Super Critical Podcast - Overthinking Nuclear Pop Culture

In this episode, we left the polling booth to watch the movie Deterrence (2000) about a president fighting a nuclear war against Iraq while stranded in a diner during a snowstorm on the campaign trail. Are nuclear weapons useful to deter chemical, biological, or conventional weapon attacks? Can anyone stop an irrational president from ordering a nuclear strike? Is there a connection between the diner’s famous greasy chiliburger and the IBS News station? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and co-host Gabe answer these questions and more. Before we reach our positive control point, we recommend: -Kevin Pollak Chat Show (2009-2019) -Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (1960) and Arms and Influence (1966) -The Contender (2002 movie) Check out our website, SuperCriticalPodcast.com, for more resources and related items. We aim to have at least one new episode every month. Let us know what you think about the podcast and any ideas you may have about future episodes and guests by reaching out at on Twitter @Nu

In this episode, we scrambled our B-52s so we could watch the in-flight movie By Dawn’s Early Light (1990). What is the U.S. president to do once a nuclear war begins? Who is in command of the nuclear stockpile when POTUS is missing? Why is James Earl Jones always finding his finger on the nuclear button? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guest Sylvia Mishra (@MishraSylvia), doctoral researcher at King’s College London where studies nuclear strategy and emerging technologies, answer these questions and more. Before we reach our positive control point, we recommend: -Sylvia Mishra, “Directing Doomsday: Lessons Learned from Nuclear War in Film,” CSIS Next Generation Nuclear Network, July 8, 2020 -Fail-Safe, 1964 movie -Countdown to Looking Glass, 1984 movie -David Hoffman, The Dead Hand, The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, 2010 -Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, 2017 -Christian Brose, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the

In this episode, we got the family together over Zoom to watch the most depressing “Hallmark movie” of all time, Testament (1983). How can one Mom keep the family going after a nuclear attack cuts off their community? How accurately does the movie portray the horrors of radiation sickness? How does nuclear war turn ham radio operators into the most important people on the planet? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and returning special guest Lucy Stiegerwald (@LucyStag), contributing editor to AntiWar.com answer these questions and more. Before we go blow out the candles on our sad birthday cake, we recommend: -DVD extras for Testament, including “Testament at 20” -Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006) -Airplane! (1980) -Carol Amen, “The Last Testament,” Ms. Magazine, August 1981, https://www.scribd.com/doc/59083080/Amen-Carol-The-Last-Testament-Ms-Aug-81 -The Day After (1983) -On the Beach (1959) -Threads (1984) -TheStagBlog.com, “Testament” Check out our website, SuperCriticalPodcast.com, for more resources and

In this episode, we pulled an all-nighter to watch the thrilling movie Miracle Mile (1986) about star crossed lovers trying to escape Los Angeles at night before a possible nuclear attack. Why do we keep nuclear weapons in North Dakota? How long would you have before the missiles start landing in your backyard? Does Google Maps have a good escape route preprogrammed in the event of a pending nuclear war? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and Gabe answer these questions and more. Before we answer this random payphone that is ringing nearby, we recommend: -Cloverfield (2008 movie) -10 Cloverfield Lane (2016 movie) -Six String Samurai (1998 movie) -La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA -Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, 1983 -Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota -NORMS Restaurants Check out our website, SuperCriticalPodcast.com, for more resources and related items. We aim to have at least one new episode every month. Let us know what you think about the podcast and any ideas you may have

In this episode, we aced our foreign service exam and started our undercover mission to the movie Spies Like Us (1995). How well does this comedy deploy a Soviet road mobile nuclear missile for hilarious effect? Can you actually recall a nuclear missile once it is in the air? Doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, and doctor. Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and Gabe answer these questions and more. Before we open up the nuclear disarmament negotiation board game box, we recommend: -Fletch, 1985 -The Man Who Knew Too Little, 1997 -International Spy Museum -Nuclear War Card Game, 1965 -Steven Pomeroy, An Untaken Road: Strategy, Technology, and the Hidden History of America’s Mobile ICBMs, 2016 -Get Smart, 1965-1970 TV Show Check out our website, SuperCriticalPodcast.com, for more resources and related items. We aim to have at least one new episode every month. Let us know what you think about the podcast and any ideas you may have about future episodes and guests by reaching out at on Twitte

