Simon Says Stop for Brisket

What starts as an attempt to get The Spleen to guest-host the show quickly spirals into several aborted arcs including a Haley Stevens cold open that Spencer admits he didn’t “sign off on,” and a genuine existential crisis about whether he can still do the voice.  From there it’s a stream-of-consciousness road trip through Spencer’s temporary life in Austin, Texas, where he’s teaching kids D&D as some kind of storytelling exercise and discovering that managing a classroom of gremlins who want to throw their own party members at dragons is, shockingly, difficult. We get the full breakdown of both sessions, including cursed eggs, a sheep who’s secretly a dragon prince, kids getting arrested in-game, the works. Plus some real talk about the mental load of accidentally becoming a substitute teacher with zero training. Also on the docket: a deep dive into a hairstyle inspired by a stranger at the Dallas airport, a brutal Airbnb bed that may be committing crimes against his neck and shoulders, a surprisingly emotional poetry slam detour, long distance texting with his ex who’s living her best life in Japan, and a genuinely unhinged rant about local LA politics, Karen Bass, and Haley Stevens’ last-minute endorsement flip that he’s still trying to parse days before the election. It’s part political meltdown, part travel diary, part beauty tutorial, and part Bucky’s beaver nugget advertisement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spencer Crittenden grabs the wheel and drives us through a stream-of-consciousness episode. After a chaotic cold open featuring an ever-expanding roster of B-team co-hosts, including Biddy Blaze, Dr. Mindflare, and a thoroughly unauthorized Dr. Zoidberg, Spencer accuses his absent business-camp-attending podcast partner of being a backstabbing two-faced bastard before diving headfirst into the real content: a scathing, deeply personal Yelp review of the worst Airbnb in Austin, Texas. We're talking polyester sheets, mystery makeup stains, a rusty bent bed frame, zero fire extinguishers, and gym equipment that's basically a workplace safety violation waiting to happen. From there this episode becomes a genuine Texas travelogue of vibes, weight-gain spirals, and aggressive highway driving commentary, all narrated live from behind the wheel. Spencer dishes on the surprisingly elaborate Dungeons & Dragons campaign he's building for a class full of kids, complete with hermit crab pirates, lava-drinking dragons, cursed eggs, and a Miracle River. Then pivoting hard into grief over the sudden death of Erik Bauza, LA politics drama around the Karen Bass vs. Nithya Raman mayoral race, a drive-by take on the H3 Podcast scandal, and an absolutely baffling real-life encounter with a cowboy demanding Japanese employees at a chicken wing restaurant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spencer goes rogue in Austin, Texas, flying solo this week while Kevin's still off at "business camp", with Wi-Fi, a printer, and an inflatable secretary... we don't ask questions. What starts as a disclaimer about movie spoilers quickly spirals into a full-blown rant from the road, as Spencer narrates his rental car adventures through Texas' baffling highway system, unlevel parking lots, and traffic signals that apparently operate on their own sense of time. Then we get an extended, surprisingly thoughtful breakdown of the new Street Fighter movie (fight choreography complaints included), a passionate defense of the much-discussed, much-debated film "Digger", as a meditation on art and historical discourse rather than pure doom-and-gloom nihilism, and a deep dive into the Elizabeth Holmes documentary "You Can See Everything", from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, complete with true-crime-style theorizing about manipulation, narcissism, and who's really in control. Plus: gas station chicken sandwich reviews, a eulogy for some cheese grits that may or may not have been a casserole, and a brief cameo from "The Spleen." Everything you'd expect from a solo episode recorded from the driver's seat of a Texas rental car.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the show, guest Jabloobie (animator, co-founder of Plasma Spin Studios, and creator of Squeep Toons) stops by to explain his new indie animated series Pasta Fazul, a show about an entire city of supervillains with zero heroes in sight. Along the way we cover the sacred art of pasta fazul, the correct way to drizzle Mountain Dew into any recipe, Knott's Scary Farm merch quality discourse, and the ongoing public safety debate around a certain roller coaster that may or may not be murdering people. We also get a rare, exclusive preview of Frank and Lazo, the breakout background characters turned beloved corporate-clone-debt-slave action duo.Then it's a detour into 9/11 core memories, flash animation nostalgia, Newgrounds lore, couch-surfing through the DMV music scene, and a very contained discussion about a divisive new movie that we are absolutely not trying to spoil for anyone. Plus listener mail about first impressions, eldritch middle-management, and whether Spencer's "say nothing the first time, charm everyone the second time" strategy is a genius social hack or a cry for help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Technical difficulties, mystical Bigfoot radio hosts, and childhood abandonment issues walk into a podcast... Spencer Crittenden flies solo, fighting with a possessed webcam before spiraling into an honestly kind of unhinged seven-minute rant about magic, narrative theory, chaos magic, Alan Moore, and why wizards and conspiracy theorists might secretly be doing the same job. From there we go full therapy-session-meets-improv-show, unpacking parental baggage, motivation issues, and why creative work maybe shouldn't come from a trauma response. We also pitch our greatest show that never got made: Secret Bigfoot, the saga of a Joe Rogan-esque talk radio cryptid who doesn't know what he is, can't get a mortgage, and accidentally stumbles into right-wing media hell. It's Berserk meets Coast to Coast AM meets your uncle's Facebook feed, and no, it never got picked up. Also featured: an extremely serious taste test of chicken and waffle Oreos, a passion-fruit Snickers from Brazil, deep thoughts on Oreo flavor fatigue, and a sincere, surprisingly touching monologue about parasocial relationships, internet community, and why making a podcast while depressed is harder than it looks. Equal parts unboxing video, group therapy, and public access TV fever dream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spencer goes on a series of car rides trying to populate the episode with content, while another looks down on the experience from a bird's eye view. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spencer Crittenden holds down the fort with special guest Ryan, and somehow the show still spirals into full Kevin-and-the-Spleen chaos anyway. We cover surveillance doorbell cameras as accidental government confessionals, why the new Wolverine game might be a cautionary tale about third-person action game fatigue, and whether Zelda's weirdly "toyetic" new art style is genius or just uncanny valley Playmobil. Naturally this leads into a deep dive on AI doomerism, tech-bro cult logic, crypto flashbacks, and the eternal question of whether ChatGPT can survive our extinction with a healthy mindset. Also, a real-time Zoom Pro upsell that briefly derails the entire episode, an ill-fated attempt to workshop a topical joke live on air, a Mitch McConnell conspiracy theory that gets us cease-and-desisted by imaginary lawyers, and a heartfelt tribute to Brad Pitt's drinking-again press tour. We also pitch a full Hollywood reboot starring disgraced international stunt performers instead of celebrities, and preview a listener-requested trip into Serial Experiments Lain and Evangelion territory for a future episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on That Happens, Spencer sits down with Steph and Brad from SteelCityMTG to talk about basically everything except the thing we're supposed to be talking about, and then also the thing we're supposed to be talking about. We cover the important stuff first: Game Boy hoarding, cloning Pokémon in Crystal like absolute criminals, and the golden age of buying cheat codes from magazines because the internet wasn't invented yet. Then we get into how Steph and Brad met in college, bonded over a truly cutthroat Yu-Gi-Oh vs. Magic debate, and somehow turned "playing cardboard games in the basement" into a whole streaming operation without losing their minds or their life savings (mostly). We talk shop about running a Magic: The Gathering content channel that's actually built for two people instead of chasing the algorithm, the delicate art of getting bulk commons out of your house before they achieve sentience, and why the internet's ongoing beef with blue mana is just a skill issue wearing a costume. Also featured: birria bombs, aggressively burnt apple fritters, sea lion propaganda on TikTok, nostalgic decks from the "$5 build-a-deck" era, and a heartfelt plea for Wizards of the Coast to make full-size sets again instead of whatever we've been getting lately. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin's out this week, which means Spencer is left completely alone with a car, a phone camera, and 39 miles of gas to somehow make a podcast happen. What follows is an existential spiraling about needing other people to function, a full eulogy for Dolly Parton reimagined as a vampire-hunting vampire from a 2000s anime nobody fully remembers, several attempts at "free associating" like a TikTok improv guy that spin wildly out of control, and a confession about relapsing on weed and inventing a cannabis breakfast cereal. Eventually Editor Spencer cuts in to save us all, reading listener emails about Mountain Dew TikTok guys, why Madame Web should be defended passionately, the ongoing Dan Harmon relationship check-in, an AI-and-coding existential crisis that gets a surprisingly thoughtful non-answer, and a crocheted minion-flower-pot sighting from an anime convention. It's a solo, stream-of-consciousness, driving-around episode that somehow still finds time for a giant 256-episode bracket tournament pitch, a Trinity Blood lore dump, and a promise that Kevin will return to restore order. A solid hour of anime deep cuts, AI anxiety, minions, vampires, and podcasts that fall apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We hit a real milestone this week and decided the only appropriate way to celebrate was with the triumphant return of the Dour Hour, a healthy dose of existential dread, and a time-travel plot so convoluted it makes the MCU look coherent. A mysterious, dying visitor claiming to be "us, but from the future" shows up begging for help preventing a mysterious anomaly from destroying the podcast (and possibly the universe), and against our better judgment, we go along with it. What follows is a multiverse-of-madness style show where we bounce between branching timelines, run into past versions of ourselves who definitely do not remember any of this happening, and try to figure out if the real threat is a cursed shirt, a hot sauce marketing meeting, an AI-generated void slowly eating a bedroom, or just the concept of getting canceled. Naturally, the only way out involves some extremely questionable cybersecurity practices, and the return of a gun that shoots people through the internet. Along the way we revisit some all-time deep cuts, including several increasingly unstable Spencer-from-the-future variants, appearances from Ariel Day, and the eternal question of why Spencer only owns one shirt. Is it a clip show? A time travel story? A cry for help? Yes. Join us for 250 episodes of this nonsense as we attempt, and mostly fail, to save the timeline, the podcast, and whatever's left of our dignity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices