I love comedy and humour, and so in part three of my podcast recommendations series I’m talking about the podcasts that make me laugh. Read on, if you’d like a chuckle.
No Such Thing as a Fish
Produced by and featuring four of the QI Elves, No Such Thing as a Fish sees the hosts present and discuss their four favourite facts from their research in the past week in a conversational and funny way. Each of them shares their “main” fact with the group in advance and then they all go off and do their own research on the subject, bringing it all together in the episode. I binged this podcast more than any other one I’ve listened to, even getting to the point where the hosts were turning up presenting facts in my dreams. The only problem is that after listening to over 350 episodes, they all blur, and while it’s all fascinating, I can’t always remember that many of the many brilliant facts that they’ve told me over the years. This is also the only podcast that I’ve been to see live, when they did a show, including a recording of an episode, in Glasgow in 2019 (*sigh*, I miss the theatre).
While the podcast has been running since 2014, the first two years are no longer available on the feed (although they are available commercially). Episodes come out weekly and tend to be about an hour long.
My Dad Wrote a Porno
Jamie Morton’s dad retired and instead of taking up gardening, he decided to start writing porn. And instead of politely ignoring it, Jamie rounded up a couple of his best friends and decided to broadcast it to the world. The hilarious My Dad Wrote a Porno is the result. First up, it’s porn – it’s very definitely explicit, but it’s also awful, and the podcast trio take great glee in tearing it to shreds, albeit in a loving way.
The stories themselves aren’t long, they’re novellas rather than full-sized novels, and there’s as much business in them as sex (or, at least, it feels that way sometimes), and the gang does a chapter per episode, with Jamie reading and the other two providing commentary. Think of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, but in literary form. And with porn. Listening to it is a roller coaster ride. One minute you’re feeling sick at some of the descriptions and five minutes later you’re sick with laughing so much.
As well as the main episodes, there are the Footnotes, which are bonus episodes in which the gang either talk about something that came up in the previous episode or they talk to a famous fan of the show (and, my, there are some quite famous fans!).
Enormous fun, just don’t listen in public without headphones.
Dungeons and Daddies
Dungeons and Daddies is, as their tagline goes, not a BDSM podcast, but a D&D podcast about four dads from our world who get flung into the Forgotten Realms on a quest to rescue their lost sons. It’s a fortnightly show DMed by Anthony Birch, who some of you may remember from Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’. It’s very funny, although it can be surprisingly touching at times. They play fast and loose with the rules, so if you’re a D&D purist, you may find yourself shouting at your podcast player at times. They value story over mechanics, and that seems the right choice to me for a podcast that needs to be first and foremost entertaining.
The four players are all great fun, and they have good chemistry together. Beth May’s perpetually confused stepdad Ron is a particular firm favourite while Will Campos’ hippy-dippy dad Henry is alternately sensible and horrifying, in a hilarious way. This one just hit episode 50 at time of writing, and episodes are about an hour long.
If you listen to podcasts that make you laugh or want to suggest something that you think I should listen to, go ahead in the comments. You can find the other posts in this series below.