In this episode, we leave our bunkers and march like atomic ants to the movie theater to enjoy the film Matinee (1993). What does this story about director Joe Dante’s love of B-movies monster flicks have to say about the Cuban Missile Crisis and its impact on kids living in Florida? How do you write an effective comedy about topics that are usually nightmare fuel? When can we equip our own home theaters with Atomovision? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guest Matthew Gault (@mjgault), VICE journalist and host of the War College Podcast (@War_College) answer these questions and more. Before we turn up the Rumble-Rama setting on our seats, we recommend: -War College Podcast -Them (1954) and Blast from the Past (1999) -Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) -Barry Atkinson, Atomic Age Cinema: The Offbeat, the Classic, and the Obscure, 2014 -Matthew Gault, “How to Survive a Nuclear Bomb,” Vice, January 9, 2020 -L. Douglas Kenney, 15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation, 2

In this episode, school is out for nuclear winter break, so we binged the Netflix series Daybreak about high school students surviving post-WWIII. How well does a nuclear war plot mesh with a John Hughes teenage comedy? What is the connection between sunflowers and nuclear disarmament? Who in our high school yearbook was voted “most likely to depress everyone with a podcast about nuclear war movies”? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guest Cecili Thompson-Williams (@cecilitw), Executive Director of Beyond the Bomb (@BeyondtheBomb), answer these questions and more. Before we decide which post-apocalyptic clique to join, we recommend: -The 100 (TV series) -BeyondTheBomb.org -Phineas and Ferb (TV series) -WarGames (1983 movie) -Night of the Comet (1984 movie) -Elizabeth King, “How Growing Up with the Threat of Nuclear War Shapes Kids’ Psyches,” TheCut, June 7, 2017 Check out our website, SuperCriticalPodcast.com, for more resources and related items. We aim to have at least one new episode every mont

In this episode, we tried to get healthy during quarantine by watching an episode of the TV show Gilligan’s Island called “Pass the Vegetables, Please” where the castaways get super powers from eating crops grown from radioactive seeds. Can radiation actually help farmers? What would happen if you ate radioactive food? Is the Professor a stand-in for Dr. Oppenheimer of the Manhattan Project? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and Gabe answer these questions and more. Before we our three hour tour sets sail, we recommend: -“HI FI Gilligan,” Gilligan’s Island, season 2, episode 10 -AtomicGardening.com -“JUGHEAD,” LOST, “season 5, episode 3 -Visiting Tangier Island -Archipelago tiki bar in Washington, DC Check out our website, SuperCriticalPodcast.com, for more resources and related items. We aim to have at least one new episode every month. Let us know what you think about the podcast and any ideas you may have about future episodes and guests by reaching out at on Twitter @NuclearPodcast, GooglePlay, SoundCloud

In this episode released on April 1, the show gets inverted and becomes the Super Critical Angle of Attack podcast to talk about the movie Air Force One (1997). Sure, the movie has some nuclear weapon plots, but how well did it accurately portray POTUS’s airplane? Did the movie do justice to flight physics? If aviation accident prone Harrison Ford is your pilot, would you have a bad feeling about this? New podcast host Gabe and special guest Tim Westmyer (@Westmyer) answer these questions and more. Before we fired up the Air Force One fax machine, we recommend: -Countdown to Looking Glass, 1984 TV movie -Independence Day, 1996 movie -“The Air Force’s ‘Doomsday Plane’ is in the Shop,” DefenseOne, November 6, 2019 -On Board Air Force One, National Geographic documentary, 2009 -CBS News photo tour of Air Force One -National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton Ohio -Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA Enjoy!

In this episode, we see how many scientists in the desert it takes to build an atomic bomb by watching the 1989 movie “Fat Man and Little Boy.” How did scientists and the military both collaborate and clash in the pursuit of the first nuclear weapon? What was the role of women scientists in this endeavor? Could you actually buy a condo in Manhattan even if you had the budget of the atomic bomb project? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guests/nuke experts Erin Connolly (@Erin_Conn17) and Kate Hewitt (@BlondNukeGirl) from Girl Security these questions and more. Before we started eating our Pentagon cakes, we recommend: -Day One, 1989 TV Movie -Robert Serber, The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build the Atomic Bomb, 1992 -Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 1986 -Denise Kiernan, Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, 2014 -John Hersey, Hiroshima, 1946 -Kate Brown, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, And The Great Soviet And

