The Cracked Podcast

Aside from a couple original standouts, horror movies seem to trot out the same 5 or 6 monsters/killers/haunted board games each year. It's The Fourth Life-Partner of Chucky (they're not putting labels on things). Saw 3.14: Circular Saw! Oui-3: Revenge of the Ouija!

The 'Saw' joke isn't even a joke. The 8th 'Saw' movie is coming out this year. There are no remaining Hollywood actors who haven't been murdered by the Jigsaw killer.

To end the stale repetition put forth by the horror industrial complex, Alex Schmidt is joined by a panel of Cracked's David Christopher Bell and Brett Rader, as well as comics Hallie Cantor, Greg Edwards and Danielle Radford to talk about 15 real life urban legends and folk monsters that deserve their own horror franchise that runs about four films too long.

Footnotes: https://goo.gl/Ra9XKN

In an alternate 1985, American movie audiences saw a movie called Spaceman From Pluto, wherein Eric Stoltz's time-traveling DeLorean is sent back to the 80s by driving straight into a nuclear explosion -- nuke the fridge style.

Almost as if the writers and producers had time traveled themselves to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and realized what a horrible idea that would be, Stoltz was recast, the title was changed to Back to the Future and Marty McFly gets back to the future by summoning 1.21 gigawatts through the power of lightning.

This is just one example of how studio notes aren't always a bad thing. On this week's episode, Alex Schmidt is joined by The Canon's Amy Nicholson to discuss how movies like Alien, Forrest Gump, and Beverly Hills Cop were saved, or almost completely ruined by the scourge of Hollywood: studio notes.

Footnotes:​ ​https://goo.gl/nXFKEB

In an alternate 1985, American movie audiences saw a movie called Spaceman From Pluto, wherein Eric Stoltz's time-traveling DeLorean is sent back to the 80s by driving straight into a nuclear explosion -- nuke the fridge style.

Almost as if the writers and producers had time traveled themselves to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and realized what a horrible idea that would be, Stoltz was recast, the title was changed to Back to the Future and Marty McFly gets back to the future by summoning 1.21 gigawatts through the power of lightning.

This is just one example of how studio notes aren't always a bad thing. On this week's episode, Alex Schmidt is joined by The Canon's Amy Nicholson to discuss how movies like Alien, Forrest Gump, and Beverly Hills Cop were saved, or almost completely ruined by the scourge of Hollywood: studio notes.

Footnotes:​ ​https://goo.gl/nXFKEB

New York. Paris. Tokyo. Miami. Even if you've never been to these cities (and sometimes, even if you have) the visions that come rushing to your mind at the mere mention of their names are images from movies. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton on a park bench in front of the Queensboro Bridge, Scarlett Johansson wandering through Shibuya Crossing, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy doing Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy things in a boat on the Seine.

It's a cliché, but certain world cities become characters in the movies in which they are set. And sometimes, **cough cough Judd Apatow**, movies are just set in the Los Angeles suburbs for no discernible reason other than the actors and director didn't want to travel very far to get to work.

On this week's podcast, inspired by and recorded in New York, Alex Schmidt is joined by Cracked's Daniel Dockery, Brett Rader and Michael Swaim, as well former Cracked columnist Cher Martinetti, to discuss their 9 favorite movie locales and lay a city-sized crown on the one they think is the best place to set a movie.

Foo​t​notes: https://goo.gl/xyX2qM

New York. Paris. Tokyo. Miami. Even if you've never been to these cities (and sometimes, even if you have) the visions that come rushing to your mind at the mere mention of their names are images from movies. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton on a park bench in front of the Queensboro Bridge, Scarlett Johansson wandering through Shibuya Crossing, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy doing Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy things in a boat on the Seine.

It's a cliché, but certain world cities become characters in the movies in which they are set. And sometimes, **cough cough Judd Apatow**, movies are just set in the Los Angeles suburbs for no discernible reason other than the actors and director didn't want to travel very far to get to work.

On this week's podcast, inspired by and recorded in New York, Alex Schmidt is joined by Cracked's Daniel Dockery, Brett Rader and Michael Swaim, as well former Cracked columnist Cher Martinetti, to discuss their 9 favorite movie locales and lay a city-sized crown on the one they think is the best place to set a movie.

