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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Antebellum And What's Makin...

09.18.2020

In the new horror film Antebellum, Janelle Monáe plays an enslaved woman on a plantation run by Confederate soldiers. She's desperate to escape. But Monáe also plays a successful contemporary author and speaker with a beautiful family, living a life ...

Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes:

09.18.2020 Antebellum And What's Making Us Happy In the new horror film Antebellum, Janelle Monáe plays an enslaved woman on a plantation run by Confederate soldiers. She's desperate to escape. But Monáe also plays a successful contemporary author and speaker with a beautiful family, living a life ...
09.16.2020 Predictions Of How COVID-19 Will Impact Pop Culture It's hard to predict how the current pandemic will affect the work of artists in television and film and theater, but that doesn't mean we can't try. What will change? What won't change? How might creators react? Today, we're stepping ...
09.14.2020 Billy Porter On Pose, Kinky Boots And More A special bonus feed drop from the NPR podcast It's Been A Minute With Sam Sanders. Billy Porter is a force to be reckoned with. A Tony Award-winning Broadway performer. A fashion icon with unforgettable red carpet looks. An Emmy ...
09.11.2020 I'm Thinking Of Ending Things And What's Making Us Happy In the Netflix film, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, the plot is easy to follow. A young couple played by Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons drives through a snowstorm to the farmhouse where Plemons' character grew up. They have dinner ...
09.09.2020 Avatar: The Last Airbender The fantasy adventure Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. But this year, as the pandemic struck, the animated series became one of the biggest streaming hits on Netflix. In the world of Avatar, some people ...
09.04.2020 Mulan And What's Making Us Happy The biggest movie so far to be bumped from theaters to home viewing during the pandemic is Disney's Mulan. The live-action reimagining of the 1998 animated musical doesn't have songs or a cartoon dragon. But the story still finds young ...
08.31.2020 2020 MTV VMAs The 2020 MTV Video Music Awards took place Sunday night. The telecast was in the shadow of a pandemic, in the midst of major civil unrest, and in the aftermath of actor Chadwick Boseman's death. The VMAs couldn't have live ...
08.28.2020 Bill And Ted Face The Music And What's Making Us Happy Back in 1989, we met Bill S. Preston and Ted "Theodore" Logan in the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. They returned in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey in 1991. And now, almost 30 years later, they're back. In Bill ...
08.27.2020 Some Exciting News In October, Pop Culture Happy Hour will publish episodes five days a week. Also, Aisha Harris will join us as a fourth permanent host.
08.26.2020 Lovecraft Country The best horror is the horror that feels true. That's one of the reasons the new HBO series Lovecraft Country works. Set in the 1950s, it follows a young Black man who sets off with his childhood friend and his ...
08.21.2020 Boys State And What's Making Us Happy The world of politics is not pretty, even in high school. That's one of the takeaways from the new documentary Boys State, about a week-long program sponsored by the American Legion. In it, a thousand Texas high-school boys form political ...
08.19.2020 Star Trek: Lower Decks The mega-franchise Star Trek has produced a slew of movies and ten different TV series — the latest of which is a brand-new animated comedy called Star Trek: Lower Decks. The show was created by Mike McMahan, who worked on ...
08.14.2020 10th Birthday Quiz With Kumail Nanjiani And What's Making Us Happy Ten years ago, we started Pop Culture Happy Hour. And ten years later, it's time to celebrate. Recently, we invited one of our great pals, actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani, to join us for a quiz looking back at 2010. ...
08.12.2020 Why You Should Stream Watchmen The HBO miniseries Watchmen recently earned 26 well-deserved Emmy nominations. And if you haven't seen the series, now is a good time to catch up. It stars Regina King as an ex-cop in Tulsa Oklahoma who's not-so-secretly the masked vigilante ...
08.07.2020 P-Valley And What's Making Us Happy The Starz drama P-Valley is set in a Black strip club in the Mississippi delta. The dancers are acrobatic, artistic and independent. The show is about their labor, but also about a wide variety of stories about power, money, and ...
08.05.2020 Beyonce's Black Is King Last summer, Beyoncé released an album called The Lion King: The Gift. It was based around Disney's remake of The Lion King — a film that included voice acting from Beyoncé herself, among many others. Last Friday on Disney+, Beyoncé ...
07.31.2020 Indian Matchmaking And What's Making Us Happy There's marriage, and then there's love marriage. That's the philosophy of Sima, the matchmaker at the center of the new Netflix reality series Indian Matchmaking. And her focus is not helping you find love. It's arranging marriages for young people ...
07.29.2020 Taylor Swift's Folklore Taylor Swift was supposed to spend this summer touring with songs from Lover, an album she'd put out last August. Instead, she wound up cooped up at home. The isolation sparked her creativity, leading her to write and record an ...
07.24.2020 First Cow And What's Making Us Happy Sometimes, all it takes to change your life is a cow. In the new film First Cow, director Kelly Reichardt follows two men who meet by chance and come up with a plan to get rich. All they need is ...
07.22.2020 The Baby-Sitters Club Kristy, Claudia, Mary-Anne and Stacey are back. Netflix has adapted the book series The Baby-Sitters Club, and hopes to reintroduce it to young viewers, nostalgic millennials, and anyone else who longs for days spent with friends when worries aren't too ...
07.17.2020 The Old Guard And What's Making Us Happy The big summer action movie is one of the things we've been missing this year, and now, we've got one. And it's a good one, too. The Old Guard stars Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne as members of a squad ...
07.15.2020 Floor Is Lava There's a new game show so silly, so stupid, so low-stakes that we can't stop watching it. Teams of three try to cross a course made of furniture and obstacles without touching the ground. It's called Floor Is Lava, it's ...
07.13.2020 Tracee Ellis Ross On Black-ish And The High Note On this bonus episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we bring you a conversation from our pal Sam Sanders. Sam recently had a wide-ranging conversation with the one and only Tracee Ellis Ross on his podcast It's Been A ...
07.10.2020 Taste The Nation And What's Making Us Happy Food media has become one of the many arenas in which debates about inclusivity and justice have taken center stage in recent months. And now, into this troubled world comes Taste The Nation. Hosted by Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi, the ...
07.08.2020 John Wick And What's Making Us Happy Once upon a time, a man named John Wick retired from his successful career as an assassin. But then he returned to it. And across what's now a three-film series, he's been having a heck of a week ever since. ...
