February 25, 2026 • 13 mins
What’s a MacGuffin? We don’t know. No one knows. But it has to do with movies and that’s fun to talk about.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for day, which
you guessed. It makes this a short stuff, and it's
a short stuff about a question that will probably never
be answered. What is a mcguffin?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, I think I offered up a definition of my
own recently, and I'm not even sure what I said you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I think you went with the second definition. Okay, that
we're covering here, all right, But there's I mean, even though,
so there's a couple of different definitions. They contradict each
other in certain ways, but there are some things they
agree on, and that is that a mcguffin is a
plot device. It moves things along to some way, to
(00:49):
some degree or another, it motivates characters in a story
or a movie. And what it is specifically and what
role it ultimately plays in the plot, that's what That's
where the definitions differ. And so just based on what
I just said, that means that figuring out what a
mcguffin is is the mcguffin of this episode of short stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
This would that wouldn't be the central premise of the
short stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I don't know man, this is this is brain breaking.
This is like economics, quantum physics, and jackhammer is all
put together.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, the first sort of definition I think, example wise,
is the Maltese falcon is kind of always if you
if you look up anything about the mcguffin, they'll usually
kind of point to the Maltese Falcon film as one
of the best examples. It was a novel and then
later a movie where Humphrey Bogart played Sam Spade and
(01:48):
the mcguffin is the Maltese fact falcon. It's his statuette
of a bird in the movie. But it's really not
about that Maltese falcon the object. It's about what happens
to try and get a hold of this thing.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Basically, okay, okay, I okay, so this is where the
this is where I don't get it. So there's definitions
out there from screenwriters who say the Maltese falcon is
the point, this is the object that does everything in
the movie. All of the actions are based on getting
(02:26):
their hands on the Maltese falcon. There would be no
plot whatsoever if the Maltese falcon didn't exist. Ergo, that's
what a mcguffin is. It's the thing that moves the
entire movie. Yeah, right. The other definition is no. I mean,
it causes some action, and as far as the characters
(02:47):
are concerned, it's the most important thing, but it actually
isn't all that important in the overall plot. I get
the first definition of mcguffin quite clearly, but this other
definition I can not get because every time I say, okay, well,
then let me try to figure out what is an
example of a mcguffin there, I usually come up short
(03:07):
and it ends up basically falling into the first definition instead.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I don't see the difference much of a difference between
the two definitions.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I know there's not much difference, but the idea that
it's irrelevant or the most important part of the entire plot,
that's that's a that's a difference for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, but ultimately the Maltese falcon itself isn't like and
the cure for cancer is inside and we can save
the main character, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay, I'm gonna go with your take on this because
I'm not the one who had a movie podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So a good example of the second one, and we're
going to go over some more famous examples too at
the end. But in Raiders of the Lost Ark at
the beginning, that little gold head statue that he's that
he gets. If you had never seen that movie before,
you know he saw it for the first time, you
might think like, oh, this object that he's recovering is
(04:02):
like super central to the plot perhaps, and it's not
at all. So that's just sort of the first mcguffin
in that movie. They're usually introduced in act one, although
George Lucas has come out and said that he thinks
the actual arc of the Covenant is also a mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So, yeah, you sent that and I don't get that.
Then that's the thing that motivates everyone's action. It's the
most important thing in the entire movie. How is that irrelevant?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, I mean because I guess because in the end
they just go stick it in a box and put
it in a warehouse.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Okay, So then let me ask you this. You reference
like the multice Falcon haveying cure for cancer. If the
point of getting the Arc of the Covenant was to
open it up and like just and all of the
ills of the world, and then they did that at
the end, would that mean it's no out the mcguffin
then or mcguffin.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I don't know, because I don't think that was the
driving point of them trying to find the arc, like
that was a byproduct of it.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
If it had been, though, oh.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, geez, I don't know. That movie so ingrained, it's
hard to sort of reframe it.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Okay, I say we take a break, we'll regroup, take
a couple of film classes, and come back.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay, Chuck, I've got another another attempt here. This one
makes a little more sense to me. In the The
Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the Agatha Christie book. Have you
ever seen? It's really good. No, It's essentially what the
what Knives Out the first one is based on. But
in there, the character, the main character, the titular character,
(06:23):
Roger Ackroyd. He is murdered, and he was murdered to
get so the murderer could get their hands on a
blackmail letter. Okay, the blackmail letter with the name of
the blackmailer. That's important to the characters, but it's not
really the point of the overall plot. The point of
the overall plot is Hercule Paul Rose's investigation to uncover
(06:46):
who murdered Roger Ackroyd. So in that sense, that blackmailer
letter is the mcguffin. How about that one?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, I mean it seems like a mcguffin to me.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Okay, okay, we're on the trail. So I think my
problem is this, Chuck. It's not that I can't understand
what a mcguffin is. It's that I can't understand why
some things that are mcguffins are called mcguffins, and other
things that aren't considered mcguffins aren't mcguffins. That's that's my
big problem here. I'm just going to shut up about
it from now on, but I just want to make
(07:20):
sure I go on the record saying.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
That, all right, well it all comes. It came pre Hitchcock,
But Hitchcock is the one that sort of made it famous.
I guess he used it in a lot of his movies,
for sure, and he had a couple of different explanations
over the years. One is that it was something vitally
important to the characters but of no importance to me,
the narrator. Another one I saw him say was, it's
(07:44):
the thing that the spies are after, but the audience
doesn't care about, which was where he and George Lucas
diverged because George Lucas apparently R two D two was
a mcguffin in Star Wars. He said, I think the
audience should care and tally like, if the audience doesn't
care as much about R two as Luke does in
(08:05):
finding him, then like the emotional tilt will be off.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah for sure. But Hetchcock was able to pull off
what he was saying, and that say, like the microfilm
or whatever, you don't really care if the bad guys
get it or Carry Grant gets it. You want to
make sure that Carry Grant and was it Grace Kelly
who is in north By Northwest? You just want to
(08:29):
make sure that they're both okay. You don't care about
the microfilm?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. The movie Psycho is one of
the classic examples, because you know, everyone remembers the Baits Motel.
But I think if you haven't seen the movie in
a while, if you're not a student of that film,
you may forget that whole first part in the first
act where Janet Lee the reason she goes to the
Bates Motel is because she's on the run. After stealing
(08:55):
forty grand from her employer. And that forty grand, that's
the mcguffin that it never comes up again.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
No, but it's the thing that initially motivates the character's actions.
It gets her to flee. She's on the lamp that
takes her to the Bates Motel, and then the actual
plot begins.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, but what about the word itself?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Well, you sent something and I've read this ten times
and I still don't get how it explains what a
mcguffin is. So I think I'll leave it to you.
But it's the one time Hitchcock tried to explain the
origin of mcguffin or what it is. I think.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, he credits a writer that he worked with named
a Scottish guy named Angus McPhail, And one of the
theories is that it just comes from the root word
guff which is a word that means like something said
that's trivial or meaningless. So that certainly has a little
bit of weight. But another story is that apparently McPhail
(09:53):
had told this story to Hitchcock, where he said, two
Scottish men are riding on a train. One man asked
the other about the contents of a package on the
overhead luggage rack. He said, it's a mcguffin device for
hunting tigers in Scotland. And the other guy said, but
there are no tigers in Scotland. And he says, well,
then I guess it's not a mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Still do not get it, well, I mean to me.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
That just means it's sort of like that illustrates its meaninglessness.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Okay, okay, we'll go with that.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I mean, I don't see what else it could mean.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I don't either. I don't see what it can mean
in any case. Like it's like, yeah, I don't know
who knows. I think your interpretation's right. I can kind
of sink my teeth into the history of this because
you said that it predates Hitchcock, although he popularized it
apparently decades before that. This was TV Tropes who pointed
this out. There was a silent film actress named Pearl
(10:51):
White and then the kind of action cliffhanger serials that
she started. They were always chasing after some like role
of film or some treasure or something like that, and
she called them Weeni's but they were essentially what she
was saying. They were the plot devices. That was driving
all of the character's actions.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I like Weenie.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I like Weenie too.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Bring that back.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
My favorite mcguffin I think is probably from Escape from
New York. Oh yeah, the cassette tape.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, there's a cassette tape of Donald Pleasants as the President,
and you know, he's trapped on the prison island of
New York and Snake Plisken is tasked with going to
get him and crucially that cassette tape back because it's
some big important speech to the world and you don't
even hear it at the end because well, I don't
want to spoil it, but you never end up hearing
(11:48):
what's even on that cassette tape. So that's sort of
a classic mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Similarly, another John Carpenter movie that had a great mcguffin
was the thing with Wilford Brimley being the mcguffin from
my understanding.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Of mcguffins, Yeah, that's a great movie.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You said, R two is the mcguffin in Star Wars
Episode four. I think that's awesome. I had never thought
about that before. But he's the droid that they're after
because he has the plans for the Death Star. Another
one that comes to mind is that mysterious briefcase that
belonged to Marcellus Wallace that Vincent and Jules go retrieve
in pulp fiction.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, classic mcguffin, And that one is I mean, I
love pulp fiction, but that one definitely seems like Tarantino
really wanted to write in a classic mcguffin I think.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, and he did. Yeah, And they also they never
