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- Bobby’s Snacks Vol. 47: Happy Bird Day
Bobby’s Snacks Vol. 47: Happy Bird Day
Bob Raymonda
May 17, 2026
Happy #AudioDramaSunday Pals!
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. I’ve been experiencing some job insecurity, which is always fun. Haven’t fully gotten the boot, but there’s a chance I’m back out there pounding the pavement for new full time work come this September, and I’m not going to lie, it’s been weighing down on me. I’ve submitted to a bunch of opportunities, but have been pre-screened out of most and am instead forced to try and just try really hard at the day job in hopes that they’ll decide to keep me on. Capitalism continues to be one hell of a drug. One that I wish I could just decide to quit.
Separately, we just celebrated my kid’s first birthday and my wife’s first Mother’s Day with an entirely too big backyard birthday party full of both our gigantic families. It was kind of like our wedding, in that I know I spoke a little bit to everyone, but couldn’t remember a single thing that was really said, and also feel like I didn’t spend nearly enough time with anyone. It was overwhelming, and there was a certain point when the three of us actually snuck out for a drive in the rain and a breather away from the chaos. My favorite part of the party was when the baby needed to finally crash. I let her lay on my chest for a full hour upstairs while I listened to the party humming on below me. It was exactly where I wanted to be.
This first year of parenthood has been incredibly difficult and rewarding. I can’t believe it’s already passed, and that we’re in a place where the little one has a bunch of words and can take ten steps at a time before falling and can stand without holding onto anything. I already miss every version of her that we don’t have anymore, from the little milk goblin newborn peanut to the few month old figuring out how to pick up her head. At the same time, I’m so excited every day to discover what new things she’s picked up. Whether it’s calling all her stuffed animals baby and giving them giant hugs or shouting “Night Night” defiantly in our faces while she used all of her power to rage against the machine of impending sleep.
For a long time I wondered if this experience would ever be mine. I avoided it for a lot of reasons for years. But now that’s it’s here? Despite the financial insecurity and the outright exhaustion and the constant juggle between being present and providing, I’m so glad that I’m going through it with a partner like Sam. It’s rewarding in ways I could only ever imagine, without understanding the true enormous gravity of it.
Writing this up while she naps on me, should probably get to the podcasting of it all.
I’m jumping right in with my own personally exciting podcast news. Lauren Shippen and I have been cooking up this crossover for a few months now: it was a no brainer because why WOULDN’T Father Ben want to meet and take confession from a fellow Upstate NY resident who just so happens to be possessed by a literal demon from hell. At the same time, I knew the two of us had submitted our shows to the 25th Annual Tribeca Film Festival, and thought pitching the crossover as a live event would be a really fun way to put it out in the world. When Davy Gardner got back to us (almost immediately) to green light the idea, I was excited beyond belief. Not only did we already have a fantastic script in hand, but now we could put it on during such a historic festival at a place as cool as the KGB Bar, a literary venue where so many of my mentors have graced the stage with their words? Friday, June 12 is going to be so so so special. And if you just so happen to be in or around NYC when it happens, it’d mean the absolute world to me. Lauren will be performing alongside Casey Callaghan, and afterwards we’ll have a Q&A moderated by the one and only Gabriel Urbina. It’s gonna be great. Buy tickets here.
In the meantime, keep an eye on our feed as we’ll be releasing an entirely different crossover with another show called…
If you’ve been here for awhile, you know that this show is one of my favorites of all time. There’s something about creator Jade Madison Scott’s voice that can walk the fine knife’s edge of a gut wrenching belly laugh and inside scrambling dose of anxiety in a single breath. Marisol has been a wonderful character to go on a full three season journey with. And while I, like so many other fans I know, am bummed that the series is officially over, I’m grateful that we’ll be getting one final episode: and epilogue hosted in our very own St. Patrick’s Church. But even if I didn’t know that was coming, I’d feel sated. The reveals in the series’ final release were sublime. And while getting to read them on the page was one thing, getting to experience them as a listener was an altogether different one. This is a show I plan on re-listening to many times over the course of my life. And who knows? Maybe you will too.
