Sidney Gottlieb is a name you do not know. If you did, you’d know about decades of CIA projects ruining countless minds with drugs and torture. You’d also know about the CIA’s secret San Francisco bordello, collaboration with Axis Powers war criminals, and borderline wacky fixation on turning drugs into brain-controlling weapons. On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt sits down with scholar, journalist and author Stephen Kinzer, diving into astonishing stories from Stephen's new book ‘Poisoner In Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control’. Discover the most important and powerful government agent you’ve never heard of, and how he pioneered everything from global “black sites” to 1960s counterculture, all with zero oversight and a hell of a lot of LSD.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/how-cia-quest-mind-control-drove-world-insane/

Streaming services revolutionized the TV-watching experience. There’s no denying it! Everything’s different now that we have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and the three new companies that launched while you were reading this sentence. There are now lots of ways to watch lots of great shows...but what if that system is unsustainable, counterintuitive, and worse than plain old cable in sneaky surprising ways? And what if there are other new amazing TV technologies that are comically weird and stupid? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedian and podcasting titan Jimmy Pardo (Never Not Funny) for a dive into the bizarre business decisions and technological missteps that make modern TV frustrating to watch in hilariously odd ways. And stick around for what Viewers Like You can do to have the best possible TV-watching experience.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/12-amazing-advances-in-tv-technology-that-make-tv-worse/

"What if the Marvel Entertainment Monolith never happened?" That alternate historical premise might sound insane to you if you were born after the turn of the millennium. But here’s two things you Post-9/11 Babies may not know: “Y2K" was a big weird panic that’s funny in hindsight, and Iron Man used to be a niche unknown thing. Within the past 11 years, random comics characters like Captain America and a raccoon with a gun went from minor doodles to global megastars. And on this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by two full-on comics experts (Cracked’s own Cyriaque Lamar and comedy’s own Joey Clift) for a look back at how the dominant entertainment property of the 2010s sprang from one low-level Marvel employee and a whole bunch of lucky breaks. Discover the handful of left-field casting decisions, little kid focus groups, and Samuel L. Jackson dogged obsessions that sent billions of dollars flying in whole new directions and changed your past decade of moviegoing.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/12-shockingly-important-near-misses-marvel-movie-history

Good news: this single podcast episode is two shows at once! Because on this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians Caitlin Gill and Kandice Martellaro for a walk through the latest greatest science news you haven’t heard yet. From there, they’ll spitball the fun & funny sci-fi movies waiting to be adapted from that real life science. Because here’s the #1 news story to remember: being alive is more interesting than people think it is.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/10-real-science-stories-that-should-be-sci-fi-movie/

Five thousand murders go unsolved in the United States every year. That means each American killer has a 38% chance of not getting caught, remaining free to listen to the inevitable true crime podcast about their deeds. People all over the world love sharing stories of lurid murder. But what if true crime fans could do more than just listen? What if modern technology and marketing skills can help you solve those crimes yourself, while ALSO blowing the lid off a decades-old 'Star Wars' mystery?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by writer, investigator, and ’Jensen and Holes: The Murder Squad’ co-host Billy Jensen. You’ll hear amazing stories from Billy’s new book ‘Chase Darkness with Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders’. You’ll also discover how to help investigate murders from home, learn how your DNA can catch the next "Golden State Killer"-type maniac, and find out exactly who passed up the chance to be Han Solo.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/how-one-true-crime-writer-started-solving-murders

If you lend a filmmaker your fighter jet, what do they owe you in return? Thanks to America’s military might and the world’s appetite for cinematic explosions, that weirdly specific question get asked a lot. Did you know the U.S. government influences dozens of movies and shows every year? Do you think Hollywood would pass up free Pentagon stuff to protect Hollywood's “artistic vision” for Transformers 8? And if you find out what the government cut out of movies and TV, does that tell you exactly what the government doesn’t want you to know?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by Adam Tod Brown (Unpopular Opinion) and Nic Wegener (American Dad) for a look back at America’s strange history of government overreach into scripts, shoots, and entire concepts for movies and TV. You’ll discover which movies traded script control for Air Force gear, which entire TV era sold out to Big Anti-Drug, and the exact Defense Department policy on what the military does in an alien invasion.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/15-odd-changes-u.s.-government-forced-into-movies-tv

