Overthinking It Podcast

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Mark Lee, Matt Wrather and Pete Fenzel begin with a reflexive logical identity. A horse is a horse. Of course! Of course. And no one can talk to a horse. Of course!

That is, of course, unless the horse…

The three ride back to 1961, to witness Mad Men-era psychological horror at its finest.

…is the famous Mister Ed!

Wilbur Post has an obstacle to happiness and connection in his life. And no matter how much his neighbor strives to convince him it’s their wives’ effort to purchase things they and their families need and want, it is in fact the petty, possessive Palomino in his suburban barn / home office. The horse talks only to Wilbur, you see, and every lip-flapping word drives Wilbur apart from his kind and reasonable wife Carol, to have the man all to himself.

By what hand do today’s overthinkers measure this chauvinistic chestnut? This horseworm of the post-cowboy mind? This braying, bad-faith brony? Does Mister Ed hold up, and if so, with what horsepower? When we look Mister Ed in the mouth, do we triage Wilbur’s marital problems? Impugn his wilting integrity? Mock his incompetence? Trace the horseheaded shadow of his unspent libido? All of them, and more!

Do you remember Mister Ed as giving good advice? I did, but no longer. Email [email protected] for an invite to our Discord to share your memories of TV Land and all its saddle baggage.

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Episode 952: Unbridled Shenanigans originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matt Wrather are not quitting the podcast, but everything else is on the table. The crew overthink giving up on a long project, and Matt has hot take: people don’t quit things nearly enough. Book readers defer to a pretend adjudicating authority in their own heads, silencing the part of the psyche that is screaming “this book sucks, man.”

Pete, for example, tried to read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell while pushing a newborn’s stroller on almost no sleep, and by refusing to quit the book, he effectively quit reading. Video games are another matter. Mark quits games that don’t respect his time, notably Star Wars Outlaws and one infernal puzzle in the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle DLC.

But nobody ever quits a haiku. And Tori Amos never played Lilith Fair.

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Episode 951: I’m Sorry, U. You’re Just Not Worth My Time. originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Knock knock.

Who’s there?

The Overthinking It Podcast.

The Overthinking It Podcast Who?

The Overthinking It Podcast subjects jokes to a level of scrutiny they probably don’t deserve! Hahahahahahaha!

Mark Lee came to Pete Fenzel and Matt Wrather with a problem: his son got his hands on a 120+ page book of Halloween jokes, and he was having trouble explaining why some of them worked better than others. The panel starts by dissecting joke mechanics (puns, setups, punchlines, subversion of expectations, etc.), and from there goes on to explore the unspoken agreements of the joke-telling social contract, especially when it comes to the notorious shaggy dog story, joke-telling that requires membership in particular subcultures, and common frameworks for jokes such as “St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.”

Got a joke from your kid that defies analysis? Your go-to joke for breaking the tension in awkward social situations? Something groan-worthy, or perhaps knee-slap-inducing? Share it on the Discord? Email [email protected] for an invitation.

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Episode 950: Hey Dad! Knock Knock. originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Matt Wrather, Mark Lee, and Pete Fenzel keep a promise by overthinking Dog Man. Dog Man is a bigger deal than you think. Year-end bestseller lists for novels overall have had at least one new Dog Man book in them for 7 of the last 8 years. And the composition, themes, and artistic mission of the enterprise deserves as deep a look as we can give it. Enter the Overthinkers.

Matt, Mark, and Pete start broad, cataloguing the series’ unusual modes of style and critique, including a catalogue of the “inadequate moral authorities” that serve as the targets for satire and social commentary across the series. They then zoom in on close readings of the books that redefined the series: A Tale of Two Kitties (the Charles Dickens one) and Dog Man and Cat Kid (the East of Eden one). They discuss the relationship between Dog Man and The Great Books, which is one of influence, reverence, and trenchant criticism. They frame the books as deliberate art objects of physical media. They explore the meta-narrative of Dog Man as an artistic project of the fictional elementary school children George Beard and Harold Hutchins. They delve into Dog Man’s unflinching moral sense, which is one of human connection through artistic and expressive freedom and forgiveness.

