Most podcasts have a straightforward format with a host interviewing a guest or a panel of hosts opining on topics such as why so many people would like to beat up Mark Zuckerberg, why the recent film Doolittle should be sent to a trash incinerator and why avocado toast is Chardonnay for hipsters.
When you listen to Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone, however, you are assaulted with a hail storm of sharp-witted jokes, zany characters, idiosyncratic contests, lunatic projects, cranky animals, imaginary celebrity guests and a carousel of talented musicians.
If wit had a speedometer, Poundstone could break the speed of sound.
Poundstone’s first effort at her own podcast – Live From The Poundstone Institute – took advantage of her penchant for questioning the expertise of scientific studies on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. The podcast interviewed a scientific expert on each episode and featured Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me panelist Adam Felber, who was a long-time writer for Real Time with Bill Maher and has written for TV, movies, stage, and even a six-book mini-series for Marvel Comics as well as a novel called Schrödinger’s Ball.
The chemistry between the two was immediate and the clash between the intellectually rambling Poundstone and the focused, quick-witted Felber gave the show its primary interest value.
Live From The Poundstone Institute began and ended on 2017 but it was clear that there was indeed a seedling of a successful podcast there that simply needed more conceptual potting soil.
Podcast Round Two
In the second half of 2018 Poundstone returned with Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone and the audience reaction based on listener numbers have been impressive. Right from the first few episodes, a listener could discern that the podcast resembled an audio three-ring circus with simultaneous activities bombarding the listeners with stimuli.
First, the show has a different musician every week, from flutists to harpists, guitar strummers to key ticklers. In the beginning, a contest to compose the podcast’s theme song immediately sparked the creative muse of many listeners. Then, the podcast had invited survivalist Thomas Coyne to talk about, quite naturally, survival techniques. Coyne mysteriously not only did not show up but never responded to the podcast’s inquiries about his whereabouts. From that reality-based Forensic Files, Poundstone began a months-long search for the survivalist with a twist. Listeners were asked to report on where Coyne was not. To date, Coyne is either missing or in a pup tent in the Rockies with no access to podcast feeds.
Soon thereafter, the podcast then launched a contest to win the hotel soap that Poundstone took home when traveling for her comedy stand-up. Eventually, a winner was announced and apparently the mini-soap bar was shipped.
Poundstone even co-wrote and recorded a rap song – Not My Butterfinger – with the help of composer and music producer Jae Deal.
Moreover, Poundstone picked up on some listener feedback that seemed to indicate that Felber’s role was “just to be there.” Felber, not one to pass up comedy gold, feigned indignation for months and Poundstone –ever the comedy whisperer – played it up and then knew just when to instinctively move on.
The supporting cast
Poundstone’s manager, Bonnie Burns, is affectionately and derisively known as “Captain Crinkle” on the show and her frenetic, haphazard and logic-destroying manner gives Felber and Poundstone comedy ammunition. Even the podcast's producer -- Toni Anita Hull -- gets in on the comedy action with her hilarious tale of a cruise gone horribly wrong with her brother who left the cruise at the halfway point so she was forced to hang with a niece she doesn't get along with.
Felber is seemingly always exasperated at her noisy, off-mike behavior (hence the nickname) and her inability to summarize the simplest concept. Witness Captain Crinkle’s 40-minute explanation about why Poundstone’s rap song didn’t go live on iTunes as she promised. Or her hilarious explanation of her Halloween routine where she leaves all the candy out on the porch so she doesn’t have to answer the door.
“The Gouda got him”
Over the last 80 plus episodes, Poundstone and her crew have conjured up characters that will wrinkle your forehead, including Southern grand dame Mrs. Culpepper, whose husband, the colonel, died tragically from eating bad cheese.
“Adam, it was the gouda that got him,” Mrs. Culpepper confesses to Felber in their ritual mock interview.
Then Poundstone urges Felber to answer a ringing phone and over Felber’s “I don’t want to” objections, he speaks to Poundstone as the baritone Mike “Boom Boom” Bonafit, a man of Stallone-like sensibilities who constantly invites Felber to meet him for a drink.
In the midst of this flurry of offbeat characters and quasi-ludicrous activities, Poundstone reveals herself at her most indignant about bogus marketing claims made by big companies. For example, when the Ferrara Candy Company altered the recipe for the Butterfinger bar, Poundstone expressed red-hot outrage and conducted taste tests with the old and new bar recipe, urged podcast guests to join in on the candy recipe protest and even tasked “Captain Crinkle” with making Butterfinger bars from the old recipe – a culinary disaster that Poundstone and Felber milked for its F5 tornado humor value.
Cue the experts
Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone has kept a key holdover from the Live from the Poundstone Institute podcast and that is the interaction of Poundstone and Felber with a guest expert every episode. These experts provide actual important information and often seem to understand that instilling the audience with new knowledge often takes a backseat to Poundstonian diversions into flights of observational humor.
