Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture. Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney's, which called it "the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world."

Episodes

Adam Scott, Boots Riley, Glynn Washington and more - Live at Kuumbwa Jazz Center

November 18, 2025 • 64 mins
We’re celebrating Bullseye’s 25th anniversary all month. This week, we visit the site of Bulleye’s origins, because this episode was recorded live in Santa Cruz at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. We are joined by Glynn Washington of Snap Judgment, Boots Riley of The Coup and Sorry to Bother You, and Adam Scott of Severance. Also, we have live tunes from Santa Cruz surf legends: The Mermen and stand-up comedy from Scott Simpson!

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25 Years Ago, Bullseye with Jesse Thorn was a weird college radio show

November 11, 2025 • 51 mins
The Bullseye 25th anniversary celebration continues! This week, Jesse reunites with his old college co-hosts Jordan Morris and Gene O’Neil to reminisce about the early days of the show. We'll have vintage interviews with Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Matt Besser and Dick Dale, The King of the Surf Guitar!


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Roy Wood Jr., Jason Mantzoukas, Rebecca Sugar – Live at LAist

November 4, 2025 • 65 mins
This whole month, we’re ringing in 25 years of Bullseye being on the airwaves. If you’ve heard our archives you might have heard Bullseye referred to as The Sound of Young America. That was the show’s original name when it started as a college radio show back at Santa Cruz’s KZSC.

To kick off our 25th anniversary, we’re bringing you the first of many celebrations: a spectacular live show recorded at LAist 89.3 in Pasadena ...
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Marc Maron & Brendan McDonald

October 28, 2025 • 66 mins
WTF with Marc Maron revolutionized the medium of podcasting. Despite being one of the most popular podcasts in history, the show was run by two people: Marc Maron as the host, and Brendan McDonald as his producer. Maron and McDonald talked to Bullseye about WTF’s origins, their equal partnership in producing the show, and why it ended.

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Ana Fabrega, co-creator of ‘Los Espookys’

October 24, 2025 • 41 mins
This week, we’re looking back on some of our favorite Spooky season interviews from across the twenty-five years we’ve been doing Bullseye. Ana Fabrega is a comedian, actor, writer, and co-creator of the show Los Espookys. In 2022, Ana joined us to talk about the show after it had just wrapped its second and final season.

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Bruce Campbell

October 21, 2025 • 40 mins
Just in time for the spooky season, we're reaching deep into the furthest, darkest reaches of the Bullseye archives for this conversation with Bruce Campbell. The cult movie actor starred in Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" – an absolute horror classic. When we talked to Bruce in 2011 he spoke with our correspondent Jordan Morris about the DIY aesthetic of his projects, obsessive fans, and how he came to make cult horror movies.

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Yaya Bey

October 17, 2025 • 41 mins
Today on Bullseye, it’s songwriter and recording artist Yaya Bey! She just wrapped up a national tour in support of her new album, do it afraid. She talks to Bullseye about blending genres, and coming out on top after a tumultuous handful of years.

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Nick Offerman

October 14, 2025 • 40 mins
Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, Fargo, The Last of Us) returns to the show to talk about his new book, Little Woodchucks, and to share why woodworking is such a big part of his life. Plus, he gives Jesse a deep tissue massage. Yep, on the radio!

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'Slow Horses' creator Will Smith

October 10, 2025 • 36 mins
Will Smith is the creator and showrunner of the hit Apple TV spy thriller Slow Horses. Smith talks with Jesse about the show's unique blend of drama, action and comedy. He also shares how he learned from Armando Iannucci, the best in the biz, while working on Veep and The Thick of It. Also discussed: farts! And how star Gary Oldman's character Jackson Lamb uses them as a plot device.


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Gwendoline Christie

October 7, 2025 • 41 mins
This week, it’s Gwendoline Christie! She’s best known for her part as Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones launched Christie’s career. Before it wrapped, she was cast in two Star Wars movies. She recently earned an Emmy nomination for her part in Severance as the lady who was in charge of all the goats. She talks to Bullseye about art, resilience, and getting ready to wrangle all those goats.