In this episode, we make time to watch two Twilight Zone episodes that deal with both “time” and nukes: “Time Enough at Last” and “No Time Like the Past.” How would the development of thermonuclear weapons impact your reading habit? If you had a time machine, how would you prevent the WWII atomic bombings? Does every household need a 2-in-1 bank vault/fallout shelter to protect their loved ones and valuables? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast), Gabe, and returning guest Elliot answer these questions and more. Before we update our reading list for the apocalypse, we recommend: -Twilight Zone episode “Walking Distance” -Last Man on Earth (TV show, comedy) -Black Mirror episode “San Junipero” -Arctic, 2018 movie -12 Monkeys, 1995 movie -H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, 1895 book -Dan Carlin, “Supernova in the East,” Hardcore History Podcast -Dan Carlin, “(Blitz) The Destroyer of Worlds,” Hardcore History Podcast -Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” -Star Trek episode “Patterns of Force” Check out our

In this episode, we ring in the holidays with the Weird Al Yankovic song, Christmas at Ground Zero. What does this 1986 jingle tell us about nuclear war? How does Weird Al repurpose Duck and Cover propaganda footage from the Cold War for his holiday melody? Is “dreaming” about a white Christmas technically a nightmare if it is snowing radioactive fallout? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and returning special guest Kevin answer these questions and more. Here is the song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t039p6xqutU Before the next song on the nuclear war playlist comes on, we recommend checking out: • We Will All Go Together When We Go, Tom Lehrer • Amish Paradise, Weird Al, 1996 • Santa with Muscles, 1996 movie with Hulk Hogan • The Night They Saved Christmas, TV movie 1984 • Running with Scissors, 1999 Weird Al • Bad Hair Day, Weird Al, 1996 • Blue Christmas, Willie Nelson Here is a clip of Kevin playing the song on his ukulele: https://twitter.com/NuclearPodcast/status/1205942558058303488 Check

In this episode, we explore what happens when someone with superhuman speed tries to finish the nuclear arms race in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). How easy would it be for Superman to destroy the planet’s nuclear weapons himself? What happens with Lex Luthor decides to rearm the world? Is that a bird? Is that a plane? Is that… a giant wad of nuclear missiles flying toward the sun? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast), Gabe, and special guest Will Saetren (@WillSaetren), Project Lead in Nonproliferation at CRDF Global, answer these questions and more. Before we visit Nuclear Man at the nuclear power plant tour, we recommend checking out: • Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013-2016 comics) • Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2016 documentary) • The Day the Earth Died!, June 1985, Superman no. 408 • Michael O'Hanlon, A Skeptic's Case for Nuclear Disarmament, 2010 • Watchmen (1986-1987 comics) • Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion

In this episode, we picked When the Wind Blows out of the children’s book bin to see what advise the 1982 graphic novel (and 1986 animated movie) have for surviving nuclear war in Britain. How easy was it to follow official government radiation survival guides during the Cold War? What was it like for the average family trying to make sense of nuclear deterrence? Will you ever be able to look at a baked potato again the same way after witnessing this story? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guest Sebastian Brixey-Williams (@seb_bw), Co-Director of the think tank BASIC, answer these questions and more. Dramatization of the graphic novel available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=484h0mnU0-M Before we give up waiting on the Powers that Be to arrive, we recommend checking out: -The Atomic Hobo podcast episodes on Meals on Wheels and When the Wind Blows -Protest and Survive (1980) -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, (1987 cartoon show) -The Snowman (1982) -Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984

In this episode, we explored the nuclear origin story of Godzilla. What famous nuclear test inspired the Godzilla franchise? How did Toho Studios and Hollywood handle the nuclear story over the ages? Will the “King Kong vs. Godzilla” movie have a cameo from Major “King” Kong from Dr. Strangelove? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guests Rachel Emond (@Rachel_Emond) and Geoff Wilson (@NuclearWilson) of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation answer these questions and more. Before we zipped up the rubber monster suit, we recommend checking out: -Godzilla: Final Wars (2004 movie) -Pacific Rim (2013 movie) -Cinemassacre’s Monster Madness (YouTube series) -Gojira (1954 movie) -Stranger Things (Netflix series) -Chernobyl (2019 HBO series) -Godzilla in Hell (2015 comic book) -Godzilla: Half Century War (2013 comic book) -Cloverfield (2008 movie) -Nukes of Hazard podcast We also discussed the movie Shin Godzilla. Listen to it as a bonus feature on our YouTube channel. Check out our website, Su

