Chase Mitchell

Writing is magic. It is a beautiful, impressive, artsy-fartsy pursuit…AND a way screenwriters and novelists take weird shots at their enemies. On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers Ben Joseph and Chase Mitchell for a look at world-famous villains and monsters created to insult real people. From Godzilla to Goldfinger to the funniest galactic adventure ever written, get ready to learn how Pent-Up Writer Anger generated some of the all-time best evil characters.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/14-villains-monsters-created-to-insult-real-people/

You can have too much money. (Not YOU specifically — you are a valued listener and deserve Scrooge McDuckian riches.) The world’s movie studios, TV networks, and other visual-fun production companies think they need an infinite budget to make the next ‘Star Wars’-type cultural phenomenon. But what if we told them the history of film & TV is packed with enormous successes that sprang from running out of money? And what if one of the prime examples of that is ‘Star Wars’ itself?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by working writers Hallie Cantor, Ben Joseph, and Chase Mitchell to see how the biggest movies and TV shows stumbled into great ideas by not being able to pay for their first idea. Discover which region-defining TV show was supposed to be set in the wrong city & state, which British national epic almost had zero style, which defining film of the 1980s achieved greatness by lying to the cops, and so much more.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/15-great-movie-tv-moments-caused-by-budget-problems/

Novelists are a little bit invincible. Oh sure, it’s hard to write a book, and you are required to stop writing your book if you die. But barring that untimely demise, you can to see your novel through to the bitter end as long as you have enough grit to get there. What if a writer didn’t get to do that? What if you built out a narrative for tens of millions of fans, only to have a couple of executives tell you it’s over before anything resolved? And what if that “what if” describes the actual experience of making many TV shows?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by working TV writers Ben Joseph and Chase Mitchell for tales of TV cancellations that turned stories into madness. They’ll dig into TV’s distant past and recent hits for narratives that became baffling cliffs audiences fell off of, all because the network felt the show wasn’t selling enough soap.

Footnotes: http://www.cracked.com/podcast/12-tv-cancellations-that-caused-horrifying-cliffhangers/

We live in exciting times, other than all the reasons we don’t. Why’s that? We live when TV shows got good. Over the last 15-20 years, high quality television became a normal thing there’s almost too much of, instead of a rare jewel hiding in a sea of cranked-out, time-constrained filler. But how did we reach this pinnacle? What failed experiments laid the groundwork for our present nirvana? And did Kanye West really get to create and film TWO entire TV show ideas in 2007?

On this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by Dan Hopper (Cracked) and Chase Mitchell (The Tonight Show) for a look back on the most bizarre decisions in TV history. They’ll uncover pilot episodes that boggle the mind, baffling ideas that ran for multiple episodes, and entire plotlines on massive hit TV shows that happened for idiotic reasons. They’ll also break down the process that turns one idea into 24 episodes. And if you’re patient, they’ll share with you the wonder that is BAYWATCH NIGHTS.

Footnotes: https://goo.gl/Uw6viH