The Big Hit Show
Journalist Alex Pappademas takes us on an epic journey that spans genres, mediums, and generations to explore what happens when a wildly successful piece of pop culture gets so big that it changes the world. This show is about how big hits get dreamed up, how they get made, and what happens when we make them our own.
Episodes
Hey Big Hit Show fans. We’re sharing a preview of a new podcast from Higher Ground called The Wonder of Stevie. It's hosted by Wesley Morris and this episode features Alex Pappademas.
Host Wesley Morris is taking you on a deep-dive through Stevie's Classic Period. In this episode, Wesley talks with Alex about the fourth album in Stevie’s streak: Fulfillingness’ First Finale. It was made following an unexpected and life...
The battle is over, and Pokémon has won. Almost twenty-five years after it arrived on these shores, Pokémon hasn’t just survived— it’s become the kind of pop-cultural phenomenon that parents share with their kids. But what does that say about Pokémon, and what does our yearning for an ever-more-immersive pocket-monster-catching experience say about us?
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Writer and Host: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Coli...
Thanks to nostalgic fans and influential new collectors, the value of vintage Pokémon trading cards is through the roof. But you don’t have to find and flip a million-dollar Charizard to have your life changed by Pokémon. An episode about collecting, connecting, and a podcast producer who lands in Las Vegas with a binder full of holos and a dream.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Writer and Host: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McN...
At the end of the ‘90s, after blowing up in Japan, Pokémon came to America. And it became so ubiquitous so fast that critics saw it as a plot to turn U.S. children into hypnotized consumers— or even devil-worshippers. But the version of Pokemon that conquered America was very much an American creation; in this episode we’ll look at how Pokemon became an international brand, and how its success brought out the worst in more...
In which a red-hot video game company crashes and burns, with a little help from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The decline of Atari paved the way for a gaming renaissance— think Donkey Kong, Mario and eventually Pikachu. But as Japan took the upper-hand in the console business and taught a generation of American kids how to play, some Americans grew paranoid about a resurgent foreign power beating us at our own game.
TRANSCRI...
There are big hits, and there are really big hits— and then there’s Pokémon, a kids’ game from Japan that evolved into the biggest multimedia entertainment franchise of all time. In this episode we’re time-traveling from ‘90s Tokyo— where a bug collector turned game designer first dreamed of catching pocket-sized monsters— to 2016, when an addictive mobile game helped Pokemon re-conquer the world.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Wr...
The Big Hit Show Season 4 debuts on August 17th. How did a Japanese video game from the 1990’s become the single highest grossing franchise in history - bigger than Star Wars and Harry Potter combined? This season on The Big Hit Show, we’re exploring the biggest hit of all time, Pokémon, and how these adorable pocket monsters evolved into a media supernova unlike any the world has ever seen.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Writer ...
“Masculinity is a lot like Fight Club. The first rule is that you don't talk about it.” In this episode, we’re breaking that rule, examining what Fight Club has to say about the emotional lives of men, the links between masculinity and extremist violence, and the path out of the darkness.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McNulty
Producers: Sabrina Fang and Taylor Jones
Production Assista...
There were two verdicts on Fight Club: the opening-weekend box office numbers (spoiler alert: yikes) and the judgment of history. We’ll look at how Fight Club channeled the anti-consumerist politics of its moment, and explore some of the more provocative arguments made in the ensuing years about this still-contentious cult classic and its take on modern men.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: ...
Seriously, though— how did a movie as unashamedly anti-capitalist and absurdly homoerotic as Fight Club get made by a major studio, let alone a studio owned by Rupert Murdoch? In this episode, an unlikely piece of material— and an uncompromising director’s vision for that material— somehow survives the Hollywood machine, some potentially disastrous PR, and the disdain of a billionaire who doesn’t care for movies.
TRANSCRIPT...
There would be no Fight Club without Chuck Pahlaniuk, the diesel mechanic turned novelist who dreamed up the concept during a shift on the assembly line. In this episode we’re diving into the wild life of Fight Club’s author and the people, places and experiences that shaped his most famous creation, from his traumatic childhood to culture-jamming shenanigans in ‘90s Portland.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Host, Writer: Alex Pap...
