The Hall of Greatness

Welcome to the Hall’o’ween o’ Greatness! Because of the season, we’re talking about the best-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. We talk about why the album was so big, so important, and so personal to us. We also go track by track and discuss each of them in depth. Have a listen for a holiday trick or treat.

World Record set: 13,000 dance the Thriller Dance in Mexico City:

This Week in Greatness:

JB: American Humane Hero Dog Awards, This year’s finalist Chi Chi.

There are three weeks until the most important midterm elections of our lifetimes. What makes midterms so important? Why is there lower turnout in midterm elections? We dive deep into civics and tell you all the reasons why voting is the coolest. For more information on where to vote, go to https://vote.gov/

This week in greatness:

It was World Guitar Day on Sept 29, so Andy and JB got together to reminisce about their favorite guitars growing up, playing in bands together, dream guitars, and what a person’s guitar says about them.

While we recorded this the evening of Sept 29, we waited to publish it for a few weeks because we had other episodes in the queue. Also, just because it was a few weeks ago, does that change the fact that it’s always fun to talk about guitars?

Links to our dream gear setup:

Andy wants a 1952 reissue Fender Telecaster or this Johnny Marr signature Fender Jaguar

JB still wants Dean DeLeo’s gear, or maybe a Fender Jaco Pastorius fretless Jazz Bass.

We continue our discussion of whether we can make an ethical case for performance enhancement in sports by starting with talking about true enhancement, eugenics (we’re opposed, btw), Andy talks about Star Trek for some reason, and Andy and JB go through the various ethical systems.

This week in greatness:

We return with a MEGA-sized episode featuring our special guest “Joe” to talk about the use of performance enhancement in sports, specifically baseball. Can we make an ethical case that the increased “greatness” from performance-enhancing drugs is worth it? We’ll try. And because this went so long, we split it into two episodes.

Highlights from Episode I:

Summer is over, it’s time to do a post-mortem on summer movies, so spoiler alert– if you didn’t see these in theaters, we do talk minor spoilers. What makes a great “summer” movie? Andy and JB deconstruct two BIG summer blockbusters, Mission Impossible: Fallout and The Meg and why they worked and didn’t work. The long con of going to see a big stupid shark movie vs. McQuarrie’s con jobs in his scripts. We also bag on Christopher Nolan a little bit.

What’s great this week: More of our favorite movies from this summer!

Andy – Sorry to Bother You

JB – Three Identical Strangers

Normally our Triptych episodes are bite-sized minisodes, but talking about one of the world’s greatest directors, we had to split his films into pre and post 1995 eras AND disqualify two of the greatest films of all time, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, so we clocked in at almost an hour.  “We’re gonna need a bigger podcast.”

What is his best work?

Our answers may surprise and/or enrage you, as we make some controversial picks. Stay a while and listen!

When it comes to classic rock, if you had to take only four bands to put on Mt. Rushmore, what would they be? But classic rock is too much! There’s a definite divide between pop rock and regular rock. . . and what about folk rock? Andy and JB are joined by “Joe” to discuss and we come to a very. . . interesting conclusion about why we chose the bands we did, and what the symbology of Mt. Rushmore really means.

What’s good this week?

Time to get our angsty alt piano rock on as we talk about Tori Amos and ask:

What is her best work?

Do you have a cornflake box with Tori Amos’s face on it from the 90’s? Let us know in the comments!

This is our first episode featuring a special guest, and this time it’s Andy’s daughter “Mary Annette” aka “marryannte”, who is here to talk about some of the video games she loves — Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale.

Trigger Alert: This episode discusses some adult themes including mental health and suicide. It also contains spoilers for these video games, so don’t listen unless you want to be spoiled!

Did you know Undertale has a fan community that has created “Alternate Universes” for the characters? We explore her top 10 favorite “AUs” and why she loves all of them.