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Podthoughts: The Dana Gould Hour

 
Vital stats:
Format: thematic comedy gab, broken up with prepared segments
Episode duration: 1h-1h30m
Frequency: 1-2 per month

“Why do you want to do a podcast? You ain’t gonna do no podcast. You just a johnny-come-lately. You spent too much time on The Simpsons and you lost it, and now you’re trying to get it back, and everybody thinks it’s pathetic. You ain’t no Marc Maron.” Those words come in the voice of Little Richard, as performed by Dana Gould, to convey to us what the discouraging disapproving-dad voice inside his head sounds like. (His theory says that such a voice gets much easier to ignore when it sounds like Little Richard.) This happens on the very podcast that discourages, The Dana Gould Hour [RSS] [iTunes]. Luckily for Gould, and for us, Little Richard can only take that Marc Maron comparison so far. It pleases me to report that Gould has opted not to crank out yet another comedian-interviews-comedians podcast, but to put on more of a… production.

Its episodes, with come out once or twice a month, offer segments, scripted stories, recurring characters, and historical sound clips. I would draw a comparison to Paul F. Tompkins’ Paul F. Tompkast, but I haven’t heard that show yet. The Dana Gould Hour makes the unusual structural choice of interweaving these bits and pieces with group conversations like you’d hear on more standard comedy-gab shows. Each time out, Gould surrounds himself with colleagues — Eddie Pepitone usually shows up, to my increasing delight — and they all riff on a theme. These themes have included the apocalypse [MP3], carnies and theme parks [MP3], and Woody Allen’s wife, Soon-Yi Previn [MP3]. That last one usually gets me onboard, whatever the situation.

Read the whole thing at Maximum Fun.

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