Best Chris Klimek And Glen Weldon Podcasts (2024)

1
Merry Christmas With the Moms and Dads: Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVIII — Hall Deckening, Part One 36:03

5M ago36:03

36:03

WARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" Yippe kai yay, Christmas lovers. It’s your buddy Chris — sans Glen this time — with yet another installment in the metronomically reliable and stereoscopicaly hi-fi-able yuletunes eclectic and inexplicable compilation series. This is installment 18 — they gr…

1
The Airborne Yuletide Event [Side B] 55:14

1+ y ago55:14

55:14

WARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" The yulemix enters its Pierce Brosnan era with this seventeenth senses-shattering installment! It's another paradoxically digital yule (ana)log, optimized to obfuscate and illuminate your holiday season. Each side will conveniently fit onto a one side of a 1…

1
The Airborne Yuletide Event [Side A] 52:01

1+ y ago52:01

52:01

WARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" The yulemix enters its Pierce Brosnan era with this seventeenth senses-shattering installment! It's another paradoxically digital yule (ana)log, optimized to obfuscate and illuminate your holiday season. Each side will conveniently fit onto a one side of a 1…

1
The Computer Wore Menace Shoes 56:56

1+ y ago56:56

56:56

It's a Y2K-pop extravaganza as Chris and Glen emerge from their unplanned and unannounced hiatus to dissect 72-year-old Patty McG's brief-but-memorable guest appearance reprising the role of Number Six for (the final eight minutes of) the Season 12 Simpsons episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes." Cowabunga! The Simpsons, season 12, episode six — …

1
BRASS TARGET with Keith Phipps 1:46:15

2y ago1:46:15

1:46:15

Our guest Keith Phipps is not just a sterling critic and a dad — an essential component when we cover a movie as openly paternal as 1978’s post-WWII espionage thriller Brass Target. He is also the author of new book examining the career of a singularly idiosyncratic actor. A Degree Absolute! endorses Keith’s book Age of Cage absolutely. And Brass T…

1
Darling / Schizoid / Checkmate (THE PRISONER 2009, part two) 1:17:37

2y ago1:17:37

1:17:37

It's More Talk About A-Frames and Holes as we slog dutifully through the back half of The Prisoner's 2009 Jim Caviezel-and-Ian McKellen-starring update. It turns out Chris did review Serenity, the Steven Knight film he referes to 54 minutes into this episode. Read that review if you wish! Darling, Schiozid, and Checkmate Written by Bill Gallagher D…

1
Arrival / Harmony / Anvil (THE PRISONER 2009, part one) 1:15:28

2y ago1:15:28

1:15:28

We’ve got good news and bad news for you, Villagers: After a long sojourn examining Patty McG’s eclectic-not-checkered filmography, we’ve returned to Prisoner content… in the form of the 2009 Jim Caviezel-and-Ian McKellen-starring update. At Glen’s suggestion, we are devoting a mere two episodes to this six-episode series, because inflation. Who’s …

1
A TIME TO KILL with Linda Holmes 2:04:37

2y ago2:04:37

2:04:37

Matty McC meets Patty McG in the battle you didn’t know you wanted to McSee! Look, A Time to Kill, the fourth big-studio adaptation of a John Grisham legal thriller to hit theaters in a 37-month period during the first Clinton Administration, is not a great showcase for our man Patty McG. There are just too many high-caliber, high-profile, and high…

1
BABY, SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND with Jordan Morris 1:35:00

2y ago1:35:00

1:35:00

Terrible fonts! Racist tropes! Puppetty brontos! A doomed marriage! A movie that was made for no one! Plus Paddy McG phoning it in - hardly a single trilled R! Listen, and catch the opposite of a fever! Prolific podmedian & Eisner Award nominee Jordan Morris joins us to carbon-date a seminal document of his dino-loving youth, BABY, SECRET OF THE LO…

