Picture this: it’s 2003. You’re in your middle school computer lab. Maybe it’s a bunch of those old Macintosh computers with the see-through sort of aqua-toned bodies? You’re supposed to be, I don’t know, working on your essay about the novel Walkabout by James Vance Marshall. But instead, you minimize the word processor, open up a, I don’t know, Mozilla Firefox window, and go to your favorite site: Wikipedia, and just start clicking links, baby! This week, on Free the Show, we’re taking you back to the good old days of Wikipedia browsing, going on a magical mystery tour through the annals of the original open source encyclopedia. We’re nominally trying to find our way to the page for fly swatters, but what happens is we spend 50 minutes dicking around and then a very sweaty last fifteen minutes trying seriously to get there before Will entirely loses his voice. Listen to Episode 191

Believe it or not, Will and Jimmy have not gotten to record together for over a month. Via backlogging, the podcast has kept afloat weekly for the last 5 episodes, but Jimmy was on sabbatical in Africa and Europe the whole time, visiting family (family being his sister, brother, and parents in the West African country Senegal, and also prostitutes in the European city Amsterdam). Finally, your hosts reunite to recap that trip, but also, cuz that kinda sounds like a dry full episode, they talk about delicious fried rice, which also probably couldn’t fill a whole episode. Listen to Episode 190

Here is a sweet slice of life, a song of American friendship, a story to tell you grandkids so many years from now. A tale of two friends, not as close as they once were, reuniting to watch the movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, whilst eating pizza and talking about love… what a treat it is! Perhaps there’s something in their past, something that could rear its head… well you’ll just have to find the fuck out! Listen to Episode 189

It’s time to count inventory. Nobody likes doing it, but it’s an integral part of keeping the ship afloat for any business or podcast. May seem perfunctory or bland, but ask any full-timer and they’ll tell ya: when you get down to the nitty gritty, the proof is in the pudding, and baby, the devil’s in the details. We call a bunch of stores and take inventory so you don’t have to. Listen to Episode 188

Joe and Flynt are two casting directors at Touchberg Casting. They’ve seen em all, cast em all, and seen em all. There’s no telling who’s gonna walk through their doors to audition for the next Coke spot or von Trier flick or what have you. Peek into a day in the life of Joe and Flynt, hear the slates, line readings, rejections, and dreams coming true as an array of actors audition at Touchberg. Eric Feurer may have had something to do with this. Listen to Episode 187

It’s the alternate universe. Hillary is president! The pee tape came out and took down Trump! Dogs and cats switched! Everything that was now isn’t, and the 186 episodes of Free the Show are now 100 episodes of Schlockbuster Video, Will and Jimmy’s podcast about bad movies we love to hate! It’s everything you love about cringing and whinging with a big bag of popcorn and 2 of your best pals. Listen as they breakdown a piece of schlock in this special episode. Listen to Episode 186

John Ambrosio, fresh off a tour-de-strange of a lifetime, comes back on the pod to settle a score with Jimmy over whether or not most restaurants with a person’s name as the restaurant name are actually owned by that person. This is the type of thing John and Jimmy spend their time thinking/arguing about. Their free time. No one telling them what to do, no constraints in the world, this is their free choice. Anyway, we cold call a bunch of ‘straunts and ask to speak to the owner. Makes for a pretty good episode, actually. Listen to Episode 185

When the founding fathers inked the Bill of Rights way back in 1776, the 11th amendment that was originally written stated “Will and Jimmy shall be the anchors of theater criticism, and all other episodes of their podcast that is yet to be named shall just be filler.” This amendment was soon crossed out because it was already so obvious as to actually be insulting, and the podcast was eventually titled Free the Show. Flash-forward a couple hundred big ones to 2018, and Will and Jimmy return to their roots by reviewing two revivals, The Seafarer, now playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre, and Children of a Lesser God at Studio 54. As Jimmy explains his feelings toward Matthew Broderick, and Will recalls what he did instead of going to Broadway that morning, the hosts are joined by a couple strangers…. who are…….. mysterious and…… perhaps…………. sinister!? Listen to Episode 184

Will got a job as one of those stenographer type folks at publishing giant Random House, and in an effort to win a prize for journalism or something, we are putting out a transcript of a DAMNING editors meeting that you’ll have to hear to believe. And frankly, it’s been a while since we recorded this one, so we’ll have to hear it to believe it or really even remember much of it as well. Listen to Episode 183

In the summer of 2002, the auteur Texan filmmaker Richard Linklater, famous for his low budget laconic Sundance hits, began production on a film about growing up. Over the twelve ensuing years, writing and shooting in piecemeal, he tracked the coming of age of an ordinary young Houston man, played by the novice child actor Ellar Coltrane. The finished film, titled Boyhood, was released in 2014 to critical acclaim. In very much the same way, Will Huebner and Jimmy Blackmon secretly began recording an episode of Free the Show in January of 2018. Over the following three and a half months, they documented their individual weight loss attempts. Just as the world changed around young Mr. Coltrane, the story of Will and Jimmy’s diets became the story…of America? Yes. Listen to Episode 182