Pop Rocket
Pop culture discussion with Guy Branum, Wynter Mitchell, Margaret Wappler and Karen Tongson
Episodes
**Warning - this episode contains lots of tears**
For the final episode of Pop Rocket, the panel convene to give listeners one last All About, one last Jam, and they look back at the past four and a half years, and all the various milestones they’ve shared with one another and their listeners while doing the show--marriages, deaths, birth, book deals, finding a new home, and so many other memories. It’s raw. It’s wonderful. In addi...
**Angelenos: Tonight (May 17th) at 7pm Guy and Karen will have a conversation about Why Karen Carpenter Matters at Book Soup in West Hollywood.**
In this penultimate episode, the Pop Rocket panel seeks guidance from The Oracle of LA, Amanda Yates Garcia. Each panelist pulls a card from the Oracle’s tarot deck, and gets an individual reading. What’s next for everyone? The answer’s in the cards.
Also, Karen Tongson tells us about her...
This is the first of our three final episodes, and we’re joined by screenwriter Guinevere Turner (American Psycho,Go Fish) whose latest film Charlie Says just came out today, May 10th. As “budding cult-ologist” MagWaps notes, “if you think you’ve heard everything on the Mansons, trust me, this movie takes a different view.”
Having grown up in a cult, Guinevere was able to draw from her experiences and insight to tell the story from...
First off, you're welcome Game of Thrones fans. This is a super-sized Pop Rocket loaded with theories, speculation, and yes, even love. While Wynter and Karen were away, Margaret and Guy tapped two die-hard fans for a full-on discussion of the series and their thoughts now that the first two of the last six episodes have aired. Assembled in the studio this week:
Guy "I've read all the George R.R. Martin books in the series" Branum
...
This week Wynter and Karen chat with Ellington Wells, a comedian and writer on Comedy Central’s brand new sketch show The New Negroes with Open Mike Eagle and Baron Vaughn. The panel takes a look at how black sketch comedy has involved and Wells tell us what Robert Townsend TV special inspired Vaughn to create a show with a similar sensibility.
All Abouts
Wynter: No Good Nick
Karen: Season 4 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Ellington: Britne...
**ANNOUNCEMENT: The nomination process is now open for the next Pop Rocket Seal of Approval. This quarter we’re looking for veterans with a large body of work who have been underappreciated and haven’t received the acclaim that their body of work and stellar character deserve. If you want to submit a name, you must call and leave a message on Guy’s mom’s voicemail to tell us who you’d like to nominate and why. That number is: 530-2...
Take a trip down memory lane with Wynter, Karen and Margaret as they revisit 1991 in music. If you’ve ever been curious what song was playing when Karen experienced her first same sex kiss, tune in. If you grew up in the nineties, this episode will bring you back to that moment in time. If you spent your formative years in the aughts, and want to experience the 90s vicariously through Pop Rocket, the panel goes into great detail ab...
Pop Rocket’s come early this week! Alonso Duralde guest hosts for this, our second week of the MaxFunDrive. The deadline for supporting this show is fast upon us, so if you haven’t yet become a new or upgrading member, do it now! Go to our donation page.
You can donate while listening to this special Thursday edition of the show. This episode has something for everyone--sapphic sisters, metal heads, Hallmark Channel enthusiasts and...
It’s the first live episode of Pop Rocket. Professor Karen Tongson invited the panel to give a lesson on why pop culture matters, with a focus on the past decade. You’ll learn what pop culture of the 2010s will last, and what culture won’t be remembered. Plus we’ll hear from some of Karen’s students, including a special jam brought to the show by Clayton. You won’t want to miss this must-listen episode!
All Abouts
Margaret: Out for...
In honor of Women’s History Month, the panel lives vicariously through women who sought revenge, from Lorena Gallo (formerly Bobbit), to Thelma & Louise. They touch on their favorite films centered around women seeking revenge...or, perhaps more accurately, justice.
All Abouts
Margaret: Uncover: Escaping NXIVM
Karen: “Operation Varsity Blues”, aka the college admissions scandal
Wynter: Free Solo
That's My...
