Totally Laime
I talked before about my continuing attempts to listen to more podcasts hosted by women, and the second one I jumped into is Totally Laime. Hosted by comedy writer Elizabeth Laime and her husband "Psychic" Andy Rosen, the chatty show has the stated mission of "asking the most important people the least important questions." It's recorded right out of their house in LA, and that homegrown quality is present throughout, the most obvious examples of which are the frequent interjections from their dog Ruby. The show started off slowly, but soon picked up steam once high-profile guests like Marc Maron and Patton Oswalt started making appearances. It really took off when the two were crowned the winners of the Earwolf Challenge, an elimination-style reality show podcast. The runner-up was the hilarious and acerbic Little Dum Dum Club, an Australian podcast with a theme of petty, loving insults among the hosts. While the Little Dum Dum Club was more often the funnier show, it's easy to see why Totally Laime won: it's so relentlessly positive that even if it's not often laugh-out-loud funny, it's far easier to listen to.
Elizabeth Laime makes for the perfect chat host, actively guiding the conversation when appropriate or just cutting in with jokes once things are already underway. Her easy-going nature instantly puts guests at ease, and she's legitimately interested in whatever topics they broach. Her genial nature as host means guests like Maron and Oswalt will often drop their usual cynical personas, while famously nice comics like Jessica St. Clair and Paul Scheer will revel in the show's warm atmosphere. Like Laime, Rosen works very well in his role of cohost/sidekick, giving the show more of a group-chat vibe than a straight interview. He rarely overtakes the conversation, even when he's the one telling a story, and his differing viewpoints (as a music producer rather than someone in the comedy world) make for more diverse conversation topics. Laime and Rosen have a mature, mutually respectful relationship, and that makes for a pretty interesting listening experience. There's a give-and-take between them that's actually quite compelling, and their expansive knowledge about each other can often lead to big laughs. Of course, the show is funniest when dealing with the frequent topics of romance and sex, but it also gets great mileage from talks about food, pop culture, and working in Hollywood. One drawback is that its conversational nature means listeners hear a lot of the same information over and over, with guests asking frequent questions about Laime and Rosen's careers and backstories. This is easily dismissed, however, as it gives everyone a strong base for further topics down the line. As far as podcasts go, Totally Laime isn't the most important; it's light as air, and doesn't find anything new to do with the format. But it's so addictive, so listenable, that it doesn't need to be revolutionary. The podcast medium is so direct that you tend to build a listening relationship with any podcast host, and Laime and Rosen have me more eager to listen to the next episode than most of my favourites.
Discussing fart jokes with Who Charted's Kulap Vilaysack