Monster Crush

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.

For our second Pride Month episode of 2025 we consider giving a second chance to some monsters who did not get our full attention on previous dates. So this time we explore the wilderness for the Scandinavian Troll! These mysterious monsters of magic and nature have haunted fables and myth far back into ancient times… so it’s about time they haunt our bedrooms! Things are going to get rock hard so strap in and strap on!

Featuring: A totally perfect first take on our intro - Spooky News: werewolf motivated robbery, aliens are starting WWIII… to help us?, and (old news) a portal in English forest is letting in werewolves - trolls are old and confusing, troll are bossbitches, trolls were illegal, smelly Christian blood, trolls are just Bigfoot(?), a quick dive into LOTR lore, troll movie recs, AND MORE!

CW: Robbery & Assault (4:00-8:00), Current events - politics, war, etc. (8:05-12:00), mentions of Christianity and Christian misogyny/oppression of women (periodic starting at 30:00), monsters as caricatures/stereotypes of ethnicities and as forms of antisemitism (46:30-47:30, 50:45-53:00)

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.

Happy Pride, you beautiful Monster Crushers! To celebrate the queerest time of the year we wanted to present you all with a true gay icon. And, since we covered Mothman back in episode 69, we delved into pop culture for a figure who has represented the LGBTQ+ community for decades now. So strap on and strap in for the true Master of the Universe and master of our hearts, Skeletor! This skeletal singleton is sure to rattle your bones in the best of ways!

Featuring: Pride Month for monster fucking, it’s all fucking weird fucking, Spooky News: Annabelle the Doll Contained(?) and Squatch Sighting in Colorado, a new game: Battlecat or Cringer (Masters of the Universe Smash or Pass), the history and queerness of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, very important discussions about facial hair, abs on abs on abs, AND MORE!

CW: General discussions of sex, kink, and monster fucking (throughout the episode… I mean, come on), mention of con artists and objectively bad people Ed & Lorraine Warren (10:15-11:30), house fire and prison escape (12:55-13:13:35)

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.

For this Memorial Day we bring you two monsters you just can’t forget about. War is weird and strange stuff happens during times of conflict, so this episode we discuss two giant sea monsters seen by German U-boats during WWI. So get ready to be blown…out of the water by the U-28 Creature and the U-85 Atrocity! 

Featuring: The lusty month of May, a visit to LD’s Smut Corner: The Spinster and the Gargoyle, the gargoyle vs. grotesque debate, Spooky News: crop circles in England and a prehistoric wasp from hell, sea monsters learn to fly by exploding, don’t shoot whales because they might shoot back, mosasaur dickpics, AND MORE!

CW: Insect/body horror/parasites/forced impregnation - insect/implication (29:30-33:40), discussions of naval warfare (35:00-50:00), animal/dinosaur/monster genitalia (50:15-56:00)

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.