Baconsale: Hickory-smoked Pop Culture

Listen, listener, it’s too difficult to decide what our top five favorite albums are, and a top 10 would just take too long. Therefore, on this episode of Baconsale, we’re each picking seven albums that we love. These aren’t songs that we put on shuffle, we enjoy these musical collections track by track, in the order they were intended to play. Kent is ready to showcase his hipster side, but he’s including some self-proclaimed bangers. Meanwhile, Zack & Joel are largely giving stage crew picks—Zack’s are in chronological order, and Joel’s are largely influenced by his sister. We hope you enjoy hearing our memories of music as much as we enjoyed sharing them.   Press play to hear our sneaky honorable mentions.

Get those noses high in the air, listener, because we’re talking Sundance again. Our friend, Emily, is joining us to talk about the record number of movies she and Kent watched this year. And guess what? Almost 30% of them were good this season! Listen to Kent & Emily’s hive-mind thoughts as they talk to you about Talk to Me, relate the story of Flora and Son, reminisce about Past Lives, condemn Bad Behavior, and civilly discuss Polite Society.   Press play to be the first people to hear this BaconBit about being the first people to see these films.

It’s been a few years since we last asked, "What Would Baconsale Do?" However, we’ve decided to enter the realm of random mental insights again, this time with Zack at the helm. He’s going to ask Kent & Joel a series of questions about genies, aliens, shopping carts, and more. Zack is also going to present some serious moral quandaries, some of which were generated by artificial intelligence. We hope you enjoy this bizarre episode as we discuss Return of Jafar, the destruction of Portland, purring when we’re happy, losing fingers, knives & duct tape, and a handful of positive affirmations.   Aunt Celery says press play!

It’s not every day that we unleash our powers of prognostication on our listener, it’s just usually on the second show of every season. So on this episode of Baconsale, we’re looking at the upcoming year and getting a little catty. We’ll be making predictions about celebrity comebacks & break-ups, pop culture drama, sports forecasts, the rule of threes, movies releasing this year, and more. Since we’ve been doing this type of show for a while now, we occasionally will copy each other’s former answers (as well as our own). But we hope you enjoy hearing us giggle at sports names, berate those who go back to the well, and switch places in our opinions.   Watch out for Ezra Miller in 2023, and press play to hear silent agreement.

As our ninth season of Baconsale begins, we realize very quickly that it’s a good thing we’re pop culture podcasters and not math teachers. We’re looking back at the movies we watched this past year and ranking our five least favorite films, followed by our five favorites. Joel is going after cult classics this time, and it’s his own fault he chose the truly rotten ones. Kent keeps his choices limited to movies released in 2022, and manages to find a few golden hipster nuggets amidst the cape flicks and wasteland that was last year in cinema. And Zack is there to judge each of our picks along the way.   Press play to decide which Skarsgård is the best Skarsgård.

Joel, Kent, and Zack are going to do another category show all about Baconsale because the season has come to an end. Things start off with a thousand voices & a single dream, followed by a discussion of our favorite moments, strange topics, what surprised us, our biggest accomplishments, and more. Kent cheats a little on his categories this year, while Joel forgot that he could do that. And Zack gives a not-so-subtle hint about what kind of show he’d like to do in the future. Yes, this episode involves a lot of back-patting (which makes us feel a little awkward at times), but it’s an entertaining walk down memory lane, along with slight mockery and a few guilt trips.   Let’s get it started! Press play.

Marley was dead: to begin with. Dead as a door-nail. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the Baconsale episode we are going to relate. Joel, Kent, and Zack have watched every film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol, and we’re going to build our own version of Ebenezer Scrooge’s story using the tried-and-true method of M.A.S.H. As we do so, we’ll also share our thoughts on the acting, the storytelling, the sets, the costumes, the visual effects, and the music of each version we saw. And we’ll pick our favorite and least favorite movies. Will the Christmas spirits be kind to us? Or will we wear the chains we formed in life, link by link, and yard by yard?   Don’t say “Bah! Humbug!” Come in! Press play! And know us better, man!

