August 8, 2025 • 8 mins
An emotional slice of life.
Today is #PizzaFriday, which means today's Odd News PAC story will cover another bizarre report involving our favorite food.
We've all been there. The perfect pizza arrives, a cheesy, glorious beacon of happiness. But what if that slice of joy brought tears instead of a smile? And how is that even possible?
We'll take a deep dish dive into a survey that reveals a surprising, and frankly, emotional, side of America's relationship with pizza. This is one pairing that might list its status as 'It's complicated." Find out what the problem is and some cheerful advice on how to patch things up with our pizza pies.
Then, to celebrate our Platinum Anniversary (PAC!), we take a trip down comedy4cast memory lane. Today's classic clip is a fan favorite: a look back at some of the many, many corrections and apologies that we have had to make.
So grab a slice and join us for a little Odd News and a lot of classic comedy4cast.
>> Support comedy4cast by becoming a patron on Patreon>> Or you can get Clinton a Dunkin' card or a cup of coffee via Ko-Fi>> Follow comedy4cast on BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, MeWe, and Mastodon >> Give us a call via the Super Secret Phone Line (213) 290-4451>> Also check out Clinton's other podcast, The Topic is Trek>> Certain sounds effects heard on comedy4cast are courtesy of freeSFX and FreeSound.org
Click here for a transcript of this episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The comedy4cast Network. Let's dog ear that for now.
It's time once again for the Dog Days of Podcasting, a call for podcasters to
try to put out a podcast every day in August.
For more information, go to dogdaysofpodcasting.com.
(00:21):
We always take this month to provide you with some interesting,
yet totally useless, Odd News.
And this year, to celebrate the platinum anniversary of comedy4cast,
or PAC for short, we'll end each Dog Day episode with part of a classic comedy4cast episode.
So, let's get started with Odd News PAC.
(00:46):
It's another Friday, which means it's time for another Odd News PAC,
hashtag Pizza Friday story.
And if you live in the United States, this one may bring a tear to your eye.
Or at least that's what the statistics tell us.
That's because, according to a recent survey, over half of Americans have cried
(01:06):
over pizza at least once.
But it's pizza. That's a happy thing.
Well, unless you're lactose intolerant, what goes on here?
Let's break it down, or slice it up.
The recent survey questioned 1,000 Americans on their love of pizza,
and somehow they didn't survey me.
Anyway, in a surprising find, 55% of respondents, that's
(01:31):
over half, admitted they had cried over pizza for a variety of toppings. Reasons.
I wonder if watching someone eat pizza with a knife and fork showed up on the
list. Because it should.
Nope, not there. But 16% admitted weeping over someone else eating their last slice.
(01:52):
13% had cried over a pizza delivery order being incorrect.
And 12% had cried over their favorite pizza restaurant closing down.
Those are ridiculously understandable reasons for sobbing.
But then things start to get a little weird with these particular survey respondents.
Almost everyone questioned, 97% said that they would go to extreme lengths to get pizza.
(02:19):
It doesn't say exactly what all these people would do, but we do know that at
some point, 13% of them had ignored work to go get a slice.
And another 13% had pretended to be someone else in order to get their hands on some pizza.
Are you sure they weren't just surveying old sitcom plot lines?
(02:40):
Then there's the 7% who claim they faked an emergency to get their hands on
pizza. Yeah, you heard me right.
They've started handing out pizza in emergency rooms.
Look, the bottom line here is, hey, USA population, There's no need to be sad.
There are over 74,000 pizza restaurants in this country.
(03:03):
Over 78,000 if you count every Little Caesars twice. Pizza, pizza. So don't be sad.
It's hashtag Pizza Friday.
Now, I want you to stand up.
Go outside and sprain an ankle so you can get some of that delicious free emergency room pizza.
And now let's celebrate 20 years of comedy4cast with this classic clip.
(03:29):
In this clip from November of 2008, I make some apologies for errors in previous
comedy4cast episodes.
Yeah, I was doing apology casts before they were a thing. Let's join me mid-retractions.
In my episode entitled 101 Jobs for People Who Don't Like Numbers,
(03:50):
one of the occupations I mentioned was hairstylists.
At one point I said that hairdressing was something you should never put on a Caesar salad.
That was so obviously wrong. What I meant to say was you need to be careful
when you give someone a buzz cut because one's buzz does not grow back quickly.