Empathy is down 40% among American young people. That’s the finding of a study analyzing dozens of other studies across decades of responses. That also sounds sort of insane -- if nothing else, empathy might not be something you think percentages can measure. But what if it is measurable that way? And what if poll responses about empathy, morality, and dogs in mortal danger open up cans of worms so enormous there’s no way to contain them in a single podcast episode?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt sits down with Jason Pargin (who writes for Cracked as David Wong) to explore a range of polls, studies, and self-reported opinions that say an insane amount about who Americans really are. You’ll discover the shocking estimated truth about America’s pornography habits, vaccine paranoia, faith in a higher power, and other critical factors that format society. Also get excited about wondering a whole new set of questions, covering everything from trolley problems to shower multitasking.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/14-polls-that-explain-america-and-raise-huge-new-questions/

Forty-eight people (and counting!) have been Vice President of the United States...and if you can name more than a few of them, you might love history as much as Alex Schmidt does. After all, VPs do a little-respected job that’s "not worth a bucket of warm piss.” And that’s not us saying that. That’s Vice President John Nance Garner (Veep #32) self-roasting with that. Still, look closer at that history, and you’ll find nine out of forty-eight VPs became the P. Nine out of forty-eight! 18.75%! Doesn’t that make every Vice President worth examination? Shouldn’t we pay them as much attention as their boss gets? Especially when the current Vice President is a secret maniac, with a shady past, and a little too much Garfield enthusiasm?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers Broti Gupta (Speechless, The New Yorker) and Andrew Ti (Yo Is This Racist) for a look at baffling true tales of VPOTUS Mike Pence. Discover all the weird strange goofy things sprinkled throughout his past as a hot-take blogger, tobacco truther, campaign fund misuser, football game gaslighter, and other lousy things nobody has the mental bandwith to call him out on. Also stick around for the Dollar Store Machiavelli crap Mike Pence almost pulled to make himself your Commander in Chief at the last minute.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/12-bizarre-mike-pence-stories-nobody-ever-brings-up/

You can have too much money. (Not YOU specifically -- you are a valued listener and deserve Scrooge McDuckian riches.) The world’s movie studios, TV networks, and other visual-fun production companies think they need an infinite budget to make the next 'Star Wars'-type cultural phenomenon. But what if we told them the history of film & TV is packed with enormous successes that sprang from running out of money? And what if one of the prime examples of that is 'Star Wars' itself?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by working writers Hallie Cantor, Ben Joseph, and Chase Mitchell to see how the biggest movies and TV shows stumbled into great ideas by not being able to pay for their first idea. Discover which region-defining TV show was supposed to be set in the wrong city & state, which British national epic almost had zero style, which defining film of the 1980s achieved greatness by lying to the cops, and so much more.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/15-great-movie-tv-moments-caused-by-budget-problems/

Where do you get your news? Because whether it’s from a range of sources, from a curated Twitter feed, or from one nightmare cable channel monetizing hate, there is more happening than any one of us can track. The world is all news all the time. A lot of it seems grim. But what if we told you those true sad stories exist beside a range of incredible good news? What if we told you there are all kinds of bright spots across the world if you know where to look? And what if at least one of the stories features a “hybrid bear-monkey” you WILL want to see?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by old pals Soren Bowie and Katie Goldin for a celebration of awesome news you probably missed. From the struggle to save the environment to the fight against world diseases, you’ll discover everyone from young kids to entire countries pitching in and helping. So hurry up and listen, to gain the upbeat energy you need to defeat the slew of terrible things also going on these days (and don’t forget to hit up the footnotes for those sweet sweet hybrid bear-monkey pics).

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/17-exciting-happy-news-stories-more-people-should-hear