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Guillotine in the Mists Edition May 23, 2018

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Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss the royal wedding with Simon Doonan, the death of author Tom Wolfe with Laura Miller, and the way TV shows survive cancelation by examining Brooklyn Nine Nine.

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Culture Gabfest Presents: Upon Further Review May 22, 2018

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Julia Turner is here to present the new podcast from The Gist's Mike Pesca, about the great "what-ifs" in sports. "What If I Hadn’t Written That Fan Letter to Dan Majerle in April 1993?", Jesse Eisenberg asks, revisiting a painful chapter of his youth when his beloved Phoenix Suns lost to the Chicago Bulls in the final seconds of Game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals. Wracked by guilt at the possibility that his fan letter to the Suns’ Dan Majerle proved a fatal distraction, he imagines an alternate reality where he never put pen to paper. NBA legends Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan also make an appearance. Then there's a bonus conversation between Mike and Jesse.

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Spoiler Specials: Deadpool 2 May 18, 2018

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Forrest Wickman, Marissa Martinelli and Sam Adams spoil Deadpool 2.

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Smoke-N-Chill Novelties Edition May 16, 2018

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Dana Stevens, Sam Adams discuss the new film The Rider with Inkoo Kang, Childish Gambino's song and video for This Is America with Aisha Harria, and Jia Tolentino's New Yorker piece "The Promise of Vaping and the Rise of Juul" with Lena Wilson.

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[Laugh Track] Edition May 09, 2018

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Stephen Metcalf, Julia Turner, and Dana Stevens, discuss the new film Tully with Slate's Willa Paskin, who sticks around to talk about her new podcast Decoder Ring and the history of the laugh track, and finally: are you a brand? Should you be one?

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Culture Gabfest Presents Decoder Ring: The Laff Box May 04, 2018

Show notes

Julia Turner is here to introduce you to the new show from Slate's TV Critic Willa Paskin. Decoder Ring: the show about cracking cultural mysteries. Subscribe here to get episodes as soon as they're ready.

Every episode we’ll take on a cultural object, idea, or habit and speak with experts, historians and obsessives to try to figure out where it comes from, what it means and why it matters. Why do we get so invested in fictional romances? What does it mean to wear a baseball hat backwards? Why do we clap? What do people think about all day? Decoder Ring explores questions and topics you didn't know you were curious about.

In our first episode, we ask: What happened to the laugh track? For nearly five decades, it was ubiquitous, but beginning in the early 2000s, it fell out of sitcom fashion. What happened? How did we get from Beverly Hillbillies to 30 Rock? We meet the man who created the laugh track, which originated as a homemade piece of technology, and trace that technology’s fall and the rise of a more modern idea about humor. With the help of historians, laugh track obsessives, the showrunners of One Day at a Time and the director of Sports Night, we wonder if the laugh track was about something bigger than laughter.

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The Monkfish Was Fine Edition May 02, 2018

Show notes

Julia Turner, Dana Stevens, and Stephen Metcalf discuss the Netflix documentary series Wild, Wild, Country, the flap over the White House Correspondents Dinner, and nooks and crannies of Youtube subculture with Slate's Justin Peters.

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Hit Parade: The You Give Rock a Bad Name Edition Apr 27, 2018

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Bon Jovi are many things: platinum-selling, chart-topping and now, Hall of Fame–inducted. That angers music critics, who have been slagging off this band of hard-rock prom kings since the 1980s. Among the haters is Hit Parade host Chris Molanphy, who has loathed Bon Jovi since high school. But even he can’t deny it: Bon Jovi are hugely influential. In the wake of their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Chris puts aside his animus to explain how the biggest band in hair metal have remained strangely relevant—thanks to their deathless hits, their album sales and, more recently, their influence on a certain hair-metal-loving Swedish pop producer.

Email: hitparade@slate.com

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Spoiler Specials: Avengers: Infinity War Apr 27, 2018

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Dana Stevens, Jonathan Fischer, and Forrest Wickman spoil Avengers: Infinity War.

Production by Daniel Schroeder

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It's Hammer Time Edition Apr 25, 2018

Show notes

Stephen Metcalf, Julia Turner, and Dana Stevens discuss the new BBC America series Killing Eve, the film from Lynne Ramsay, You Were Never Really Here, and ask themselves: "should we delete Facebook?"

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