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Bobby's Snacks Vol. 33: Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Bob Raymonda
December 01, 2024
Happy #AudioDramaSunday Folks!
Coming in a week late with this one, which means I’ve listened to an absurd amount again. Last week I was experiencing some extreme burnout from the grand opening celebration of HAPIK Industry City for the day job. It’s an incredibly cool space, and we blew past our goals for the first day and ended up breaking global records for the entire company. It’s a fun gig, and getting to see that many kids and families enjoying the gym was gratifying, but lord have I needed several thousand naps this week. I’m exhausted down to the depths of my bones.
Sam and I spent the morning of Thanksgiving cooking a bunch of vegetarian things for her to enjoy while the rest of us gorged on turkey. We popped on Planes, Trains, & Automobiles while our butternut squash lasagna was in the oven, and that movie always hits me in exactly the way it needs to. Dinner with the rest of the family was incredibly relaxing, and followed up on Friday with our annual trip up to get her parents’ Christmas tree. Yesterday we went to the Bruce Museum to see a new Andrew Wyeth exhibit, then spent some extra time laying around at Sam’s parents’ house with our newborn baby niece. It’s been a really nice weekend.
Later this morning, Ghost Tour is getting ready for our next show, Friday December 6 at Lucky 13 in Brooklyn. We’ll be playing with our friends in ØFF GUARD again, who are celebrating the release of their newest EP, while we’re also marking the release of our own brand new single, “Performative”. You can pre-save that song right here. It’s the first one I’ve recorded with a band in over a decade, and I’m super proud of how it came out. We’ll also have an extremely goofy music video coming out alongside it, which I can’t wait to share. If you’re in the NYC area and are looking for something to do next Friday night, I can promise you that it’s gonna be a fantastic night of music.
But let’s get to the podcasts, shall we?
A few weekends ago, we put out this year’s Thanksgiving Special. I knew the story I wanted us to tell, checking back in with Gayle, the crazy cat lady from episode 3.07 || To Be a Feral Cat Feeder, and her relationship with Pat, the owner of the local diner played by Emma Sherr-Ziarko and Graham Rowat respectively. BUT, I also knew that I wanted to focus on writing season 4 at the time we’d need to be putting this one together, so I enlisted one of my favorite crazy cat ladies to take over for me: Jordan Stillman, who I work with closely on Greater Boston. She absolutely understood the assignment, and nailed every single story beat with glee. Getting to produce this episode was a true joy, and one I hope you’ll take some time to give a listen.
We’re so back. One of my all-time favorite shows, about a trio of private detectives who live next door to (and within the shadow of) those famous assholes, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, has already dropped the first two episodes of its new season. And gosh, did it start with a bang. One third of the trio insists he’s done with this whole private dicking thing, and has put all of his energy into opening a Holmes & Watson themed merriment park, which is all well and good, until someone under employ of the park turns up dead. Hilarious, queer as all get out, and made by some of the kindest, funniest people I’ve met in my eight years as a part of this community. I’m begging you » listen to this show. You’ll thank me for it.
Look, when you tell me that Gabriel Urbina has a new joint, I’m paying attention. He is one of those stalwarts in our industry, who’s been around long enough for all of us to know that anything he’s got his fingers in is likely to be gold. But this? A four episode adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, performed in its entirety by two actors juggling all of the characters, and through a lens that places far more agency in the hands of Mina Harker, and imagines a world in which she and Dracula go toe to toe with one another? I’m all the way in, from second one. The cliffhanger at the end of episode two made me punch the air in anger. And Evangeline Young? She’s a force of nature to be reckoned with. The work she does here as Harker is truly unreal.
A big part of my listening in the last three weeks was spent demolishing the second season of Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor’s Audible original. This show plays a delightful balancing act, weaving historical truths about Los Angeles, with the eerie underpinnings of a modern noir, and the fantastical twists and turns that come with that genre. Disparition’s score brings the journey of Lou Rosen and Molly Hatch deliciously to life as they begin to understand what the disappearance of a ghost-hunting TikTok star, the murder of a locally beloved farmer, and the enslavement of a group of migrant workers have to do with one another. To the surprise of no one, the answer to the mystery leaves no dangling threads, as the tapestry weaved by these titans of audio fiction wraps up in another beautiful and shocking conclusion.
Two more episodes down (with another I still have to catch up to), and this show continues to earn its place as one of the best sitcoms in all of fiction podcast history. First, we discover what previously missing bandleader and possibly Heaven-traitor Hornblas was up to during the events of season one, and then, we see what the consequences of those events have on the demons in the mall’s future. Things are heating up between our hotdog slinging heroes and the angels who seek to outwit or convert them, one by one. Kristen DiMercurio has outdone herself in every way with this new batch of episodes, and I can’t wait to see how the whole thing wraps up.
