Ah, a thread for Avatar!
I commute for about two and a half hours every day, and as such listen to quite a bit of the ol' podcasts. My current rotation has been culled in the last week or so, simply because I prefer listening to every episode of each, rather than select episodes of many different casts. So, my list, with my description of each:
Harmontown: Dan Harmon created Community, and then got fired from the show. He needed to vent, so he started a little show at the Nerdmelt theater in LA (owned by Chris Hardwick, aka @Nerdist). The show proved to be popular, and he started recording it, with his friend (and one of my favourite improv comics) Jeff B. Davis. Together with guests such as Kumail Nanjiani (The Indoor Kids podcast, Silicon Valley), Erin McGathy (Harmon's wife, from This Feels Terrible podcast), Spencer Crittenden (Dungeon Master to the stars) and hundreds of crowd guests, they go on D&D adventures, talk about racism and sexism and comedy and politics and science, they go on a tour and make a movie (Harmontown) and meet loads of interesting idividuals, all while mostly drunk.
The Indoor Kids: Kumail Nanjiani, a comedian currently starring on Silicon Valley, and his wife, Emily V. Gordon, a producer, are gamers. They talk to guests about games and gaming news. Generally light hearted and informative, with interesting, if little-known guests.
Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project: I'm an engineer, with a huge interest in making.. things. Any things. All things. I like power tools. I like unpowered tools. Adam Savage of Mythbusters has a podcast with the two guys from the tested.com website, Norm and Will. They talk about the show, about geek stuff, movies, comics, cooking, making, building, tools, tech, and toys. They get guest every so often as well, from all corners of life.
The Nerdist: Great podcast by Chris Hardwick where he interviews interesting people. They're more than 600 episodes in, so there's a huge backlog to work through, but he has genuinely interesting guests who he generally gets to open up quite a bit.
Polygon Minimap: A short daily podcast from polygon.com, with the day's gaming news. Perfect for catching up with gaming news in 15-20 minutes.
WTF with Marc Maron: Marc Maron is a comedian who had failed. His second marriage was over, he felt like his career was at the sunset, and he was contemplating suicide in his garage. He decided to record his thoughts in said garage, and liked the process so much that he got a friend to interview. The result was pretty good, so he kept at it. He has since converted his garage into a studio, where he gets famous guests to open up completely, to drop the facade that they show the public for just a little while, to truly get to know the person. Maron has interviewed people like Mick Jagger, Robin Williams, Lewis Black, Rhys Darby, Chris Cornell, Josh Groban, Mike Myers, Claire Danes, and, recently Barack Obama.
His interview with Louie C.K., an old friend of his, was voted as the best podcast ever recently, and so he re-released it. Over the two hours, he and Louie reminisce about starting out in New York, dissect their friendship to figure out where it went off the rails, they both get emotional and share some wonderful stories. The result is magical, with two "funny" guys being absolutely entertaining by being open and showing their softer sides to each other and the world.
Maron has since started a show based on his life, called Maron, that has just finished (or could be busy with) its third season.
Unfortunately, Maron only has the last six months of episodes up for free, for older stuff you need the premium app, so subscribe today!
