The Cracked Podcast

What separates the baby religions from the big ones? Is there anything specific that makes Catholicism or Islam more important than the shrine to The Noid that I have in my closet? Some religions make you go to mass or travel to Mecca, mine makes me eat pizza in the nude at least twice a week. The point we're trying to make is that what seems fringe or crazy now may have a billion devoted followers a thousand years from now. Mormonism was about as fringe as you could get a hundred years ago, less than a million followers, but now the there are around 16 million members and counting. Is there any religion that's out there now that's in the same place Mormonism was 100 years ago?To get a better understanding of some of these lesser-known religions and if they'll stand the test of time, Jack O'Brien's guest this week is Reza Aslan, who has a PhD in the study of religion and whose new show 'Believer' on CNN throws him head-first into the beliefs and practices of obscure religions. Among Scientology and Santa Muerte, they talk about the implausible origins of biblical literalism, the rare disorder that has tourists in Jerusalem thinking they're the messiah and a few big things that'll change your notions of Christianity and Islam.Remember to buy tickets to our next live taping of The Cracked Podcast on Saturday, March 11th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Jack and the gang are going to talk about Amity Island, Jurassic World and movies where vacations go awry in an attempt to figure out the best spring break you should take while vacationing in a fictional universe.Tickets are $7 and available here: https://goo.gl/Li0ocH Footnotes:TV Show: Believer with Reza Aslan: https://goo.gl/xvhvno Book: Reza Aslan: Zealot: https://goo.gl/qIXXdu Video: Reza Aslan Viral Interview on Fox News: https://goo.gl/SBTBT5 Article: Cracked: 5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe Islam: https://goo.gl/aDLjO Article: Cracked: 5 Myths You Probably Believe About Major Religions: https://goo.gl/qHreXh Article: The Telegraph: Jerusalem Syndrome: The Madness That Grips Foreigners on the Streets of the Holy City: https://goo.gl/IW1YUI This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron and ZipRecruiter.

Who can forget the classic Oscars showdown between 'The Artist' and, uh, 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'? Most of us can and did, in fact. Great job, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! Way to keep your fingers on the pulse of American filmmaking by giving gold out to the 1930s-style silent film. Trailblazing. The Oscars have proven year after year that they're not the best barometer for judging the best or even the most popular films from a given year. Often they're really only judging movies on the criteria of being appealing to a group of old, white men with film industry jobs. Look at three of the last five best picture winners and their subject matter: 'Birdman'– an aging actor known for playing superheroes strives for artistic legitimacy; 'Argo'– Hollywood producers save hostages in Iran; 'The Artist'– Remember silent films? And let's pencil 'La La Land' into that list– an struggling actress and a struggling musician fall in love, become successful. Hollywood obviously has a problem being objective about movies wherein the subject matter is itself.So this week we're being objective for Hollywood. Jack O'Brien welcomes Cracked's David Bell, Adam Ganser and Brett Rader to discuss 2016's Best Picture nominees and award movies in some made-up categories that we'd like to see incorporated into the Oscar broadcast. Later they took a look back at the 2012 Oscars in which 'The Artist' won best picture and redistribute the awards with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Footnotes:Cracked Podcast: Why We Should Wait 5 Years to Award the Oscars: https://goo.gl/COc0zQ Article: Cracked: 5 Problems Haunting The Oscars (Besides Lack of Diversity): https://goo.gl/mMgAQG Article: Cracked: 5 Reasons the Oscars Matter Even Less Than You Thought: https://goo.gl/bql0 This episode is brought to you by Squarespace (www.squarespace.com code: CRACKED), Lincoln In the Bardo, and Away (www.awaytravel.com/cracked).