say what was in the briefcase no, and it just
kind of falls away from the plot eventually too.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, for sure, I think I have a bad taste
in my mouth about Tarantino in general lately.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, what is it about like men who have power
and fame and reach like their fifties and just completely
just jerk out. I don't know, I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Well, my time is coming, I guess.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
No, I think you've passed the point.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Okay, so once you hear fifty four or fifty five,
then you're safe.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, okay, I think you made it through the great
filter of becoming a jerk.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
All right, Well, your time's coming, then.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I know I'm really having to hang out you'll be
all right. I'm going to follow all of your examples,
including your definition of mcguffin, and I think we should
stop talking about mcguffins now, all.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Right, And hey, we'll say this right in. We'd love
to hear from film students and film centephiles and see
if you guys can give us a clearer definition.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
That's a great call, Chuck, great call. Short Stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for day, which
you guessed. It makes this a short stuff, and it's
a short stuff about a question that will probably never
be answered. What is a mcguffin?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, I think I offered up a definition of my
own recently, and I'm not even sure what I said you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I think you went with the second definition. Okay, that
we're covering here, all right, But there's I mean, even though,
so there's a couple of different definitions. They contradict each
other in certain ways, but there are some things they
agree on, and that is that a mcguffin is a
plot device. It moves things along to some way, to
(00:49):
some degree or another, it motivates characters in a story
or a movie. And what it is specifically and what
role it ultimately plays in the plot, that's what That's
where the definitions differ. And so just based on what
I just said, that means that figuring out what a
mcguffin is is the mcguffin of this episode of short stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
This would that wouldn't be the central premise of the
short stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I don't know man, this is this is brain breaking.
This is like economics, quantum physics, and jackhammer is all
put together.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, the first sort of definition I think, example wise,
is the Maltese falcon is kind of always if you
if you look up anything about the mcguffin, they'll usually
kind of point to the Maltese Falcon film as one
of the best examples. It was a novel and then
later a movie where Humphrey Bogart played Sam Spade and
(01:48):
the mcguffin is the Maltese fact falcon. It's his statuette
of a bird in the movie. But it's really not
about that Maltese falcon the object. It's about what happens
to try and get a hold of this thing.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Basically, okay, okay, I okay, so this is where the
this is where I don't get it. So there's definitions
out there from screenwriters who say the Maltese falcon is
the point, this is the object that does everything in
the movie. All of the actions are based on getting
(02:26):
their hands on the Maltese falcon. There would be no
plot whatsoever if the Maltese falcon didn't exist. Ergo, that's
what a mcguffin is. It's the thing that moves the
entire movie. Yeah, right. The other definition is no. I mean,
it causes some action, and as far as the characters
(02:47):
are concerned, it's the most important thing, but it actually
isn't all that important in the overall plot. I get
the first definition of mcguffin quite clearly, but this other
definition I can not get because every time I say, okay, well,
then let me try to figure out what is an
example of a mcguffin there, I usually come up short
(03:07):
and it ends up basically falling into the first definition instead.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I don't see the difference much of a difference between
the two definitions.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I know there's not much difference, but the idea that
it's irrelevant or the most important part of the entire plot,
that's that's a that's a difference for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, but ultimately the Maltese falcon itself isn't like and
the cure for cancer is inside and we can save
the main character, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay, I'm gonna go with your take on this because
I'm not the one who had a movie podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So a good example of the second one, and we're
going to go over some more famous examples too at
the end. But in Raiders of the Lost Ark at
the beginning, that little gold head statue that he's that
he gets. If you had never seen that movie before,
you know he saw it for the first time, you
might think like, oh, this object that he's recovering is
(04:02):
like super central to the plot perhaps, and it's not
at all. So that's just sort of the first mcguffin
in that movie. They're usually introduced in act one, although
George Lucas has come out and said that he thinks
the actual arc of the Covenant is also a mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So, yeah, you sent that and I don't get that.
