The Colin McEnroe Show

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the 38th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the 15th movie in the Multiverse Saga and the second movie in the MCU’s Phase Six. I didn’t really follow most of that, but this next bit will be a little clearer, I think: Brand New Day is the 11th theatrically-released feature-length Spider-Man movie, and it’s the eighth movie to feature Tom Holland as Peter Parker...

Typos and misprints are as old as writing and printing. This hour, we take a look at them from the "Wicked Bible" to National Park signs and your email inbox. And: the changing status of human typos in the age of AI.

GUESTS:

• Rachel Churner: Art critic, editor, and professor. She is a co-curator with Geoff Kaplan of the exhibit “Beauties of My Style: Errata and the Printed Mistake” at Yale’s Sterling Memo...

Homer’s Odyssey, a 12,000-line, nearly 3,000-year-old epic poem, is one of the foundational texts of Western literature. (It’s also one of the oldest surviving sequels!)

It has inspired a list of movies as varied as Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

But there haven’t been very m...

How do you make a 100-meter telescope that folds down to three meters so you can tuck it inside a space vehicle? How do you make a heart stent that folds out inside the human body? In each case, researchers have turned to masters of origami, the thousand-year-old art of paper folding.

This hour, a look at how paper folding went from a quaint, simple hobby to an extensive form of art that can achieve hundre...

What would it mean if nothing matters? This hour, a look at the philosophy of nihilism, and how it shows up online and in children's books.

GUESTS:

• Nolen Gertz: Associate Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Twentein the Netherlands. He is author of books including Nihilism and Nihilism and Technology

• Charlie Warzel: Staff writer at The Atlantic and the host of its technology podcas...

Backrooms is the feature directing debut of Kane Parsons. It is written by Will Soodik and based on Parsons’ YouTube series of the same name, which was inspired by the The Backrooms creepypasta. Backrooms is A24’s highest-grossing movie to date. It is the fifth-highest-grossing independent movie ever made and the second-highest-grossing horror movie of 2026 so far.

And: Obsession is the sec...

Bob Dylan turned 85 years old in May. His first album, 1962’s Bob Dylan, is in its 65th year on record store shelves.

We’re at a point where, for most of us, there has simply never been a popular culture in which Dylan wasn’t a towering figure whose influence seems to touch, well, everything.

This hour, a look at Bob Dylan at 85.

GUESTS:

• Noah Baerman: A pianist, composer, and educator
• Fred Bals: Hosted the&nb...

This hour, we explore the history and economy of fruits, from the strange to the inedible. Plus, we interrogate what it means for fruits to be seasonal, and why the berries in the supermarket your supermarket aisle might be tasteless!

Additionally: why do we think of the Forbidden Fruit as an apple?

GUESTS:

• Lee Reich: Author of several gardening books, including “Fruit: From the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collectio...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing.

This hour, the conversation winds around to the war with Iran, President Trump’s July 16 primetime speech, President Trump and FIFA and the World Cup Final, Hampshire College, Lucky on Apple TV, usage of words like “proxy,” the Thucydides ...

Cmd + Z! What kinds of things can we undo and when should we?

This hour, we discuss stories of undoing: domestic and global politics in the Trump-era, a project that transformed a river’s ecology, and whether Pluto really deserved that demotion.

GUESTS:

• Bill Curry: Lawyer and politician who has been a two-time Democratic nominee for Governor of Connecticut and a White House advisor in the administration of Bill Clinton
• J...

The Invite is the third movie directed by Olivia Wilde, her followup to Don’t Worry Darling. It’s a relationship comedy set almost entirely in a single apartment, and it stars Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton, Seth Rogen, and Wilde. It is the fifth international remake of the 2020 Spanish movie The People Upstairs (Sentimental) (and a sixth remake is expected in 2027). For the two weekends of The Invite’s limited rele...

Irving Berlin. Cole Porter. Rodgers and Hart. Rodgers and Hammerstein. George and Ira Gershwin. We love all those songs. There’s a reason they’ve become standards. And a fresh, exciting, new version of, for instance, “Blue Skies” can be fresh and exciting.

But what about fresh, exciting, new standards from fresh, exciting, new songwriters?

This hour, the great jazz singer-songwriter Nicole Zuraitis joins us ...

We all love an underdog story. But why? This hour, we take a look at underdogs from David and Goliath to Rocky to The World Cup.

GUESTS:

• A.J. Jacobs: Author of The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution’s Original Meaning. His previous books include Drop Dead Healthy and The Year of Living Biblically. He is also host of the “Hello, Puzzlers!...

Biblical scholar James Tabor says that Mary–the mother of Jesus–is “the best known, least known woman in history.” This hour, we’ll get to know Mary a little better and talk about why some people are obsessed with preserving her purity at the expense of her humanity. And, we talk with (The Reverend) Amey Victoria Adkins-Jones from Emory University about Mary mythology, The Bla...

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing.

This hour, the conversation winds around to ticks, the electoral college, nursing, bird doulas, and ambidextrous presidencies … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one.

In 2025, Stevie Wonder turned 75, and our friend the jazz pianist Noah Baerman put out an album of covers of Wonder’s “message music.”

This hour, a look at Stevie Wonder as musical icon, as important civil rights figure, as utterly timeless songsmith.

Plus: some in-studio performances of Stevie Wonder classics.

GUESTS:

• Noah Baerman: A pianist, composer, and educator; his newest album is Right Now Volume 4: Vi...

How often are you bored nowadays? This hour we take a look at the psychology of boredom to learn what's happening in our minds when we're bored, and if there's any benefit to it. Plus, a look at boredom through history and literature. And, what makes a movie boring?

GUESTS:

• James Danckert: A Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo. He is co-author of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Bored...

Is it possible to live forever? And if so, should we even want to? This hour, we discuss the search for immortality, from ancient philosophers to the elixir of life. Plus, a look at immortalizing public figures through obituaries.

Guests:

• Tushar Irani is a Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University studying Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy.

• Philip Ball is a freelance science writer and the au...

The term "classical music" includes a wide variety of music and artists. This hour we take a look at what that category really means. We celebrate the form and help you figure out how to start listening to the genre.

Plus, how video game music is bringing new listeners to classical music and live orchestras.

GUESTS:

• Matthew Aucoin: American composer, conductor, writer, pianist, and a 2018 MacArthur F...