07.03.2020 Hamilton And What's Making Us Happy Let's cut to the chase: the Hamilton film has arrived, and it's great. Four years after Lin-Manuel Miranda's show won 11 Tony Awards, you can watch an original Broadway cast performance at home. The film is now available on Disney+. ...
07.01.2020 I May Destroy You And Remembering Carl Reiner Close watchers of smart television know Michaela Coel from Chewing Gum, the acclaimed comedy series she created and starred in. Her new show on HBO is called I May Destroy You. It's just as strong, but finds her going in ...
06.26.2020 Da 5 Bloods And What's Making Us Happy In Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, four Black war veterans return to Vietnam. They're there to retrieve the remains of a fellow soldier, who died on the battlefield. They're also after millions of dollars' worth of gold bars they'd hidden ...
06.24.2020 Giancarlo Esposito On 'Breaking Bad', 'Do The Right Thing' And Facing The Police Giancarlo Esposito has appeared in dozens of TV shows and movies — from several of Spike Lee's early films, to his role as Gus Fring on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. In this interview from Bullseye, Esposito talks about ...
06.19.2020 In 'On The Record,' Black Women's Voices Get A Needed Spotlight In 2017, the #MeToo movement brought to light accusations of sexual abuse and misconduct against powerful people in entertainment. Most of the women whose allegations received detailed media consideration were white, and so were most of the men they accused. ...
06.17.2020 The King Of Staten Island And What's Making Us Happy In The King Of Staten Island, comedian Pete Davidson plays a wayward stoner whose life isn't going anywhere. He still lives with his mom, he doesn't have a job, and his plans for his life involve a vague — and ...
06.12.2020 Central Park And What's Making Us Happy The new Apple TV+ series Central Park is an animated musical with a lot of interesting DNA. It shares creative and performing talent with Bob's Burgers, Frozen, and Hamilton, among other projects. The show follows the manager of New York's ...
06.10.2020 The Limitations Of An Anti-Racist Reading List Sales are surging for books like Ibram X. Kendi's 'How To Be Anti-Racist,' Robin DiAngelo's 'White Fragility,' and Michelle Alexander's 'The New Jim Crow.' That's in part because these titles often appear on so-called "anti-racist reading lists." But what is ...
06.07.2020 Digging Into Slate's Black Film Canon Right now, many of us are thinking about the ways we can start to address the shortfalls in our own knowledge that have grown out of structural racism in every part of life, entertainment very much included. And if you're ...
06.05.2020 Ramy And What's Making Us Happy It surprised a lot of people when Ramy Youssef won a Golden Globe in January. But it shouldn't have. His show, the half-hour comedy-drama Ramy on Hulu, is a smart, fresh take on a young man navigating family and his ...
06.03.2020 A Guide To HBO Max And What's Making Us Happy You may not have needed another streaming service, but last week, one came along anyway. It's HBO Max, and it's part HBO, part Warner Brothers — and yes, it's where you can now stream all the episodes of Friends. They've ...
05.29.2020 The High Note And What's Making Us Happy There have been countless movies about real and fictional musicians. And in the new movie The High Note, Tracee Ellis Ross plays the fictional legendary singer Grace Davis. Dakota Johnson plays Maggie, an aspiring record producer and Grace's personal assistant. ...
05.27.2020 Why You Should Stream Booksmart, Plus What's Making Us Happy Last year we talked about the movie Booksmart, and we really, really liked it. It's about two young women about to graduate from high school who spend one last night trying to catch up on everything they missed. Starring Beanie ...
05.22.2020 Great Recent Movies We Missed And What's Making Us Happy This is not a normal summer movie season. Theaters are closed, big projects are delayed, and we're missing the flood of new films that would usually have already started. But you don't have to go without movies. That's because even ...
05.20.2020 The Great And What's Making Us Happy Hulu's new series The Great bills itself as "An Occasionally True Story." And it's a big story: a sweeping epic about Russia in the 1700s, full of palace intrigue, sex and violence, and the rise of Catherine the Great. Elle ...
05.15.2020 The Movies Of 2000 And What's Making Us Happy Twenty years ago, before the Harry Potter movies or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the movie landscape looked really different. Take a look back at some of the movies that came out in 2000 and why we think they're still relevant ...
05.13.2020 Never Have I Ever And What's Making Us Happy The new comedy Never Have I Ever is a great binge from Netflix. It might remind you of a lot of warm and funny shows about navigating high school. Its hero is an Indian-American girl named Devi. She is juggling ...
05.08.2020 Normal People And What's Making Us Happy When a popular book becomes a television series, the stakes are high. Sally Rooney's novel Normal People is no exception, and the very good Hulu adaptation has finally arrived. The new series tells the story of Marianne and Connell, who ...
05.06.2020 Derry Girls And What's Making Us Happy Derry Girls might remind you of a lot of warm and funny shows about high school. It has the group of loyal friends, the adventures and humiliations, and the slow progress toward adulthood. But these kids are taking on these ...
05.01.2020 Michael Jordan Documentary The Last Dance And What's Making Us Happy In the mid-1990s, sports teams didn't get any bigger than the Chicago Bulls. Led by supermegastar Michael Jordan, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight years. And now, ESPN is presenting a ten-part documentary series all about them. The ...
04.29.2020 Nintendo Switch Game Recommendations And What's Making Us Happy We've been playing games. Stuck at home, exhausted from streaming all the good TV we can find, looking for distractions, we've all been exploring games for the Nintendo Switch. And not just Animal Crossing, either. We've been trying adventure games ...
04.24.2020 Toddler TV Recommendations And What's Making Us Happy This Week Staying in can be hard on everybody. But it's a special kind of hard for little kids and the people who love them. So we're here to help, with some TV recommendations for those who are toddling through isolation. We've ...
04.22.2020 HBO's Run And What's Making Us Happy A woman sitting in her car gets a text message. It says "RUN." She texts back the same thing: "RUN." That's the beginning of a new HBO series, also called Run, that tells you what happens next. Starring Merritt Wever ...
04.17.2020 The Regrettable Television Pop Quiz And What's Making Us Happy Today, we're excited to be bringing back a classic Pop Culture Happy Hour segment — the Regrettable Television Pop Quiz. We've each brought clips of some of our favorite regrettable shows, and our fellow panelists will have to see if ...
04.15.2020 Survivor And What's Making Us Happy Started out eating rats, and now they're here. Forty seasons in, Survivor is midway through a season where former winners are playing against each other. And as you'd imagine, it's a doozy. From which season is best to which winner ...

