Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David sets out to understand American Network News, and the country’s obsession with rolling 24/7 news coverage. Why does the Fox News Channel averaged more total viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined and how is American TV news faring in the wake of Twitter and TikTok? David talks to Stacy Scholder, a professor at the University of Southern California who teaches TV journalism. What is she teaching the next generation of TV journalists and what was it like covering OJ Simpson’s escape on the LA freeway? He also meets Victor Vlam, a 38-year-old man in the Netherlands who has the biggest collection of news theme songs on the planet. Why does he have 876 hours, 2 minutes and 52 seconds of news music? Victor explains the importance of news theme music and what it says about the news you’re about to hear. What’s the best news theme song and the worst?

Constance Wu (Making a Scene, Crazy Rich Asians, Fresh Off the Boat) is an actress. Constance joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why she decided to write a book, the importance of having empathy and curiosity toward someone else's experience, and how she discovered her love for acting. Constance and Dax talk about her experiences working in television versus film, what they think being pessimistic means, and how Asian women are often treated on a production set. Constance explains her relationship with going to therapy, what being pregnant during the pandemic was like, and why she started running marathons.

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Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about their worst dating experience from a dating app.

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Will Bunch (After the Ivory Tower Falls) is an author and journalist. Will joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why he wanted to research the college story in America, why people are so politically divided over the subject of higher education, and why it's so expensive to go to American universities. Will and Dax talk about why it could be argued that college degrees are more about status than knowledge, how the debt relief program could shape the future of many people, and how it's possible for vocational schools to make a comeback. Will explains why some states stopped wanting to fund their public universities, how college is mostly about learning to think critically, and the concept of a credential society.

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Liz and Monica don't know what's real in episode 4 (of 10) of Race to 35. Monica receives unfortunate news from her doctor, we learn about Liz's synchronized swimming history and they remind each other they can do hard things. The remainder of the episode focuses on fertility fraud. They speak with Eve Wiley, advocate for regulation and legislation in the fertility industry, who tells a harrowing personal experience in uncovering her genetic truth. We also speak to Bee, a young woman who discovers she has many "diblings" (donor siblings) across the US and how she has learned to embrace the positive.

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to understand why Americans say “math”, while New Zealand - and most of the rest of the world - says “maths”. He speaks to Dean Koorey about the mysteries of language, before stumbling into the depths of math/maths and the perils of the metric system. How many ounces in a pound? How many pounds are in a stone? And why is America stuck using the imperial system when the rest of the planet loves the sensible metric system? Farrier is shocked to find that NASA once lost a space probe thanks to a metric conversion disaster, and meets with aerospace engineer Omar Abed to get to the bottom of the mess.

Gwen Stefani is a singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. Gwen joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how she got started singing and writing songs, why she started a beauty line of makeup, and where she got her sense of style from. Gwen and Dax talk about their experiences with dyslexia, what growing up in 80's culture was like, and the differences between taxis and Ubers. Gwen explains how she was introduced to Japanese culture, how she got the offer to be on The Voice, and how spirituality has played a large role in her career.

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Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us about their spookiest encounter with a ghost.

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Felix Gillette is the enterprise editor for Bloomberg News & John Koblin is a media reporter for The New York Times. Felix and John join the Armchair Expert to discuss how HBO became one of the premiere television networks in America, how their original shows changed the landscape of television, and why they wanted to write a book about it - It's Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and the Future of HBO. Felix, John, Dax, and Monica talk about which HBO shows are their all-time favorites, how streaming services have changed how networks produce content, and what impact HBO has had on American pop culture. Felix and John explain where the HBO tagline came from, how they developed such a great documentary division, and how they think the recent Discovery HBO merger will change the platform.

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Monica and Liz are owning their dumbness in episode 3 (of 10) of Race to 35. They discuss last night's shots which were an utter disaster involving Monica giving Liz a proper stabbing. They talk to Emily Oster, American author and professor of economics at Brown, who talks about how to apply the principles of economics to fertility and pregnancy. She applies cost/benefit, optimizing the margin and opportunity cost to their egg freezing journey. They also speak to a friend of the pod, actress January Jones, who discusses her personal experience with egg freezing and solo parenting.