Who can forget the classic Oscars showdown between 'The Artist' and, uh, 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'? Most of us can and did, in fact. Great job, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! Way to keep your fingers on the pulse of American filmmaking by giving gold out to the 1930s-style silent film. Trailblazing. The Oscars have proven year after year that they're not the best barometer for judging the best or even the most popular films from a given year. Often they're really only judging movies on the criteria of being appealing to a group of old, white men with film industry jobs. Look at three of the last five best picture winners and their subject matter: 'Birdman'– an aging actor known for playing superheroes strives for artistic legitimacy; 'Argo'– Hollywood producers save hostages in Iran; 'The Artist'– Remember silent films? And let's pencil 'La La Land' into that list– an struggling actress and a struggling musician fall in love, become successful. Hollywood obviously has a problem being objective about movies wherein the subject matter is itself.So this week we're being objective for Hollywood. Jack O'Brien welcomes Cracked's David Bell, Adam Ganser and Brett Rader to discuss 2016's Best Picture nominees and award movies in some made-up categories that we'd like to see incorporated into the Oscar broadcast. Later they took a look back at the 2012 Oscars in which 'The Artist' won best picture and redistribute the awards with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Footnotes:Cracked Podcast: Why We Should Wait 5 Years to Award the Oscars: https://goo.gl/COc0zQ Article: Cracked: 5 Problems Haunting The Oscars (Besides Lack of Diversity): https://goo.gl/mMgAQG Article: Cracked: 5 Reasons the Oscars Matter Even Less Than You Thought: https://goo.gl/bql0 This episode is brought to you by Squarespace (www.squarespace.com code: CRACKED), Lincoln In the Bardo, and Away (www.awaytravel.com/cracked).

When you think about ancient human history, you probably think about sex, right? Who doesn't? And when you do, you probably imagine in your head (because you love envisioning your eldest relatives gettin' down) a very bland, puritanical form of sex where they do it through a sheet once every other year and only to conceive, right? Well, sorry to make you throw up in your mouth a little bit, but your ideas of chastened ancestors living repressed lives are as wrong as the next images we're about to put in your mind: ancient humans were nasty little horndogs. In fact, the basically standard modern ideas of monogamy and fidelity are extremely recent developments in human history. They've only been around for about 10,000 years -- a blink of the evolutionary eye.So what was the ancient hunter-gatherer love like actually like? And what can we learn about our own sex lives from looking at how the cavemen got down? A lot, actually. So we asked an expert. By studying prehistoric human cultures and the sex lives of our two closest genetic relatives, chimps and bonobos, Dr. Christopher Ryan has some pretty eye-opening stuff to share about human sexuality. So Jack O'Brien welcomes Dr. Ryan on this bonus episode of The Cracked Podcast to talk with Teresa Lee and Michael Swaim about swinging tribes-people, primitive vibrators and ape balls in a conversation that is bound to make you rethink everything you know about love and sexuality.Footnotes:Book: Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jetha: Sex At Dawn: https://goo.gl/NkZVye Podcast: Christopher Ryan: Tangentially Speaking: https://goo.gl/uWl7mK Scholarly Article: Michael Gurven & Hilliard Kaplan: Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: https://goo.gl/9LXdBo Article: Jared Diamond: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race: https://goo.gl/4k9zM Article: Cracked: 5 Gender Stereotypes That Used To Be The Exact Opposite: https://goo.gl/zgnNG Article: Cracked: 6 Horrifying Facts That Get Left Out Of History: https://goo.gl/ItWwcK Article: Cracked: 7 X-Rated Traditions That Prove History Was Horny As F*$&: https://goo.gl/9XxknD Article: Cracked: The 6 Most Cynical Exploitations of Romantic Love in History: https://goo.gl/Hik16 Article: Cracked: 6 Factors That Secretly Influence Who You Have Sex With: https://goo.gl/oIAFD Article: Cracked: 5 Insignificant Things That Determine Who You Have Sex With: https://goo.gl/0i8cQ