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Why Digable Planets' Blowout Comb is one of the greatest albums of all time

October 3, 2025 • 20 mins
Canonball is a segment that takes a closer look at albums that should be considered classics. This time around, Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY of the One Song podcast discuss the game changing album Blowout Comb by Digable Planets.

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Ghostface Killah

September 30, 2025 • 45 mins
We're joined today by Ghostface Killah, a founding member of the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. In 1996, Ghost put out Supreme Clientele – that record cemented his legacy. If you pull up one of those 100 best rap albums of all times list, you're bound to see it show up. Ghostface joins us on the latest episode of Bullseye to talk about Supreme Clientele 2, the follow-up nearly 25 years in the making. He also opens up about being ...
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Sonia Manzano

September 26, 2025 • 51 mins
For nearly 5 decades, Sonia Manzano played the part of Maria on Sesame Street. She was the first Latina on the show – it was a big step forward for Latinas on TV! In 2021, she launched her own show called Alma’s Way. It’s an animated kids series about Alma Rivera, a 6-year-old Puerto Rican girl living in the Bronx. 

This conversation was originally published in October of 2021.

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Christopher Lloyd

September 23, 2025 • 34 mins
Christopher Lloyd has performed in a number of iconic roles over the years and at the age of 86 he has no plans to stop anytime soon. When Jesse last spoke with the Hollywood veteran, they chatted about his remarkable career in acting and what’s been keeping him in the biz. They also talked about his most memorable roles including his part as Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This interview originally ran in March of 2021.
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Elizabeth Gilbert

September 19, 2025 • 39 mins
If you know Elizabeth Gilbert's name, it might be for her book Eat, Pray, Love. Earlier this month, Gilbert published a very different memoir: All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation. It centers around her relationship with her partner, the writer Rayya Elias and the aftermath of her cancer diagnosis. Elizabeth Gilbert joins us to talk about the intense, very harrowing book. Content Warning: This episode dives into som...
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Jinkx Monsoon

September 16, 2025 • 44 mins
Jinkx Monsoon is a legend in the world of drag. For fans of RuPaul's Drag Race she is often referred to as "Queen of All Queens" – she's the only performer to win that competition show twice. More recently she's been performing on stage like Little Shop of Horrors and Chicago. Currently, you can catch her on Broadway in Cole Escola's Tony award-winning play Oh Mary. We discuss Jinkx's latest gigs on the stage and how she found hers...
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Jason Segel

September 12, 2025 • 42 mins
Jason Segel starred in Freaks and Geeks, How I Met Your Mother, Knocked Up. But he's also an accomplished writer and creator. He wrote the classic romcom Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and revived The Muppets for a new generation.When Jesse talked to Segel in 2020, Jason had just created the weird and wonderful TV drama Dispatches from Elsewhere - a show he says put him "out of his comfort zone." He'll talk about that, and what makes t...
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Bob Odenkirk

September 9, 2025 • 50 mins
Bob Odenkirk is an alt-comedy legend. He wrote for Saturday Night Live in the 90s. Then he got the part in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul as Saul Goodman. He’s also a writer. With the help of his children, he released a collection of poems called Zilot & Other Important Rhymes. Bob joins us to talk about writing poetry and how he turned his worn notebook into a book of poetry with the help of his children.

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Genndy Tartakovsky

September 5, 2025 • 43 mins
There aren't many animators more beloved than Genndy Tartakovsky. He created two golden era Cartoon Network shows: Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack. He has worked on countless other animated projects including Star Wars: Clone Wars, Batman: The Animated Series, Hotel Transylvania and many more. Genndy joins us to talk about his latest animated project: Fixed – a raunchy comedy about dogs, their private parts and friendship. He ...
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Alex Edelman

September 2, 2025 • 40 mins

Alex Edelman plays Adam Cooper on The Paper, the new show from NBC set in the universe of The Office. Edelman is also an award winning standup and writer. His solo show, Just For Us, offers a very funny, very personal examination of white supremacy and Jewish identity. He talks to Bullseye about his unlikely position as the least impressive member of his family, the difference in audience reactions to his standup in th...

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