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Pop Culture Happy Hour

What's Pop Culture Happy Hour about?

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Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes:

Antebellum And What's Making Us Happy

Predictions Of How COVID-19 Will Impact Pop Culture

Billy Porter On Pose, Kinky Boots And More

I'm Thinking Of Ending Things And What's Making Us Happy

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Mulan And What's Making Us Happy

2020 MTV VMAs

Bill And Ted Face The Music And What's Making Us Happy

Some Exciting News

Lovecraft Country

Boys State And What's Making Us Happy

Star Trek: Lower Decks

10th Birthday Quiz With Kumail Nanjiani And What's Making Us Happy

Why You Should Stream Watchmen

P-Valley And What's Making Us Happy

Beyonce's Black Is King

Indian Matchmaking And What's Making Us Happy

Taylor Swift's Folklore

First Cow And What's Making Us Happy

The Baby-Sitters Club

The Old Guard And What's Making Us Happy

Floor Is Lava

Tracee Ellis Ross On Black-ish And The High Note

Taste The Nation And What's Making Us Happy

John Wick And What's Making Us Happy

Hamilton And What's Making Us Happy

I May Destroy You And Remembering Carl Reiner

Da 5 Bloods And What's Making Us Happy

Giancarlo Esposito On 'Breaking Bad', 'Do The Right Thing' And Facing The Police

In 'On The Record,' Black Women's Voices Get A Needed Spotlight

The King Of Staten Island And What's Making Us Happy

Central Park And What's Making Us Happy

The Limitations Of An Anti-Racist Reading List

Digging Into Slate's Black Film Canon

Ramy And What's Making Us Happy

A Guide To HBO Max And What's Making Us Happy

The High Note And What's Making Us Happy

Why You Should Stream Booksmart, Plus What's Making Us Happy

Great Recent Movies We Missed And What's Making Us Happy

The Great And What's Making Us Happy

The Movies Of 2000 And What's Making Us Happy

Never Have I Ever And What's Making Us Happy

Normal People And What's Making Us Happy

Derry Girls And What's Making Us Happy

Michael Jordan Documentary The Last Dance And What's Making Us Happy

Nintendo Switch Game Recommendations And What's Making Us Happy

Toddler TV Recommendations And What's Making Us Happy This Week

HBO's Run And What's Making Us Happy

The Regrettable Television Pop Quiz And What's Making Us Happy

Survivor And What's Making Us Happy

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