Aack Cast reclaims Cathy from decades of detractors

Aack Cast By Jamie Loftus

The series concluded a few weeks ago, but listening to all 12 installments of Aack Cast By Jamie Loftus in one marathon run is actually the superior experience—and if you think you don’t need several hours of content unpacking the enduring legacy of the Cathy comic strip and defending the character against her mocking detractors, prepare to feel as foolish as Cathy shopping for swimwear. Loftus, who has already gained a dedicated listenership with My Year In Mensa and Lolita Podcast, nimbly zooms in and out on Cathy’s 34 years on the funnies page to examine the strip’s place in comics history, the realities it showcases (or overlooks), and what we get wrong about the protagonist’s perpetual state of befrazzlement. Voice actors are on hand to perform particularly poignant panels from the strip’s run, bringing a new dimension to Cathy’s 2D adventures for those who never saw her animated TV specials. But most memorable of all are Loftus’ lengthy interviews with creator Cathy Guisewite herself, who speaks candidly about the process of bringing her semi-autobiographical characters to the page; listeners can hear the mutual fascination that interviewer and interviewee hold for one another, each of a generation that in so many ways can’t possibly understand how things were (and are) for women of their time. [Marnie Shure]

Amicus
Abortion, Surveillance, and Vigilantism: An American Story

Despite marketing themselves as historians, most political pundits seem to have the memory span of goldfish. Nowhere was that more apparent or frustrating than the barrage of half-baked takes about how the end of the 2021 Supreme Court term showcased unexpected “moderation” by Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and how the Court’s arcane traditions and better judgment would save us from its conservative majority’s most pernicious impulses. So when news came down early this month of a midnight shadow docket order upholding Texas’ flagrantly unconstitutional six-week abortion ban, the activists and scholars that weren’t hypnotized by superficial nods toward centrism—like law professor Michele Goodwin and author Rebecca Traister—weren’t disillusioned, just horrified. Host Dahlia Lithwick’s Amicus podcast has long been an oasis of clarity in a media landscape desert when it comes to straightforward, reliable, context-rich SCOTUS coverage. This week’s episode is even more noteworthy than usual, as Traister and Goodwin are the voices Litwick goes to for a better understanding of the broader anti-choice mission fueling bills like Texas Senate Bill 8 and the court-packed anti-choice judges that will uphold them. This week’s conversation isn’t an easy listen, but it does make a compelling case for much broader, full-throated support for women who are, right now, very much in the crosshairs of state legislators. [Dan Jakes]

Finding D.W.
The Marc Brown Episode

We’ve already written about the idiosyncratic audio project of Jason Szwimer, in which the third person to portray D.W. Read across Arthur’s 25-year PBS run set out to find and interview the seven others who performed the role as preteen boys. (Because, yes, D.W. was only ever played by boys!) By now, Szwimer has located and spoken with the entire Dora Winifred population, as well as some other actors from the show, in order to gain a sense of how his time on Arthur shaped the rest of his life. So it only makes sense to trace that line all the way back to where Arthur began by interviewing creator Marc Brown himself. Brown is as gracious and genuine as fans would hope him to be, speaking with Szwimer about the inception of everyone’s favorite aardvark and Brown’s repeated refusal to allow any TV adaptation that took away his creative rights to his characters. (“If I had given up my rights to Arthur, they could put a gun in his backpack!” Brown explains.) The episode is brief, but brimming with sweet and moving reminders of how quality children’s stories can change us. If Brown’s retelling of his conversation with Fred Rogers doesn’t leave you on the verge of tears, then the extended Arthurverse still has a lot left to teach you about feelings. [Marnie Shure]

The Birthday Cake Game
Episode 2

At 6-foot, 7-inches, Richard Osman is a literal giant in the world of U.K. comfort television. His genius for creating and hosting low-stakes yet compulsively watchable game shows has turned him into one of the most beloved figures in modern British pop culture. Having conquered television, he now sets his sights on the podcast world with a game show whose premise is so whisper thin that, without Osman’s touch, it would barely count as content. The rules of The Birthday Cake Game couldn’t be simpler: Three guests are presented with a list of celebrities whose birthdays fall on the week the episode is released and they must guess the celebrities’ age. They get three points for being spot-on and one point for being a year off. At the end, the person with the most points wins a birthday cake. The show is a captivating all-filler-no-thriller oddity that will have listeners contemplating Bernie Sanders’ ancientness and gasping as they realize that, yes, Pink is that old. The fact that the show’s very concept will have the audience pondering their own age and mortality makes it perfect for those who love their fluff served with a hint of existential dread. [Anthony D Herrera]

What A Time To Be Alive
Two Big Mans

On Twitter, the popular feeds of comedians Kath Barbadoro, ​​Patrick Monahan, and Eli Yudin perform a public good, of sorts: offering users a doom-scrolling respite to bask in some joyfully low-stakes and inane bullshit—usually sourced from small or distant media outlets. The trio’s podcast, launched in 2017, runs in a similar vein as their social media presences, counting down listener-submitted stories of outlandish or awe-inspiring headlines. In a non-pejorative sense, What A Time To Be Alive is a modern day zoo crew, complete with a quickdraw soundpad engineer (Shelby Royston) and a laid-back pace with generous time carved out for laugh-out-loud-funny riffs. This week, the gang muses about how they’d be killed in a ​​Friday The 13th movie; toaster manufacturers who gaslight their customers into thinking uni-sided toast is a thing; which college bro posters most likely line the walls of the house Ryan Lochte will show off on the new version of MTV Cribs; and why the Federal Trade Commission is taking time to investigate McDonald’s shady arrangement with Taylor ice cream machines, but not McDonald’s equally huge scandal: the fact that McFlurry spoons look like straws but don’t suck up any soft serve. [Dan Jakes]