I stumbled upon this one in a meeting for attendees of the upcoming Tribeca Creators’ Market, and as soon as I heard the logline from series creator Tim Barnes, I knew that I was all the way in. This hilarious send up of Bernie Mac meets Judge Judy had me cackling in a car by myself from the moment I pressed play. What’s even better—it’s a rare celebrity-fronted fiction podcast that FEELS like it was purpose built the mediumo, and not just produced as a more affordable pitch deck for a future TV adaptation. And you know what? Even if it ultimately does get one, this version will still hold such a supremely special place in my heart. The characters are lived in, the situations are truly hysterical, and the chemistry between the core cast is undeniable. I’m PRAYING for a second season because god damn, eight episodes with Percy Travis and his colleagues wasn’t nearly enough.
God, Hunter Nelson’s script for The Completist was truly a revelation. What starts as a chance meeting between two men with an undying love for the same musician, because a sort of horrifying road trip into the unknown, as one offers to take the other home to hear an incredibly rare recording. There is so much that is both unsettling and beautiful about the relationship that is forged from these moments. Feeling like you’ve found someone who sees the world in the way that you do, while also wondering if they’re not a little bit full of shit and nefarious in their dogged insistence that you must come to a second, unknown location at their whim with no control of how long it will take to get there or what will actually happen when you do. Which is what made the true end of the piece that much more satisfying. Was this man truly the freak that your mind has made him out to be? Or is he just a lonely guy looking for a friend? There’s only one way to find out.
Oh hey, we’re back into season 2 of the Obituary Writer’s journeys for the first time almost two years! The scattershot release schedule of these new updates have been a bummer, since all I want is to inject this show straight into my subconscious, but I am so glad it’s still happening. This episode has an odd couple bent to it when OW is joined on his quest to eulogize the town’s best tailor by a man he detests, the private detective who in his mind stole his girlfriend. And it’s this strained new relationship that ends up becoming the most important one by episode’s end, as whacky hijinks melt away animosity and an uneasy alliance is born. Plus, shout out to a fun turn by my pal TH Ponders as the deceased, Kai. Excited for the next one, whenever it happens to find its way back into my queue!
We’re so close to the end game now, you can just feel it. What’s so fantastic about this most recent episode is the natural chemistry between real life married duo Lauren Grace Thompson and Ian Geers playing off each other in the drunken desperation of Amy and Kris grasping at the final straws of what was fun and easy about their relationship, before the realities of their disparate career schedules (and the heretofore unmentioned horror of the truth of Amy’s magical powers). It’s a fantastic adventure through Vegas, the perfect place to get away and avoid reality for a while. Even if that while turns into far longer than you may have thought or planned. And that ending? It will cut you right to your very core.
A visit from a previously deceased member of the crew rocks the foundations of everyone’s understanding in a triplet of fantastic episodes from this show. The temporary reemergence of The Grandmother excited me, not the least of which because I missed this show’s David Lynch in Twin Peaks as Gordon Cole. But it’s the adventures that followed his second exit from the series that really set my mind on fire. Getting to witness Cleo and Dot and Felix and the others experiencing memories from their past as they tried to find an exit from this new liminal reality they found themselves in was fantastic. And that blow up between Merlin and The Biological Man? chef’s kiss
BONUS SNACK
Look, there’s no part of me that’s going to tell you that this Apple TV+ drama is groundbreaking, but it does feel like it was made specifically for me. Jon Hamm back on our screens as a compelling hedge fund manager who gets fired and turns to burglary in his own affluent Westchester County neighborhood in order to keep up his family’s lavish lifestyle? A dead body throwing an even bigger wrench into the situation? Filming locations that happened to be in my old literal backyard, that my wife and I can pint to and say, I KNOW WHERE THAT IS? Stellar stuff. Plus, I have had a permanent crush on Amanda Peet since seeing The Whole Nine Yards as a kid, and will always jump at the chance to spend more time with her work. Just started season 2 last night and am gonna be mighty sad when I’m fully caught up.