Such depth might not be expected from a series so generous with its diarrhea jokes, but Dog Man is a gift that keeps on giving. The three discuss its staggering inconvenient truths about parenthood hidden not-too-deeply amid chaotic and frantic action, its relationship with educational accommodation and neurodiversity (which it carries over from Captain Underpants), and writer Dav Pilkey’s vocabulary of reference from the cinema of the 1930s, from Our Gang to the Three Stooges to the landmark horror-comedy Freaks (Gooba gabba! Gooba gabba!). Also, Big Jim is Jesus.

“Oh boy this is gonna be GREAT!” —Chief

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Episode 949: Juvenile Phantasmagoria of Kid Logic originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Peter Fenzel and Matthew Wrather report for the first day of school in sweatpants — a garment Matt wore religiously until the sixth grade. Matt has in fact just started a new job, an occasion his boss called “syllabus week”; the swag package waiting at his workstation included a backpack, which seemed somehow apropos.

For Pete, back to school became metaphorical upon college graduation and then stopped being metaphorical again when his kids started school. The carnivalesque revolt against the monthless calendar of adult life has given way to actual backpacks and a frank plea for a return to normalcy after a summer of camps, travel, and a schedule in tatters. What the school year supplies, he argues, is an end to summer wtihout a denial: we’re stopping because something else is happening now, rather than because a parent has said no for the fifteenth time.

If you buy a new notebook this month, establish first why you are filling it. Is it an obligation or an aspiration?

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Episode 948: The End and the Denial originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Pete Fenzel and Mark Lee pay tribute to the artistic and cultural legacy of Dolly Parton on the occasion of her passing at the age of 80. They start with her humble origins as told through the similarly humble song “Coat of Many Colors,” noting that many of her big songs lack structural or harmonic complexity. The apparent simplicity of the compositions are of course just strong foundations upon which Parton layers her lyrical mastery, shimmering voice, and her larger-than-life persona.

Pete and Mark also celebrate Parton’s philanthropy, which, in fitting with her music, was often expressed in terms of human connection, rather than some sort of abstract manifesto. Mark also reminisces about the time he took his family to Dollywood, where everyone had a good time, except for when the soot from the massive steam train engine made his toddler daughter cough. Sorry, what were we talking about? Right. Dolly Parton was an amazing musician, a powerful cultural phenomenon, and a generous human being, and we hope this podcast provides you with some new ways to appreciate her legacy.

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Episode 947: Maximally Spangled originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Peter Fenzel and Matthew Wrather don Mets caps and set out for the Valley of the Soul — settling, in the end, for a Rhode Island beach a half-hour from home. They overthink Kyle Gordon’s “Mr Jambo,” a comic river of pastiche that wends from Paul Simon’s Graceland and its South African collaborators through the earnest spiritual filter of Toto’s “Africa.”

Time, Fenzel argues, has made the figure of an ignorant American tourist safe enough to laugh at, but Wrather wonders if (s)he even exists any more, in a world where nobody eats, prays, or loves. Of course Fenzel does all three, at a brand-new, barely-opened car dealership whose coffee machine has no cups from which to partake in the sacrament, but where two or three are gathered around a freestanding popcorn machine.

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Show art: “New Brunswick NJ Skyline at Sunset” by Forevaclevah, licensed under CC BY 3.0. Cropped.

Episode 946: Are There Not Sunsets in Hackensack? originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather have each read the same few dozen books aloud every night for years, to the point where each one’s consciousness has been permanently altered. You could say it’s been eaten through by a hungry, hungry caterpillar. Without even needing to overthink, they run a five-round snake draft for the ultimate children’s bookshelf.

Three strategies emerge immediately. Mark drafts for utility, opening with Hands Are Not for Hitting and praising Martine Agassi for spending most of the book on what hands are for. Matt drafts for literary quality, which in picture books is inseparable from physical presentation. Where the Wild Things Are earns its place because the illustrations go full-bleed as the forest grows and Max’s ceiling hangs with vines as thick and green as Chaucer’s springtime, bathed by April showers. Pete is the only one actually considering how this team would perform on the court. He drafts for GOAT status and roster balance, taking The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Goodnight Moon back to back, then making the case for Margaret Wise Brown as the most metal children’s author who ever lived, since every book she writes is about DEATH (aka “sleep”).

Also discussed: Louis Menand’s deconstruction of The Cat in the Hat, which Matt has apparently been carrying around since 2002; Mark on I Am Golden and the Asian American picture books he didn’t have growing up in the Deep South; and Pete’s dinosaur encyclopedia, permanently ribboned to page 96.

(Content Warning: This podcast contains no children’s books about pooping.)

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Mark

Matt

Pete

Episode 945: It’s a STEM Book AND a Leaf Book originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Irish actor and musician Glen Hansard died in a motorcycle crash outside Dublin on July 29th, which probably should have resulted in a discussion of his most famous work, the movie Once. Instead, Mark convinced Peter Fenzel and Matt Wrather to watch The Commitments, in which Hansard only has a small part. Something you should know about Mark: when he was in college, he started a classic soul cover band. Some things you should know about The Commitments: it’s a movie about an Irish classic soul cover band, and also one of Mark’s favorite movies of all time.

The panelists start by paying tribute to Hansard and how his busking career lent him ample artistic credibility as a working musician who fostered authentic connection with his audience. From there, they fully commit to the movie discussion, starting with the class / racial identity themes on display and why an Irishman saying “I’m Black and I’m proud” is not as ridiculous or offensive as it may seem in the abstract. 

The panel then turns to a less memorable line from the movie as a jumping off point for analyzing the role of music and the band in the characters’ journeys. An unnamed character cleaning candle wax at a church says, “A lot of work. If you didn’t do it for God, who would you do it for?” In this case, if the “it” is “starting a classic soul band under adverse circumstances with band members often at odds with each other,” the reasons turn out to be multitude and complex: sometimes it’s saving souls, other times it’s saving soul (music), but at the end it’s just good old fashioned self-actualization.

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Episode 944: Working Class Person Who Is Working originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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Matt Belinkie, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather convene to dig into two Disney franchises most adults have never watched a frame of: Descendants (kids of Disney villains and heroes at a magical boarding school) and Zombies (Hairspray, but with the Black characters recast as the undead). Like all of Disney’s live-action musicals, these are chasing the generational high of High School Musical, which smashed television and music records and set the template for tween entertainment. That’s what let Disney bridge the gap from “Disney kid” to the lucrative “Disney adult,” who buys the pins, wears the color-blocked cosplay, and drags friends to the parks.

From there the conversation turns into a business-strategy breakdown, covering Disney’s ability to take young actors and turn them into stars (a pipeline dating back to the Mickey Mouse Club) and its unmatched vertical integration for merchandising anything that hits (versus Netflix’s comparatively toothless attempts at experiential tie-ins). More importantly, Disney never overspends on these things; even a guaranteed smash like High School Musical 3 cost only $11 million. These movies look cheap because they ARE cheap, but they deliver where it counts — kid-friendly pop songs, colorful costumes, and choreography from Kenny Ortega himself (the same guy who directed Newsies).

The back half is a close read of the Zombies franchise’s racial-and-otherness allegory: zombie protagonist Zed Necrodopolis, the Z-bands that keep the “monstrous” townspeople in check, and the cheerleading-competition integration plot, plus how each sequel swaps in a new marginalized group (werewolves, aliens, and vegetarian “blood fruit”-eating vampires). Mark pushes on the uncomfortable racial coding baked into the original film, and the group lands on a Zootopia comparison — Disney’s habit of building allegories legible enough for adults to read into, without ever committing hard enough to court controversy. They close out comparing the franchise’s shameless internal-lore expansion (did we really need to meet Smee’s kids?) to the lost art of pure, unpretentious summer schlock, with a shoutout to the Sharknado era as the adult equivalent of what Descendants is doing for tweens.

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Episode 943: Get Me Ortega! originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]