The Protagonist Podcast

Description

Returning guest Virginia McAlister joins Joe to discuss the film That Thing You Do! Written and directed by Tom Hanks, the film stars Tom Everett Scott as Guy and Liv Tyler as Faye. It tells the story of a one-hit wonder band and their meteoric rise to fame and sudden crash as everything falls apart.

Support

Show Notes

Description

Producer Andrew joins Joe to discuss Susanna Clarke’s 2020 novel, Piranesi. Only Clarke’s second novel—her first was Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell—this novel had near-universal praise when it was released. The novel tells the story of a man lost in a strange labyrinth who slowly comes to understand more about the world he is in and about himself. Simultaneously abstract and concrete, enigmatic but certain, this is one of our favorite novels that we’ve discussed on the podcast.

Support

Show Notes

Description

Returning guest Virginia McAlister joins Joe to talk about the tv series Stargate SG-1. A continuation of the Stargate film, this series and its spin-offs was one of the most successful sci-fi television franchises of the 1990s and early 2000s. We’re talking about the episodes “Children of the Gods,” “Fifth Race,” and “Window of Opportunity.”

Support

Show Notes

Description

Producer Andrew and Joe are discussing one of the formative stories in the early Marvel Comics universe. We talk about the legendary pairing of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee as storytellers, and some of the significance of this cosmic adventure from 1966. While the Avengers and the X-Men are more well-known, The Fantastic Four is the first superhero comic book Marvel Comics published in the Silver Age.

Support

Show Notes

Description

Returning guest Chris “Mav” Maverick joins Joe and Producer Andrew to talk about love and hate in fandom. It seems that some portions of fandom love nothing more than to complain about the media they claim to love, but why is that the case? We have an open-ended discussion pondering this issue.

Description

Producer Andrew and Joe discuss a cult classic film that features some amazing Ray Harryhausen stop motion animation. The Valley of Gwangi tells the story of cowboys capturing a dinosaur and bringing it back to an Old West show before it breaks free and terrorizes a town. That’s right, it’s cowboys vs. dinosaurs.

Support

Show Notes

Description

Protagonist Podcast co-founder Todd Mack joins Joe to discuss two short stories, “Los Ojos Verdes” by Spanish Romantic author Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by American Romantic author Edgar Allan Poe. “The Green Eyes” tells the story of a young man who becomes obsessed with a woman with green eyes, and “The Tell-Tale Heart” tells the story of a narrator becoming obsessed with an old man’s pale blue eye.

Support

Show Notes

Description

First-time guest Francis Agnoli joins Joe and Producer Andrew to discuss the episode “Zuko Alone” from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuko was introduced as an antagonist in the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but serves as the protagonist of this episode. Francis Agnoli is the author of Race and the Animated Bodyscape: Constructing and Ascribing a Racialized Asian Identity in Avatar and Kora. 

Support

Show Notes

Description

Protagonist Podcast co-founder Todd Mack joins Joe to discuss Mafalda, an Argentinian comic strip by an artist named Quino. Mafalda is a 6-year-old girl with lots of big questions and concerns about the world around her. The comic strip ran from 1964-1973 and remains popular in many parts of the world today.

Support

Show Links

Description

Joe and Producer Andrew are joined by returning guest Ben Phillips to play a game of Truth or Lie. We’ve each found a handful of examples of obscure media that has actually been produced (despite some of these sounding too bizarre to be real). We then give brief summaries of what it really was and a made up summary. The other players then guess which one was the real summary. 

Support