Episode 78, “We’re Dying Up Here!” had guest mortician and author Caitlin Doughty speak about the rituals surrounding death with her own brand of irreverent humor seamlessly blending with Poundstone’s gallows humor.
The guest interview is where Felber shines. First, he has that dilettante quality where he seems to know enough about a lot of topics and second – and more important -- he keeps Poundstone from veering off the interview path where she can riff for five or more minutes while the guest is mute and momentum is lost.
Outstanding guest experts include Hulu’s The Orville writer and former Star Trek science consultant Andre Bormanis who “dropped science on them” and ecologist Dan Cooper who explained to Poundstone how to communicate with the birds in her front and back yards.
Pound for Pound
The list of Alice In Wonderland rabbit holes on the podcast are simply too numerous to review. Of course, there is the ongoing popularity of the podcast in the former Soviet province of Moldova and Poundstone’s new word an episode exploration where now listeners are encouraged to compose music to the accompany the long list of new vocabulary words Poundstone has introduced us to over the last year and a half.
When you listen to Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone, however, you are assaulted with a hail storm of sharp-witted jokes, zany characters, idiosyncratic contests, lunatic projects, cranky animals, imaginary celebrity guests and a carousel of talented musicians.
Billed as a “comedy field guide to life,” the podcast mirrors the quirky stream of consciousness mindset of its eponymous host, Paula Poundstone. Known for her smart, observational humor and spontaneous wit, Poundstone is well known for her appearances years ago on A Prairie Home Companion, her current guest spots on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and her stand-up act, which gears up for more than 85 shows a year. Poundstone’s enduring strength as a comedian does not really depend on a tightly scripted routine but on her magical ability to improvise and begin talking to an audience to uncover comedic nuggets from the mouths of admiring fans.
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| Comedian Paula Poundstone |
If wit had a speedometer, Poundstone could break the speed of sound.
Poundstone’s first effort at her own podcast – Live From The Poundstone Institute – took advantage of her penchant for questioning the expertise of scientific studies on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. The podcast interviewed a scientific expert on each episode and featured Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me panelist Adam Felber, who was a long-time writer for Real Time with Bill Maher and has written for TV, movies, stage, and even a six-book mini-series for Marvel Comics as well as a novel called Schrödinger’s Ball.
The chemistry between the two was immediate and the clash between the intellectually rambling Poundstone and the focused, quick-witted Felber gave the show its primary interest value.
Live From The Poundstone Institute began and ended on 2017 but it was clear that there was indeed a seedling of a successful podcast there that simply needed more conceptual potting soil.
Podcast Round Two
In the second half of 2018 Poundstone returned with Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone and the audience reaction based on listener numbers have been impressive. Right from the first few episodes, a listener could discern that the podcast resembled an audio three-ring circus with simultaneous activities bombarding the listeners with stimuli.
First, the show has a different musician every week, from flutists to harpists, guitar strummers to key ticklers. In the beginning, a contest to compose the podcast’s theme song immediately sparked the creative muse of many listeners. Then, the podcast had invited survivalist Thomas Coyne to talk about, quite naturally, survival techniques. Coyne mysteriously not only did not show up but never responded to the podcast’s inquiries about his whereabouts. From that reality-based Forensic Files, Poundstone began a months-long search for the survivalist with a twist. Listeners were asked to report on where Coyne was not. To date, Coyne is either missing or in a pup tent in the Rockies with no access to podcast feeds.
Soon thereafter, the podcast then launched a contest to win the hotel soap that Poundstone took home when traveling for her comedy stand-up. Eventually, a winner was announced and apparently the mini-soap bar was shipped.
Poundstone even co-wrote and recorded a rap song – Not My Butterfinger – with the help of composer and music producer Jae Deal.
Moreover, Poundstone picked up on some listener feedback that seemed to indicate that Felber’s role was “just to be there.” Felber, not one to pass up comedy gold, feigned indignation for months and Poundstone –ever the comedy whisperer – played it up and then knew just when to instinctively move on.
The supporting cast
Felber is clearly behind the wheel in the podcast episodes, trying – sometimes in vain – to keep the show on the pavement while Poundstone continues to try to veer off into comedy potholes. His ability to play off Poundstone for comedic effect is a virtuoso effort and his apparent exasperation at Poundstone’s detours makes for comedic sparks.
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| Co-host Adam Felber |
Poundstone’s manager, Bonnie Burns, is affectionately and derisively known as “Captain Crinkle” on the show and her frenetic, haphazard and logic-destroying manner gives Felber and Poundstone comedy ammunition. Even the podcast's producer -- Toni Anita Hull -- gets in on the comedy action with her hilarious tale of a cruise gone horribly wrong with her brother who left the cruise at the halfway point so she was forced to hang with a niece she doesn't get along with.
Felber is seemingly always exasperated at her noisy, off-mike behavior (hence the nickname) and her inability to summarize the simplest concept. Witness Captain Crinkle’s 40-minute explanation about why Poundstone’s rap song didn’t go live on iTunes as she promised. Or her hilarious explanation of her Halloween routine where she leaves all the candy out on the porch so she doesn’t have to answer the door.
The supporting cast also included Anthony the sound engineer who brings in animals as diverse as a two-toed sloth that often get loose in the studio as well as the podcast recording location of the Ray Horseman Studios on Miranda Street in Los Angeles, an area infamous for its urban decay. The New Year’s Eve show was done ostensibly outside of the studio on Miranda Street and the cast – complaining that they were locked out – risked their personal safety to replay the results of their “scientific” survey on the best moments of 2019 on the podcast.
Even neighborhood stores don’t escape Poundstone’s inherent silliness as she insists to Felber that Feder’s appliance store on Miranda Street is actually owned by tennis great Roger Federer as a fallback when his tennis career is finished. Poundstone also claims that the appliances are all dented because Federer hits tennis balls directly into the front of dishwashers, refrigerators and washers.
However, the podcast found a new production home recently and Poundstone still discusses the charm of Miranda Street and the appliance store.
Finally, Poundstone insists that actors Dame Maggie Smith and Tom Hanks are right outside the studio ready to guest on the podcast but some unexpected problem always prevents them from actually being on the podcast at the last moment.
Hanks, during the lockdown, did appear on an episode as the "100th caller" constantly haranguing Felber and in a later episode Carol Burnett also called in for the contest.
“The Gouda got him”
Over the last 80 plus episodes, Poundstone and her crew have conjured up characters that will wrinkle your forehead, including Southern grand dame Mrs. Culpepper, whose husband, the colonel, died tragically from eating bad cheese.
“Adam, it was the gouda that got him,” Mrs. Culpepper confesses to Felber in their ritual mock interview.
Then Poundstone urges Felber to answer a ringing phone and over Felber’s “I don’t want to” objections, he speaks to Poundstone as the baritone Mike “Boom Boom” Bonafit, a man of Stallone-like sensibilities who constantly invites Felber to meet him for a drink.
In the midst of this flurry of offbeat characters and quasi-ludicrous activities, Poundstone reveals herself at her most indignant about bogus marketing claims made by big companies. For example, when the Ferrara Candy Company altered the recipe for the Butterfinger bar, Poundstone expressed red-hot outrage and conducted taste tests with the old and new bar recipe, urged podcast guests to join in on the candy recipe protest and even tasked “Captain Crinkle” with making Butterfinger bars from the old recipe – a culinary disaster that Poundstone and Felber milked for its F5 tornado humor value.
Cue the experts
Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone has kept a key holdover from the Live from the Poundstone Institute podcast and that is the interaction of Poundstone and Felber with a guest expert every episode. These experts provide actual important information and often seem to understand that instilling the audience with new knowledge often takes a backseat to Poundstonian diversions into flights of observational humor.
Episode 78, “We’re Dying Up Here!” had guest mortician and author Caitlin Doughty speak about the rituals surrounding death with her own brand of irreverent humor seamlessly blending with Poundstone’s gallows humor.
The guest interview is where Felber shines. First, he has that dilettante quality where he seems to know enough about a lot of topics and second – and more important -- he keeps Poundstone from veering off the interview path where she can riff for five or more minutes while the guest is mute and momentum is lost.
Outstanding guest experts include Hulu’s The Orville writer and former Star Trek science consultant Andre Bormanis who “dropped science on them” and ecologist Dan Cooper who explained to Poundstone how to communicate with the birds in her front and back yards.
Pound for Pound
The list of Alice In Wonderland rabbit holes on the podcast are simply too numerous to review. Of course, there is the ongoing popularity of the podcast in the former Soviet province of Moldova and Poundstone’s new word an episode exploration where now listeners are encouraged to compose music to the accompany the long list of new vocabulary words Poundstone has introduced us to over the last year and a half.
Poundstone has been a stand-up comedian much of her adult life and that profession often requires immediate feedback – aka laughter – to her antics and comedic insights. The entourage that claps and laughs and snickers in the background do give the podcast a comedy club feel and that live-audience sonic backdrop.
Recently, Poundstone has introduced a weekly "French Trump press conference" with Poundstone as the voice of a frenchified POTUS who actually tries, but ultimately does not succeed, in sounding as moronic as the current president. Like anything Poundstone attempts, the press conference is rife with silliness and sly political sarcasm.
Listening to Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone is akin to walking around a crammed antique store with narrow aisles and items stacked floor to ceiling. That’s where you’re likely to find treasures galore like Mrs. Culpepper, the dented appliance store down the street, the missing survivalist, the kaleidoscope of musicians and the strange alchemy that makes Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone a worthwhile listen.
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