Speaking of Gabriel Urbina, I also spent some time marathoning the rest of this comic adaptation he wrote for Skybound Entertainment. I still need to go and read the original series it was based on, but even without that personal context, I can call this show a massive triumph. Demonic possession, violent drug cartels, monstrous transformations, and two ill begotten professionals trying desperately to shed the previous circumstances they met under in order to live a normal life, just to be pulled immediately back in to something worse than anything they may have once dreamed of. Stars Laz Alonso and Gigi Saul Guerrero have such incredible chemistry, that I had a hard time turning this adaptation off until I had nothing left to listen to.
On the most recent episode of this delightful fantasy theatre show, we meet a new player who has just joined the troupe for the first time. Ozzie is a melancholy performer who’s having a bit of a hard time adjusting with the personality (and magic) types of the people around them, but luckily, there’s a whole host of folks who’ve gone through those same growing pains to help guide them through it. This show is such a warm cup of tea: a comforting escape that prioritizes joy and kindness over dastardly evil and world ending apocalypse. Creator Claudia Elvidge is a deft writer of characters that are both full of depth and easy to grab onto.
While I’ve loved all the ways in which the future setting of this show, compared to the long-running Midst, has eschewed sociopolitical intrigue in favor of deep space exploration, I still can’t help but feel all of the intrigue bubbling just under the seams. For every new crystalline cavern and giant space bird the crew discovers, there’s another stray comment from our erstwhile narrators that speaks to a cosmos with plenty of drama that all of our adventurers will have to contend with. Both alongside one another, but also, in opposition to. My favorite character so far is The Grandmother, as their whispered observations of the cosmos speak to a whole world of rules to be both followed and broken in equal measure. Still my favorite addition to my queue each week.
How can a show this close to its 300th episode still be this good? Swap Meet takes us out to the godless realm of the county fair grounds for the Sanitation Department’s first annual Swap Meet. We get a crash course on what makes a good and bad swap, while also learning about When A Stranger Calls, a brand new documentary about the famous duel between Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Who knows… maybe I’m biased. This is still the thing that introduced me to the medium that changed my life, so maybe I’ll love anything they do. But I don’t care. Night Vale til the day I die, please. Night Vale… forever.
Something pretty giant happened for my team this week: after 5.5 long years, we’ve officially dropped the trailer to season two of our very first fiction podcast. This dystopian sci-fi/fantasty drama is everything to me. Some of the characters that we follow have been bouncing around my brain for an entire decade at this point. And while there isn’t a single member of our team that dreamed it’d take us this long to get back to them, we’re so glad we finally have. Rather than trying to rush through the season with a bi-weekly release schedule that would (honestly) probably break us, we’ve decided to go the Midnight Burger route and go monthly for season two. While that might mean there’s a longer wait between episodes, it does mean that after our official premiere on December 11th, there will be new releases every single month between now and next November. In the meantime, if you want to relisten to the first season, or you’ve just never heard it before, we also put out our very first supercut which allows you to marathon everything we’ve officially put out so far in one 4.5 hour chunk. Either way… I hope you’ll join us back on Proxima. I promise, things are about to get mighty wild.
These two crossover episodes are over a year in the making. Scripts have been completed since last fall, but with their holiday theming, I argued that we should wait to produce and release until closer to this year’s Thanksgiving. And while I’ve been incredibly impatient to get these two brilliant scripts, written by series creators Mac Rogers and Alexander Danner & Jeff Van Dreason respectively, in front of you all, I’m genuinely glad that we allowed ourselves to be patient. These worlds mesh together so well that it was a no brainer for me when it came time to organize another crossover for both of these teams to introduce them to one another. Having Wonderland admin-extraordinaire Melissa be sisters with Red Camp second in command Liz/Robin is such an amazing bit of world building. And then having both Nica & Dimitri interview to be considered for a second, yet turning which one goes on an actual adventure to do so, and who stays put on its head is chef’s kiss. I’m so so thrilled with how these two episodes turned out, and I’m begging you all to listen to them.
While this show is often best in its bits that appear only to never return again, it’s their longest running jokes that are the most satisfying. This month, we check back in on the happenings at St. Catherine’s Church in Bromley, and the local cow that everyone has come to worship. Belly laughs galore. I genuinely have no idea how Benjamin Partridge and friends can make this show without breaking every three seconds. The strength it must take to take every wild new development in this world of bovine supremacy in stride has to be immense. I certainly know I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.
Two cassettes deeper into this season, and it’s proving to be one for the history books, and not just because it centers around a voice actor recording a history book, either. Kat Waterford is one of the most charming narrators in this show’s nine season run, and trying to figure out where she’s at emotionally in the brief moments of one-sided conversation we hear between her and her ex-wife director, coupled with the inflection she uses while performing the material before her, is magnificent. In one episode, there may be an engineer stepping in during her ex-wife’s day off, which she communicates as an easier day for her… only to immediately contradict herself as soon as her ex is back at the console and there to guide her through the material. Obviously there’s a lot of history here, strained and otherwise, but there’s a comfort too. One I’d like to spend a bit more time exploring. God, I’m such a sucker for sapphic dysfunction, and I’ll never pretend to be anything but.