On the first show of December, our podcast gave to you, a random holiday-themed ranking episode. We’ve decided to take a Baconsale-style look at the presents given during The Twelve Days of Christmas and see if they’re something that anyone would actually want. After we discuss the history of the song and how much these gifts would cost, we’ll then tier each present according to what we’d cherish forever, what we might enjoy once, and what we’d regift or just throw away. Joel gets a little greedy for gold, people never stop dancing at Kent’s apartment in New York, and watch out for the Zack Attack at the end! It’s a killer!   It doesn’t matter if you’re a drummer, a piper, a lord, a lady, a milkmaid, a swan, a goose, a ring, a blackbird, a hen, a dove, or a partridge, press play!

Pack your bags, listener! We’re taking a trip down memory lane! On this episode of Baconsale, Kent, Joel, and Zack are going to be discussing our favorite (and least favorite) vacations. And since it’s always more fun to travel with friends, we’ve invited Rocky & Steph (Stephanie & Rock?) to join us as we pick answers for each of our seven categories, which include Best Scenic Drive, Most Regularly Visited Destination, and Trip You’d Like Do Again. Along the way, we’ll make some basic & boujee choices, we’ll discover who enjoys plaque reading, and we’ll teach you the benefits of Neosporin.   Press play to get a stamp in your podcast passport, Baconites!

Hey, Soul Sister! We’re over the (My) Humps and finishing our terrible song tournament on this episode of Baconsale. Joel, Kent, and Zack may not be Happy with the awful tunes they must move forward, because they have to Play It Again, and there are Blurred Lines with some of their reasoning, but the urge to crown a “winner” is Simply Irresistible. Will Zack’s choices make you Blue (Da Ba Dee)? Will Kent be able to remember what he said previously Before He Cheats on his logic? Is Cotton Eye Joe(l) wearing Christmas Shoes? Listen to find out (and to learn what The Fox says). Don’t be Rude! Press play to take a mental Photograph of our musical anguish.   Download & print the advanced Worst Song of Songs bracket at Baconsale.com!

Last Christmas (or rather last March), Baconsale picked the ultimate Song of Songs. And now, even though No One was really asking for it, we’re beginning our quest to find the least Perfect song. We asked our listener (including all the Single Ladies), to submit their terrible tunes, and we’ve put those disagreeable ditties in a bracket. Why? This is How We Roll. Joel, Kent, and Zack have accepted your choices With Arms Wide Open, and then they’ll make Chop Suey of 32 songs that they don’t think deserve to win. And while we may not understand The Reason some of you made the picks you did, we won’t give you the Run-Around for long, because we’ll finish this tournament on the next episode.   Don’t Worry Be Happy, and press play if you Believe in life after love. Download & print the official Worst Song of Songs bracket at Baconsale.com to play along at home!

It’s been four years since the first standalone Black Panther movie. A lot of events within the Marvel Cinematic Universe have occurred since then, as well as the tragic, real-life passing of Chadwick Boseman, but is this sequel a fitting finish to Phase Four? Or is this two-hour-and-forty-one-minute movie going to be a drain on our mental resources? Joel and Kent are going to start this review on their own, since they saw the movie together, and Zack will join us as soon as we start spoiling the movie (about 18 minutes in). However, we’ll keep our thoughts spoiler-free before then. Take your mask off and press play to hear about the Na'vi suffering bloodless deaths via vibranium.

Lights! Camera! Silence! On this episode of Baconsale, Joel is showing his age. He’s brought a selection of silent films to the table in hopes that Zack and Kent have (finally) watched them and are ready to review all ten. Some of these movies are over 100 years old, yet Joel feels they still have something to offer modern audiences. While Zack is concerned about the content of these pre-Production Code motion pictures, so he’s going to let parents know what to expect. Will Charlie Chaplin make us chuckle? Does Buster Keaton have us busting a gut? Is Metropolis still mesmerizing? Listen to our fully audio podcast to find out.   Press play because Guillermo del Toro says this is his favorite episode.

Once again, we handed the keys to the asylum over to the patients and let you, the listener, take over this Baconsale Halloween episode. We asked for more of your terrifying true stories as well as frightening fictional tales, and you certainly delivered. Joel, Kent, and Zack are going to take turns reading your spooky submissions… along with some slight mockery (Hey! It’s what we do!). We’ll do our best to keep the mood scary, though, as we share stories about hairy creatures, car creepers, gray ghosts, unwanted hitchhikers, raspy breathing, haunting acronyms, ALARMING ALL CAPS, and spine-chilling sk-el-el-letons!   Press play to hear Joel do eerily accurate impressions of Kent, Zack, and Jacob.

Since we talked about haunted places last year, Baconsale has decided to round out the ghostly nouns on this episode and talk about haunted things & people. We’ll be discussing diabolic dolls, chatting about cursed canvases, and babbling about blighted bunk beds. Despite the darker subject material, Joel, Kent, and Zack are going to do their best to keep things light & fluffy, and not focus on the fact that possession is nine-tenths of the law. We’ll also be examining 35 movies related to this spooky subject and giving some of them (slight) Baconsale approval!   Join us! Put down that haunted spoon and press play!

It’s finally here! The movie that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been promoting for the past decade or so! Black Adam has Shazam-ed into theaters, and Baconsale is ready to review it. Kent, the DC-loving cynic, has been a little down on the Extended Universe lately, but will this Warner Bros. Picture light the spark of hope in his chest once again? Or will his darker, pessimistic side be the reigning champion and influence Joel and Zack? Even if you haven’t seen the film yet, you can still listen to the spoiler-free first part of this BaconBit to find out our thoughts on Black Adam.   Press play to search for eternium/vibranium in the mines Kahndaq/Wakanda.

In the summer of 1957, a young boy named Jason Voorhees drowned at Camp Crystal Lake in New Jersey. Since that tragic event, a string of murders has occurred in or around the campground, causing some to wonder if the area is cursed or even haunted by a masked, vengeful ghoul. This is the true story of Camp Blood…   Okay, so this is actually the plot of a highly successful horror film franchise called Friday the 13th. However, we are going to talk about it as if it were a true crime story for the first part of this episode of Baconsale. After we take off that mask, we’ll chat about the background of these films and use our combined scores to rank all twelve movies. Also, please note that while Joel will try to keep Kent’s descriptions of the killings as family friendly as possible, things do tend to get a little grisly when it comes to discussing slasher flicks.   Press-press-press! Play-play-play!

Paranormal investigator Beaker is back on Baconsale! Once again, he’s brought a list of 13 alarming areas & petrifying places from around the world, and it’s up to us to decide if we’d be willing to spend the night there by ourselves. Will we laugh at the ha-ha walls surrounding the Aradale Mental Hospital in Australia? Will the ghosts of Gettysburg be our confederates? Will we lose our nerve in the Bermuda Triangle of Romania? Will we be able to pronounce Lawang Sewu? All these questions and more will be answered as we test our tongues and our bravery in frightening foreign lands.   Press play to see if the ghost dogs are good boys.

Oh, look. Another glorious BaconBit! Thirty years (minus one year) ago, a Disney movie about witches received mixed reviews from critics and didn’t do that well at the box office. However, since that time, it has become a beloved cult classic for many, leading to the long-delayed legasequel: Hocus Pocus 2. But do the Sanderson sisters possess the same magic they did decades ago? And will Joel, Kent, and Zack enjoy this sequel when none of them truly loved the original? We’ll start off this BaconBit with our spoiler-free reviews, but then we’ll break that spell and discuss the whole film without holding back.   Itch-it-a-cop-it-a-mel-a-ka-mys-ti-ca… press play!

We see a Bad Moon Rising, which must mean it’s finally October! And Heads Will Roll as Baconsale carefully crafts the perfect playlist for any Monster Mash. Joel, Kent, and Zack have done some Weird Science to select 31 spooky songs that they hope will turn a dance floor Ghost Town into a Thriller of a Dead Man’s Party. And while Kent may be a Psycho Killer of Halloween music, you can still Unleash Your Spirit and join us as we enter The Time Warp and take plenty of punch breaks.   Dig through the ditches, burn through the witches, and press play.   And you can find our official Halloween party playlist at Baconsale.com.