Rather than come up with another playlist with music, I thought I’d share some podcasts that I enjoy. This specific list is a recommendation for a road trip – I’ve tried to time it out to about 4 hours, but episode lengths are never exact. I’ve also unintentionally tied the shows together with a bit of a theme, but that wasn’t the plan from the start.
We’ll start our road trip with something light. We don’t want to get on the road with heavy discussion, or something too long. We’re going to ease into this trip by starting with an episode of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (iTunes).
Most episodes clock in around 25-30 minutes, so the length is perfect. HPST (acronym in progress) is a podcast that takes a deep dive into the text of Harry Potter and analyzes it using various techniques used when studying religious texts. But don’t worry – the hosts Vanessa and Casper have light banter and great chemistry, and relate Harry Potter to every day struggles. No bible-thumpers here.
NExt, we stay with the light theme and move to Good Job Brain (iTunes). This is a trivia podcast that explores strange and often bizarre but interesting facts in a number of different ways. These shows are usually an hour and change – so you’ll have learned something new by the time you get to your first rest stop.
Moving on, we come to Mission Log: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast (iTunes). A little deepr than the last two, but more similar to Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, Ken and John watch every iteration of Trek and examine its messages, morals and meanings. They approach it earnestly, but they know how to make a joke too.
Paired with Mission Log is Transporter Room 3 (iTunes) – another Trek podcast, but made by two true fans. They’re not afraid to take the piss out of Trek. Oh, and this one is most definitely NSFW.
I think we’re just about at the end of our trip. I think we’ll keep things light and finish with an episode of Make Dad Read Comics (iTunes). Patrick makes his Dad read a different ocmic every week – with mixed results. This also ends up being a very touching show when you hear father and son connecting every week.
Happy Friday!