1
ALL NIGHT LONG with Casey Erin Clark 2:02:09

2y ago2:02:09

2:02:09

MOOR COWBELL! Slip into your cardigan, roll yourself a jazz cigarette, and prepare to savor one of Patty McG's most sinister heel turns as our lovely theme-song singer Casey Erin Clark joins us to deconstruct All Night Long, director Basil Dearden's 1962 adaptation of Othello set in the London jazz scene. PLUS! Casey draws upon her expertise as a v…

1
KINGS AND DESPERATE MEN 1:33:15

2y ago1:33:15

1:33:15

A movie for McGoohan die-hards that creator Alexis Kanner the Once-Boxed sued the makers of Die Hard over! Paddy McG and Kanner! Squaring off, with a Montreal radio show as their Thunderdome. A film with all the makings of a taut thriller involving hostages, a building wired with explosives, and McG in fine form: Rolling them Rs! Slamming them cons…

1
THE MOONSHINE WAR 1:27:13

2y ago1:27:13

1:27:13

Patty McG's first major project after The Prisoner wrapped up in early 1968 was The Moonshine War, for Sex and the Single Girl director (and title-song lyricist!) Richard Quine. Quine did not write this film's remarkably concise and descriptive title song, "The Ballad of Moonshine," leaving that to Hank Williams, Jr. The great crime writer Elmore L…

1
THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA with Josh Spiegel 2:00:50

2y ago2:00:50

2:00:50

Does Mister-not-Doctor Andrew MacDuhui (Paddy McG) hate pets? (He does not, no matter what his low-information neighbors in the fictional Scottish town of Inveronoch think.) Did Walt Disney hate cats? (Our very special guest Disney expert, Josh Spiegel, makes a compelling case.) Were animals harmed during the making of this motion picture? (Most ce…

1
THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH with Margaret H. Willison 1:41:41

2+ y ago1:41:41

1:41:41

On February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan introduced a band from Liverpool, England formerly known as The Quarrymen to an estimated 73 million viewers of his primetime CBS variety show. And down the dial on NBC, the anthology series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color drew an audience of something less than 73 million for the first installment of its thr…

1
SILVER STREAK with Ronald Young Jr. 1:42:40

2+ y ago1:42:40

1:42:40

Pop some vitamin E before listening, because it's gonna be hug 'n' munch all the way to Chicago! Solvable host Ronald Young, Jr. joins Glen and Chris to examine Silver Streak, ostensibly a hybrid romantic thriller / buddy comedy that gave the world the long-running Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor screen partnership and was a huge hit upon its release in …

1
BOXING DAY SPECIAL: Let's Talk About Christmas (2019 yulemix) 1:45:10

2+ y ago1:45:10

1:45:10

CAUTION: This is not an episode of A Degree Absolute! This is a halldecking aid. Happy Boxing Day, Degree Absolutionists! With Glen still waging his one-man war on Christmas from the sunny heathen hinterlands of Miami, I, Chris, have made an executive decision to use up our vacant server space this month to re-present my 2019 holiday mixtape, "Let'…

1
Cheer Is the Mind-Killer—Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVI [Side B] 1:11:17

2+ y ago1:11:17

1:11:17

#Yulemix21 ABIDES! In this second half of my XVIth senses-shattering installment in the apparently unkillable Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable series, Chris attempts penance for preempting your regularly-scheduled podcast with my mixtape by roping Glen & Casey in for some festive preamble before we get to the damn tape. Those halls aren't going to…

1
Cheer Is the Mind-Killer—Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVI [Side A] 57:30

2+ y ago57:30

57:30

This is not an episode of A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! This is a halldecking aid. A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! shall return. What this is is the sixteenth installment in what has become a venerable holiday tradition that invariably makes me feel unhinged in the final couple of months of each year. Sixteen! They grow up so fast. The Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable co…

1
BRAVEHEART with Alexandra Petri 1:54:04

2+ y ago1:54:04

1:54:04

It's primae noctis for your ears because we can put it off no longer: The quintuple-Academy Award-winning a-historical epic Braveheart is the most widely seen and, your hosts agree, best latter-day expression of undiluted Patrick McGooted. The Washington Post's Alexandra Petri returns to discuss her journalist doppelganger, the New York Times' Alex…