It’s easy to reduce Fight Club’s legacy to a few pop-cultural bullet points: The First Rule, the Second Rule, Brad Pitt’s abs. But in 2022 hindsight, this radical 1999 sleeper hit feels more relevant than ever. We’re looking at the messed up crystal ball that is Fight Club and what it still has to tell us about capitalism, masculinity, and the human yearning to fuck shit up.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Host, Writer: Alex Pappa...
The Big Hit Show Season 3 debuts on July 13th. Making satire is hard. And what if the satire you make is so cool, so star-studded, so subversive that the audience takes the wrong message from it? In Season 3 of The Big Hit Show, we’re breaking the first rule of Fight Club to dive deep into David Fincher’s 1999 film, tracing its journey from box office flop to cult classic. In the 90s, the story it told seemed far-fetched t...
Kendrick communes with ghosts—specifically the ghost of Tupac Shakur—as he faces the central questions about leadership and responsibility that drive To Pimp a Butterfly.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McNulty
Producers: Taylor Jones and Sabrina Fang
Production Assistant: Stella Hartmann
Composer, Sound Designer, Mix Engineer: Alex MacInnis
Theme Song: Dan Leone
Fact Checker: Savannah Wrig...
The real story behind the defining protest song of our age, and how Kendrick grappled with the post-Ferguson moment.
TRANSCRIPT: HERE
CREDITS:
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McNulty
Producers: Taylor Jones and Sabrina Fang
Production Assistant: Stella Hartmann
Composer, Sound Designer, Mix Engineer: Alex MacInnis
Theme Song: Dan Leone
Fact Checker: Savannah Wright
Archival Audio Provider - Joshua Mellin
Executive Pro...
Kendrick erases the line between hip-hop and jazz with help from an all-star band of L.A. musicians who’ve been playing together since high school.
Transcript: HERE
CREDITS
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McNulty
Producers: Taylor Jones and Sabrina Fang
Production Assistant: Stella Hartmann
Composer, Sound Designer, Mix Engineer: Alex MacInnis
Theme Song: Dan Leone
Fact Checker: Savannah Wright
Executive Producer for...
After leaving Compton for South Africa, Kendrick comes back a changed man—and reimagines the sound and message of his next album.
Transcript: HERE
CREDITS
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McNulty
Producers: Taylor Jones and Sabrina Fang
Production Assistant: Stella Hartmann
Composer, Sound Designer, Mix Engineer: Alex MacInnis
Theme Song: Dan Leone
Fact Checker: Savannah Wright
Archival Audio Provider - Jürgen and Cla...
Hot off the critical and commercial supernova that was good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Kendrick Lamar faces loss and confusion, and prepares to make an unexpected, groundbreaking next move.
Transcript: HERE
Credits:
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McNulty
Producers: Taylor Jones and Sabrina Fang
Production Assistant: Stella Hartmann
Composer, Sound Designer, Mix Engineer: Alex MacInnis
Theme Song: Dan Leone
Fact Checker: ...
The Big Hit Show Season 2 debuts on February 16th. In hip-hop, one hit can make you a star, and one perfect album can make you an icon. But what do you do for an encore? In Season 2 of The Big Hit Show, the best rapper alive tries to figure out what to do next, channeling the pressures of fame and the pain of a generation into a career-defining masterwork, To Pimp a Butterfly.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podca...
In our epic finale, we travel from Forks, Washington to Hollywood, California on a journey to understand the unexpected (and unintended) ripple effect of Stephenie Meyer’s creation.
Transcript: HERE
Credits:
Host, Writer: Alex Pappademas
Showrunner: Colin McNulty
Producers: Sabrina Fang, Lori Galarreta, Taylor Jones
Production Assistant: Stella Hartmann
Composer, Sound Designer, Mix Engineer: Alex MacInnis
Theme Song: Dan Leone
Fa...
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