When she was 17, Dame Angela Lansbury quit her job at a department store to take a part in a movie, as 17-year-olds are wont to do. She played a young maid to Ingrid Bergman’s character in Gaslight, a film that garnered seven Oscar nominations and two wins, including one for Best Actress for Bergman. It’s the typical tale of a young actress trying to make it big and having to struggle, role after role after role after role, to hold...
Matt Rogers joins us to help tidy up the Oscars. The 91-year-old institution has gotten a bit cluttered, so the Pop Rocket panel applies the KonMari Method to the Academy Awards. We’ll keep everything that sparks joy, and the rest will be dropped off at an Out of the Closet in a Hefty bag. Will the short film and animated short categories survive? What about song and dance numbers? Find out.
Let us know if you agree with the panel,...
We’ve got a SCREAMINGLY great episode this week as the wonderful Tananarive Due joins us in studio for a deep cinematic dive into the world of black horror. Tananarive Due is the UCLA lecturer whose class on Get Out--The Sunken Place--was crashed by non-student Jordan Peele . She is also the executive producer of Shudder’s very first original documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror.
The panel cover A LOT of ground. For ...
Are you ready for the 64th most electrifying show in Hollywood? Well get ready because it’s here, in your podcatcher: The Fifth Annual Pop Tart Awards! The panel comes together to recognize the best of the best in TV, film and everything else entertaining. What will take home the Warm Blanket Award for fuzzy comfort entertainment? Who delivered the best performance of the year? Could the panelists find consensus on the best album o...
On this week’s show, the panel play catch up. Each panelist was assigned to watch one film from this past year they missed when it was still in theaters. At the behest of Guy, Margaret watched Can You Ever Forgive Me. Karen Tongson was assigned Roma, but decided she wanted to check out Support the Girls, so Wynter was tapped for Roma instead. Lastly, both Wynter and Karen wanted to talk to Guy about A Simple Favor.
Each panelist re...
Will Terry Crews receive the second-ever Pop Rocket Seal of Approval? Why wasn't Margaret on this week's show? Is Adam McKay a craftsman or an artist? These questions and more will be answered on this week's Pop Rocket!
Plus, in the wake of the PRSOA "Bloom backlash", the voting process has been amended. Tune in to find out how, and when there will be another nomination period.
That's My Jam
Wynter: Summer Walker - Girls Need Love
This week's show is a double dose of schadenfreude!
The gang compares the dueling documentaries Hulu's "Fyre Fraud" and Netflix's "Fyre," which tell different versions of the tropical shit show that landed its mastermind Billy McFarland behind bars.
All Abouts
Wynter is all about Crashing and True Detective.
Margaret is all about the memoir Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning by Claire Dederer, who you may recognize from her arti...
Once again we’re firing on all cylinders this week! It’s an ultra-packed show covering everything from The Masked Singer, Surviving R. Kelly,
MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. and the need to move beyond moralistic posturing in critiquing comedy.
The panel get into a lively discussion of Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up on Netflix show. One panelist loves it, one panelist thinks it’s “sinister”, and a panelist named Guy is so obsessed with one of th...
The ENTIRE PANEL is back together for a jam-packed episode! They talk Golden Globes, Bandersnatch and react to some of the commercial jingles you beautiful listeners sang to us on the Pop Rocket voicemail line.
All Abouts
Wynter, fresh off a romantic holiday trip to Paris, is all about the Louis Vuitton Foundation's Basquiat exhibition
Guy is all about Can You Ever Forgive Me
Margaret is all about Regina King's Golden Globes speech
...Guy Branum is back for our first episode of 2019! Sadly, Margaret couldn’t join us because #health and Wynter was busy being a jet setter.
This week, the panelists share their pop culture resolutions for 2019, and own up to resolution fails from the past year.
Writer and comedian Tara Jepsen joins us in studio and Guy is awed by the combined power of her and Karen’s “lesbian efficiency.”
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