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.

4.5

8,140 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Jungle Cruise And What's Ma...

07.30.2021

What do you get when you take one part The African Queen, one part Raiders of the Lost Ark, two parts Pirates of the Caribbean, a pinch of the Fast and Furious series, and every Disney movie trope ever? You've ...

Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes:

07.30.2021 Jungle Cruise And What's Making Us Happy What do you get when you take one part The African Queen, one part Raiders of the Lost Ark, two parts Pirates of the Caribbean, a pinch of the Fast and Furious series, and every Disney movie trope ever? You've ...
07.29.2021 Shrek If you were the kind of kid who owned Disney coloring books but also drew fart-plumes behind the princesses, Shrek was the movie you didn't know you needed.
07.28.2021 Young Adult Books: A Guide The young adult genre features protagonists who are often still figuring things out about the world and themselves. Today, we're teaming up with Life Kit to bring you recommendations and criteria to look for as you wade into the inviting, ...
07.27.2021 Wellington Paranormal The very funny mockumentary series Wellington Paranormal follows a pair of New Zealand police officers as they investigate strange occurrences in and around that nation's capital city. It's technically a spinoff of the 2014 film What We Do In The ...
07.26.2021 Our Summer Stories We're having a summer of carefully and safely going out into the world again. And what happens when you go out into the world is that more things tend to happen to you. The good and the bad, the amazing ...
07.23.2021 Old And What's Making Us Happy The psychological horror thriller Old comes with the kind of twist we've come to expect from writer-director M. Night Shyamalan. That twist is right there in the title: A bunch of tourists find themselves trapped on a secluded beach where ...
07.22.2021 Sexy Beasts On Netflix's new dating competition show Sexy Beasts, contestants go on blind dates where everyone involved is wearing Oscar-worthy prosthetic makeup. It begs the question: are people so desperate to find a mate that they would do so on TV, ...
07.21.2021 Kevin Can Fk Himself What would life as a sitcom wife really be like? That's the premise of the AMC series Kevin Can Fk Himself. Annie Murphy plays a woman who exists in a sitcom when she's with her husband, but lives in a ...
07.20.2021 Naomi Osaka Naomi Osaka is one of the best tennis players in the world. She's a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, and she's about to represent Japan in the Olympics. And in a new Netflix documentary series, directed by Garrett Bradley, it's ...
07.19.2021 Boy Bands: A Guide Boy bands have been a staple of pop music for generations. They've won over millions of fans and provided gateways to fandom and pop-cultural obsession. From New Edition and New Kids On The Block in the '80s to BTS today ...
07.16.2021 Space Jam: A New Legacy And What's Making Us Happy Lebron James and Warner Bros. compete for the spotlight. But who is it all for?
07.15.2021 Blindspotting In 2018, Blindspotting was one of the buzziest movies to come out of the Sundance Film Festival. Now, it's has been spun off into a series on Starz, offering a fresh and more expansive take on the movie's themes around ...
07.14.2021 Britney Spears' Conservatorship: What We Know, And What's Next For more than 13 years, Britney Spears has been under a conservatorship. Her assets and career have been kept under the control of her father, Jamie Spears, as well as an attorney. A movement called #FreeBritney has pushed for that ...
07.13.2021 2021 Emmy Nominations This year's Emmy Award nominations brought some expected triumphs (Ted Lasso, The Queen's Gambit) and welcomed surprises (WandaVision, Pose). The Crown and The Mandalorian tied for the most nominations for a drama, and Saturday Night Live earned the most nominations ...
07.13.2021 The Emmy Nominations Today's episode will arrive a little late: This morning, the Television Academy will announce this year's Primetime Emmy nominations. Later today, we'll break down the major nominations and snubs.
07.12.2021 I Think You Should Leave Two years ago, the first season of the Netflix sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave introduced viewers to Tim Robinson's distinctive comic voice: It's male, it's often loud, and it varies in tone from belligerent to outraged to ...
07.09.2021 Black Widow and What's Making Us Happy Marvel's latest blockbuster delivers summer superhero action, but fails to do right by a main character who has been grossly underserved by the MCU since her introduction.
07.08.2021 2021 Songs Of Summer Every summer gets its own unique soundtrack. So we gathered a bunch of NPR Music contributors and asked them to name their song of the summer.
07.07.2021 Starstruck It might sound like fun to date a glamorous movie star, but in reality, it would probably get very messy. That's the premise of HBO Max's Starstruck, created by and starring New Zealand comedian Rose Matafeo. Over six episodes, the ...
07.06.2021 Betty The immersive HBO series Betty follows an eclectic bunch of young women skateboarders navigating adulthood while fostering community within a bro-dominated environment. Based on Crystal Moselle's 2018 film Skate Kitchen, the show returned for a second season, and we think ...
07.05.2021 A Dose Of Great New Music The Pop Culture Happy Hour team is off today, so we thought you might like to check out the latest episode of New Music Friday from the All Songs Considered podcast. It highlights the biggest album releases of the week, ...
07.02.2021 Summer Of Soul And What's Making Us Happy In the summer of 1969, hundreds of thousands of fans flooded Harlem's Mount Morris Park to attend the Harlem Cultural Festival, which hosted the likes of Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, and Sly And The Family Stone. Now, some ...
07.01.2021 Our Amusement Park Memories It's summer time after a long stretch indoors, and many of us are returning to the world outside, including amusement parks. We thought it was a good time to bring you an encore episode about our favorite amusement park experiences: ...
06.30.2021 Zola Over the years, Hollywood has built movie narratives out of unusual source material, but the dark comedy Zola is one of the first to originate via Twitter. The Sundance hit was inspired by A'Ziah 'Zola' King's series of viral tweets ...
06.29.2021 Loki In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Hiddleston's Loki has faced off against Thor and the other Avengers. And now in the new series Loki on Disney+, he gets roped into working with the MCU's time cops, the Time Variance Authority. ...
