Podcast Pick of the Week: Enjoy a musical post-Thanksgiving car ride
With Thanksgiving over, chances are you have a long drive (or day of cleaning) ahead of you. Your ears will need some entertainment. We recommend something of the musical variety.
This week, our podcast picks are two journalist-musical shows. (It's a very specific niche.) One premiered on Wondery's Secrets, Crimes and Audiotapes and the other is an old favorite from This American Life.
Musical 1: "Wait Wait Don't Kill Me - Part One."
The new series "Wait Wait Don't Kill Me" is touted as "the world's first-ever serialized podcast musical." It's also a meta treat for podcast faithful, as it parodies of the first season of Serial, the popular investigative This American Life spinoff podcast, hosted by Sarah Koenig. The show starts at 1998 with Koenig (Something Rotten's Leslie Kritzer) dreaming about being a respected journalist, and goes to the present day investigation of Adnan Syed, the man charged with killing his ex-girlfriend. The show, through Broadway-style music, pokes plenty of fun at Koenig and her boss, Ira Glass, even making insider jokes about the radio host's pitbull.
Memorable line, sung by the voices in Koenig's head: "How badly do you want to meet Ira Glass and touch his Ira glasses? His hypnotic voice calls to you, Sarah: sensitive like a woman’s, curious like a girl’s, with the undeniable masculine ooze of a sexually confident Bar Mitzvah boy."
Musical 2: "21 Chump Street"
In 2014, This American Life (yes, the same show we mentioned above) presented their "Radio Drama Episode," which was a live show they later made available as a podcast. As part of that show, Hamilton and Moana songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a brilliant 14-minute mini-musical based on a piece of reporting that TAL broadcast back in 2012. The show, 21 Chump Street, tells the story of a young student falling for an undercover cop in his class, in the catchiest way possible. You may recognize star Anthony Ramos (and Miranda) who went on to star in Hamilton. (A video for one song from the show, What the Heck I Gotta Do, is above.)
Memorable line, sung by Ramos' Justin: "Naomi, I know there's a reason you were transferred here to me... Naomi, you know me, will you go to prom with me?... She said she'll think about it."
