I’m surprised I didn’t see anyone recommend The Adventure Zone, especially the first season. One of the best actual play podcasts out there, especially the first two seasons.

I’ll recommend some hidden gems that need more love:

• Mabel: A woman works as a live in nurse for an elderly woman, and the show is voicemails she’s leaving to her ward’s estranged daughter. It’s poetic and beautiful, and then strange events start occurring.

• Dark Ages: a fantasy workplace comedy where an unpopular museum gets a new exhibit, the crown of the Dark Lord, who terrorized the country hundreds of years ago… Who just recently was resurrected and wants it back. Probably the best produced shows I’ve listened to with a great intro song.

• The Cryptonaturalist: a very normal nature show that is normal about normal nature. Also has poetry! Actually feel good podcast.

• Wolf 359: science crew is in a remote space station, and picks up a radio signal out of nowhere. Starts off funny, then gets wild.

• Brimstone Valley Mall: three demons disguised as humans, working at a mall in the 90s.

• Cult Or Just Weird: in depth dives into things which could be a cult or are just weird.

• Wooden Overcoats: British comedy podcast about a funeral home in a small village suddenly having to deal with competition

• Everything Is Alive: interviews with inanimate objects

• Uncanny County: Welcome to Nightvale meets Twilight Zone but it’s also funny

Also there’s podcast versions of books written on the Internet, which I’ll plug here!

• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky: What if Harry was not an idiot and knew what science was and was actually supported at home? Fixes a lot of dumb plot holes from the original series and frankly, is better. Also explores rationalist thinking!

• Worm by Wildbow: This is literally my favorite book and will make you never see the superhero genera the same again. Superpowers can happen to anyone seemingly at random. A young woman gets the power to control insects and wants to be a hero, but after meeting some villains the line between hero and villain blurs. There’s a chapter that’s one short sentence long and I’ve had conversations over an hour long about what it meant.

-Twig by Wildbow: A world where mad, Frankensteinian science took off instead of the regular kind. Follows a child experiment and his fellow childhood experiment friends on adventures for the definitely evil empire!

Pact by, you guessed it, Wildbow: Guy who just pulled himself out of homelessness who hates his crazy manipulative family gets the inheritance from his grandmother, which he didn’t want. Turns out that also involves also inheriting the karma from his family, who were practicing the most hated form of magic possible, diabalism. So now the whole magical community is actively trying to kill him as he’s scrambling to survive

Also if you like audio books, check stuff out from your library, too. It helps them out and helps them get funding when people do stuff like that.

I listen to many, but here’s my favorites:

• Chilluminati: Takes a comedy focused look at supernatural, paranormal, and just weird topics. After a few episodes, the hosts really build excellent rapport. When it is at its best, it reminds me of some weird AM radio program you’d catch while night driving across the country.
• The Beef and Dairy Network: The leading podcast about beef animals and dairy herds. Start at episode 1.
• The Climate Denier’s Playbook: “Rollie Williams (Climate Town) and Nicole Conlan (The Daily Show) are two comedians with Master’s Degrees in Climate Science & Policy and Urban Planning. But don’t get too excited, because they’re here to examine the pervasive myths and misinformation campaigns that are making it obnoxiously difficult to address the looming climate crisis you’ve probably heard about.”

Dungeons and Daddies is one I’ve been working through recently, its a DND actual play, has some talented people, they had an episode with another podcast hey riddle riddle, not gotten to them yet but they seemed good too.

I loved Stephen Fry’s Deadly Sins and Leap Years

The only podcaster I listen to is John Goblikon. And whatever podcaster he is interviewing. And whatever podcaster has him as a guest the next week.

Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-97sBw85g

I use podcasts to escape so I more lean towards comedy podcasts. My top is

Regulation Podcast (PREVIOUSLY F**kFace)

• 4 guys and Andrew (who didn’t know what the shift key did) shooting the shit, coming up with zany and dumb ideas and having way too much burger confidence

My Brother My Brother and Me

• 3 brothers doing different bits, talking about fast food news, making jokes about pop culture and bad movies

Clutch my Pearls

• 3 girls started their own smut podcast where one of them who only reads true crime is introduced into the very very weird world of smut novels. With very funny readings from the books

We’re Here to Help

• A comedy advice podcast with Jake Johnson from New Girl where they get questions like “my kids got a trampoline and my neighbor likes to walk around naked outside” and “my coworker likes to take their socks off at work” and “I brought muffins every week to work since I started and now they call me the muffin man and excpect muffin deliveries”. Quite fun.

Then more seriously

Swindled

• The stories of how the great (and often mainstream) scam artists get found out and topple from power

Nerdland Podcast

• (In Dutch) a podcast about new developments in science and technology. Sadly very often about AI or Musk now but they try to keep that to a minimum.

QAA is best podcast of the times

My time has come! I have a podcast for everything. What do you like?

I subscribe to over 250 podcasts. -_- I don’t listen to all of them every day, and many aren’t in production anymore.

I love to listen and learn.

Unexplainable - Explainers on scientific mysteries, each episode is less than 30 minutes

What Went Wrong - Behind the scenes movie podcast. It’s a miracle any movie gets made.

Song Exploder - Musicians take apart their songs, layer by layer and talk about how it was made

Hysteria - Politics and News focusing on how the issues affect women

Levar Burton Reads - Levar Burton reads short stories. Not in production anymore, but there are almost 200 episodes worth of stories to hear

Hello From the Magic Tavern - A guy falls to another dimension but still gets WiFi so he started a podcast interviewing fantasy characters in that universe

Welcome to Night Vale - A fictional story told through a bi-monthly community updates radio broadcast. All conspiracies in Night Vale are real.

Hacked - Stories about hacking and internet crime.

Ologies - Science show about ‘-ologies’ careers

I enjoy the following rotation:

EconTalk - Interviews about all kinds of stuff with a classical liberal econ professor.

The Greatest Generation & Greatest Trek: Star Trek reviews with dick jokes and production notes

Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson

Love Worth Finding: sermons from Baptist minister Adrian Rogers

Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life: Presbyterian sermons

History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps: Peter Adamson goes over All. The. Philosophy. Ever. See the sister cast for non-Western philosophical schools.

In no particular order, I listen to all of them regularly:

• Omnibus - general obscure history hosted by indie rocker John Roderick and Jeopardy’s golden boy Ken Jennings

• The Dollop - (mostly) American history with a leftist bent. One comedian reads a story the other hasn’t heard before.

• Not Another D&D Podcast - apologies for the first episode, but great world- and character-building. Really shows how great cooperative storytelling can be

• Last Podcast on the Left - comedy/horror. Conspiracies, cults, UFOs, and other weird shit. Their historical deep dives are awesome.

I listen to these regularly, but there’s a limited series podcast I like to recommend called S-Town. It’s excellent, especially if you’re from the southern US or grew up in a rural area. If you aren’t from the south or a rural area, it’ll probably be an extra-wild ride!

The Constant by Mark Chrisler. It covers examples of all the different way people have been wrong throughout history like thinking birds flew to the moon for winter or how homeopathy started. I always find it super interesting and pretty funny too.

It’s the only podcast I subscription to on patron.

I see a bunch of other Cool Zone Media shows, but not Molly Conger’s Weird Little Guys.

Her calm cadence and thorough exploration of specific American wingnuts is fun. And as far as I’ve seen, most of the stories end with the guy dead or in prison, so happy endings.

Lions Led By Donkeys! Weird and usually stupid military history, featuring everything from Roman warfare up to Vietnam.

I’ll also toss in Well There’s Your Problem. It’s an engineering disasters podcast. With slides (if you’re watching on YouTube).

Behind the Basards, History of Rome and Revolutions by Mike Duncan, Hardcore History.

• Behind the Bastards
• The Dollop
• Live Like The World is Dying
• Some More News
• It Could Happen Here
• Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff
• Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness
• The Film Reroll
• How Did This Get Made?
• Twenty Thousand Hertz
• The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

These are some of my favorites, I’m sure I’m missing some though.