06.28.2021 The Fast & Furious Franchise In 2001, The Fast and the Furious debuted as a scruffy car-culture movie, and it was a hit. it was followed by two sequels that didn't quite satisfy, so they regrouped. Since then, it's become the blockbuster machine some love, ...
06.25.2021 F9: The Fast Saga And What's Making Us Happy What better way to kick off a summer of movies than with F9, the ninth installment of the main Fast & Furious franchise. Directed by Justin Lin, and starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and the rest of the beloved Fast ...
06.24.2021 Physical When the new Apple TV+ series is about Rose Byrne's Sheila, it's a strong examination of hunger and desire. When it wanders off into anything else, it gets dull in a hurry.
06.23.2021 Romance Books: A Starter Guide You have to love a love story: the meeting, the flirting, the falling, the struggling, and ultimately, the happily ever after. Maybe you're an experienced romance reader, or maybe you're just getting your feet wet. Either way, it's always good ...
06.22.2021 We Are Lady Parts The Peacock series We Are Lady Parts is a bold, bracing and very funny comedy series about an up-and-coming London punk band called Lady Parts, and the young, awkward and extremely anxious microbiology PhD student who reluctantly becomes their lead ...
06.21.2021 Tuca and Bertie The animated series Tuca & Bertie stars two best friends in the classic odd couple tradition: Tiffany Haddish voices free-spirited Tuca and Ali Wong plays anxious Bertie. That setup may sound familiar, but the setting isn't: Tuca and Bertie are ...
06.18.2021 Luca And What's Making Us Happy Luca, the latest movie from Disney and Pixar, whisks us across the globe and into a fictional coastal Italian town in the 1950s. There, the titular young hero and his new friend Alberto get into adventures and dream of buying ...
06.17.2021 Top 10 'Friends' Supporting Characters, Ranked It's good to be a star. In the world of the comedy Friends, that meant being Rachel or Ross, Monica or Chandler, Phoebe or Joey. But it takes more than just stars to make a hit.
06.16.2021 'Friends' Main Characters, Ranked The recent Friends reunion on HBO Max set off a new wave of nostalgia. So we put the most important question to you: Who's the best friend? Who's the worst friend? Thousands of you voted, and the results are in.
06.15.2021 Three Great Songs For Your Next Road Trip If you're thinking about taking a road trip, you're gonna need road-trip music. You might need a pick-me-up, or a distraction, or something for when you need a break from podcasts. So if you're headed out on the road soon, ...
06.14.2021 Sweet Tooth The Netflix series Sweet Tooth is a strange mix. It's a dystopian tale of societal collapse in the wake of a deadly virus and the rise of human-animal hybrids. It's also a warm, humane, lushly shot fable of hope and ...
06.11.2021 In The Heights And What's Making Us Happy Before Hamilton made him a household name, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the music and lyrics for the musical In The Heights. The Broadway production won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The film adaptation, directed by Jon M. Chu, stars Anthony ...
06.10.2021 The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It The 2013 horror film The Conjuring made more than $300 million and spawned a blockbuster cinematic universe. The main Conjuring movies center on the heavily fictionalized accounts of two real-life demon-hunters, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who solve ...
06.09.2021 Keeping Up With The Kardashians After 20 seasons, multiple marriages, babies and scandals, Keeping Up With the Kardashians is finally coming to a close. The E! reality series is leaving behind quite a legacy (or wreckage) in its wake. It's the end of a reality-TV ...
06.08.2021 Plan B The new Hulu movie Plan B is about best friends Sunny and Lupe (played by Kuhoo Verma and Victoria Moroles), who go on an emergency road trip. They're not on the run from criminals or some terrible misunderstanding. They're trying ...
06.07.2021 Bo Burnham: Inside Bo Burnham's new Netflix special Inside is not stand-up comedy. It's one-man isolation theater, shot in one enclosed space and bursting with musical performances and video sendups of genres from sad-dude acoustic guitar songs to '80s synth pop. Filmed over ...
06.04.2021 Summer Guide And What's Making Us Happy Movie theaters are opening, and new TV shows and music are on the horizon. We've got you covered on what's coming this summer to entertain you.
06.03.2021 Hacks On the HBO Max series Hacks, the great Jean Smart plays a legendary stand-up comic whose longtime Las Vegas residency is threatened by a casino owner looking for some fresh blood. Hannah Einbinder plays a promising young comedy writer who's ...
06.02.2021 Pose When Pose burst onto the scene in 2018, there had never been anything quite like it before: Here was a scripted TV series on a major network centering trans and queer black and brown people, and the New York City ...
06.01.2021 A Quiet Place Part II A Quiet Place told the story of a world overrun by monsters who kill anything that makes a sound. Starring Emily Blunt and the film's director John Krasinski, it was a blockbuster in 2018. Now, after a long delay, A ...
05.31.2021 Comedian Patti Harrison Patti Harrison is known for bringing her absurd, caustic, yet charming comedy to supporting roles on shows like Search Party, Broad City and Shrill. But now she's in a starring role in the romantic comedy Together Together. In it, Harrison ...
05.28.2021 Cruella And What's Making Us Happy One of the biggest, baddest and certainly most stylish of Disney villains is getting an origin story. In the new film Cruella, Emma Stone plays young Estella, an orphan on the streets of London in the 1970s. She's a thief ...
05.27.2021 BTS And More: A Guide To K-Pop Last year, the South Korean pop group BTS topped the U.S. charts with the blockbuster earworm "Dynamite." Now, they've got a new hit, called "Butter." But the story of K-pop extends well beyond BTS. And it goes back decades with ...
05.26.2021 SNL Musical Performances: Best And Worst For the last four years over at NPR Music, Stephen Thompson has compiled a ranking of the best and worst musical guests from the latest season of Saturday Night Live. Season 46 just wrapped up with Lil Nas X, who ...
05.25.2021 Master Of None The Netflix show Master Of None has finally returned following a four-year hiatus. This time around the focus is on Lena Waithe's character Denise and her partner (played by Naomi Ackie) as they wrestle with their relationship and trying to ...