Gosh, what a delight. The famous Norwegian historical figure in this episode isn’t a person looking to escape their life. In fact, it’s a person who just so happens to be already dead, and who’s death makes the events of this war that Arthur & Kozlowski have found themselves unwittingly camping right in the middle of that much more complicated. A hilarious, heartfelt, and harrowing script from series co-creator Pip Thorne is always welcome, especially in a season so chock full of brilliant guest writers. And up next… more Gabriel Urbina! I’m deliriously excited for whatever that story ends up looking like.
Two episodes deeper into Goshawk, and I’m reminded all over again why Travis Vengroff and K.A. Statz are two of the most talented and consistent creators in our entire industry. The blend of storylines between the meeting of the families at the wider conference, versus the folks still lost in the arctic wilderness, stalked by malevolent forces that may or may not be human is perfect. And the performers? Some of the best that have ever been on the show in its several years of existence. I want to give a special shout out to Shion Francois, who has been killing it as Jason for two straight seasons now, and plays menacing beautifully.
I’m already on record as being obsessed with Spotify’s several Batman series produced by Blue Ribbon Content, and this season is no different. The casting of Colman Domingo as Bruce Wayne/Batman, alongside Gina Rodriguez as Barbara Gordon/Oracle was already inspired, but adding Andre Holland as Harvey Dent/Two Face, Cheech Marin as Jim Gordon, and Morena Baccarin as a character whose identity I don’t plan to spoil was fantastic. On top of all of that? This season was executive produced by Saladin Ahmed, one of my favorite currently working comics writers, and had audio fiction superstar Meghan Fitzmartin (creator of the forever amazing Red Rhino) in the writers room as well. The episodes are taut 15-20 minute thrillers, sound designed to perfection by the folks over at Wolf at the Door, and definitely worth a listen if superheroes are your thing.
Things have gotten a bit out of hand for Iyer, Winterlich, and Co, which has Graham Rowat’s Maxim Moretz sending a whole band of murderers and cutthroats after them in order to collect on a bounty. It’s an action packed episode with just as much humor and heart as can always be expected from this lovable band of charming magical rogues. You know, whenever I talk about this show I always gush about Josh Rubino (who will forever be my favorite co-conspirator when it comes to the creation of audio fiction), but Taqi Nazeer and Blythe Renay are both such versatile and talented performers that I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how tantamount they are to the success of this show. Not to mention David Ault, who always kills it as the narrator!
Beware the Bubak! Which, if you didn’t know (like me) is a Czech boogeyman that manifests itself as a scarecrow made of bones. And if that image wasn’t terrifying enough, this apocalyptic new monster friend has figured out how to use tech, and stalk its prey wherever they are, through the devices they use. There’s an especially tense moment in this one, where the creature mimics our pal Malik, and cuts Jamie down to the bone emotionally speaking, before our beloved co-host actually returns and she realizes that the horror had been visited upon them. It’s a genuinely affecting moment, because it plays on an unspoken interpersonal anxiety between our roommates turned cross country podcast hosts. Fantastic, as always.
I (unintentionally, because of its official release date) have saved one of the best podcasts on this entire list for last. Lisette Alvarez, better known as the creator of Kalila Stormfire’s Economical Magick Services has been posting updates about their new YA-spy thriller for ages now, and I’ve been waiting with bated breath. The first two episodes dropped on Thanksgiving day, and surround Junie, an ex-CIA recruiter who sends her family a voice note explaining that she’s left her job, and promptly disappears. She may have the titular syndrome, and may have just went become the first family member to return to their native Cuba in decades. But we can’t be sure of anything, because she won’t respond to anyones calls or voice notes, and her disappearance serves as the central mystery for the show. What’s even cooler is that Alvarez is using the series to create an AR-style reverse escape room for folks in the Memphis area, giving folks the chance to break into Junie’s old office for clues as to where she’s gone. It’s incredibly inspired, and I’m excited to see where it goes next.
BONUS SNACK
I’m a sucker for mumblecore movies that are far more about experiencing small moments in people’s lives, rather than extolling some large, intricate plot. In Jesse Eisenberg’s latest, he and Rory Culkin play cousins who were raised like brothers, reuniting after a death in the family in order to visit the town where their grandmother was born and raised in Poland. It’s a tight, 90-minute dramedy that explores generational trauma, suicide, and arrested development with grace and precision. Sure, these two may be playing archetypes that they’ve trodden before (Culkin, in particular, is playing a slightly sanded down version of Roman from Succession), but there’s a reason they’re known for those roles, and they play them here especially well.