When you think about ancient human history, you probably think about sex, right? Who doesn't? And when you do, you probably imagine in your head (because you love envisioning your eldest relatives gettin' down) a very bland, puritanical form of sex where they do it through a sheet once every other year and only to conceive, right? Well, sorry to make you throw up in your mouth a little bit, but your ideas of chastened ancestors living repressed lives are as wrong as the next images we're about to put in your mind: ancient humans were nasty little horndogs. In fact, the basically standard modern ideas of monogamy and fidelity are extremely recent developments in human history. They've only been around for about 10,000 years -- a blink of the evolutionary eye.So what was the ancient hunter-gatherer love like actually like? And what can we learn about our own sex lives from looking at how the cavemen got down? A lot, actually. So we asked an expert. By studying prehistoric human cultures and the sex lives of our two closest genetic relatives, chimps and bonobos, Dr. Christopher Ryan has some pretty eye-opening stuff to share about human sexuality. So Jack O'Brien welcomes Dr. Ryan on this bonus episode of The Cracked Podcast to talk with Teresa Lee and Michael Swaim about swinging tribes-people, primitive vibrators and ape balls in a conversation that is bound to make you rethink everything you know about love and sexuality.Footnotes:Book: Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jetha: Sex At Dawn: https://goo.gl/NkZVye Podcast: Christopher Ryan: Tangentially Speaking: https://goo.gl/uWl7mK Scholarly Article: Michael Gurven & Hilliard Kaplan: Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: https://goo.gl/9LXdBo Article: Jared Diamond: The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race: https://goo.gl/4k9zM Article: Cracked: 5 Gender Stereotypes That Used To Be The Exact Opposite: https://goo.gl/zgnNG Article: Cracked: 6 Horrifying Facts That Get Left Out Of History: https://goo.gl/ItWwcK Article: Cracked: 7 X-Rated Traditions That Prove History Was Horny As F*$&: https://goo.gl/9XxknD Article: Cracked: The 6 Most Cynical Exploitations of Romantic Love in History: https://goo.gl/Hik16 Article: Cracked: 6 Factors That Secretly Influence Who You Have Sex With: https://goo.gl/oIAFD Article: Cracked: 5 Insignificant Things That Determine Who You Have Sex With: https://goo.gl/0i8cQ

Did you ever notice how every movie villain is just really ugly beyond belief? Emperor Palpatine? WRINKLED UP UGGO. Jafar? POINTY FACE. Scar? LITERALLY NAMED AFTER HIS FACIAL DEFORMITY.It's fucking dark when you think about how many movies this applies to; how the villain is usually someone trying to live a normal or equal life, but their ugliness just gets in the way. 'The Incredibles' is a perfect example. The villain is an ugly-little redhead kid who just wants for everybody to be a superhero, but the Incredibles are like NNNNNNOPE and throw him into a jet engine because only they should get to be superheroes.Yeah, of course Syndrome kills like 30 other superheroes and sets a giant death robot loose on a major metropolis, but just go with us for this thought experiment. His heart was in the right place. On this week's podcast Jack O'Brien welcomes Cracked's own Katie Goldin and Michael Swaim to unpack this trope and how you can see ugly bad guys ostensibly trying to do the right thing in franchises from Disney to The Lord of the Rings.Footnotes:Video: Cracked: 4 Disney Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along: https://goo.gl/ddcdE7 Article: Cracked: 9 Famous Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along: https://goo.gl/YHj25 Article: Cracked: 5 Movie Villains Who Were Right The Whole Time: https://goo.gl/2P99EY Article: Cracked: 6 Reasons The Jedi Would Be The Villain In Any Sane Movie: https://goo.gl/rPHaAO Article: Cracked: You Really Have No Idea Who The Villain Of Frozen Is: https://goo.gl/SsbdFm Book: Chuck Klosterman: I Wear the Black Hat: https://goo.gl/oxij5c Video: Kanye West: All Day (Live at the 2015 BRIT Awards): https://goo.gl/xeDgWu This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com/cracked) and Harry’s (www.harrys.com/cracked).

