There are lots and lots of great podcasts, hell, we have our own right here.
One such podcast, The Empire Film Podcast, always keeps me entertained. They do interviews all the time, but for me it’s mostly about the banter between the hosts, Chris Hewitt, James Dyer, Helen O’Hara and a rotating fourth host.
This is a wildly popular podcast, so chances are that you know it, but if not, here’s a quick overview.
From the school of “you can’t please everyone,” I grabbed these wildly varying reviews.
No one can be universally beloved except maybe Keanu Reeves. I’m in the camp that loves them and thinks reviewers Mike and Black Boy Sheen sound like self-important dbags.
Host Chris Hewitt is chaotic good. He’ll eventually get to a marvelous point, though the course he charts may be through shark-infested waters. Meanwhile, Helen O’Hara serves as the moral center of the operation, as well as its oracle. She always sees Hewitt’s inanity coming, though she’s powerless to stop it. She knows him of old and can’t do jack shit about it. Last, you have James Dyer’s Eeyore. He has resigned himself to Hewitt’s antics and dismisses them from a place of consistent disdain.
The sum total is comedy magic, sharp and biting and cranked up to 11 thanks to the unfair advantage of whatever it is that a British accent does to amplify wit. It’s such a gamechanger. Think about how Monty Python would sound in Murican. Or the Black Adder. Or Spaced. Or A Bit of Fry & Laurie. Or That Mitchell and Webb Look. You get the idea. It’s an unfair advantage.
Anyway: to the clip in question.
I’m just driving along, listening to the gang from the Empire Film Podcast dumbfuck their way through an apology. On last week’s ep, they somehow forgot to pitch the magazine that is their lifeblood, and here’s what’s in it…
It’s messy and circuitous and delightful.
And juuuuust when you think they’re finished, Hewitt goes off the rails to the place he loves most. If you listen to the podcast, it’s not a departure. This is tonally in their wheelhouse. You just don’t expect it when you’re pitching a product for people to buy.
Here’s the clip:
To hear the relevant preamble, listen to all three or so minutes.
To hear only the part that surprised me, skip to 3:15
You can listen to the full episode HERE. (For the relevant clip on their podcast, go to 47:30)