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:

Jungle Cruise And What's Making Us Happy

Shrek

Young Adult Books: A Guide

Wellington Paranormal

Our Summer Stories

Old And What's Making Us Happy

Sexy Beasts

Kevin Can F**k Himself

Naomi Osaka

Boy Bands: A Guide

Space Jam: A New Legacy And What's Making Us Happy

Blindspotting

Britney Spears' Conservatorship: What We Know, And What's Next

2021 Emmy Nominations

The Emmy Nominations

I Think You Should Leave

Black Widow and What's Making Us Happy

2021 Songs Of Summer

Starstruck

Betty

A Dose Of Great New Music

Summer Of Soul And What's Making Us Happy

Our Amusement Park Memories

Zola

Loki

The Fast & Furious Franchise

F9: The Fast Saga And What's Making Us Happy

Physical

Romance Books: A Starter Guide

We Are Lady Parts

Tuca and Bertie

Luca And What's Making Us Happy

Top 10 'Friends' Supporting Characters, Ranked

'Friends' Main Characters, Ranked

Three Great Songs For Your Next Road Trip

Sweet Tooth

In The Heights And What's Making Us Happy

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Plan B

Bo Burnham: Inside

Summer Guide And What's Making Us Happy

Hacks

Pose

A Quiet Place Part II

Comedian Patti Harrison

Cruella And What's Making Us Happy

BTS And More: A Guide To K-Pop

SNL Musical Performances: Best And Worst

Master Of None

Other shows like Pop Culture Happy Hour: