Succotash, The Comedy Soundcast Soundcast

The usual format for the show is to be festooned with wall-to-wall clips of comedy podcasts from around the world via the internet. Along with some regular features and some inane silliness provided by our local crew – me, Joe Paulino our producer/engineer, Bill Heywatt our booth announcer, and even Kenny Durgess, our booth assistant. For Succotash, Epi65, we DO have a few clips but we also have an interview with special guest Paul Mecurio. We’ve clipped The Paul Mecurio Show several times before. And the last time was a short clip from an interview he did with Paul McCartney. Well, his entire episode featuring the McCartney interview dropped this week. So we talk to Paul about that, his own career, podcasting, and a whole lot more. He talks about having gone from sweating out 100-hour-weeks as a big shot Wall Street acquisitions-and-mergers guy and chucking it all to do open mics and one-nighters as a standup comedian. And how his work ethic paid off as he moved up and into the offices of The Daily Show and

It's not unusual to hear a guest drop by Succotash – podcasters, comedians, actors, etc. – but occasionally I invite some in to be my guest co-host for an episode. We each pull clips from shows we want to share, then we present them to you…and each other, sometimes for the first time. For Epi64, I invited Monica Hamburg, co-host of the Dazed & Convicted podcast from Vancouver, Canada, to spin clips with me. We had a great time! Such a great time that this edition of Succotash clocked in as the longest epi for us ever - a few ticks over TWO hours! That's a lot of clips, and yakkin' and laughs. You might want to listen to the first hour, take a break and digest, then come back for more. BUT if you think you can finish the whole thing in one sitting…you get it for FREE! Monica comes from an acting background and she's also a hotshot internet marketer-for-hire when she's not behind the D&C mics with her co-host, Bill Allman. We get into the history of the show, its previous incarnation as The S&M Ran

"This is Marc Hershon and you’re listening to Succotash, The Comedy Podcast Podcast." That's generally how I open the show and - yes - I know it’s repetitive. Me, saying the name of the podcast right after listeners hear the show's opening with our announcer, Bill Haywatt, where HE tells you the name of the show. I bring it up because I’ve been listening – this week in particular – to so many podcasts that don’t ever remind you what you’re listening to that it started to seem odd to me. I know this isn’t terrestrial radio and that podcast listeners what they've downloaded or are streaming. But let's face it: People have terrible memories. (I know I do, as an sampling of one…) So some of you comedy podcasters might think about reminding people the name of the show they’re listening to and also who’s doing the talking. Otherwise it’s going to be a whole lot of “Hey, I heard this great podcast the other day. It had this guy who did that thing, you know? It’s called…something. I think it starts with an 'R'…” And

Back from the dead. Or the nearly dead. Or at least the severely Laryngytised. Is that a thing? Anyway, my throat and voicebox were down for the count with a nasty virus. Still playing a little hurt, but I’m ready to muscle through with Epi62 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast! We’re diving heavy into clips this episode. Some new shows. Some old favorites. Got a new Henderson’s Pants ad. Have an unprecedented TRIPLE shot of Burst O’ Durst because we got so far behind. And we actually had someone FINALLY click the Donate button on the http://SuccotashShow.com website! (It’s been over a year since anyone’s touched it but it’s happened and I reveal who it was AND give the person a big ol’ wet sloppy thank you in the TweetSack segment this episode. (Oh, what the heck, I'm going to spoiler alert it right here and thank Geoffrey Welchman, our buddy over at the Inverse Delirium podcast for his generous clicking of the Succotash Donate button!) THE 10 MOST ACTIVE IN THE STITCHER TOP 100 COMEDY PODCAST LIST Even

Another stop along Interstate 5 I've done it again. Recorded a rambling edition of the podcast while tooling north on Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Fair warning: There are no clips in this epi, so if you're dropping by to grab our usual sampler platter, apologies. This is just one man, one mic, and 400 miles of tarmac. I WILL be back with the usual array of clips, interviews, etc., in a few days with Episode 62, but I was busy and also away from my technology for a few days, so this mini-sode tides us over in the meantime. During my ramble, I tell you about why I was in LA (mostly for a friend's 40th birthday), some of the people I saw (including podcasters), and I even offer a few suggestions for comedy podcasters in terms of how to, perhaps, better find your funny as you're during your own show. This "Bonus Edition" runs about 45 minutes - twice as long as my first I-5 mumble - and it was an interesting time to pass part of my journey. Hopefully, you'll find it a bemusing par

