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A guy in his boxers. Crocs. A talking cat. Try recommending that to a normal person — they'll look at you like you've lost your mind. Then they read one page of Princess Donut, and they're in the cult too.

Steve and Jeff roll the D20 and let the dice pick the angle on Dungeon Crawler Carl, Book 1 by Matt Dinniman. Top-three characters, the odd-couple buddy-cop dynamic, the great info-dump debate — and why this series turns readers into believers.

Impossible to sell, or exactly why the cult works? 🎲

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🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

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Dungeon Crawler Carl book 1 review — Steve and Jeff break down Matt Dinniman's LitRPG phenomenon, Princess Donut, and who should play Carl in Seth McFarlane's Peacock series.

The apocalypse will be televised. A guy in boxers, Crocs, and a leather jacket chases a cat into the street at 2:30 a.m. — and the world ends. That's page one, and somehow it only gets more unhinged from there. In this episode we get into why a prize-winning Persian cat casting magic missiles is the best character decision in modern genre fiction, whether the Soundbooth Theater audiobook actually beats the print copy, and the print-only Pineapple Cabaret nobody with an ebook knows about.

Then we debut a brand-new segment — the OG Call Sheet — and cast 13 characters for the upcoming Fuzzy Door / Peacock adaptation. Talon Warburton or Tom Holland for Carl? Seth McFarlane himself as Mordecai? We agreed more than we expected to, and disagreed exactly where you'd hope.

Audiobook or print? Tom Holland or give the newcomer a shot? Drop your cast list in the comments — we're reading them.

🎧 Full audio: OriginalGeekPodcast.com/listen-now
📩 [email protected]

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

Connect with us!

The rules of Random Review are simple: we set the topic, and the d20 sets the direction. We know what we're reviewing — we just don't know how. This time we handed the dice a post-apocalyptic novel and sat the author down to defend it in real time.

Steve and Jeff are joined by indie author Alex Grass for a review of Drek, his surreal, funny, end-of-the-world novel where a coroner ends up with the boogeyman on his gurney, three twisted religions go to war over the body, and the history of how it all fell apart survives only in the wreckage. Steve opens the segment with a critical fail — which turns into a genuine debate about whether a deliberately disorienting first act is a weakness or the whole point.

From there: worldbuilding without the dreaded info-dump, why the best writing sounds like the way you actually talk and think, and a shared appreciation for stories that are absurd enough to be believable — think Twelve Monkeys or Brazil. Plus the worst kind of story anyone can corner you with at a family gathering.

If you love post-apocalyptic fiction that isn't afraid to laugh at itself, this is a good one.

Follow Alex on Instagram @infernaltramps, and pick up Drek and his other novels wherever you get your books.

Original Geek is a podcast about Gen X geek culture — sci-fi, fantasy, D&D, comics, and everything that shaped us. If you're enjoying the show, follow, rate, and leave a review. It genuinely helps.

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

Connect with us!

Author Alex Grass joins us in the basement for the debut of Artists Alley — and he brought the whole shelf with him: Black River Lantern, Influencer, Drek, A Boy's Hammer, and the brand-new short story collection Infernal Tramps (out July 15).

We start by trying to define paranormal horror and immediately discover the category might swallow the whole genre. Alex traces horror's origins back to the late Victorian collision of scientific progress and spiritualism — M.R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu, ghost stories — and argues that in the beginning, essentially all horror was paranormal.

Then things get personal. Alex talks about the three months in rehab that split his life into before and after, and the strange fact that the healthier he got, the grayer and more twisted his fiction became. Infernal Tramps is the result: a museum guard whose single bad impulse unravels an entire city, a plastic surgery story that ends somewhere no one sees coming, and a Goodreads reader's perfect description — Twilight Zone meets Hostel.

Our Random Review puts Drek under the D20 with the author present, and Steve rolls a natural 1. The category: "Narrative Fog" — the accusation that the book's opening is so deliberately disorienting that readers put it down. Jeff, who read the thing in a day, mounts a hard disagreement built entirely around one image: a coroner with the Boogeyman on his gurney.

Geek Court takes the case that splits the genre: does horror need humor? Alex builds his argument on Chris Rock and a South Park line about how comedy rots — and how horror, given enough distance from the tragedy underneath it, can rot right back into comedy. Steve, a working stand-up, argues the banana peel and the scream live on the same continuum. Jeff counters with Hereditary and Midsommar. The verdict is not what he wanted.

We close on Geek Evolution and a rant we didn't script: the gatekeepers are gone, the access is a genuine renaissance, and that's exactly the problem. The noise is deafening, and the only thing that cuts through it is work you'd be proud of even if nobody ever finds it.

Also: bourbon as a bridge between broken people, why nobody should ever write an info dump, the horror movies that got to us first, and a story about Goodreads that we are not going to summarize here.

FIND ALEX GRASS
InfernalTramps.com | Instagram: @infernaltramps | Amazon & Goodreads
Please rate and review his books — for an indie author, that's the whole game.

ORIGINAL GEEK PODCAST
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Steve Scarfo & Jeff Shaw

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

Connect with us!

We rolled the d20 on Disclosure Day, Spielberg's new alien movie, and the dice picked our fights for us.

