For the New Year we look back on singletons we met once but never really got a chance at love. So for this date we pull the Pascagoula Elephantmen out of the stables for a little space seduction and alien abduction. Strap in and strap on because these ETs are out of this world.

Featuring: we have rhythm (sort of) - New Years Resolutions - “Sliterature” - hot takes on orc romance novels - Spooky News: The International Cryptozoology Museum is moving, San Antonio Dogman Sightings, Bigfoot Bae - carrot-like protrusions - two bros chilling in a rowboat -  when the downstairs is the upstairs - AND MORE!

CW: Spiders (4:05-5:30), discussion of fantasy stereotypes/racism (16:00-16:55), death from cancer (57:00-58:00), mentions of abduction/physical restriction related to extraterrestrials throughout

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network - beacons.ai/swordandkey. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Monster Crush! To celebrate this festive season we return to the Yule traditions of ol for a couple monsters that are naughty, nice, and everything in between. So jingle your bells and wrap your present for the Mari Lwyd and Grýla the Christmas Witch. Plus a few bonus monsters including The Yule Cat!

Featuring: who would Zooey Deschanel play in The Lion King? - you can’t lowkey Les Mis someone - F**k, Merry, Exorcise the ghosts from A Christmas Carol - The Feast of the Ass - watch out for Sausage Swiper and Window Peeper - capitalist incentives to avoid being eaten by a cat - Stubby the Yule Lad - AND MORE! 

CW: Mentions of Christianity and Christian influences on history throughout, mention of the historical use of blackface (24:20-25:10), harm to children in folklore (43:10-1:10:15)

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network - beacons.ai/swordandkey. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

For this holiday episode we have only one question for you… Naughty or Nice? Honestly, with monsters it really doesn’t matter which you pick because even the nice ones have a dark side. So wrap your present and stuff your stocking for the naughty Kallikantzaros and the nice Nisse!

Featuring: Did we do a Krampus episode? Yes, yes we did - it’s really dark in the PNW - when you can’t count to three - throw pancakes on your roof - they’re just garden gnomes - minor cat-induced chaos - don’t put the butter on the bottom - harmless horse pranks - follow the rules, even when the rules change - a life goal is to be a sauna-spirit - AND MORE!

CW: Mentions of Christianity (throughout the episode but starting at 11:30), some serious Christian religious trauma (24:30 - 25:30), harm to infants (25:30 - 26:10), mention of the history of bigotry against Romani (31:30 - 32:14), harm to domesticated animals (54:45 - 55:30), folkloric murder (56:45 - 57:30)

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network - beacons.ai/swordandkey. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

For many Americans Thanksgiving is a holiday focused on the iconic main dish, the turkey. But what about the country of Türkiye? Apparently it’s chock full of monsters we can smooch! So for this holiday, we gobble down on two Turkish monsters with the iconic Lake Van Monster and the nightmarish Al Basty. Pass the gravy because this episode is going to get saucy!

Featuring: an ode to the noble turkey, why we’ll never talk about Sesame Street Monsters, the alternate timeline of Big Bird tragedy, a visit to LD’s Smut Corner, Spooky News: Age of Disclosure documentary and phantom boobs - a rich cultural heritage of monsters in Türkiye, a cyclo-boobian monster, a lake monster with murder on the mind, nightmares hide where it’s wet and they ride your horse without permission, the monster that is your cool wine aunt, AND MORE!

CW: brief discussion of the Challenger explosion (11:30-13:00), conservative politicians/current politics/conservative religious conspiracies (29:00-33:15), monster attack that leads to a reported death (53:00-53:45), nightmares/sleep paralysis (58:45-1:08:00) post-partum depression/miscarriage/birth complications (1:02:46-1:08:00)

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network - beacons.ai/swordandkey. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

That’s a lot of ones all in one episode number… So let’s do three cryptids that were only seen once! These monsters were seen for a good time but not for a long time and only for one time. So enjoy The 50-Foot Congo Snake, The Bathysphaera intacta (or Giant Dragonfish), and The Giant Shrimp in the Laundry Room (aka Shrimpy). It’s BIG SNAKE, BIG FISH, BIG SHRIMP… Plus a bonus cryptid!

Featuring: small talk about the weather quickly devolving into deep dives about dialects and accents, greener pastures for podcast listening, Spooky News: Mass Mall Dreaming, we like big snakes and we cannot lie, going real deep with hefty fish, big things in deep dark ocean, potential basement-dwelling escaped government experiment with a fondness for laundry, AND MORE!

CW: dreams and potential mass psychosis (14:15-24:30), snakes (27:00-35:30)

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

WE’RE BACK! Just in time for halloween we return to our teratophilic ways to explore romance with one of the most iconic monsters - FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER!!! So get ready for jokes to leave you in stitches, love that strikes like lightning, and a monster ready for LONG-TERM commitments because… IT’S ALIVE!!!

Featuring: Our podcast relationship Unicorn (Shadow), Halloween traditions & memories, LD’s Smut Corner - Scared Sexy Collection, a collection of dudes - a bro-pourri or a dude turducken, 8 feet tall and full of emotions, epistolary novels are just early found footage, Mary Shelley is a freak and a true Gothic Queen, we love cliterature… if you can find it, enormous schwanstuckers, AND MORE!

CW: body horror, minor references to gun violence, fictional child death, fictional murder, and references to historical misogyny

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

In honor of the recent holiday, Hobbit Day, we’re talking Tolkien! Derek is joined once again by special guest Shadow (@shadowsilvia on socials) to delve too greedily and too deep into some Middle Earth monsters! So prepare to make an unexpected party with Smaug the Dragon, The Watcher in the Water, and Durin’s Bane the Balrog!

Additional side note: Monster Crush will be skipping a week on our release schedule but will be back for a new episode hopefully at the end of October!

Featuring: we prefer #raptortok to #rapturetok - Spooky News: Squonk at the right hand of god, honoring Jeff Meldrum (professional foot expert) - Happy Hobbit Day - rawdogging a Hobbit - a new game: NAME THAT DWARF - being trapped in rooms by tiny spiders - being penetrated in one specific spot - all billionaires are bad, even if they’re dragons - tentacles with “fingered” ends -  AND MORE!

CW: Mentions of the rapture (2:05-7:45), death from cancer (7:45-11:00), spiders (27:15-28:15)

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Monster Crush is back after our Summer Break with all new chills and thrills. For this episode, Derek is joined by special guest Shadow (@shadowsilvia on socials) to discuss the noble Unicorn! And these horny horses have a wild history hiding behind all those sparkles and rainbows. Author Chris Lavers is quoted as saying “The history of the unicorn myth is so tangled that to try and unravel it is to glimpse madness”. But we’d gladly glimpse madness for some unicorn love! 

Featuring: Chupacabras on Ice, unicorns are not what you think but also they are, the first unicorns were more unicows, shock-resistant horns, a medieval figure with the best name - Ole Worm, unicorn horns can cure anything (and nothing), whale blubber tastes like hazelnut, a 300 year-long Scandinavian scam, 2026 is the year of the alicorn, we keep going back to square rhinoceros, unicorns are super gay, AND MORE!

CW: Mentions of Christianity/real world religion throughout, Brief reference to the anniversary of 9/11 and recent news events (7:45-7:55) 

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Summer is a time for fun, sun, and (if you’re anything like us) reading! So for this summer break episode we went back to our childhoods to explore some of the wonderful monsters gifted to us by the one and only R.L. Stine in the Goosebumps series! So get ready for monsters from Calling All Creeps, The Beast from the East, and Night of the Living Dummy! Listeners beware, you’re in for a (sexy) scare!

Also, this episode marks the beginning of our brief Summer Break for Monster Crush, we'll be back in September for more episodes!

Featuring: Summer activities in the 90s, the nostalgia of the Pizza Hut Summer Reading program, Spooky News: US Government Lies About Aliens/UFOs Again(?), Annabelle the Haunted Doll Kills a Man - R.L Stine wrote a horror novel about a rollercoaster, horror can be accessible for kids, Goosebumps cover Easter Eggs, do a “classic clone” to get to level 3, “fluids” counts as a superpower, FMK with some Goosebumps monsters, AND MORE!

CW: Spoilers for 30+ year old Goosebumps books, Conspiracy theories surrounding the government/gaslighting/misinformation (11:00-21:20), Death/Loss (21:20-30:20), mentions of horror violence with references to horror violence to kids (35:20-1:20:35)

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

On this date we fly back into the weird world of Yokai for a couple of avian singletons to nest with. So strap on and strap in for the Kogarasu and the Niwatori no sō! These two feathered friends are sure to peck their way into your hearts… perhaps literally.

Featuring: Toilet ghosts and sentient umbrellas, a trip to LD’s Smut Corner, Spooky News: Bigfoot could get you high, eat the prideful and haughty, chicken’s grudge-curse, cloacal kisses, AND MORE!

CW: Mentions of explosions/fireworks and allusions to the current state of the US (1:30-2:15), yokai/urban legend violence (6:30-7:25), drug use (20:30-26:30), monsters eating dead humans (29:10-33:40), bird-based body horror (33:45-40:00)

We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.