First thing you gotta know is that Epi61 is the longest installment of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast, that we've done to date. No particular reason for it. The interview with our Special Guest Graham Elwood comes in at about 30 minutes. But we've got a bunch of podcast clips to share, a Boozin' With Bill segment, the TweetSack section, our Burst O' Durst and a new song by musical geekmaster John Anealio. That, plus my usual rambling gum-flapping has us pushing the limits in terms of just how long someone can shovel Succotash into their earholes. Sue me - this stuff's free. I was delighted to talk at length with the aforementioned Graham Elwood. We had tried to link up when he was in San Francisco recently for a face-to-face sit-down but couldn't coordinate schedules. So we Skyped it and it came out fine. Graham's a comedian, an actor, a writer, a podcaster, and most recently, co-producer and organizer of the Los Angeles Podcast Festival (the 2nd annual is this October 4-6 in Santa Monica.) Along with

Welcome to Epi60 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast! I feel like celebrating every ten episodes we get further down the podcasting road. And I hope you're enjoying listening as much as I enjoy putting this thing together. While we're got a few comedy podcast episodes to share this week, the bulk of Epi60 is given over to an interview I did recently with Marc Price. Yes, THAT Marc Price. Stand-up comedian since he was 14, an actor, a producer, and still most often recognized for the seven years that he appeared as Irwin "Skippy" Handleman on NBC’s Family Ties. Marc was passing through my hometown of Mill Valley a couple of weeks ago and played a Tuesday night at the 142 Throckmorton Theatre as part of the Mark Pitta & Friends show. I hadn’t seen him in quite some time so I was able to not only cajole him into sitting down and catching up, but doing so in front of our microphones. He's had a number of TV, movie and web opportunities over the years but, in hearing him tell his tale, the success brought

Warning: This is not a regular edition of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast. It's Epi59.5. Anytime we do a ".5" edition, just figure it's something off the rails. In this one we have no clips. No regular features. Not even our TweetSack. (Oh, wait - there is one regular feature: Our Burst O' Durst is coming up at the very end of the show!) Regular listeners to the show over the past couple of months have probably noticed a preponderance of mentions, clip and cruel japes aimed at the Chillpak Hollywood Hour podcast. And they've been flinging it right back at us. It's all be in good fun - the hosts of CHH (Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness) not only have become good friends of mine personally, but theirs was the first podcast I started listening to on a regular basis. Now in their 7th year, I have dubbed them "podcast royalty", a dubious distinction that they nevertheless wear with honor. This past week saw the Chillpak boys MISS their opportunity to hit me back. Dean's father was ill and off Dean went to visi

Welcome to Epi59 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast once again. This episode we’ll be paying visits to some old friends. Why? Well, I’ve been playing a lot of clips from new shows – new in the both the sense that they just started podcasting and some new in the sense that I just am getting around to them even though they’ve been online for a while.  So I figured we should drop in on some podcasts and podcasters we've clipped previously and see how they're sounding. I also have an interview with Special Guest Michael Meehan, who is a San Francisco-based comedian, actor and now movie maker. I talk with Mike while eating at a really noise Chinese restaurant in the Marina District about Hey Monster, Hands Off My City!, the feature-length comedy he’s directing and has an IndieGoGo campaign for to help foot the bill. Which means there is still time for YOU to get involved, kick in some dough to help out and - if you get really generous, get yourself a juicy onscreen appearance in the movie! There's a link to

Okay, I’ve been teasing this for a few weeks now but I'm finally going to pop the top on the roadtrip recording I made of Dana Carvey, San Francisco veteran comedian Larry “Bubbles” Brown, and me. The occasion was a pair of theater gigs that Mr. Carvey was headlining — one in Medford, Oregon, the other in Redding, California – and which Mr. Brown was the opening act. Me? I was the chauffeur, documentarian and backstage announcer. We had two GoPro cameras rigged up in the car, courtesy of a trio of documentary filmmakers who are doing a project about comedy in San Francisco (in which Larry plays a prominent part) and we also had a digital recorder running so that we might grab some on-the-road chatter for Succotash. Thanks to my technical knowhow, we almost failed to captured both video and audio during the trip but we did manage to capture enough to fill out this latest epi. (Apologies to listeners: Longtime Succotashians know that I like to nitpick when it comes to crappy audio quality in podcasts and - due