Roll one: the cold open that skips the close encounter entirely and throws you into Act 2 mid-chase, with Daniel already running and zero exposition to catch you up. Roll two: the train car climax — a practical-stunt escape sequence with a full John Williams score behind it. Two big action beats in a movie we swear isn't an action movie.

Plus Colin Firth's loyalty-scrambling casting, the JJ Abrams / Super 8 train callback, and the question of whether any of this actually earns a theater ticket.

No prep. No script. Just two geeks reacting to what they just watched.

So settle it for us: is Disclosure Day the third Spielberg alien movie… or does that count collapse the moment you name them all?

 #DisclosureDay #Spielberg #CloseEncounters #ET #Sci-Fi #MovieReview #GenX #GeekPodcast #OriginalGeek 

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

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How many alien movies has Steven Spielberg actually made? Ask three geeks, get three answers — and that's exactly the fight we pick this week.

With Disclosure Day finally in theaters, we put Spielberg's entire alien run under the microscope: Close Encounters, E.T., the new one, and the two movies nobody can agree on (looking at you, War of the Worlds and that Indiana Jones with the crystal skull). Steve holds the line at three pure Spielberg originals. Jeff refuses to let it go.

Along the way: a full Disclosure Day breakdown, a Random Review roll that lands on the movie's Act 2 cold open and that wild train sequence, a Geek Court showdown over whether it's a worthy entry, flashbacks to Devil's Tower and a popcorn bucket that scarred Steve for life, and the Reese's Pieces deal that changed product placement forever. Plus the rant that fuels the whole episode — Spielberg had the perfect chance to connect these films, and didn't.

It all comes down to one unsettled question: do you count every movie with an alien in it, or only the ones Spielberg built from scratch? We're not agreeing. Maybe you can settle it.

Listen, then tell us where you land: [email protected]

 #OriginalGeek #Spielberg #DisclosureDay #SciFi 

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

Connect with us!

This week on Original Geek Random Review, Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw roll the dice and land in the smoky, shadowy world of Spider-Noir.

Nicolas Cage stars as Ben Reilly, a broken-down private investigator with a past life as The Spider, and somehow the whole thing works exactly because it lets Cage be Cage. We dig into the noir style, the Spider-Man twist, Janet as the show’s secret weapon, the midseason slowdown, and the brilliant reversal of the classic Spider-Man line: “With no power comes no responsibility.”

We also get into the show’s villain choices, the detective-story pacing, and why this version of Spider-Noir feels less like another superhero product and more like a strange little genre experiment that actually has a pulse.

Spoilers ahead for Spider-Noir Season 1.

Watch Spider-Noir on Prime Video, then come back and roll with us.

Watch, listen, argue with us, and tell us what you think.

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Original Geek Podcast — where Gen X nostalgia, geek culture, and questionable dice rolls collide.

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

Connect with us!

Is The Mandalorian & Grogu a true Star Wars movie event… or does it feel more like a Disney+ episode with an IMAX upgrade?

On this Original Geek Random Review, Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw roll the dice and review The Mandalorian & Grogu, breaking down the theatrical experience, the Disney+ problem, Grogu’s big Force payoff, the Hutt storyline, the pacing, and whether this story raised the stakes enough to justify the jump from streaming to the big screen.

We liked the movie. We loved seeing Star Wars back in theaters. But the big question remains:

Was this really a movie — or just Season 4 in disguise?

Plus, we get into the “member berries,” the Hutt twins, the theater vs. streaming debate, and why Mando and Grogu may be trapped in the weirdest box office situation in the galaxy. 

Watch, listen, argue with us, and tell us what you think.

Full episodes and more at:
OriginalGeekPodcast.com

Follow Original Geek Podcast:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Original Geek Podcast — where Gen X nostalgia, geek culture, and questionable dice rolls collide.

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

Connect with us!

 The boys are putting Gen V on trial. Jeff prosecutes the spin-off for the ultimate irony — a show that satirizes corporate franchise expansion… by expanding into a franchise. Steve defends it as legitimate universe-building that explores what Vaught does to young, hopeful lives. They agree on one thing: they wasted Marie Moreau. Guilty or not guilty? You decide. 

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

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⚠️ FULL SPOILERS for the series finale. Watch the episode first, then come back.

Episode 8, "Blood and Bone," had the hardest job on TV: end Butcher, Hughie, Starlight, and Homelander without short-changing five seasons of buildup. Did it stick the landing?

We Roll the D20 — it's a spoiler-heavy Random Review of THE BOYS series finale. Steve and Jeff break down the bloodiest, most satisfying send-off on TV: the Deep's full-circle death by radicalized sea life, Huey's "it just hurts to be human" gut-punch to Butcher, Starlight finally getting her revenge, and whether the writers stuck the landing or pulled a Lost.
Samuel L. Jackson as a hammerhead. Butcher's last one-two punch. Jack Quaid as the moral anchor of the whole run. We cover the bookends, the deaths, and the one or two things that made us go "hmm."


🎲 Random Review is a standalone Original Geek segment — we set the topic, the dice set the direction. This is part of a larger episode. Check out the full show and subscribe.

📺 originalgeekpodcast.com
📧 [email protected]

#TheBoys #TheBoysFinale #Homelander #OriginalGeek

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 [email protected]
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook