Pop Culture Happy Hour

By NPR

Arts TV & Film Music

What's Pop Culture Happy Hour about?

Pop Culture Happy Hour is a fun and freewheeling chat about the latest movies, television, books, comics and music.

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Legally Blonde And What's M...

04.16.2021

Twenty years ago, Legally Blonde opened in theaters, and now it's available on Netflix. Reese Witherspoon plays a first-year law student named Elle Woods. She heads to Harvard Law School to win back Warner, who broke up with her for ...

Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes:

04.16.2021 Legally Blonde And What's Making Us Happy Twenty years ago, Legally Blonde opened in theaters, and now it's available on Netflix. Reese Witherspoon plays a first-year law student named Elle Woods. She heads to Harvard Law School to win back Warner, who broke up with her for ...
04.15.2021 Made For Love The HBO Max series Made For Love follows Hazel (played by Cristin Milioti), whose husband wants to get inside her head — literally. He's a tech genius who's already made both of them recluses, but he's now working on a ...
04.14.2021 Three Songs For Staring Out The Window NPR Music has song recommendations for every occasion, from major life events to moments when all you want to do is stare blankly into the middle distance. Right now, so many of us feel stuck in a holding pattern, as ...
04.13.2021 Queen Sugar Queen Sugar is a sprawling melodrama following the Bordelons, a tight-knit, multi-generational black family in rural Louisiana. Created by Ava DuVernay, the series has been politically topical from the beginning, and its fifth season is timelier than ever, dealing with ...
04.12.2021 Viola Davis: Essentials Viola Davis' name is rarely far from awards season chatter, and this year is no different — the highly decorated performer received her fourth Oscar nomination for her role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and could become the first Black ...
04.09.2021 The Great Pottery Throw Down, What's Making Us Happy, And Remembering DMX The Great Pottery Throw Down is one of the gentlest, kindest and warmest competitive reality shows you will ever see (even when things literally explode). The UK series is now streaming on HBO Max. The dishes, the bowls, the handles, ...
04.08.2021 Bad Trip In the Netflix movie Bad Trip, Eric Andre and Lil Rel Howery play best friends who take a road trip from Florida to New York City. The twist in Bad Trip is that each scene is also an elaborate prank, ...
04.07.2021 Frances McDormand: Essentials Over the course of her long, varied and distinguished career, actor Frances McDormand has won two Oscars - and her performance in Nomadland this year could win her a third. Pop Culture Happy Hour explores some of the great work ...
04.06.2021 Chadwick Boseman: Essentials Chadwick Boseman is nominated for an Oscar this year for his performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. It's his final onscreen role — he died of colon cancer in August. Before that, Boseman played historical figures including Thurgood Marshall, Jackie ...
04.05.2021 The Father In The Father, Anthony Hopkins plays a character whose fierce independence is complicated by his worsening dementia. Olivia Colman plays his daughter Anne, who keeps trying to hire carers to help look after him. But the structure of the film ...
04.02.2021 Top 10 Muppets And What's Making Us Happy When we asked our listeners to tell us which Muppets were their favorites, we knew you'd all come through. More than 6,000 people cast over 18,000 votes, and those votes have been tallied. This is the PCHH audience's definitive ranking ...
04.01.2021 Our Favorite Muppets When The Muppet Show arrived on Disney Plus in February, it got us talking: who are our favorite Muppets? And which Muppet do we most identify with? Today, we're discussing all things Muppets and finding out where we fit in ...
03.31.2021 Godzilla Vs. Kong Godzilla Vs. Kong is a collision of two classic film franchises. As the sequel to 2017's Kong: Skull Island and 2019's Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, the film's excessive plot largely serves as window dressing for a heightened epic battle. ...
03.30.2021 The Falcon And The Winter Soldier As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues its march across Disney Plus, it needs a buddy show, specifically The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. Both old allies of Captain America, the two find themselves up against villains, a therapist and sometimes ...
03.29.2021 Die Hard There's no wrong time to talk about an influential Hollywood classic. So that's why we are talking about Die Hard. We will never get tired of Hans Gruber versus John McClane — Alan Rickman versus Bruce Willis — the real ...
03.27.2021 Beverly Cleary: Essentials Legendary children's author Beverly Cleary died last week at the age of 104. Cleary wrote more than 40 books over about 50 years. Her characters, like Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins, entertained kids for decades. So we decided to talk ...
03.26.2021 Sound of Metal and What's Making Us Happy Sound Of Metal tells the story of a heavy-metal drummer, played by Riz Ahmed, who experiences sudden hearing loss that changes every facet of his life. The film is nominated for six Academy Awards - including Best Picture, Best Actor ...
03.25.2021 King Of The Hill If you're looking for the next show to binge, we've got a great suggestion for you. The animated sitcom King Of The Hill ran on FOX from 1997 to 2010, and all 13 seasons are now streaming on Hulu. The ...
03.24.2021 Audience Questions: What Should I Watch? For a year, many of us have found ourselves planted at home, with a lot more time on our hands for movies and television. Maybe you've already finished the umpteenth binge-watch of your favorite show, or you're just in a ...
03.23.2021 2020 Best Books: Book Club Ideas Every year, NPR brings together some of the best books of the year in a searchable, explorable guide called the Book Concierge. Today, All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro gives us his recommendations for your next book club.
03.22.2021 Favorite Concert Films It's been more than a year since live concerts were a safe way to experience music. We miss the roar of a blissed-out crowd and experiencing art at the moment of its creation. Therefore, it feels like a good time ...
03.19.2021 Justice League And What's Making Us Happy The 2017 film Justice League had a famously rocky road to the big screen and premiered to polarized reactions. Following an extended online campaign by Zack Snyder's hardcore fanbase, the director has gone back and recreated his original vision for ...
03.18.2021 Raya And The Last Dragon Raya And The Last Dragon is an animated Disney movie without musical numbers, without romantic intrigue and with a largely Asian cast. It's about the pursuit of peace, the need for trust and a young warrior who assembles a ragtag ...
03.17.2021 Steven Yeun: Essentials Steven Yeun's filmography reveals a remarkably varied career. From his breakout role as Glenn Rhee in The Walking Dead to his work with directors like Bong Joon-ho and Boots Riley, Yeun can easily jump between playing enigmatic cosmopolitan characters and ...
03.15.2021 Oscar Nominations 2021 The Oscar nominations are out, and in the lead is Mank. The David Fincher-directed film about the writing of Citizen Kane picked up the most nominations with 10, while other films including Nomadland, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Minari, ...
03.15.2021 2021 Grammys Recap After a six week delay due to COVID-19, we did finally have a Grammys ceremony, hosted by Trevor Noah, with loads of socially distanced performances and big wins for Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Megan Thee Stallion, and Billie Eilish.
03.12.2021 RuPaul's Drag Race And What's Making Us Happy RuPaul's Drag Race began in 2009 as a raggedy spoof of reality competition shows, with hilariously low-rent production values on Logo. After 13 seasons and a move to VH1, it has transformed and distilled the once-underground and defiantly transgressive culture ...
03.11.2021 Antiques Roadshow For over twenty years, PBS has ensured that one of the hottest places in American television is your attic. And if you want to know what all that old stuff is worth, you can take yourself right to the people ...
03.10.2021 Ginny And Georgia Netflix's Ginny & Georgia follows a young single mom, her teenage daughter, and their efforts to create a life for themselves in the suburbs of Massachusetts. It's got high school standbys like new friendships and first sexual experiences, but it's ...
03.09.2021 Delroy Lindo: Essentials Delroy Lindo is one of those performers you probably recognize as "that dude." Even if he's only on screen for a few scenes, he tends to stand out. He gave one of last year's most critically acclaimed onscreen performances as ...
03.08.2021 The WandaVision Finale After nine episodes, several battles, big reveals and a lot of different hairstyles, WandaVision has come to an end on Disney Plus. What happened to Wanda, what happened to Vision, and is it really safe to say it was Agatha ...
03.05.2021 Coming 2 America And What's Making Us Happy Coming To America was a huge hit when it was released in 1988, eventually grossing well over $100 million at the box office. It captured Eddie Murphy at the peak of his career, helped catapult Arsenio Hall into a new ...
03.04.2021 Regina King: Essentials Very few actors will ever put together a run like Regina King. Among other things, she's won four Emmys in the last 10 years - all for different roles. She won an Oscar for her role in If Beale Street ...
03.03.2021 Three Great Documentaries If you dig into the archives of any streaming service, you're gonna find loads of documentaries — tales of true crime, plucky dreamers, obsessive eccentrics, or just about any other subject you could name. We figured this would be a ...
03.02.2021 The United States v. Billie Holiday The United States v. Billie Holiday is the latest dramatization of the singer's tumultuous personal life. Directed by Lee Daniels and starring Andra Day, it focuses on the government surveillance Billie Holiday endured for her drug addiction and her song ...
03.01.2021 2021 Golden Globes Recap This year's Golden Globes ceremony took place under a cloud, following fresh reporting on accusations that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is too small, too secretive, and not remotely diverse enough. Still, even during the pandemic, a hybrid part-live, part-remote ...
02.26.2021 Minari And What's Making Us Happy Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, Minari follows a Korean-American family who moves to Arkansas in the 1980s to follow their father's dream of becoming a farmer. The grind of trying to make the farm a success strains the ...
02.25.2021 Cinderella There are many versions of Cinderella, but few are as beloved as Disney's production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, starring Brandy as the titular character and Whitney Houston as her fairy godmother.
02.24.2021 I Care A Lot In the new Netflix comedy-thriller I Care A Lot, Rosamund Pike plays a slick grifter named Marla who tricks her way into becoming the legal guardian of elderly people, then drains their bank accounts. It's a well-oiled scheme, until she ...
02.23.2021 2020 Best Books: Nonfiction Every year, NPR brings together some of the best books of the year in a searchable, explorable guide called the Book Concierge. Today, we're talking about some of the best nonfiction picks that show up in this year's guide.
02.22.2021 It's A Sin It's A Sin chronicles the AIDS epidemic as experienced by a group of friends in London in the early 1980s. They come from different backgrounds, and deal with the dawning realization that a virus is ravaging their community in different ...
02.19.2021 Nomadland and What's Making Us Happy The new film Nomadland is about a woman named Fern who's lost her husband, her home and her entire community: a company town that collapsed when the company did. She's played by Frances McDormand, and in Chloé Zhao's film, she ...
02.18.2021 To All The Boys: Always And Forever In 2018, To All The Boys I've Loved Before was a breakout hit for Netflix. Based on Jenny Han's novel, it followed Lara Jean Covey through the adventure of falling in love with one Peter Kavinsky. A sequel followed in ...
02.17.2021 Shark Tank On Shark Tank, a group of wealthy investors like Mark Cuban and "Queen of QVC" Lori Greiner listen to pitches from people who have invented something. Might be an app, might be a toy, might be a belt that can ...
02.16.2021 Supernova In Supernova, Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci play a gay couple coming to terms with the fact that Tucci's character is experiencing early onset dementia. They take one last trip together around the British Lake District and try to enjoy ...
02.15.2021 Desus And Mero On Politics, Fame And Life In The Pandemic A special bonus episode from NPR's It's Been A Minute With Sam Sanders. Desus Nice and The Kid Mero went from calling up "anyone in their phone book" in the early days of their podcast Bodega Boys, to booking big ...
02.12.2021 Judas And The Black Messiah And What's Making Us Happy Fred Hampton, the charismatic chairman of the Black Panther Party's Illinois chapter, was just 21 years old when he was killed during a police raid in 1969. In Judas And The Black Messiah, he's given the cinematic treatment via a ...
02.11.2021 2020 Best Books: For Music Lovers Every year, NPR brings together some of the best books in a searchable, explorable guide called the Book Concierge. It can help you find exactly the read you're looking for. Today we're talking about some of the best books for ...
02.10.2021 Superstore For six seasons, the NBC comedy Superstore has told the story of a fictional big-box store in St. Louis. Until the last handful of episodes, the show starred America Ferrera, and found humor in serious topics like income inequality, health ...
02.09.2021 Desus & Mero Writer Josh Gondelman On Making A Late Night Talk Show During COVID-19 Television production changed practically overnight when COVID-19 began to spread in the United States in March 2020. One corner of TV that's carried on is the late-night talk show. There have been no live audiences — and in some cases, ...

Older episodes

Pop Culture Happy Hour

What's Pop Culture Happy Hour about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes:

Legally Blonde And What's Making Us Happy

Made For Love

Three Songs For Staring Out The Window

Queen Sugar

Viola Davis: Essentials

The Great Pottery Throw Down, What's Making Us Happy, And Remembering DMX

Bad Trip

Frances McDormand: Essentials

Chadwick Boseman: Essentials

The Father

Top 10 Muppets And What's Making Us Happy

Our Favorite Muppets

Godzilla Vs. Kong

The Falcon And The Winter Soldier

Die Hard

Beverly Cleary: Essentials

Sound of Metal and What's Making Us Happy

King Of The Hill

Audience Questions: What Should I Watch?

2020 Best Books: Book Club Ideas

Favorite Concert Films

Justice League And What's Making Us Happy

Raya And The Last Dragon

Steven Yeun: Essentials

Oscar Nominations 2021

2021 Grammys Recap

RuPaul's Drag Race And What's Making Us Happy

Antiques Roadshow

Ginny And Georgia

Delroy Lindo: Essentials

The WandaVision Finale

Coming 2 America And What's Making Us Happy

Regina King: Essentials

Three Great Documentaries

The United States v. Billie Holiday

2021 Golden Globes Recap

Minari And What's Making Us Happy

Cinderella

I Care A Lot

2020 Best Books: Nonfiction

It's A Sin

Nomadland and What's Making Us Happy

To All The Boys: Always And Forever

Shark Tank

Supernova

Desus And Mero On Politics, Fame And Life In The Pandemic

Judas And The Black Messiah And What's Making Us Happy

2020 Best Books: For Music Lovers

Superstore

Desus & Mero Writer Josh Gondelman On Making A Late Night Talk Show During COVID-19

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