The next episode of Succotash, The Comedy Podcast Podcast, is here. Late. AGAIN. Damn. I keep trying to crank this sucker out every week but that darned Life keeps getting in the way.  As much as I enjoy producing Succotash, my landlord has told me time and time again that – no, he will not take plugs on the show in exchange for the rent. Nor will the grocery store trade with me for food. And I'm sure not going to get gas with my podcast. So, for the time being anyway, this show remains something I get to as often as I can and I will keep TRYING to drop a show a week, but it’s challenging. (I appreciate those of you who can hang with the erratic release schedule!) In addition to beau coup clips this week, I belly back up to the bar with our booth announcer Bill Heywatt for what proves to be an explosive episode. In the midst of preparing his "Wolf Spritzer" concoction, Bill underestimated the power the his SodaStream machine could unleash and he proceeded to drench the both of us with Gunpowder Green Tea. Bu

Greeting, Succotashians, and apologies for the late droppage of Epi56 of the Comedy Podcast Podcast. Due to travels and a bum external hard drive, I've been hard-pressed to pull it all together for this one, but it's finally happened. Those who listen regularly have discovered that, as much as this show is dedicated to podcasts of the comedy variety, we also split out interests amongst both podcasts in general and comedy in the larger sense. Particularly where our interviews are concerned. This episode features a quick chat with filmmaker Michael Celestino, who is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 to fund his latest project, That's Not Funny, where he looks at why and how people find various subjects offensive, especially when coming from a comedian expounding on the topic. The trailer that he put together to kick off the project already features some well-known and outspoken comic types, including Paul Provenza, Greg Proops, Jackie Kashian, Emery Emery, and Kyle Kinane. Have a listen

This is the two-year-iversary month for Succotash! Two whole years. I didn't know it would last this long but then, I didn't know that it wouldn't last this long. If you've been listening the whole time I can't thank you enough. And if you've picked us up somewhere along the way, I thank you as well. Epi55 is not a big clip show - we've only got four snippets from comedy podcasts - but that's because the majority of the show is my interview with the poster boy for alt comedy Andy Kindler. I would have really enjoyed settling in for a quiet, contemplative, in-depth one-on-one with Andy, but podcasters can't be choosers. Instead, I got a rollicking chatfest over a late night meal at D'Angelo's Italian restaurant, the usual hang for comedians following the Mark Pitta & Friends show at the 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, California. And it wasn't just Andy and me. We were joined by Mark Pitta, Larry "Bubbles" Brown, and Bob Rubin, all of whom would randomly come and go at our table, cracking wise an

For Epi54 of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast, we wade back into the clips and there are a bunch from shows that we’ve never played before.  Some of those are part of the lineup at RadioFUBAR.com so I decided to do a "mini-featurette" by playing a quartet of FUBAR clips, courtesy of Mr. Producer over there. Sidenote of note: I make it a point on this show to pretty much play the samples from different comedy podcasts without much commentary – unless it’s about how they sound technically and whether I think they should work on that – but the reason is to let YOU hear them and set you off on a voyage of discovery…or not. It’s funny but in 54 episodes of doing this show, I have yet to ever hear from a listener whether you like or dislike a single show that that's been featured.  Of course, some of the shows I clip come from YOUR suggestions, so those would be “Likes”, of course. Other than than, no one’s ever emailed or tweeted or commented on the home site about shows they either liked or didn’t like. Feel

This week's a mostly clipless week on Succotash. Stockpiling a bunch for the next episode while I devote the majority of Epi53 to my interview with Matt Weinhold. In addition to his long history as a standup comedian, Matt's be involved in writing and helping to produce a lot of television, web, and film projects as well. Included in that dossier: Writer and voice actor for MTV’s The Super Adventure Team; a writer and co-creator with Greg Proops on The Amazing Colossal Show, appeared in the Star Trek documentary Trekkies, written on tons of other TV including BBC America’s The Nerdist, Style Network’s The Dish, and used to be part of the Fashion Police commentary team for US magazine. You can also still get Matt's comedy CD, Dead Funny, by clicking on the link or on iTunes. In the realm of podcasting, Matt's been podguesting with the likes of Jackie Kashian on Dork Forest and more frequently on The Dana Gould Hour. But he's in the process of turning what was a YouTube experiment into a full on video/audio pod

