Just like with the website exemplars, I was scrambling to find something to talk about for this post because, honestly, I don’t ever listen to podcasts — mostly because I feel like have too short of an attention span to consume lengthy media that’s just sound and nothing else. Still, in the back of my mind, I remembered that Josh Peck — one of my favorite TV actors from my childhood — mentioned in one of his personal YouTube videos that he has a podcast called “Curious” that he recently started hosting, and so I went to check it out and see what it involved.
In essence, “Curious” is centered around exactly what it sounds like it would be, which is interviewing all kinds of different, fascinating people (celebrities and unknowns alike) whose life stories and insights Josh Peck is simply “curious” to learn more about. Scrolling through the list of recorded episodes to find one to watch, I noticed that Episode 23 (recorded in October 2018) featured actor Josh Gad, and I immediately zeroed in on that one. After all, since I’m big fans of both Joshes separately — Josh Peck from the early-2000’s sitcom Drake & Josh, and Josh Gad as the voice of Olaf in Frozen and as LeFou in the live-action Beauty and the Beast remake — and since they both tend to be such jovial, funny people, I was really interested to see how their similar personalities would interact together. Happily, the podcast didn’t disappoint.
Only a few minutes into the actual interview (which starts around 15 minutes into the recording), Josh Peck (the host) jumps in to say, “I don’t know what the theme of this podcast is, but this feels great.” Indeed, I think that one of the best things about this podcast is how comfortable the host and the guest sound talking to each other. Of course, this could be because they’re not complete strangers — they mention that they’ve been co-stars once before — but regardless, their total relaxation and jokiness throughout the whole conversation makes the podcast a lot more enjoyable to listen to. Matter of fact, as far as I could tell, there were hardly any “ummm’s” or awkward pauses from either Joshes throughout more than an hour and a half of recording, which speaks to how good they both are at smartly articulating themselves.
Another thing I was impressed by was the sophistication of the topics. After all, in most of the televised interviews with Josh Gad that I’ve watched (and I’ve admittedly watched my fair share of them), the main subject inevitably always goes back to Frozen — particularly, the fact that Josh Gad’s “real-life” voice is so similar to the one he uses for Olaf the snowman that he can never escape the association. Here, though, Josh Gad’s role as Olaf only gets brought up in this podcast once toward the end — and that was just to briefly explain his external acting process of assuming the voice of such a “wide-eyed” and “childlike” character. Aside from that, the majority of the podcast is focused on much deeper, more compelling things — things that I never would’ve thought to ask or expected to learn. Just to name a few standouts: Josh Gad’s father being a Jewish man from Afghanistan; how close Josh Gad is with his mom; the unpredictability of how good a movie will actually turn out to be no matter the crew’s effort (or lack thereof); Josh Gad’s early-career struggles and roles on Broadway (particularly The Book of Mormon); and Josh Gad’s willingness to participate in political activism despite the inevitable pushback that comes with it. (On that last note, I have to say that I was really impressed by how open both Joshes were about their own political views, seeing as that’s something of a taboo topic in these very volatile political times.)
As for Josh Peck’s role as a host, I think he does a great job overall. As I’ve already mentioned, I appreciate that the topics he brought up were so much more compelling and unconventional than the typically rehashed, role-centric questions that usually get lobbed at actors like Josh Gad who are mostly known for portraying one iconic character. Additionally, when the podcast has to take ad breaks — the first around the 39-minute mark, and the second around the 1-hour, 7-minute mark — Josh Peck tries to make them at least painless by infusing an energetic, conversational tone into his voiceovers for them. Similarly, I noticed that the write-up descriptions for the podcast also have that same fun, light-hearted tone to them, as in this example: “[Josh Gad] is the kind of guy you lead with when trying to get other guests. … Boom! Obama says yes from the mere mention of his name.” Best of all, though, right before the podcast ends, he asks Josh Gad to list four or five “commandments” that he’d like to impart to listeners, mentioning that this is something he regularly asks of all of his podcast guests. Indeed, I think that it’s a really cool idea to incorporate some kind of repeatable “feature” like this into every podcast episode, one that all guests, regardless of their different backgrounds and expertise, can participate in.
Really, the only gripe I have with this podcast is that it takes more than 13 minutes of random, preambled reflection from Josh Peck before the topic pivots to the guest, and then another minute or so of necessary but still info-dumpy introduction before the actual interview starts around the 14-minute, 30-second mark. Other than that, though, I thought this was a really good episode to serve as my first foray into the world of podcasts. Also, although I might not feel compelled to sit through the entirety of more hour-plus-long podcasts, I’ll definitely tune in to at least snippets of more “Curious” episodes in the future.
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