Nerd Lunch

Jetpack Tiger returns! Carlin and Dashiell Trammel watched last year's live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon and you recorded themselves doing it. So queue up the movie, sync with this episode, and enjoy the Jetpack Tiger How to Train Your Dragon (2025) Commentary Track!

Michael, Rob, Pax, and Jacob gather one more time in Dartmoor to discuss the first Basil Rathbone Holmes film: 20th Century Fox's The Hound of the Baskervilles. Last month we talked about the Hammer version from 1959, so we do some compare/contrast to that as well as the Conan Doyle novel.

In the second half of this month's Lounge, Pax, Rob, and Michael discuss Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Rob and the Ramblin' Man, our reading origin stories, our Star Wars homeworlds, and Ella McCay.

Pax, Rob, and Michael talk about a lot of things in this first half of this month's lounge: The Rise of Skywalker, Wonder Woman on TV and in comics, Stranger Things Season 5, Stephen King and Maurice Sendak's Hansel and Gretel, and Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox, for example.  We also talk about our good friend (and frequent podcast guest) William Bruce West, who - we learned the day after recording this - recently suffered a stroke and is currently in the hospital. We hope and pray that he's going to be okay, but in the meantime, there's a GoFundMe campaign in progress for Will and his family as they start to navigate the uncertainty of what lies ahead for them. We hope that you'll consider donating.

Starting a new project for the new year where we read 12 Stephen King novels, Michael and Jess talk about all things Carrie. And not just the book, but also all the movies, and even the musical.

Michael is joined by Pax, Kay, and Robert Zerbe to look back on the art and pop culture of 2025 and also to peek ahead at what's coming in 2026.

Michael, Rob, and Pax embrace their f8 as they talk about The Fate of the Furious, the first post-Brian movie in the series and the beginning of #JusticeForHan. Can we forgive Deckard Shaw for his crimes? And if we do, can we forgive ourselves?

While Pax remains in London to close a different case, Jacob, Michael, and Rob hit the moor to talk about the Hammer adaptation of Hound of the Baskervilles, starring Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes, André Morell as Watson, and Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville.

Michael and Jess talk about the horror! We start with a little on The Menu and A Ghost Story for Christmas, then a little more on Ted Naifeh's first Courtney Crumrin volume, The Night Things, and then a lot on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell and Jack the Ripper in general. That finishes our 2025 of horror comics, so we also talk about our focus for 2026.

Better late than never, but Michael, Pax, and Rob finally complete last month's lounge with conversation about Christmas podcasts, werewolf movies, Universal Monsters comics, Hamnet, an update on Pax's Young Guns signatures, and movies we've never seen on the big screen, but want to.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Preston A Whitmore II's This Christmas may not be a super popular holiday movie, but Michael thinks it's underrated and under-discussed, so he's invited William Bruce West and David May to watch and talk about it. The movie stars Loretta Devine, Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Regina King, Keith D Robinson, Mekhi Phifer, and others as members of a family coming together for the holidays after a few years apart and everyone has secrets. Shhh!

Michael and Rob welcome Sue London and Michael DiGiovanni to come help build a cinematic multiverse out of our favorite Christmas specials. We've assigned each other a couple of specials each to crossover, then once we've revealed our mashups, we work together to create an Avengers-style feature combining all eight of the original ideas. It's nice, it's occasionally naughty, but most of all it's fun. Merry Christmas!

In the first part of a sort of crossover with the Advent Calendar House podcast, Mike Westfall joins Michael and Rob to talk about an unusual version of A Christmas Carol. From CBS's 1954 anthology variety show, Shower of Stars, it features Fredric March as Scrooge, Basil Rathbone as Marley, and bunch of questionable songs. And be sure to tune in next Sunday to ACH for Part Two in which Michael and Rob will join Mike to discuss another musical Christmas Carol, 2004's A Christmas Carol: The Musical starring Kelsey Grammer, Jason Alexander, Jane Krakowski, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jesse L Martin, and Geraldine Chaplin.

Michael and Rob invite Jody Collins and Jacob Bean-Watson over to put up the Christmas decorations and talk about the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Corner. The movie stars Jimmy Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and Frank Morgan. And it was of course the inspiration for You've Got Mail. We talk about all of those people and the other characters, as well as the remakes and just how much of a Christmas movie it even is.

Michael and Jess talk about lots of horror stuff including A Ghost Story for Christmas, Lost Boys, Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics, and Dan Brereton's Nocturnals.

Our Sherlock Holmes panel reconvenes as Pax, Jacob, Michael, and Rob talk about the Spielberg-produced '80s favorite (and self-admittedly non-canonical), Young Sherlock Holmes. 

Michael, Pax, and Rob talk about lots of stuff including Silver Age Wonder Girl, Man-Wolf, Hell House by Richard Matheson, three Shirley Jackson novels, podcast apps, and Predator: Badlands.

To celebrate the 400th episode of After Lunch (give or take), Michael welcomes back the original Nerd Lunch crew - CT, Jeeg, and Pax - to wrap up some unfinished business from the Nerd Lunch days. In June 2019, Jeeg led the gang, including Michael in the Fourth Chair, in an Overs/Unders exercise to predict what might happen in the proposed Gambit movie starring Channing Tatum. Of course, we never got that movie. Or... we didn't until Deadpool & Wolverine came out last year. It's finally time to tally up the scores and see who is the Best Channing Tatum Gambit Movie Predictor of All Time. And stay tuned to the end for a rerun of the original episode in which we made our predictions.

Michael, Rob, and Pax continue their occasional look at pulp and superhero serials with The Adventures of Smilin' Jack. It's one of Michael's favorites, but will Rob and Pax feel the same way? Starring Tom Brown, Keye Luke, and Rose Hobart.

Michael and Rob are joined by Ben Graham and new guest Nick Casbarro to talk about Nick's novel, Vitalerium: Descent into the Void, and then to determine the greatest spaceship of all time. And of course we determine that the only way we know how: by listing 16 of our favorites, putting them into tournament brackets, and voting on them until only one remains.