This title refers to the fact that we're back to an all-clip show this week. No interviews (although we have a goodie coming up next week!) but I did want to thank everyone who commented, tweeted, emailed and otherwise gave me feedback on last week’s Epi51.5, my I-5 Extra Episode. It was experimental, really – just me recording me as I drove back to San Francisco from Los Angeles up Interstate 5. Maybe I’ll try it again on my next road trip. And it gives me the confidence to play a little bit more between clips of the regular podcast, so we’ll see where that goes. To the left is a shot of the sun setting as I trundled through the San Juaquin Valley at the wheel of Studio F, my Fiat 500. (It's not that picturesque but I post it because I love how pissed off people get when they think of me taking pictures while driving...) THE COUNTDOWN I mention in this episode that I'm thinking of dropping the Stitcher Top 10 Comedy Podcast Countdown that we've been featuring on Succotash since the beginning of the year. Re

WARNING: This is NOT a "regular" episode of Succotash, the Comedy Podcast Podcast. No clips. No interviews. No TweetSack. Call it an experiment. I was driving back to San Francisco after a weekend in Los Angeles. While in the southland I visited with a number of podcasters, comedians and past guests of Succotash: Rick Overton, Matt Weinhold, Ethan Dettenmaier, Shawn Marek, Travis Clark, Brandi Clark, Jon Manfrellotti, and Chris Gore. My conversations with all those folks invariably came around to podcasting. Why do we do it? Where is it going? And what does it all mean? Collectively, we batted those concepts and more around in our little discussion groups but - once I was alone, trapped in my car (Studio F) for the six hour Kessel Run back to The City By The Bay, the questions continued to bounce around in my head. So I fished out my trusty iPhone 5, my iRig Cast mic, and rambled into it for about 26 minutes. I ruminated on my show, other shows, and the podcasting industry as a whole. I wondered aloud about o

This episode we return to our roots. Clips, clips and more clips. Also, a return to Studio P ("The Home of The Hit!"), engineer-producer Joe Paulino, and another long-awaited installment of Boozin' With Bill featuring our booth announcer Bill Haywatt. Bill's concoctions are usually something he picked up during one of the many radio gigs he's had over the past 70 years. Often scrounged from either a hard-drinking co-worker or from one of the numerous dive bars that could be found in the neighborhoods that usually spring up around radio stations and recording studios. This time around he presents us with the very first alcoholic mixture he can first remember making while still a lad at the tender age of 14. During the show he dubbed it "The Beer Float" but given the beer required for this one, I call it "The Floating Heinie". Either way it's a twist on that soda fountain favorite, the root beer float.   THE COUNTDOWN Once again, very little movement in the Top 10 of Stitcher's Comedy Podcast chart this last we

Here at Succotash I'm celebrating the FIFTIETH episode! In some ways it’s hard to believe we actually have gotten to 50 shows. (On the other hand, given that we started 22 months ago, this SHOULD be episode 96.)  But it’s been tough to get consistent. Between my day job, time at Studio P ("The Home Of The Hit!") and other elements, it’s been hard to crank out a show a week. BUT we’re finally there, more or less!If you’re new to Succotash, the reason it’s called “The Comedy Podcast Podcast” is that we usually feature between 10 and 12 comedy podcast clips from around the world. We also have interviews with podcasters, comedians and other sundry show biz folks. This week being our special Epi50, I’m  featuring the interview I had last week with the cast of Superego, who were up from Los Angeles to be part of the 12th Annual San Francisco Sketchfest. Sketch courtesy of @JoelCarroll It was part lucky happenstance and part perfect storm, my getting the opportunity to sit down with the guys from Superego:

Here we are, smack in the middle of Epi49, just one 'sode away from our 50th show! Exciting! And we have a wonderful Special Guest this show — Hal Lublin! If you're a fan of The Thrilling Adventure Hour, then you've heard LOTS of Hal because he's all over that show as both the announcer and filling out a number of roles in the various sketches.  When I interviewed TAH's co-creator Ben Blacker back in Epi37, he told me that I really should try to catch the show live. And I finally got the opportunity this past weekend when the entire cast and orchestra traveled north from Hollywood, California, America to appear at the 12th Annual San Francisco Sketchfest. I got to see Hal and the rest of the gang put on a very funny show (they performed twice, actually, back to back) and Mr. Lublin was kind enough to sit with me before making the trek back down south. Our podcaster friends can relate when I say that Hal, while he exercises his voice on behalf of TAH as well as cartoons and other voiceover work, still holds do