Potcasts & Popcasts
When a podcast-curious friend asks me to recommend a show they might like, I often find myself picking Criminal. It has all the qualities of a great podcast. Its host and co-creator, Phoebe Judge, is a compelling narrator & interviewer with the perfect voice. Lauren Spohrer, Criminal’s other co-creator and producer, has a keen ear for storytelling. Each episode is carefully edited to keep the listener engaged, and the pacing is smartly tailored to the particular story.
But those reasons alone are not why I find myself recommending it so often. Criminal’s true genius is its scope. True Crime is the archetypal podcast genre, but in truth, “True Crime” is generally a euphemism for “unsolved murders.” Criminal is the rare show that examines crime in its complexity and range, from stories about how an assassination manual led to a landmark case about the First Amendment to a guerilla Buddha statue installation.
The episode I recommend most often is probably 420, in which they track down the true story of how the number became the universal code for marijuana. It’s a great episode: it’s funny, it’s informative, and it includes Phoebe calling her dad to test his knowledge of weed terminology. If you like this episode, then you’ll probably like the rest of Criminal.
At the end of Phoebe’s interview with one of the old hippies who helped turn “420” into slang (and eventually an unofficial cannabis holiday), the man closes with a groan-inducing “thanks for having me on your potcast.” It’s dad humor meeting stoner humor, and it’s the perfect sign-off for the story.
But ever since I first heard this episode, I’ve wondered: is there a “potcast” podcast? I expected there were at least a few, but I wanted to quantify the pot pod puns. I ended up extending it to all similar podcast puns.
(Methodology note: I only included shows in which the “d” in “podcast” was replaced by another letter. “Potcast” would be included, “Spotcast” would not. Only shows in the iTunes podcast directory as of 4/20/18 are included.)
Potcasts
Yes, there are potcasts. 17 of them. To be honest, I expected more.
Some of these might be typos or references to non-pot acronyms. The Turkish show Görkem Angı’s Potcast, for example, doesn’t seem marijuana-related. Most potcasts, though, are exactly what you’d expect.
Other Podcast Puns
How do potcasts stack up against other pod puns? Pretty well: the only pun with more shows is “popcast.”
There are a few puns I there’s see coming.
- POVcast: a show about different points of view.
- POLcast: an English-language show about Poland
- Apomogy Pomcast: “a communal art project about saying you’re sorry with a pom pom”
- PoeCast: a gothic horror romance reimagining the death of Edgar Allen Poe
Unfortunately, neither of the “pogcast” podcasts is actually about pogs, the cardboard game discs from my childhood. I’m just saying, if there was a Containers-style deep dive podcast about pogs, nostalgia would probably make me listen. Similarly, I was disappointed that neither pomcast had anything to do with pomegranates.
Lastly, I’d just like to recommend that an infectious disease expert start a poxcast podcast. Aside from a short-lived show in 2013, that name is untaken. It really seems like a missed opportunity.
