The Best Finds of July 2021

The Mastercast

Intro:

Hey Pod lovers. If you’re joining us for the first time: Welcome! The Mastercast is a podcast recommendation show that consists of 7 non-spoiler binge-worthy reviews of the best podcasts in a short and sweet 2-3 minute summary on everything you could want to know, from the number of hosts to on average how long you can expect each episode to be. For more details and more reviews, I recommend checking out Episode One.

Reviews:

Just The Zoo of Us - No Spoilers!

This is one of my new favorite podcasts. This educational show is all about listening in as couple Christian and Ellen Weatherford review a different animal every episode. The show has a solid five stars on Apple Podcasts, with 67 ratings, and 38 written reviews and starts with each of them weigh the animal on a rating out of 10 on effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. The disclaimer at the beginning of the show lets you know they aren't animal professionals, but enthusiasts who hold the research of each animal as the most important aspect of the show. I think that is why their hilarious cute dynamic is so unexpectedly charming. I never would have thought this adorable couple from Jacksonville, Florida would become literally my favorite couple of any media. Their knowledge and love for nerdy things like anime and dnd is something I hadn't seen in a podcast that wasn't specifically about those topics. If you listen to the show in order you will pick up on some subtle mentions of their private life. It starts with just the two of them, follows in their pregnancy, and then welcomes baby Finley into the world! I adore baby Finley who can occasionally be heard cooing in the background of some episodes. That is not all they are, either! Besides being well-researched, cute, and funny they also have good radio voices and production quality. The podcast is made knowing you might listen with little ones, so it does not contain profanity. The episodes do sometimes mention things like reproduction and predatory habits. I really like how (maybe because they are not experts) the language they use is super accessible and easily understood. That way I'm not lost in all the technical terms. Their website is well done and includes transcripts, coloring pages, and a message/animal submission/guest form. The couple is super active on Twitter and also has this email you can use to contact them. So far, the show has 91 episodes, all about an hour in length and new ones come out weekly usually at the end of the week. They also have experts come in, usually on a biweekly basis to have a deeper conversation about that week’s animal. Expert guest episodes became the most common when the couple took a short break to spend with newly arrived baby Finley. Episodes can be found on all major platforms. The most popular episodes according to Owltail are 3: Praying Mantis & Giant Panda and 7: Asian Elephant & Immortal Jellyfish. My favorites were 70: American Bison & Giraffe-Necked Weevil and 1: American Alligator & Florida Manatee. Music is really well chosen and credited at the end of every episode. The show covers a ton of animals I never thought I would want to know anything about but hearing these two talk about them as if they were the coolest thing that is ever existed changed my mind. And I think it could do the same for you.
Similar Pods: The Wild Episode, Herpetological Highlights, and Nature Guys

Searching for Rachel Antonio:

This Australian podcast drops you into a Queensland family’s search for answers in their daughter’s 18-year-old cold case. Rachel disappeared after being dropped off at the movies. She was never seen again leaving her family with more questions than leads. They contacted David Murray, an investigative journalist working with The Courier-Mail in hopes the case will be given new attention or maybe even that developments would be made. This podcast is short and sweet but with the expected lengthy news recap and preview at either end of an episode (but it was only information). 6 episodes about 31 minutes apiece. I was surprised to see this podcast didn’t have as many listens or reviews as I expected.

Similar Podcasts: Blue Siren’s Police Tape, Unravel True Crime, and Australian True Crime

Dressed:
This educational podcast talks about the history of fashion in the streamlined inviting tone I’ve grown accustomed to from YouTube and “Stuff You Should Know”. It really does an amazing job at looking at fashion through different lenses such as art, history, politics, function and so much more. The hosts really know their stuff as well with both having master’s degrees in fashion studies. While I could have sworn one of the hosts was from “Stuff You Missed in History Class”, all my research seems to point to that not being the case. The shows are intertwined though with the origins of the show coming after an appearance April made on SYMIHC. Here’s a pretty detailed account of how it happened from an interview April did for SimonSays: https://blog.simonsays.ai/behind-the-podcast-a-conversation-with-april-calahan-co-host-of-dressed-the-history-of-fashion-917c11ca7440. Anyway, the show has a little over 1,000 reviews and an average of 4.5-stars. New episodes come out every Tuesday (and sometimes Thursdays) on a year-round season so there’s no shortage of juicy fashion knowledge in the foreseeable future. Currently, there are 198 episodes about 40 minutes long with a noticeable amount of commercials in them (I don’t find it unbearable). My favorite episode is definitely the Smuggled in the Bustle: an interview with Hind Abdul-Jabbar that talks about how smuggling was actually a big part of fashion back in the day and sometimes still is. Owltail has its two episodes as Freeing the Body: The Birth of Modern Dress, A Vanderbilt House Party--The Gilded Age, an Interview with Leslie Klingner, and Holiday Bonus FHM: The History of Glitter (I really liked this one). This podcast is about as loose on the script as they come without being completely unscripted or edited. The background music can be noticed sometimes throughout the earlier episodes, but I really only found it troubling on my laptop and I’ve listened to all of the episodes through headphones fine. Zero trigger warnings. One last note is that I do like the beginning episodes more than the latter but they’re all good.

Similar Pods: History of the 90s, Crime Culture, It Was Simple: The Betty Broderick Murders

Tides of History:

This history podcast is my new favorite to listen to as I fall asleep. It’s polished with well-done audio like all of Wondery’s shows and informative in a captivating way. It covers everything from ancient times to modern perspectives and origins stories on all sorts of things that make up the human experience. Ph.D. historian and host, Phil Wyman has an amazing voice backed up subtle sound effects and complimenting music that makes for the best soundtrack to fall asleep to that I’ve heard in a while. For those that don’t know most platforms/apps have a sleep timer setter and for iPhones there’s a “stop playing” option at the bottom of the alarm choices. Itunes has 4.5 thousand reviews and an average of 4.7 stars. New episodes come out Thursdays which is a huge plus for me (even though it usually takes me a few nights to get through them) because most of my favorite shows come out at the beginning of the week leaving me in a bit of a drought towards the end. 171 episodes all on average about 41 minutes long with Owltail’s highest ranking being The Trials and Tribulations of the Late Medieval Church, The Wars of the Roses, and 1492: A Guided Tour of Europe on the Brink. My favorites have to be The First Farmers, and Who Were the First Americans? The latest episode came out this week and the show remains consistent in the type of conten...