, CollegeHumor, The Washington Post) for a look at movie & TV locations that fans are pilgrimaging into oblivion. Discover the most neighborhood-snarling, pizza-chucking, monastery-crumbling behaviors in the whole world of fandom. Find out how one monkey's paw-style studio deal turned part of Spain blue forever. And find out how Viewers Like You can be more thoughtful toward ...

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/podcasters Kate Willett (The Late Show, ‘Reply Guys’) and Eli Yudin (‘What A Time To Be Alive’) for a look at the weirdest ways the children of rich maniacs bought themselves professional careers. Listen for pop stardom, sports glory, and more careers you can try on like a hat if your dad is a dictator/mafioso/Bond villain inspiration.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/7-weir...

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians & alien comedy experts David Christopher Bell (Gamefully Unemployed, "Fox Mulder Is A Maniac") and Moujan Zolfaghari (Mission To Zyxx, 'At Home With Amy Sedaris'). They’re digging into the most common lazy media tropes, frustrating hoaxes, and generally confusing myths about aliens. So throw on some headphones, increase your media literacy, and be ready to spot the REAL signs of extr...

Alex Schmidt is joined by special guest Jesse Thorn (Bullseye, Jordan Jesse Go, Judge John Hodgman, THE LIST GOES ON)! They’ll explore the surprisingly common phenomenon of two famous people meeting up, hanging out, and (often) having an extremely weird time together. So throw on your headphones for tales of everyone from Elvis to Amelia Earhart to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince having an odd hang with a fellow world-...

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers Gonzalo Cordova and Alan Denton. They’ll explore the biggest recent movies, and the extraordinarily strange work that went into making them. Find out which Oscar movie got patched like a video game, several days after it was in theaters. Discover which animal overran the set of your favorite action movie franchise. And keep listening for the set of international financial crimes tha...

Alex Schmidt is joined by the incredible Dana Gould for a trip through world-famous scandals that somehow never get a closer look. With each story, they’ll dig into the forgotten and astonishing details of those scandals that were apparently too mind-blowing for the public to remember. So throw on some headphones, and discover the ways Elizabeth Holmes, O.J. Simpson, the Enron fellas, and more infamous maniacs are much mor...

Alex Schmidt and special guest Jason Pargin (who writes for Cracked as David Wong) are exploring the ways being afraid of everything (an easy action) can stop us from being free. Discover the decades-long tradition of some Americans wanting to give up everything in exchange for not needing to think, the centuries-long tradition of people inciting fake panics, and the reasonable ways you can help change things for the bette...

Alex Schmidt is joined by the one and only Kai Ryssdal (Marketplace, Make Me Smart) for a look at surprising, strange, and shocking stories from all over the U.S. economy. Discover an international pig flu, a 26-word statement that built the modern Internet, and more amazing ways cash is ruling everything around you. By the way, if you’re an American listener, you spent the past few years funding an astonishingly huge bail...