Foo​t​notes: https://goo.gl/xyX2qM

Hey there, you awesome person you! Congratulations: you’ve survived several months of a Donald Trump presidency. And double congratulations: you’re pushing through this dark period despite having to experience it with a human brain. Our brains feel stress about everything from large predatory animals to low smartphone battery levels. Which begs the question: isn’t it worth wondering how those fragile organs are handling American history’s Dumbest Timeline?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt brings in Cracked POTUS-trackers Cody Johnston and Sean “Seanbaby” Reiley to discover the scale of President Trump’s towering horses**t, and the psychological ramifications of facing it day to day. They’ll shine a light on the most staggering, pointless lies ever told by the Commander in Chief. They’ll use the latest psychological studies to examine how constant chief executive lies can scramble our brains. And they’ll wrap up with ways you can be more mentally resilient than ever, both now and through the “The Rock” Johnson Administration.

Footnotes: https://goo.gl/E2i1bm

Hey there, you awesome person you! Congratulations: you’ve survived several months of a Donald Trump presidency. And double congratulations: you’re pushing through this dark period despite having to experience it with a human brain. Our brains feel stress about everything from large predatory animals to low smartphone battery levels. Which begs the question: isn’t it worth wondering how those fragile organs are handling American history’s Dumbest Timeline?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt brings in Cracked POTUS-trackers Cody Johnston and Sean “Seanbaby” Reiley to discover the scale of President Trump’s towering horses**t, and the psychological ramifications of facing it day to day. They’ll shine a light on the most staggering, pointless lies ever told by the Commander in Chief. They’ll use the latest psychological studies to examine how constant chief executive lies can scramble our brains. And they’ll wrap up with ways you can be more mentally resilient than ever, both now and through the “The Rock” Johnson Administration.

Footnotes: https://goo.gl/E2i1bm

​From Mad Max to The Road to the illustrious career of Roland Emmerich, it's clear that the modern pop-culture consumer loves apocalypses. Climate change and the threat of nuclear war or worldwide super-virus make imagining an apocalypse easy. And if you look back through history, it's obvious that as long as there has been civilization, there has been the fear of complete and utter worldwide destruction.

One of the most prolific names today in speculative fiction is N.K. Jemisin. The first two books of her Broken Earth trilogy have won the Hugo Award for best novel the last two years consecutively. If you want to read the best sci-fi about the apocalypse, you need to be reading N.K. Jemisin's books. 

That's what we did, and N.K. Jemisin was kind enough to join Cracked's Alex Schmidt and Michael Swaim in New York for a conversation about world-building contemporary sci-fi, some of the most interesting real-life apocalypses in human history, and the difficulties of writing end-times fiction when the world so often is stranger and crueler than fiction.

Footnotes and other links: https://goo.gl/BRmXxG

​From Mad Max to The Road to the illustrious career of Roland Emmerich, it's clear that the modern pop-culture consumer loves apocalypses. Climate change and the threat of nuclear war or worldwide super-virus make imagining an apocalypse easy. And if you look back through history, it's obvious that as long as there has been civilization, there has been the fear of complete and utter worldwide destruction.

One of the most prolific names today in speculative fiction is N.K. Jemisin. The first two books of her Broken Earth trilogy have won the Hugo Award for best novel the last two years consecutively. If you want to read the best sci-fi about the apocalypse, you need to be reading N.K. Jemisin's books. 

That's what we did, and N.K. Jemisin was kind enough to join Cracked's Alex Schmidt and Michael Swaim in New York for a conversation about world-building contemporary sci-fi, some of the most interesting real-life apocalypses in human history, and the difficulties of writing end-times fiction when the world so often is stranger and crueler than fiction.

Footnotes and other links: https://goo.gl/BRmXxG

If you're a movie fan in 2017, you're hard pressed to find many original sci-fi films. There are a lot more Alien: Covenants and Blade Runner: 2o49s than Ex Machinas. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just sometimes sci-fi fans want to experience something new, something fresh, something that's not in the Transformers expanded universe.

I mean, it's 2017. There are new planets and technologies being discovered every day. Surely some of them would make for the basis of a good sci-fi movie.

So on this week's podcast, Alex Schmidt puts together a panel to research as many new and groundbreaking science stories as possible and pitch them as sci-fi movies. He's joined live in New York at the Now Hear This podcast festival by Cracked's Brett Rader and Michael Swaim, and comedians Claudia Cogan and Negin Farsad to discuss sense vests, head transplants, robot vines and more.

Links, footnotes and more: https://goo.gl/1NdCEy