1
Our Top Six Twos 58:23

2+ y ago58:23

58:23

THERE CAN BE ONLY TWO(s) as Chris & Glen rank their top six on this week’s exciting episode! Thanks to @UrbanSpaceMan64 for suggesting the topic. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music…

1
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 1:31:02

2+ y ago1:31:02

1:31:02

It’s the Notorious V.R.G. v. the founder of the Jackson Fivehead in this 16th century showdown among two dope queens—and we don’t mean Timothy Dalton & Ian Holm! PLUS: Jimmy Stewart! Current Release Corner! Dispatches from the French of Liberty, Kansas! Mary, Queen of Scots Written by John Hale Directed by Charles Jarrott Released December 1971 Wri…

1
THE HARD WAY with Patrick Flynn 1:47:49

2+ y ago1:47:49

1:47:49

It's Patty McG v. Lee Va C as Original Cast host Patrick Flynn joins Chris & Glen to discuss the existential 1980 thriller The Hard Way. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyri…

1
Shattered Visage 1:25:08

2+ y ago1:25:08

1:25:08

Chris and Glen discuss Dean Motter & Mark Askwith's 1988 four-volume comic book sequel to the unclassifiable and unforgettable TV series. The A Place to Hang Your Cape interview with Dean Motter we discuss in this episode is here. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisone…

1
THE PHANTOM 1:54:46

2+ y ago1:54:46

1:54:46

An increasingly besotted Glen & unceasingly bemused Chris wax purple on THE PHANTOM, 1996’s two-fisted failed franchise starter with Billy Zane as the 30s comic strip hero who coulda been called WHITE PANTHER & Patty McG as the Ghost Who Walks™ ’s… Ghost Dad? The Phantom Written by Jeffrey Boam Directed by Simon Wincer Released June 7, 1996 Write t…

1
SCANNERS with Alexandra Petri 1:34:55

3y ago1:34:55

1:34:55

Democracy dies in dorkiness this week as the brilliant Washington Post columnist, essayist, playwright and retired (?) Emo Sith Lord Alexandra Petri joins us to autopsy David Cronenberg's 1981 explosive migrane of a cult classic Scanners, featuring 24 minutes of a possibly first-billed, maybe third-billed, but unequivocally box-named-on-the poster …

1
Mail Call! The Dog Days of Summer Edition 56:11

3y ago56:11

56:11

Chris freestyles and epic poem about getting his iPhone replaced and eventually he and Glen dig deep into the too-long-neglected mailbag. Casey sings a reader-penned jingle. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song…

1
ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ with Jesse Thorn 1:43:44

3y ago1:43:44

1:43:44

Maximum Fun? More like maximum security! Maximum Fun podcast network founder and San Francisco native Jesse Thorn joins us this week to tunnel through the crumbling walls of Escape From Alcatraz, the 1979 Clint Eastwood-starring dramatization of the real 1962 prison break, featuring Patty McG as…The Warden. Stunt casting doesn’t get any stuntier, t…

1
McGoohan on COLUMBO with Linda Holmes 1:41:48

3y ago1:41:48

1:41:48

DID YOU KNOW that Columbophiles are properly nomenclatured Columboheads or Trenchcoatheads? DID YOU KNOW that fans who divide their sympathies equally among Patrick McGoohan and Peter Falk are formally designated McGalks? Pal Linda Holmes joins Glen & Chris to investigate Patty McG’s historic run as a four-time Columbo killer / five-time Columbo di…

1
LOST in America with Jen Chaney 1:37:30

3y ago1:37:30

1:37:30

Vulture TV critic and noted Lindelofologist Jen Chaney joins us to examine the influence of THE PRISONER on subsequent stranded-by-the-seaside puzzle-box shows like LOST. Plus we once again pop The Hatch on the mailbag. Read Jen's definitive oral history of the LOST finale here! Follow her on Twitter here! Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at ade…

1
Fall Out 1:45:19

3y ago1:45:19

1:45:19

Patty McG has claimed he was driven out of England after this puzzling final episode of The Prisoner debuted on Feb. 1, 1968. McGoohan admitted to financier Lew Grade that he'd been bluffing a year prior when he told the moneyman that he had an ending in mind for the strange new series he'd proposed. While this episode certainly reflects its creato…

1
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (the band, the filmmakers, the supertalented PRISONER superfans) 1:02:28

3y ago1:02:28

1:02:28

I (Chris) have long suspected The Prisoner is a show with a particular appeal to creative people, and I love to be proven right. Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is a Prisoner-inspired punk duo comprised of filmmakers/musicians/writers/creators/etc. Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein. When we saw their video for "Arrival" — a meticulous, two-yea…

1
Once Upon a Time 1:58:41

3y ago1:58:41

1:58:41

Shot in December 1966 under the title "Degree Absolute" and not broadcast until more than a year later when it became The Prisoner's penultimate — and, we agree, ultimate — episode, "Once Upon a Time" is the real thing. A bottle episode that locks GOAT Number Two Leo McKern and Number Six in the black-box "Embryo Room" and compels them to reenact t…

1
EXTRASODE: Village Mailbag, Indoors & Out 1:01:13

3y ago1:01:13

1:01:13

Chris and Glen respond to listener email and then take up a tactical position on the western emplacement of Glen's Remote Mountain Stronghold to discuss their IRL reunion and promised viewing of Rob Marshall's Best Picture-winning 2002 film version of John Kander & Fred Ebb's Chicago. Which has precisely nothing to do with The Prisoner but hey, we …

1
ICE STATION ZEBRA with Matt Gourley 1:36:15

3y ago1:36:15

1:36:15

What If Jimmy Page played a session with Stillwater? Our podcastin' inspiration Matt Gourley joins us for a Cinerama epic of an episode that we didn't plan to release on Father's Day week, but the cookie happened to crumble serendipitously. Because our subject is a genuine, certified, no-foolin’ Dad Movie, Ice Station Zebra, based on The Guns of Na…

1
The Girl Who Was Death 1:33:16

3y ago1:33:16

1:33:16

Number Six must elude the tender embrace of a lady who probably uses pseudonyms at least as often as he does in a late-in-the-run-but-lavish filler episode that sends up the spy genre circa ’67 & burns plenty of Sir Lew Grade’s money. (He refused to finance a floated 90-minute version.) Justine Lord and Kenneth Griffiths are your magnificent guest …

1
Living in Harmony with Ben Blacker 1:19:25

3y ago1:19:25

1:19:25

Prolific screenwriter, prosewriter, comic book writer, and podcaster Ben Blacker — co-creator of the magnificent monthly-live-show-turned-podcast The Thrilling Adventure Hour, and its delightful Western parody feature, Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars, among his many other notable and impressive credentials — joins us this week to dissect "Living in …

1
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling 1:39:58

3y ago1:39:58

1:39:58

It seems Patty McG had softened his "don't call it television because television cuts corners and we'll never ever do that" position by the time of The Prisoner's much-abbreviated second and final season, because for most of the production of this week's episode he decided his time would be better spent in Los Angeles co-starring in John Sturges' u…

1
A Change of Mind 1:31:55

3y ago1:31:55

1:31:55

Number Six's Public Enemy Number Six act is getting tired — and what is alternately referred to within a single scene as The Committee, The Council, and The Commission will tolerate it for only so long before they decree that their prize captive must undergo Instant Social Conversion. It's a procedure so chilling that Number Eighty-Six (the marvelo…

1
It's Your Funeral 1:18:54

3y ago1:18:54

1:18:54

There's an assassination plot afoot in The Village, and Number Six must protect his oppressor to spare his fellow Villagers. Derren Nesbitt is our Number Two and Annette Andre is our Girl Friday. Neither one of them could stand their scene partner an (uncredited) director, Patty McG. Pink-blazered henchman Mark Eden didn't hate him, but he did rese…

1
Hammer into Anvil 1:30:19

3y ago1:30:19

1:30:19

Pride Goethe before a fall. To boldy Goethe where no one has gone before. Just how well do you know your Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Patrick Cargill is back from "Many Happy Returns" and in Number Six's crosshairs after he drives a woman to suicide two minutes into the episode. And so begins Six's campaign of vengeance via psychological warfare. >F…