(04:14):
And I hear it's kind of painful.
Also, in the episode that featured my field guide to poisonous plants,
venomous snakes, and the switch to digital television, I mentioned that the
eastern hognose snake was poisonous.
That was wrong. It's actually the similar-looking cottonmouth moccasin that's venomous.
(04:39):
I apologize to the hognose species and hope that it will consider this public
retraction sufficient and will drop its lawsuit.
I don't look forward to going to court over this one. I think the snakes have an inherent advantage.
What else? Oh yes, in episode 37, I found out later it's actually pronounced water.
(05:02):
Also, I didn't mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage.
I meant to say it should be hauled away as...
You know, some of these are just for me, folks. The important thing is that
I'm not ashamed to admit it when I've made a mistake.
Now, what's that old saying? If people didn't make mistakes,
(05:23):
blooper reels would just be really short documentaries.
Something like that. The thing
is, you need to be big enough to admit it when you've made a mistake.
If you're GM, you need to look at that Cadillac Escalade and say,
whoops, my bad, sorry, we'll stop making those things right away.
Which reminds me of another mistake I made.
(05:46):
Way back in 2005, I predicted, right here on this show, that we'd all have flying cars by now.
Once again, I was wrong.
Sort of. You see, it turns out we can make flying cars, and they made one a
few years ago, the very expensive, very exclusive Porsche Pondhopper.
(06:10):
But when they ran some tests on this flying car, they realized that they had made a big mistake.
Rich people didn't like it. It turns out they were upset that there was no coach
section in the back, so they didn't have anyone to sit in front of and be all,
oh, look at us, we're flying first class.
(06:32):
And their kids apparently kept trying to get the GPS to give them directions to the Sky Mall.
The point is, flying cars turned out to be a big mistake.
Kind of like actually naming a color puce.
What the car companies, and everyone else, needs to remember is that there is
(06:52):
nothing wrong with acknowledging mistakes.
Look at me. I acknowledge other people's mistakes all the time.
And it doesn't bother me a bit.
In fact, when I walk down the street, I see people point at me and say,
there goes one sorry individual.
Makes me kind of proud.
(07:14):
That about wraps it up for today's Odd News Pack.
But first, a shout out to the Comedy Forecast Patreon patrons,
including our producer-level patrons, Paul Barry from the A Window to the Magic
podcast, and Kirby Bartlett-Sloan from the 20-megabyte Doctor Who podcast.
You too can support Comedy Forecast
and get episodes before everyone else for as little as $2 a month.
(07:39):
Just search for Comedy Forecast, all one word with the number four, on patreon.com.
Script, voices, and original music by me, Clinton Alvord. Copyright 2025.
All rights reserved. Talk to you again next time. But for now,
that's it. We're done, done, done, done, done. Bye-bye.
(08:00):
Music.
The comedy4cast Network. Let's dog ear that for now.
It's time once again for the Dog Days of Podcasting, a call for podcasters to
try to put out a podcast every day in August.
For more information, go to dogdaysofpodcasting.com.
(00:21):
We always take this month to provide you with some interesting,
yet totally useless, Odd News.
And this year, to celebrate the platinum anniversary of comedy4cast,
or PAC for short, we'll end each Dog Day episode with part of a classic comedy4cast episode.
So, let's get started with Odd News PAC.
(00:46):
It's another Friday, which means it's time for another Odd News PAC,
hashtag Pizza Friday story.
And if you live in the United States, this one may bring a tear to your eye.
Or at least that's what the statistics tell us.
That's because, according to a recent survey, over half of Americans have cried
(01:06):
over pizza at least once.
But it's pizza. That's a happy thing.
Well, unless you're lactose intolerant, what goes on here?
Let's break it down, or slice it up.
The recent survey questioned 1,000 Americans on their love of pizza,
and somehow they didn't survey me.
Anyway, in a surprising find, 55% of respondents, that's
(01:31):
over half, admitted they had cried over pizza for a variety of toppings. Reasons.
I wonder if watching someone eat pizza with a knife and fork showed up on the
list. Because it should.
Nope, not there. But 16% admitted weeping over someone else eating their last slice.
(01:52):
13% had cried over a pizza delivery order being incorrect.
And 12% had cried over their favorite pizza restaurant closing down.
Those are ridiculously understandable reasons for sobbing.
