The Ned & Josh Podcast

The boyfriend chair is an underrated institution and Josh is here to defend it — the quality of the chair, it turns out, varies enormously depending on which shop you walk into. Meanwhile, a man named Tony has spent a year trying to reclaim a 12-foot alligator named Albert from authorities who seem pretty determined to keep him, and the movie Coco apparently reduces two fully grown men to open, unashamed weeping even when they've only known each other a month. The headphone jack is technically still alive on your laptop and your TV, which makes the nostalgia grief feel a little premature, and there's a very specific kind of social humiliation discussed this episode — the handsome guy who calls you "champ" in a way that nobody else will ever believe is an insult.

Returning from orbit feeling gravity for the first time in two weeks is rough, but apparently not as rough as hearing your mum's India stories second-hand through your sisters while she ignores your calls. Kermit has been nude this entire time and no one brought it up until now, the fuel excise cut hasn't stopped petrol pricing from being completely irrational, and there's a growing urge to tap strangers on the shoulder at the servo and ask what exactly they're planning with those jerry cans.

The boys are back in the strange little crossover zone where radio and podcasting are colliding, and it sparks a chat about listener expectations, live broadcasting, swearing less, and whether some things should be saved just for the pod. There is also a surprisingly heated office food debate involving tuna, canned chicken, gym culture, and the kind of workplace smell that should probably qualify as an HR issue.

Then it shifts into complete chaos with a dog walk disaster, the reality of rescue dog attitude, terrible Illawarra navigation, Google Maps sabotage, class action lawsuit texts, dodgy warranty subscriptions, and a father figure on the verge of reinventing himself as Poppy C.

Being spat on in Madrid as a nine-year-old, then returning home and being spat on again because you'd been to Madrid, is a travel experience that doesn't feature in many tourism campaigns. There's also a legitimate theory that energy drinks only feel unhealthy because of carbonation — La Croix gets away with the exact same thing — a bathroom altercation involving a man who had every stall available to him and still chose the one directly adjacent, and a small child who told a full doctor's waiting room her mother's specific underwear brand. The godfather renewal system is explained, CPR dogs are assessed for compression quality, and "well-loved" is formally retired as an acceptable way to sell anything.

Board games are a tough sell when the alternative is playing as the greatest NBA player who ever lived. The boys get into why rainy Easter Sundays inside with the family are harder to navigate than they sound, and what it takes to actually pull a kid out of a gaming session. That sits alongside an Easter egg delivery that Josh's mum clearly rehearsed, the Mildura juice product that's raising more questions than it answers, and the somewhat depressing thought that the shoe store is probably the only place your shoes will ever feel truly new. Ned's grandparents were meant to get a visit this weekend, but registration and petrol had other ideas.

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If you've ever watched Friends and thought the characters had an unusually relaxed relationship with their morning routines and the concept of having jobs, this episode validates that entirely. The hosts also revisit the Girl Dinner phenomenon, trace it back further than the internet did, and connect it to a wider theory about breakfast foods that look like pet food. On the other side of the episode, there's a very serious conversation about what a Prime Minister would have to do to genuinely distract an entire country, and one suggestion that would absolutely tank the economy while also being extremely fun.

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Ned and Josh are, by their own admission, more similar to each other than Ned is to his own twin sisters, which makes the moments they genuinely diverge feel huge. One of those moments is Sean Astin: Ned loves him across Goonies, Lord of the Rings, Stranger Things, and more; Josh acknowledges he exists. The conversation drifts into whether Samwise Gamgee is actually the real protagonist of the whole saga, and then straight into the magic-as-transport debate — if Gandalf is available, the walk to Mordor is a choice, and it's a bad one. On a completely different note, Josh also nearly bought a shirt yesterday before reading the back of it and deciding society has failed men's fashion entirely.

Find us on Instagram @nedandjosh

The pod pals have been snippy, the boys are overworked, and yet here we are. This episode covers the bizarre social contract of lying to people in shops, whether that's a mattress showroom or a fancy shampoo boutique, the argument that 42 cents of compound interest could make your descendants millionaires by the year 3026, and a childhood memory unlocked entirely by the Sims newspaper delivery jingle. They also get into why Ned's mum remains the only person capable of answering medical questions on his behalf, how Meta's targeted advertising completely misread the room with a grandstand built for 200 people, and what it would actually feel like to spend your whole life laying cobblestone for a king with no performance reviews.

The Michael Jackson biopic is coming and the big news is that the soundtrack is full of, wait for it, Michael Jackson songs. Meanwhile, a voice-over artist has gone to the press claiming he faked radio phone calls for one of Australia's biggest breakfast shows, and Ned has thoughts on whether Strava is slowly becoming a threat to national security. The Tasmanian Devils have kicked a goal, the Innkeeper's Act of 1968 apparently still governs hotel theft law, and there's a passionate case made for just letting yourself go bald with dignity.

A Toyota dealership left a voicemail on the wrong number, which has raised a completely serious legal question about whether finders keepers applies to cars. Meanwhile, the cost of renting in Australia is turning share houses into something that looks a lot like the Big Brother house, Michael B. Jordan's post-Oscars burger run has been clocked, and Josh wants to know if he should start watching One Piece. Nobody asked how Leonardo DiCaprio feels about any of this.