1
Checkmate 1:26:52

3y ago1:26:52

1:26:52

We are all of us pawns, my dear, in this quintessential Prisoner episode that some observers believe should've aired third in the run but didn't surface until much later. Wherever it belongs, what is undisputed is that it combines an underdeveloped chess metaphor with another conspiracy to escape The Village and an important life lesson for Number …

1
Dance of the Dead 1:14:23

3y ago1:14:23

1:14:23

It's Carnival in The Village, and Dance of the Dead — an episode that was nearly scuttled on account of Patrick McGoohan's disdain for it (and refusal to shoot at least part of its climactic scene) — offers a fascinating glimpse into The Prisoner's conflicting aesthetic priorities. Marry Morris, our latest Number Two, is a memorable malefactor whom…

1
Many Happy Returns 1:02:42

3y ago1:02:42

1:02:42

The first half of this episode is dialogue-free! This episode of The Prisoner, that is, not this episode of A Degree Absolute!, though that's the sort of formal experimentation we'd be game to try. Anywho, Number Six awakens in an inexplicably raptured Village and opts for the seaborne escape route, where starvation, pirates, and intrigue await. As…

1
EXTRASODE! With I AM NOT A NUMBER author and REPO MAN writer/director Alex Cox! 44:40

3y ago44:40

44:40

SPOILERS AHOY for the entirety of the 54-year-old television series The Prisoner! You've been warned! Save this episode for later if you haven't yet seen the whole series! Lifelong Prisoner fan Alex Cox joins Chris to talk about his 2017 book I Am Not a Number: Decoding the Prisoner, and What It's All About. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at a…

1
The General 1:03:34

3y ago1:03:34

1:03:34

Glen is under the influence of digital vermouth and under the spell of John Castle in our dissection of "The General." Wherein Number Six gets anger-cruised and Kirks a computer, and Colin Gordon "returns" as Number Two from "A.B. & C." — an episode obviously intended to follow this one, but which was broadcast before — apparently having survived h…

1
The Schizoid Man 58:34

3y ago58:34

58:34

Number Six comes face-to-immobile-face with the only opponent who can truly make him doubt his resolve: Himself! It's the The Parent Trap episode. It's "Mirror, Mirror" episode. It's the Double Impact episode. It's the if-I'm-not-me-who-da-hell-am-I-episode. It's the episode that teaches us that fingering an electric socket may on rare occasions be…

1
Free For All 1:20:14

3y ago1:20:14

1:20:14

It's election time in The Village and Number Six is the frontrunner! Eric Portman, this episode's Number Two, greets him thus: "Good morning, good morning! Any complaints?" And of course Six has complaints. He's like Portnoy: famed for his complaints. Featuring the lovely Rachel Herbert as Number Fifty-Eight, his irrepressibly enthusiastic and enth…

1
A. B. & C. 58:54

3y ago58:54

58:54

Chris and Glen revisit the first of The Prisoner's nonessential episodes. It features Peter Bowles telling Patrick McGoohan “I want you,” a classic John McClane-style air-shaft constitutional, some dodgy fisticuffs, the plot of the 2010 Christopher Nolan film Inception, and a milk-drinking Colin Gordon as a Number Two menaced by an alarmingly eroti…

1
The Chimes of Big Ben 45:35

3y ago45:35

45:35

Number Six attempts to escape The Village with the help of a newcomer named Nadia and a "basically primitive" abstract art project with a hard-to-overlook nautical vibe. He also finds out where The Village is. Unequivocally. Indisputably. Maybe. Featuring the first of the great Leo McKern's appearances as Number Two! Follow us @NotaNumberPod Write …

1
Arrival 1:09:31

3y ago1:09:31

1:09:31

Chris & Glen embark upon their first look back at Patrick McGoohan's 1967-8 British sci-fi series The Prisoner in many years and hope that the show's ethos — "militant and individualistic," in the expression of one of The Village's ever-changing Number Twos — will turn out to be something more generous than it seems. Also, will Number Six ever be n…

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Chris Klimek And Glen Weldon Podcasts

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