But then things start to get a little weird with these particular survey respondents.
Almost everyone questioned, 97% said that they would go to extreme lengths to get pizza.
(02:19):
It doesn't say exactly what all these people would do, but we do know that at
some point, 13% of them had ignored work to go get a slice.
And another 13% had pretended to be someone else in order to get their hands on some pizza.
Are you sure they weren't just surveying old sitcom plot lines?
(02:40):
Then there's the 7% who claim they faked an emergency to get their hands on
pizza. Yeah, you heard me right.
They've started handing out pizza in emergency rooms.
Look, the bottom line here is, hey, USA population, There's no need to be sad.
There are over 74,000 pizza restaurants in this country.
(03:03):
Over 78,000 if you count every Little Caesars twice. Pizza, pizza. So don't be sad.
It's hashtag Pizza Friday.
Now, I want you to stand up.
Go outside and sprain an ankle so you can get some of that delicious free emergency room pizza.
And now let's celebrate 20 years of comedy4cast with this classic clip.
(03:29):
In this clip from November of 2008, I make some apologies for errors in previous
comedy4cast episodes.
Yeah, I was doing apology casts before they were a thing. Let's join me mid-retractions.
In my episode entitled 101 Jobs for People Who Don't Like Numbers,
(03:50):
one of the occupations I mentioned was hairstylists.
At one point I said that hairdressing was something you should never put on a Caesar salad.
That was so obviously wrong. What I meant to say was you need to be careful
when you give someone a buzz cut because one's buzz does not grow back quickly.
(04:14):
And I hear it's kind of painful.
Also, in the episode that featured my field guide to poisonous plants,
venomous snakes, and the switch to digital television, I mentioned that the
eastern hognose snake was poisonous.
That was wrong. It's actually the similar-looking cottonmouth moccasin that's venomous.
(04:39):
I apologize to the hognose species and hope that it will consider this public
retraction sufficient and will drop its lawsuit.
I don't look forward to going to court over this one. I think the snakes have an inherent advantage.
What else? Oh yes, in episode 37, I found out later it's actually pronounced water.
(05:02):
Also, I didn't mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage.
I meant to say it should be hauled away as...
You know, some of these are just for me, folks. The important thing is that
I'm not ashamed to admit it when I've made a mistake.
Now, what's that old saying? If people didn't make mistakes,
(05:23):
blooper reels would just be really short documentaries.
Something like that. The thing
is, you need to be big enough to admit it when you've made a mistake.
If you're GM, you need to look at that Cadillac Escalade and say,
whoops, my bad, sorry, we'll stop making those things right away.
Which reminds me of another mistake I made.
(05:46):
Way back in 2005, I predicted, right here on this show, that we'd all have flying cars by now.
Once again, I was wrong.
Sort of. You see, it turns out we can make flying cars, and they made one a
few years ago, the very expensive, very exclusive Porsche Pondhopper.
(06:10):
But when they ran some tests on this flying car, they realized that they had made a big mistake.
Rich people didn't like it. It turns out they were upset that there was no coach
section in the back, so they didn't have anyone to sit in front of and be all,
oh, look at us, we're flying first class.
(06:32):
And their kids apparently kept trying to get the GPS to give them directions to the Sky Mall.
The point is, flying cars turned out to be a big mistake.
Kind of like actually naming a color puce.
What the car companies, and everyone else, needs to remember is that there is
(06:52):
nothing wrong with acknowledging mistakes.
Look at me. I acknowledge other people's mistakes all the time.
And it doesn't bother me a bit.
In fact, when I walk down the street, I see people point at me and say,
there goes one sorry individual.
Makes me kind of proud.
(07:14):
That about wraps it up for today's Odd News Pack.
But first, a shout out to the Comedy Forecast Patreon patrons,
including our producer-level patrons, Paul Barry from the A Window to the Magic
podcast, and Kirby Bartlett-Sloan from the 20-megabyte Doctor Who podcast.
You too can support Comedy Forecast
and get episodes before everyone else for as little as $2 a month.
(07:39):
Just search for Comedy Forecast, all one word with the number four, on patreon.com.
Script, voices, and original music by me, Clinton Alvord. Copyright 2025.
All rights reserved. Talk to you again next time. But for now,
that's it. We're done, done, done, done, done. Bye-bye.
(08:00):
Music.
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