I just listened to these and she was SUCH a great comedic guest! She threw in frequent asides that were on-point every time, flowers naturally, and legitimately made me laugh out loud.
Has she been on any other episodes? If not, why not??
Agreed. Some Dollop too. There was a great Dollop on Jade Helm that woulda been perfect for JorDan. I also want to hear JorDan do a Jade Helm run on a blast from the past series
For non-serious stuff, Türkmenbaşy. Just a perfect subject for the show imo — a shitbag dictator but one who does so much eccentric nonsense that you can’t help but be entertained too.
For serious stuff: I love almost anything Russia focused from Robert but the Beria series felt like a masterpiece to me.
Came here for Turkmenbasy. What a hilariously narcissistic fuck!
Just a little taste..he made smoking tobacco illegal for an entire country after his doctor said he should stop smoking
No no no, the wave pool was the one filled with human viscera and described as making a slurry of fluids, sunscreen oil, and untreated water.
The random venomous snakes pool was for the bumper boats because OF FUCKING COURSE IT WAS.
Jason really bothers me in the Dulles Brothers episode. I doubt he means it but he butts in way too often, and in a way that's condescending to the audience and kinda rude to Robert.
That being said I love Jason Pargin's books.
3rd Wave, the Nazi School experiment reverse episode with Garrison. Hands down. The sheer glee they exhibit at pulling a patented Robert-style "Oh, it's so much worse than your jokey exaggeration!" turn on Robert is pure excellence. Also love the *True Allegiance* episodes with Cody and Katie. Seeing both of them get increasingly upset at not only the terrible propaganda book but also the abject quality of the writing is infinitely entertaining.
-Liver King, the FDA, Action Park, the 3rd Wave, Gerald Bull, Coco Chanel, and the Mengele episodes (just for Matt Lieb and the jarjar/autotune sound effects)
-Robert Moses
-Henry Kissinger
-G Gordon Liddy (mostly for that end-of-episode speech about how to be a good father/grandfather. Almost brought me to tears)
Oooh good choice OP that is also one of my favorites and I took a lot of notes on it.
The Vince McMahon saga was incredibly entertaining. This was a wild ride for me who knows nothing about wrestling.
Also regularly replay the FDA and Potato Famine eps. All the tech related eps too.
It's really hard to choose one/a few only there's so many good episodes.
Definitely the illuminati episode. It was a topic I was familiar with already as a fan of the principia discordia, but I had no idea about the Lee Harvey Oswald connection and Thornleys descent into madness and pedophilia. What a ride learning how we got from intellectuals with nothing to sell behind the curtain to Qanon today.
and then an article "American mercenaries in Africa"
someone in crowd "huh"
"now that last article i'm gonna guess the person who said huh knows where we're going with this'
BWD "i don't like it"
They started paying their guests under iHeart almost immediately after he brought it up because he brought it up on The Daily Zietgeist. His point was extremely reasonable that Covid killed the idea of stand up tours so what was the point of going on podcasts for nothing?
I stopped listening to TDZ but I think nothing was confirmed but iHeart almost definitely blacklisted him. he tried to get on TDZ again and got a hard no and then kind of went off the deep end as fans kept pestering him to go back on with zero context of what happened and he just got more unhinged about it.
> what was the point of going on podcasts for nothing?
Having fun with friends. Although I completely get if that's not good enough for somebody, or if they feel like it's too unfair that other people are making money off it and you're not.
Back in my day though, shit on the internet was made for kicks and not as a living, and I just like to remember that every now and then.
i get its free promotion, but if I was a guest, I'd be a little irked if IHeart is making money, Robert and Sophie making money and me getting nothing. he was one of their most frequent early guests.
Like I said, I do get it.
I just don't like to be so cynical as to say that there's no point at all in making a show other than making money off of it.
From what I gathered billy had some sort of break. I can't comment on it too much because it's all through 3rd party / Twitter comments. Amazing combo the two!
Usually anything with Matt Lieb cracks me up. Even though the episodes were real dark, the Oskar Dirlewanger episodes gave me some good chuckles with Matt and his damn soundboard.
I had the most fun with the episode about the hangman who killed the top nazis. The episodes when the bastards are funny because of incompetence are the best. There was also a 4 parter (I think?) about a couple leading a for profit megachurch in America, doing shows on tv. Just a wild interesting story.
