Mike Pesca is one of our very favorite guests — on any number of topics.

His book, Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History, is a whole series of earth-shattering, hypothetical, what-if questions (and posited answers to said earth-shattering, hypothetical, what-if questions):

What if a blimp full of money had exploded over world track headquarters in 1952? What if Nixon had been good at football? What if Bobby Fischer had received proper psychiatric help? What if the Dodgers hadn’t left Brooklyn? What if basketball rims were smaller than basketballs? What if the 1999 U.S. women’s national soccer team had lost the Women’s World Cup? And yes: What if the Olympics had never dropped tug of war?

It goes on and on.

Pesca joins us for the hour.

GUESTS:

• Will Leitch: Contributing editor at New York magazine, founder of Deadspin, and a whole bunch of other things
• Mike Pesca: Host of The Gist and the author of Upon Further Review
• Louisa Thomas: Staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired June 7, 2018.

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How does reality television shape our politics and our opinions? This hour two reality TV scholars join us to discuss how reality TV helps us understand (or sometimes misunderstand) actual reality.

GUESTS:

• Danielle Lindemann: Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University and a Visiting Professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton University. She is also the author of the book True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us.
• Eunji Kim: Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and Faculty Affiliate at the Data Science Institute. Her new book is The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dating back to Homer and Hesiod, artists have been calling on muses for inspiration. This hour, we look at the mythology of the muses, real-life muses, and what they can all teach us about creativity.

GUESTS:

• Alison Habens: Novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and lecturer and Programme Lead at the University of Portsmouth
• Francine Prose: Author of many books, including The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired. She is also Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College
• Brendan O'Connell: American painter

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nobody likes termites. They get into the wood in our homes and can lead to infuriating and expensive repairs. What’s to like?

It turns out, there’s a lot to like about termites. Scientists study how they build their mounds for clues to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems, like mitigating the effects of drought, building colonies on Mars, and creating biofuels.

Plus, their ability to adapt to the harshest conditions over millions of years says a lot about them. Almost 90% of the microbes found in their guts are unique to the termite. Those same gut microbes are what make them so productive and, on the flip side, so destructive.

Lastly, some believe termites work with joy and have a soul. You be the judge.

GUESTS:

• Jennifer Dacey: An entomologist and a wildlife biologist and integrated pest management technician in the UConn Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture
• Lisa Margonelli: Author of Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
• Mick Pearce: An architect

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Colin McEnroe and Jonathan McNicol contributed to this show, which originally aired August 29, 2018.

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing.

This hour, the conversation winds around to thunderstorms and lightning, squirrels, the band (and word) Enigma, trains … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one.

You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Subscribe and get notified when we go live. Or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

Colin McEnroe, Coco Cooley, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, Megan Fitzgerald, Isaac Moss, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday night, CBS announced that it is cancelling its flagship late night show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, after next season, in May, 2026. CBS says this is “purely a financial decision.” At the same time, The Late Show has the largest audience in American late night TV by a pretty wide margin. In any case, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end after its 11th season, the 34th overall for the larger Late Show franchise.

And: James Gunn’s Superman is the first movie produced by DC Studios, the first movie in the new DC Universe (the DCU, which replaces the DCEU — same universe, less extended!), and the first movie in its first chapter, Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. It’s the third reboot of the Superman film series, the 10th original live-action Superman feature film, and the fourth comic book superhero movie directed by James Gunn — his first as the co-founder, co-chairman, and co-CEO of DC Studios.

GUESTS:

• Sam Hadelman: Director of public relations at Dark Matter Media
• Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian, writer, and host of the Fantasy Filmballpodcast
• Lindsay Lee Wallace: A writer and journalist covering culture, health, technology, bats, and anything else people will answer her questions about

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.

Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the morning of May 24, 2019, Jennifer Dulos dropped her kids off at New Canaan Country School. And then minutes later, she vanished.

Her presumed murder quickly became a national story.

This hour, Wall Street Journal columnist Rich Cohen joins us to talk about his new book, Murder in the Dollhouse: The Jennifer Dulos Story.

Plus: a look at our ongoing obsession with these true crime stories.

GUESTS:

• Rich Cohen: Writer at large at Air Mail and a columnist at The Wall Street Journal; his new book is Murder in the Dollhouse
• Bethany Usher: A journalist and academic and the author of Journalism and Crime

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you ever wish you could have a conversation with your pet, or the bird outside your window? This hour, we learn about how animals communicate with one another, how we communicate with them, and what this can teach us about human language.

Plus, some pet owners are turning to soundboards to communicate with their pets. We'll talk with a researcher who's exploring how effective that is, and what that can teach us about the future of animal and human communications.

GUESTS: 

• Arik Kershenbaum: Professor of Zoology at University of Cambridge, and author of Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication

• Federico Rossano: Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired on February 13, 2025.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. The end of the world has been something humans have been preoccupied with for a very long time. This hour, we talk about how we imagine the world ending, and what it says about us.

GUESTS: 

• Dorian Lynskey: Journalist and author of multiple books, most recently Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World. He is also co-host of the Origin Story podcast. 

• Brian Slattery: Freelance writer and editor. He is the author of four novels. His latest short story is “Clouds” which appears in the anthology Shadow Lab

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired on February 4, 2025.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing.

This hour, the conversation winds around to Squid Game, the routinization of protests, the elusive Jeffrey Epstein report, 9/11 and the movies Fight Club and Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Harvey, Keurig coffee makers, too much plastic everywhere … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one.

You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Subscribe and get notified when we go live. Or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!

Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.

Colin McEnroe, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.