The Shrine

I've run the well dry on the archives of my favorite Podcasts and was interested in tapping the bored minds of the people on this forum to see if there were any gems I had missed.

My two favorites by a mile are Never Not Funny (pardcast.com) and Jordan Jesse Go (maximumfun.org).

Never Not Funny is the funniest (check out the Conan O'Brien and any episode featuring Jon Hamm for good examples) Podcast I listen to and follows the vein of white dudes talking about whatever comes to mind. There's at least one guest per ~90 minute episode and they range from huge stars to hilarious friends of the host. I could probably talk this show up for several more sentences, but you should know that you have to pay them $20 a season (26 episodes, not including bonus episodes). The first twenty minutes is available for free on iTunes, though, and like I mentioned if you don't like the Jon Hamm and Conan O'Brien episodes then it may not be up your alley.

Jordan Jesse Go is a free, incredibly long running Podcast whose archive probably took me a year and a half to get through. This is also people talking about whatever comes to mind for an hour and a half with a guest. I guess I just really have a type. In any case, Jesse Thorn is the main guy behind this and other shows and he's pretty fantastic. I'd be lying if I said even every fifth episode made me laugh out loud but it's just entertaining. These guys get some interesting guests, especially through Thorn's public radio connections. Since it's free, just pick up an episode with a guest that interests you and see if you'll like it.

You Look Nice Today gets an honorable mention for being extremely funny. The episodes are fairly short (~30 minutes) but there's a decent archive of them. It just started updating semi-regularly after something like two years of spotty updates.

There are a few more that I listen to, including WTF with Marc Maren, but these are my favorites.

What sort of topics are you interested in?

I have some fairly extensive sources for topics of religious scholarship (even though I am not at all religious), history, philosophy, sciences, Tolkien (yeah, believe it or not, there is a deep wealth of stuff on this guy and his writings), literature, sciences. I haven't really gone much into the entertainment field. There is a massive amount of listening material on iTunes U which is definitely worth a listen; in my opinion.

Nerdist.

To be honest basically everything I have is comedy-related but I am almost certain I would enjoy a history podcast on almost any topic.

Edit: I've known about the Nerdist for a while and Tessian listens to it, too, but I'm not crazy about Chris Hardwick. I enjoy his bits on other podcasts but the attraction to downloading an entire podcast starring him has never been one I've had... that said I'm probably going to start grabbing episodes of it next time I get into an MMORPG/other games that warrant a lot of time where the audio isn't essential to the gameplay experience.

Adam Carolla Podcast

Penn & Teller Sunday School

NPR Market Place

Yeah I've been meaning to check out Adam Carolla's podcast and his news woman (Alison Rosen I think?) was just on Jordan Jesse Go and she was plenty entertaining.

I've been looking for an excuse to post this and should have remembered when I was writing out the first post, but this is a good lead in to Never Not Funny: http://teamcoco.com/video/pardo-patrol-jon-hamm

It has the host of Never Not Funny and Jon Hamm doing a web exclusive bit for Conan O'Brien's website and gives you an idea of Pardo at his best. Also Jon Hamm remains way too good looking to be that funny. Pardo is so taken with conversing with his friend Hamm that he actually absentmindedly forgets that he isn't doing the Podcast and does part of his sign off at the end. Good stuff.

The Moth Podcast is a good one too, I almost forgot about it. There are a lot of really great stories told on there, some incredibly funny, some incredibly sad, some incredibly uplifting. Story tellers range from literal former crack addicts, to celebrities such as Salmon Rushdie, Ethan Hawke, and DMC (from Run DMC).

As for history, I actually just finished Donald Kagan's Open Yale Ancient Greek History which I found an interesting for a survey of the period from the fall of the Bronze Age to defeat of the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronia by Philip of Macedon. It gives a fairly solid overview of the military, social order, and political differences between the states. 24 Lectures at about 1:15 a piece; so ~30 hours of material.

HP Lovecraf Literary Podcast - hppodcraft.com. This podcast just wrapped the last HPL story. They started at the first HPL story and worked their way to all the way to the end. Each story is broken down with it's own show, sometimes multiple shows like CtC and MoM. Story readings with sound effects. Really well made, really well thought out.

The Zombie Podcast - Really well made "radio theatre" style podcast of a zombie invasion. Really, really good, been running for about 3 years.

I still have the Moth and history podcast on the back-burner but I've checked out the Nerdist and I enjoy the episodes with guests I have interest in. Levar Burton as a guest on the Nerdist was one of the more enjoyable episodes of anything I've listened to, second only to maybe Conan on Never Not Funny season eight.

I've also started listening to Comedy Bang Bang which is probably my second favorite entertainment podcast. I can't believe how long I beat around the bush for listening to this, considering how much I enjoy Scott Aukerman, the host, and how every time he's on anything he's promoting the podcast constantly. If you enjoy Paul F Thompkins you will crack a rib laughing at his episodes.