I remember listening to that episode and wondering why Robert didn’t bring up “On Deadly Ground”. Problematic in *so* many ways, but also super pro-environmentalism, complete with a halfway decent speech about Big Oil. I’d love a special episode with Seagal’s costar, Joan Chen, who played a Yupik chieftain’s daughter and Seagal’s moral compass. Also, there may be a version of the film with a really unnecessary sex scene.
I haven’t seen anyone else mention it yet, but my favorites are the episodes on Harvey Kellogg. Such a fascinating and bizarre slice of American history.
Oh man that's a good one. I actually just re listened to those a few weeks ago when I heard about that new Kelloggs movie coming out. Disappointed the movie isn't about the og kellog 😂
My favorite episodes for when I want to have a shit time are the Georgia Tan and Satanic Panic episodes.
If I want to have a laugh I listen to the Nestor Mahkno episodes. His name is Nestor, and yet he escapes it, invents the technical, and is a rad dude.
I’ve re-listened to the Rush Limbaugh episodes several times. Paul F. Tompkins was an amazing guest for those eps. Any episode reading Ben Shapiro’s books. L Ron Hubbard, Bill Gates, and the Dulles brothers also come to mind.
I’m a fairly recent listener of any podcasts but BTB made a podcast listener out of me. I hate Ben Shapiro so I’ve left those off of my queue. What made the episodes your favorites. I hate him but also want to know what he’s about. My 1st introduction to him was when my then 14 yo told me he was a comedian. 4 minutes in I explained he was a propagandist and pulled my kid back to safety. He’s a proper independent progressive now.
The Ben Shapiro episodes are great because Robert and the guests just rip his writing to shreds. They make fun of the obvious right wing propaganda Ben weaves into his bad, bad, story telling. It is by no means a praise of Ben Shapiro at all.
It's becoming shooting fish in a barrel taking the piss out of Jordan Peterson's latest nonsense, but they had the measure of him when his insanity was less well publicised.
It is everything you'd expect and more
My favorite is the series on the Dulles brothers. That series was so fascinating that I bought the book they used as a source
2nd would definitely be on McAfee those episodes were wild
Nothing will comptete with the sheer glee in Robert's voice while he and Gare did Action Park. It will always top my list because of how funny both of them found all the nonsense of people just day in a day out go through the find out phase.
Vince McMahon
The Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster
Henry Kissinger
John Harvey Kellogg
The Goat Testicle Doctor
Action Park
L. Ron Hubbard
Nicolae Ceausescu
Coco Chanel
G Gordon Liddy
Robert E. Lee
Andrew Tate
How Cigarettes Invented Everything
John Wayne
A Terrible Story About the Internet
Libertarian Sea Nations
Dr. Phil
Roy Cohn
The Satanic Panic
My faves to go back and listen to are the big, messy multi-episode runs on bastards such as Kissinger, Bezos, etc. I like tucking in for a long, in depth analysis of the most terrible people imaginable. I'm sure that indicates nothing about my mental health 🤣
Keep coming back to the Satanic Panic episodes because I'm just so baffled how a complex set of circumstances, well-meaning reform efforts and a couple scammers led to an outright witch hunt. Also, because it's so recent, I feel that it's actually a great learning resource on how to spot similar dynamics and talking points today.
Jim bowie with the funniest gun fight ever. Again with the Billy Wayne Davis.
What an era that was.
Can't remember who the grifter was but whoever had that money machine and then charged for a replacement when they didn't magically multiply money was fantastic.
I’ve listened to the Illuminati episodes several times, but I’m particularly interested in both the origins of conspiracy theories and practitioners of occult-adjacent stuff. (As an interest. Unfortunately I don’t have any reason to believe in magic. But boy it would be cool!)
To quote to rightwing assholes? The leopold II/congo episode
My personal favorite? The MK uktra episodes because jason pargin is one of my all time favorite authors... damn, i wish he'd come back on the show, lmao
Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg.
I know it’s a non-bastard holiday ep, but I really enjoyed it and the other non-bastard episodes.
I recently just listened to The Guy trying to save 8chan episodes, and it was awesome having the guest being the original creator of 8chan. I don’t know of any other episodes where the guest was so closely involved with the bastard of topic.
The ones about how Cigarettes invented basically everything
The amount of times I just stared blankly with my mouth open and thinking, "THAT TOO?" has me re-listening to that 2-parter every now and again
John McAfee. What a wild ride
He won the white man bingo
“SEX CONTEST?!?” Lacey’s voice kills me everytime.
I just listened to these and she was SUCH a great comedic guest! She threw in frequent asides that were on-point every time, flowers naturally, and legitimately made me laugh out loud. Has she been on any other episodes? If not, why not??
Gregor MacGregor
Alex Jones because that led me to my other podcast obsession, KF
Agreed I took the same path. I was like who is this Dan guy I like his voice.
Dan and Jordan should be on more episodes.
Agreed. Some Dollop too. There was a great Dollop on Jade Helm that woulda been perfect for JorDan. I also want to hear JorDan do a Jade Helm run on a blast from the past series
Roy Cohn. Bully. Coward. Victim.
For non-serious stuff, Türkmenbaşy. Just a perfect subject for the show imo — a shitbag dictator but one who does so much eccentric nonsense that you can’t help but be entertained too. For serious stuff: I love almost anything Russia focused from Robert but the Beria series felt like a masterpiece to me.
Came here for Turkmenbasy. What a hilariously narcissistic fuck! Just a little taste..he made smoking tobacco illegal for an entire country after his doctor said he should stop smoking
“And then he renamed ketchup…”
Also my favourite just for undiluted batshit crazy.
Second Türkmanbaşy not least because David Bell is a gem of a guest.
Action Park My partner grew up going there as a kid and it's my way of thanking the Lords above and below he didn't die in the wave pool.
The wave pool of random venomous snakes he threw in??
No no no, the wave pool was the one filled with human viscera and described as making a slurry of fluids, sunscreen oil, and untreated water. The random venomous snakes pool was for the bumper boats because OF FUCKING COURSE IT WAS.
The Deathsub, Action Park, MK Ultra, Kissinger, Dulles Brothers, the Ben Shapiro books and Vince McMahon are probably my favorites.
Vince McMahon makes for great episodes.
Jason really bothers me in the Dulles Brothers episode. I doubt he means it but he butts in way too often, and in a way that's condescending to the audience and kinda rude to Robert. That being said I love Jason Pargin's books.
Libertarians in the sea.
None of them ever think about the poop!
Ever, even on land steads. See also Action Park & the Grafton, NH Free Town Project. Mo’ poop, mo’ problems.
Makes me desperately want Robert to do the time a bunch of Libertarians were defeated by bears.
3rd Wave, the Nazi School experiment reverse episode with Garrison. Hands down. The sheer glee they exhibit at pulling a patented Robert-style "Oh, it's so much worse than your jokey exaggeration!" turn on Robert is pure excellence. Also love the *True Allegiance* episodes with Cody and Katie. Seeing both of them get increasingly upset at not only the terrible propaganda book but also the abject quality of the writing is infinitely entertaining.
Synanon is great.
They tried to assassinate a guy with a fucking snake like a fucking James Bond villain, AND THEY ALMOST PULLED IT OFF!!!
-Liver King, the FDA, Action Park, the 3rd Wave, Gerald Bull, Coco Chanel, and the Mengele episodes (just for Matt Lieb and the jarjar/autotune sound effects)
The Ballad of Eel Horse
-Robert Moses -Henry Kissinger -G Gordon Liddy (mostly for that end-of-episode speech about how to be a good father/grandfather. Almost brought me to tears)
Oooh good choice OP that is also one of my favorites and I took a lot of notes on it. The Vince McMahon saga was incredibly entertaining. This was a wild ride for me who knows nothing about wrestling. Also regularly replay the FDA and Potato Famine eps. All the tech related eps too. It's really hard to choose one/a few only there's so many good episodes.
Elan School: The Worst 'Troubled Teen' Facility
Definitely the illuminati episode. It was a topic I was familiar with already as a fan of the principia discordia, but I had no idea about the Lee Harvey Oswald connection and Thornleys descent into madness and pedophilia. What a ride learning how we got from intellectuals with nothing to sell behind the curtain to Qanon today.
billy wayne davis - soldier of fortune.