In this episode, we lived #ShootYourShot and watched the movie Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987) where an NBA legend joins forces with a little league player to protest nuclear weapons. Could a child’s peaceful act of resistance against nuclear war inspire the world to Global Zero? What is the history of anti-nuclear weapon movements in the 1980s? If your chartered jet is exploded by an evil nuclear illuminate, is that technically a traveling violation? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and Pranay Vaddi (@PranayVaddi), a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, answer these questions and more. Before we assemble our Dream Team of professional athlete protesters, we recommend checking out: -Judith Vigna, Nobody Wants a Nuclear War, 1986 -Laura Yeager, “Talking to Your Children about the Threat of Nuclear War,” July 8, 2018 -“Talking Nukes with Kids,” Awful Library Books, November 9, 2017 -Vincent J. Intondi, African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Fre

In this episode, we plucked Six String Samurai out of the cult movie bin to talk about the zany nuclear plots of this post-apocalypse western Kung Fu musical mashup. How would the power of rock and roll unite the wasteland after a nuclear war? Would Las Vegas be a target during the Cold War? Can this version of Buddy Holly handle the overpressure of ruling Lost Vegas? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and Gabe answer these questions and more. Before we our post-Bomb sanity snapped, we recommend checking out: • Fallout video game series, especially Fallout: New Vegas • Mariachi, 1992 movie • Red Elvises, band • Dick Dale, musician Check out our website, SuperCriticalPodcast.com, for more resources and related items. We aim to have at least one new episode every month. Let us know what you think about the podcast and any ideas you may have about future episodes and guests by reaching out at on Twitter @NuclearPodcast, GooglePlay, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Stitcher Radio, Facebook, SuperCriticalPodcast@gmail.com, and

In this episode, we figured out how an RBMK reactor explodes by watching the hit HBO show Chernobyl. What caused the nuclear power plant disaster? How did the Soviet leadership and the Russian people respond to the crisis? If vodka is really such a powerful medicinal wonder, can it be covered by your health care insurance? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guests Meghan McCall (@Nuclear_Ginger_) and Geoff Wilson (@NuclearWilson) answer these questions and more. Our special guests also have excellent podcasts on nuke topics to enjoy: -Meghan McCall's Press the Button -Geoff Wilson's Nukes of Hazard Before we hug our dogs closer than normal, we recommend checking out: -Chernobyl, Podcast by Craig Mazin and Peter Segal -Chernobyl VR Project, The Farm 51 -The China Syndrome, 1979 movie -Adam Higginbotham, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, 2019 -Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, 2006 -David McMillan and Da

In this episode, we debated the virtues of nuclear disarmament and democracy over a couple of days this month, specifically Seven Days in May. Does the movie realistically portray disagreements between the military and civilian leaders over nuclear weapons? What would cause the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to attempt a military coup? How long before General James Mattoon Scott becomes the 40+ person running for president in 2020? Tim Westmyer (@NuclearPodcast) and special guest Stephen I Schwartz (@AtomicAnalyst) answer these questions and more. Before we went fishing at Blue Lake, we recommend checking out: -The Manchurian Candidate, both the 1962 and 2004 movies -International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, www.icanw.org -Stephen I. Schwartz, Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, 1998 -David F. Krugler, “This is Only a Test: How Washington, DC Prepared for Nuclear War,” 2007 -The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, https://thebulletin.org/ -Garrett M. G

In this episode, we debate one of the most important questions in international relations and nuclear policy today: are the dragons in Game of Thrones more like nuclear weapons or conventional air power? Does George R.R. Martin deploy the dragons as analogs for nuclear weapons? Do dragons serve more of a conventional air power or close air support role in the story's military battles? Perhaps the dragons themselves aspire to be artists and bakers rather than being typecast as weapons of war? Tim Westmyer (@nuclearpodcast) and Dr. Michael C. Horowitz (@mchorowitz) answer these questions and more. Before winter gets here, we recommend checking out: -Timothy Westmyer, “Dragons, Nuclear Weapons, and Game of Thrones,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2014 -Michael C. Horowitz and Matthew Fuhrmann, “Are ‘Game of Thrones’s’ Dragons the Equivalent of Nuclear Weapons? We Don’t Think So,” Washington Post’s Monkey Cage Blog, April 12, 2019 -Matthew Gault, “The Dragons in ‘Game of Thrones’ Aren’t Nukes, They’re a