Did you ever notice how every movie villain is just really ugly beyond belief? Emperor Palpatine? WRINKLED UP UGGO. Jafar? POINTY FACE. Scar? LITERALLY NAMED AFTER HIS FACIAL DEFORMITY.It's fucking dark when you think about how many movies this applies to; how the villain is usually someone trying to live a normal or equal life, but their ugliness just gets in the way. 'The Incredibles' is a perfect example. The villain is an ugly-little redhead kid who just wants for everybody to be a superhero, but the Incredibles are like NNNNNNOPE and throw him into a jet engine because only they should get to be superheroes.Yeah, of course Syndrome kills like 30 other superheroes and sets a giant death robot loose on a major metropolis, but just go with us for this thought experiment. His heart was in the right place. On this week's podcast Jack O'Brien welcomes Cracked's own Katie Goldin and Michael Swaim to unpack this trope and how you can see ugly bad guys ostensibly trying to do the right thing in franchises from Disney to The Lord of the Rings.Footnotes:Video: Cracked: 4 Disney Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along: https://goo.gl/ddcdE7 Article: Cracked: 9 Famous Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along: https://goo.gl/YHj25 Article: Cracked: 5 Movie Villains Who Were Right The Whole Time: https://goo.gl/2P99EY Article: Cracked: 6 Reasons The Jedi Would Be The Villain In Any Sane Movie: https://goo.gl/rPHaAO Article: Cracked: You Really Have No Idea Who The Villain Of Frozen Is: https://goo.gl/SsbdFm Book: Chuck Klosterman: I Wear the Black Hat: https://goo.gl/oxij5c Video: Kanye West: All Day (Live at the 2015 BRIT Awards): https://goo.gl/xeDgWu This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com/cracked) and Harry’s (www.harrys.com/cracked).

If you've followed the news recently, you may have noticed the tiny little superpower Sarah Palin can see from her house has emerged from its slumber and re-injected itself into American politics. Not since the Cold War has Russophobia been as much of a part of our daily lives as it is now. Disinformation, strong man tactics and a corrupt and dictatorial turn have spilled into American life in a way that would've seemed like fiction only a few decades ago. What was once the well-trodden territory of black and white "duck and cover" videos and 80s action flicks is now a staple of Twitter feeds and nightly news broadcasts.So how did we get here, and what the hell does Russia even want from us this time around? That's what Cracked's Robert Evans and Michael Swaim are here to find out on this week's podcast. They join Jack O'Brien for an all-encompassing conversation about the KGB's history of deceit, Russia's methodology for spreading lies and Vlad Putin's psych evaluation. Later in the show, Jack interviews Cracked engineer Tatiana Nam about her experiences growing up in Russia.Our next live podcast is on Saturday, February 11th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Just in time for Valentine's Day, join Jack O'Brien, Michael Swaim and Teresa Lee as they welcome Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn for a discussion about love, relationships and why our sex lives now bear no resemblance to the way our ancestors got down. Tickets are $7 and available here: https://goo.gl/aXqXex Footnotes:Video: Cracked:  Why the #1 Fact of Military History is a Lie: https://goo.gl/12apTz Article: Cracked: 5 Conspiracy Theories That Are Real (But Not How You Think) [#5 CIA created AIDS]: https://goo.gl/wrt8Kk Article: Cracked: 6 Insane Conspiracy Theories That Actually Happened [#2 KGB Was Involved in JFK Assassination]: https://goo.gl/w4gBl Article: NPR: Putin 'Probably' Approved Plan to Kill Spy: https://goo.gl/cTC3h0 Podcast: NPR: Russia's Interference is an Assault on the Western Liberal Order: https://goo.gl/8FPDyv Video: Press Conference with Bill Clinton and Drunk Boris Yeltsin: https://goo.gl/aEcvkT Podcast: NPR: Trump Seems Willfully Blind to Putin's Real Goals: https://goo.gl/tIixW3 Book: Peter Pomerantsev: Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: https://goo.gl/UI1nNx This episode is brought to you by Squarespace (www.squarespace.com code: CRACKED) and ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com/cracked).