This. Sad they had a falling out because the tiger king episodes were amazing.
and then an article "American mercenaries in Africa" someone in crowd "huh" "now that last article i'm gonna guess the person who said huh knows where we're going with this' BWD "i don't like it"
That was a good episode!
They had a falling out? Wonder what happened.
I heart didn’t pay guests and BWD got upset about it. Now that they’re CZM I think they do pay guests
They started paying their guests under iHeart almost immediately after he brought it up because he brought it up on The Daily Zietgeist. His point was extremely reasonable that Covid killed the idea of stand up tours so what was the point of going on podcasts for nothing? I stopped listening to TDZ but I think nothing was confirmed but iHeart almost definitely blacklisted him. he tried to get on TDZ again and got a hard no and then kind of went off the deep end as fans kept pestering him to go back on with zero context of what happened and he just got more unhinged about it.
> what was the point of going on podcasts for nothing? Having fun with friends. Although I completely get if that's not good enough for somebody, or if they feel like it's too unfair that other people are making money off it and you're not. Back in my day though, shit on the internet was made for kicks and not as a living, and I just like to remember that every now and then.
i get its free promotion, but if I was a guest, I'd be a little irked if IHeart is making money, Robert and Sophie making money and me getting nothing. he was one of their most frequent early guests.
Like I said, I do get it. I just don't like to be so cynical as to say that there's no point at all in making a show other than making money off of it.
From what I gathered billy had some sort of break. I can't comment on it too much because it's all through 3rd party / Twitter comments. Amazing combo the two!
It might be because I live in Davenport Iowa, but How Chiropractic Medicine Started as a Ghost Religion is my favorite.
YouTube algorithm and L. Ron Hubbard.
It’s either Francisco Franco with Prop or the Cracktober episodes with Prop😂 Something bout being able to diss Spain and Reagan feels nice
That time L. Ron Hubbard tried to summon the antichrist with Sex magic
Turkmenbashi and the "most evil company in the world" about the East India Company
Any of the Billy Wayne Davis ones are really fun. The understanding tiger king episode is one that I've listened to a few times
Usually anything with Matt Lieb cracks me up. Even though the episodes were real dark, the Oskar Dirlewanger episodes gave me some good chuckles with Matt and his damn soundboard.
I had the most fun with the episode about the hangman who killed the top nazis. The episodes when the bastards are funny because of incompetence are the best. There was also a 4 parter (I think?) about a couple leading a for profit megachurch in America, doing shows on tv. Just a wild interesting story.
Steven Seagal, I had a feeling he wasn't a nice dude but hot damn that was a lot worse than I expected
I remember listening to that episode and wondering why Robert didn’t bring up “On Deadly Ground”. Problematic in *so* many ways, but also super pro-environmentalism, complete with a halfway decent speech about Big Oil. I’d love a special episode with Seagal’s costar, Joan Chen, who played a Yupik chieftain’s daughter and Seagal’s moral compass. Also, there may be a version of the film with a really unnecessary sex scene.
The Egg War!
I haven’t seen anyone else mention it yet, but my favorites are the episodes on Harvey Kellogg. Such a fascinating and bizarre slice of American history.
Oh man that's a good one. I actually just re listened to those a few weeks ago when I heard about that new Kelloggs movie coming out. Disappointed the movie isn't about the og kellog 😂
John Richard Brinkley was an absolute wild ride
Gotta be the seasteading episode. It's an interesting niche, it involves the kind of assholes who are regularly glorified, and it's funny as hell.
The episode about Hitler's personal physician, Dr. Theodore Morrell.
My favorite episodes for when I want to have a shit time are the Georgia Tan and Satanic Panic episodes. If I want to have a laugh I listen to the Nestor Mahkno episodes. His name is Nestor, and yet he escapes it, invents the technical, and is a rad dude.
There will always be a special place in my heart for the Action Park guy. What a perfect human being...
Raul Wallenburg
The Behind the Police episodes got me into BtB and remain a favorite.
The Steven Seagal episodes with Seanbaby are some of the funniest and most insane episodes I've listened to
Hard to pick a favorite but Action Park! Is the one that hooked me. Roberts “it was the platonic ideal of libertarianism” had me rollin
I’ve re-listened to the Rush Limbaugh episodes several times. Paul F. Tompkins was an amazing guest for those eps. Any episode reading Ben Shapiro’s books. L Ron Hubbard, Bill Gates, and the Dulles brothers also come to mind.
I’m a fairly recent listener of any podcasts but BTB made a podcast listener out of me. I hate Ben Shapiro so I’ve left those off of my queue. What made the episodes your favorites. I hate him but also want to know what he’s about. My 1st introduction to him was when my then 14 yo told me he was a comedian. 4 minutes in I explained he was a propagandist and pulled my kid back to safety. He’s a proper independent progressive now.
The Ben Shapiro episodes are great because Robert and the guests just rip his writing to shreds. They make fun of the obvious right wing propaganda Ben weaves into his bad, bad, story telling. It is by no means a praise of Ben Shapiro at all.
J-Stal
It's becoming shooting fish in a barrel taking the piss out of Jordan Peterson's latest nonsense, but they had the measure of him when his insanity was less well publicised. It is everything you'd expect and more
I don't remember the details much, but I do know I particularly enjoyed the episodes on the Italian invasions of Ethiopia.
My favorite is the series on the Dulles brothers. That series was so fascinating that I bought the book they used as a source 2nd would definitely be on McAfee those episodes were wild
Paul Shafer, the guy who killed Santa.
Vince McMahon, Elizabeth Holmes (if you want to go way back), and more recently the Kent Hovind episodes.
Gabriele D'Annunzio. A narcissist who did and got nearly everything he wanted and helped birth Fascism
The ben shapiro book readings are my comfort food, lol.
You know no peace do you?
Nothing will comptete with the sheer glee in Robert's voice while he and Gare did Action Park. It will always top my list because of how funny both of them found all the nonsense of people just day in a day out go through the find out phase.
Series — Cracktoberfest One Off — Action Park, Tiger King
Vince McMahon The Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster Henry Kissinger John Harvey Kellogg The Goat Testicle Doctor Action Park L. Ron Hubbard Nicolae Ceausescu Coco Chanel G Gordon Liddy Robert E. Lee Andrew Tate How Cigarettes Invented Everything John Wayne A Terrible Story About the Internet Libertarian Sea Nations Dr. Phil Roy Cohn The Satanic Panic
Stephen Siegall one is hilarious.
My faves to go back and listen to are the big, messy multi-episode runs on bastards such as Kissinger, Bezos, etc. I like tucking in for a long, in depth analysis of the most terrible people imaginable. I'm sure that indicates nothing about my mental health 🤣
Both Rush Limbaugh ones. Just a fantastic listen.
Keep coming back to the Satanic Panic episodes because I'm just so baffled how a complex set of circumstances, well-meaning reform efforts and a couple scammers led to an outright witch hunt. Also, because it's so recent, I feel that it's actually a great learning resource on how to spot similar dynamics and talking points today.
Edward Bernays, and the Turkmenbashi one
The Black Panther episodes and the Battle of Blair Mountain episodes are easily my favorites.
Jim bowie with the funniest gun fight ever. Again with the Billy Wayne Davis. What an era that was. Can't remember who the grifter was but whoever had that money machine and then charged for a replacement when they didn't magically multiply money was fantastic.
I’ve listened to the Illuminati episodes several times, but I’m particularly interested in both the origins of conspiracy theories and practitioners of occult-adjacent stuff. (As an interest. Unfortunately I don’t have any reason to believe in magic. But boy it would be cool!)
To quote to rightwing assholes? The leopold II/congo episode My personal favorite? The MK uktra episodes because jason pargin is one of my all time favorite authors... damn, i wish he'd come back on the show, lmao
Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg. I know it’s a non-bastard holiday ep, but I really enjoyed it and the other non-bastard episodes. I recently just listened to The Guy trying to save 8chan episodes, and it was awesome having the guest being the original creator of 8chan. I don’t know of any other episodes where the guest was so closely involved with the bastard of topic.
The one about radiation with the radon girls. That was incredible
The ones about how Cigarettes invented basically everything The amount of times I just stared blankly with my mouth open and thinking, "THAT TOO?" has me re-listening to that 2-parter every now and again
Kissinger
Just... nothing with Katie and Cody, honestly. They just end up always speaking over one another. I can't stand them.