Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather count down the 10 best moments of 300 Overthinking It Podcasts with contributions from listeners who have heard them all.
Thank you so much to our “300 Club” listeners — Brian (Pasteur), Amanda, Joseph, Gab, Marc (Mezdef), Sean, and Andrew, and special thanks to Andrew for his 300-episode annotations.
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Your Panel
Further Reading
- Who held the record for longest time standing on one foot?
- “Osama Bin Laden Loves Taylor Swift” on Google
- Episode 99: I’m Bruce Springsteen and I Approve This Message from the TFT Podcast
- Sport Court With Great Power Comes… a TV Pilot by Andrew Buonopane on Overthinking It
- The Wire on Overthining It
Gotcha covered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92rOjPkIpyA
The Spit Take Montage, that is. Can’t believe I forgot to write that.
Well, had I known what the call for people who had listened to every episode was for, because I could have perhaps contributed something. I mean, I haven’t heard all of them, but I have heard the vast majority of them. Although, I also don’t have a ton of moments that stick out to me as being particularly notable. However, I will say that, on this day of reflection, it was nice that McNeil got mentioned, because I had forgotten he had even existed. Unlike Schechner, whose absence hangs over us all, during the podcast and beyond.
I believe it is my duty to write, in this moment:
Remember Callot.
And, not having listened to this episode, any of the genuinely frequent guests like Natalie.
I chose the ‘Ahabian’ moment as it was a short one to explain (I had to talk fast), and it was personal to me. It was one of the first moments when I started listening that I specifically remember. As soon as I submitted the voice mail I remembered HAAAARVEY. All the impressions were / are great. I even miss Matt’s California Surfer Dude intros. Too many good parts to choose from.
Matt’s ‘Wire spectre’ was a better way of putting it than my ‘Wire hole’. I’m not suggesting you should discuss it more, it was simply meant as an example of something that is obviously very significant to the OTI mindset that doesn’t get discussed a whole lot, an example of something that might be cannon.
You could also approach this from two sides, OTI cannon, and OTI reference texts. The Wire would probably sit somewhere inbetween the two. For example, Starship Troopers is definitely Cannon, and The Unsurpassed and Unsurpassable Paradise Lost is probably reference material.’
And I would definitely pay to attend an OTI seminar! I should really get _They Live_ to watch, one of the overviews I haven’t seen / listened to. Any plans to do more of these? I love em.
When it comes to TV tropes, I also enjoy leafing through it, but it’s not the meat of anything I may say or write on my own blog- it’s more like a basis or starting point for a deeper analysis. I think that’s pretty much what y’all have been doing forever, right?
Daaaaaw… Y’all are really tolerant of a creepy fangirl like me. Alas, I’ve never been able to hit up any of the meetups for movies or that awesome party for the anniversary of the site, but if I ever travel somewhere conducive, I may use my newly bestowed powers as Nymeria of OTI (I’m picturing a tiara with an Otis on the top) to request an impromptu one. (Baddum-SSSHH) I did meet Sheely at a poli-sci conference once, though- we both hopped up and down. ;)
If you had just put one of the most interesting and entertaining podcasts I listen to, dyanu (I hope I’m spelling that correctly).
But you also had the sheer commitment and determination to stick to it for 300 podcasts and counting, plus various bubsidiary podcasts and other projects. I salute Overthinking It.
And what salute would be complete without a “well, actually…”? I think the word you meant was “taxonomy”, not “taxidermy”. Though some of what TVTropes does is akin to taking something that was once alive and stuffing and mounting it in a semblance of life.
I have been listening since episode 20 (I think). I just wanted to chime in for the second time ever to say that I love the podcast. Since I started back in 2008, I have almost always listened to you guys as my first podcast of the week, every week. In that time I have lived in 3 countries, gotten engaged, dropped out of grad school, been married for 4 years, worked half a dozen jobs (including now being a Church of England ordinand) – and I feel like you guys have been friends through it all. My wife mostly doesn’t like you, but how is that any different from most pre-marriage friendships?
My favorite returning gag is fenzel’s mint milanos bit. I don’t know why, but I find it funny every time I imagine ODB (PBUH) or any other Wu-Tang member coming to collect on that hastily made promise. Also, for some reason I enjoy it when Wrather trash-talks / brags in the opener about his location on the ‘bleeding edge of America’.
Thanks for all the laughs, and I too hope you keep going for many more years, so I can remain lurking-internet-friends with you through many more major life transitions.
Thanks, Lucas. It’s much appreciated. Can we put “My wife mostly doesn’t like you” in some marketing materials or something?
Of course! It could be a whole series of merch containing her off-hand criticism:
“He’s just rambling, doesn’t he ever stop?”
“So many filler-words…”
“Too nasal.”
That should get you started.
To be fair she has similar criticisms of most of the podcast hosts to which she chooses to listen (TAL, Planet Money, Freakanomics). I think she wants the content without the form. If you guys could just write a script and then have Woody Harrelson read it, that would be preferable to her. Also if you could pass the message on to Ira Glass when you next see him, she’d really appreciate it.
I was so happy to hear an 8-7-2 reference.
Just want to chime in that the Freddie Prince Junior Wing Commander movie is both the inspiration for and my answer to my favorite icebreaker question: What is the worst movie that you love?