If you've followed the news recently, you may have noticed the tiny little superpower Sarah Palin can see from her house has emerged from its slumber and re-injected itself into American politics. Not since the Cold War has Russophobia been as much of a part of our daily lives as it is now. Disinformation, strong man tactics and a corrupt and dictatorial turn have spilled into American life in a way that would've seemed like fiction only a few decades ago. What was once the well-trodden territory of black and white "duck and cover" videos and 80s action flicks is now a staple of Twitter feeds and nightly news broadcasts.So how did we get here, and what the hell does Russia even want from us this time around? That's what Cracked's Robert Evans and Michael Swaim are here to find out on this week's podcast. They join Jack O'Brien for an all-encompassing conversation about the KGB's history of deceit, Russia's methodology for spreading lies and Vlad Putin's psych evaluation. Later in the show, Jack interviews Cracked engineer Tatiana Nam about her experiences growing up in Russia.Our next live podcast is on Saturday, February 11th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Just in time for Valentine's Day, join Jack O'Brien, Michael Swaim and Teresa Lee as they welcome Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn for a discussion about love, relationships and why our sex lives now bear no resemblance to the way our ancestors got down. Tickets are $7 and available here: https://goo.gl/aXqXex Footnotes:Video: Cracked:  Why the #1 Fact of Military History is a Lie: https://goo.gl/12apTz Article: Cracked: 5 Conspiracy Theories That Are Real (But Not How You Think) [#5 CIA created AIDS]: https://goo.gl/wrt8Kk Article: Cracked: 6 Insane Conspiracy Theories That Actually Happened [#2 KGB Was Involved in JFK Assassination]: https://goo.gl/w4gBl Article: NPR: Putin 'Probably' Approved Plan to Kill Spy: https://goo.gl/cTC3h0 Podcast: NPR: Russia's Interference is an Assault on the Western Liberal Order: https://goo.gl/8FPDyv Video: Press Conference with Bill Clinton and Drunk Boris Yeltsin: https://goo.gl/aEcvkT Podcast: NPR: Trump Seems Willfully Blind to Putin's Real Goals: https://goo.gl/tIixW3 Book: Peter Pomerantsev: Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: https://goo.gl/UI1nNx This episode is brought to you by Squarespace (www.squarespace.com code: CRACKED) and ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com/cracked).

Once you hit your mid-twenties, everything starts beginning to suck. Your favorite band? Not as good as when they first came out. Favorite hangouts? All gone to shit since all the young people started showing up and ruining everything. The world? Basically a day away from total anarchy.Even the idea of time begins to suck. The present is somehow always the worst and no matter how bad your life was 5, 10 years ago– it all seems tinted with rose-colored glasses. Sure you were bored all the time, had no way of communicating with people who weren't your neighbors and loved Hootie and the Blowfish, but man the 90s were the absolute peak of human existence, right? Not really.Somehow humans have this bias that makes them think the world is always at the brink of complete collapse and that things were better before...before AIDS and Ebola started killing everybody; before all the bees disappeared; before crime took over the streets, when you could leave your front door open all day and the criminals would tip their hats and say, "good morning!"We're here to say this way of thinking is wrong and completely ignores all of the amazing advancements humanity is continuing to make every day. It's just you don't hear about them because the headline "Cancer Deaths Slowly and Steadily Dropping" isn't as flashy as "IT'S ALL BURNING DOWN MAN, DON'T EVEN BOTHER!"On the podcast this week, Jack O'Brien is joined by Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) to talk about how we're neither going to hell nor are we in a hand basket. Poverty, war and disease are at all time lows, all you have to do is look away from the news to see it.Our next live podcast is on Saturday, February 11th at 7pm at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles. Just in time for Valentine's Day, join Jack O'Brien, Michael Swaim and Teresa Lee as they welcome Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn for a discussion about love, relationships and why our sex lives now bear no resemblance to the way our ancestors got down. Tickets are $7 and available here:  https://goo.gl/aXqXex Footnotes:Articles: Cracked: Pieces of Good News Nobody is Reporting:  https://goo.gl/ysKK7 https://goo.gl/8z04xT   https://goo.gl/Kr75IK Article: Biography.com: H.H. Holmes:  https://goo.gl/U1Bo6V Website: OurWorldInData.com:  https://goo.gl/afqC0a Graph: Innovation.org: Actual vs. Projected Death Rates for HIV/AIDS in the US:  https://goo.gl/ZI6zHY Article: Cracked: 5 Horrifying Apocalyptic Scenarios That Already Happened (#1 The Toba Event):  https://goo.gl/5COk09 Scholarly Article: British Journal of Preventative and Social Medicine: The Coal Gas Story:  https://goo.gl/EbJkvD Article: Bloomberg: Bias, Blindness and How We Truly Think:  https://goo.gl/98f6Uv Article: The New Yorker: Doomsday Prep for the Super Rich:  https://goo.gl/GBcpKk This episode is brought to you by Shari’s Berries (www.berries.com code: CRACKED) and Blue Apron (www.blueapron.com/cracked).