Then that's the thing that motivates everyone's action. It's the
most important thing in the entire movie. How is that irrelevant?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, I mean because I guess because in the end
they just go stick it in a box and put
it in a warehouse.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Okay, So then let me ask you this. You reference
like the multice Falcon haveying cure for cancer. If the
point of getting the Arc of the Covenant was to
open it up and like just and all of the
ills of the world, and then they did that at
the end, would that mean it's no out the mcguffin
then or mcguffin.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I don't know, because I don't think that was the
driving point of them trying to find the arc, like
that was a byproduct of it.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
If it had been, though, oh.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, geez, I don't know. That movie so ingrained, it's
hard to sort of reframe it.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Okay, I say we take a break, we'll regroup, take
a couple of film classes, and come back.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Okay, Chuck, I've got another another attempt here. This one
makes a little more sense to me. In the The
Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the Agatha Christie book. Have you
ever seen? It's really good. No, It's essentially what the
what Knives Out the first one is based on. But
in there, the character, the main character, the titular character,
(06:23):
Roger Ackroyd. He is murdered, and he was murdered to
get so the murderer could get their hands on a
blackmail letter. Okay, the blackmail letter with the name of
the blackmailer. That's important to the characters, but it's not
really the point of the overall plot. The point of
the overall plot is Hercule Paul Rose's investigation to uncover
(06:46):
who murdered Roger Ackroyd. So in that sense, that blackmailer
letter is the mcguffin. How about that one?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, I mean it seems like a mcguffin to me.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Okay, okay, we're on the trail. So I think my
problem is this, Chuck. It's not that I can't understand
what a mcguffin is. It's that I can't understand why
some things that are mcguffins are called mcguffins, and other
things that aren't considered mcguffins aren't mcguffins. That's that's my
big problem here. I'm just going to shut up about
it from now on, but I just want to make
(07:20):
sure I go on the record saying.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
That, all right, well it all comes. It came pre Hitchcock,
But Hitchcock is the one that sort of made it famous.
I guess he used it in a lot of his movies,
for sure, and he had a couple of different explanations
over the years. One is that it was something vitally
important to the characters but of no importance to me,
the narrator. Another one I saw him say was, it's
(07:44):
the thing that the spies are after, but the audience
doesn't care about, which was where he and George Lucas
diverged because George Lucas apparently R two D two was
a mcguffin in Star Wars. He said, I think the
audience should care and tally like, if the audience doesn't
care as much about R two as Luke does in
(08:05):
finding him, then like the emotional tilt will be off.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah for sure. But Hetchcock was able to pull off
what he was saying, and that say, like the microfilm
or whatever, you don't really care if the bad guys
get it or Carry Grant gets it. You want to
make sure that Carry Grant and was it Grace Kelly
who is in north By Northwest? You just want to
(08:29):
make sure that they're both okay. You don't care about
the microfilm?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. The movie Psycho is one of
the classic examples, because you know, everyone remembers the Baits Motel.
But I think if you haven't seen the movie in
a while, if you're not a student of that film,
you may forget that whole first part in the first
act where Janet Lee the reason she goes to the
Bates Motel is because she's on the run. After stealing
(08:55):
forty grand from her employer. And that forty grand, that's
the mcguffin that it never comes up again.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
No, but it's the thing that initially motivates the character's actions.
It gets her to flee. She's on the lamp that
takes her to the Bates Motel, and then the actual
plot begins.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, but what about the word itself?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Well, you sent something and I've read this ten times
and I still don't get how it explains what a
mcguffin is. So I think I'll leave it to you.
But it's the one time Hitchcock tried to explain the
origin of mcguffin or what it is. I think.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, he credits a writer that he worked with named
a Scottish guy named Angus McPhail, And one of the
theories is that it just comes from the root word
guff which is a word that means like something said
that's trivial or meaningless. So that certainly has a little
bit of weight. But another story is that apparently McPhail
(09:53):
had told this story to Hitchcock, where he said, two
Scottish men are riding on a train. One man asked
the other about the contents of a package on the
overhead luggage rack. He said, it's a mcguffin device for
hunting tigers in Scotland. And the other guy said, but
there are no tigers in Scotland. And he says, well,
then I guess it's not a mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Still do not get it, well, I mean to me.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
That just means it's sort of like that illustrates its meaninglessness.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Okay, okay, we'll go with that.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I mean, I don't see what else it could mean.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I don't either. I don't see what it can mean
in any case. Like it's like, yeah, I don't know
who knows. I think your interpretation's right. I can kind
of sink my teeth into the history of this because
you said that it predates Hitchcock, although he popularized it
apparently decades before that. This was TV Tropes who pointed
this out. There was a silent film actress named Pearl
(10:51):
White and then the kind of action cliffhanger serials that
she started. They were always chasing after some like role
of film or some treasure or something like that, and
she called them Weeni's but they were essentially what she
was saying. They were the plot devices. That was driving
all of the character's actions.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I like Weenie.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I like Weenie too.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Bring that back.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
My favorite mcguffin I think is probably from Escape from
New York. Oh yeah, the cassette tape.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, there's a cassette tape of Donald Pleasants as the President,
and you know, he's trapped on the prison island of
New York and Snake Plisken is tasked with going to
get him and crucially that cassette tape back because it's
some big important speech to the world and you don't
even hear it at the end because well, I don't
want to spoil it, but you never end up hearing
(11:48):
what's even on that cassette tape. So that's sort of
a classic mcguffin.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Similarly, another John Carpenter movie that had a great mcguffin
was the thing with Wilford Brimley being the mcguffin from
my understanding.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Of mcguffins, Yeah, that's a great movie.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You said, R two is the mcguffin in Star Wars
Episode four. I think that's awesome. I had never thought
about that before. But he's the droid that they're after
because he has the plans for the Death Star. Another
one that comes to mind is that mysterious briefcase that
belonged to Marcellus Wallace that Vincent and Jules go retrieve
in pulp fiction.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, classic mcguffin, And that one is I mean, I
love pulp fiction, but that one definitely seems like Tarantino
really wanted to write in a classic mcguffin I think.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, and he did. Yeah, And they also they never
say what was in the briefcase no, and it just
kind of falls away from the plot eventually too.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, for sure, I think I have a bad taste
in my mouth about Tarantino in general lately.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, what is it about like men who have power
and fame and reach like their fifties and just completely
just jerk out. I don't know, I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Well, my time is coming, I guess.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
No, I think you've passed the point.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Okay, so once you hear fifty four or fifty five,
then you're safe.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, okay, I think you made it through the great
filter of becoming a jerk.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
All right, Well, your time's coming, then.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I know I'm really having to hang out you'll be
all right. I'm going to follow all of your examples,
including your definition of mcguffin, and I think we should
stop talking about mcguffins now, all.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Right, And hey, we'll say this right in. We'd love
to hear from film students and film centephiles and see
if you guys can give us a clearer definition.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
That's a great call, Chuck, great call. Short Stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Math & Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing with Bob Pittman
How do the smartest marketers and business entrepreneurs cut through the noise? And how do they manage to do it again and again? It's a combination of math—the strategy and analytics—and magic, the creative spark. Join iHeartMedia Chairman and CEO Bob Pittman as he analyzes the Math and Magic of marketing—sitting down with today's most gifted disruptors and compelling storytellers.
Eye On College Basketball
CBS Sports’ official college basketball podcast is the most entertaining and informative of its kind. Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander bring the sport into your ears at least three times per week with commentary, reporting, insider information and statistical analysis throughout college basketball all year long.
The Questlove Show
The Questlove Show builds on the award-winning Questlove Supreme podcast, bringing listeners into intimate, one-on-one conversations with peers, influences, and friends. Hosted by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, each episode uncovers the unexpected — from morning rituals and hidden talents to the art and experiences that shaped a guest’s journey. Sometimes playful, sometimes profound, always curious, QLS offers rare insight into leaders in music, film, television, comedy, literature, mental health, and beyond. It’s a fresh, unpredictable spin from a trusted source — a place where randomness is encouraged, tangents are welcomed, and conversations are anything but ordinary.