Michael Swaim
Michael Swaim is a writer, actor, editor, rapper, producer, director, stand-up and sketch comedian, quesadilla eater, enthusiastic if unfocused lovemaker, and Content Manager of Cracked.com, because the higher you ascend up the corporate ladder, the vaguer-sounding your job title becomes. He hopes to one day claw his way to the vaunted position of Executive Person. Michael will be survived by his loving wife and 2.4 children, and his Tennessee bloodhound, Flip.
Guest Appearances
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
John Hughes month continues on Cracked Movie Club! There’s no better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than by watching John Hughes’ 1987 film Planes, Train and Automobiles, his first adult-centered feature after a string of teen angst hits. Although not a big hit when…
ListenWhich City is the Number 1 Movie Setting of All-Time?
New York. Paris. Tokyo. Miami. Even if you've never been to these cities (and sometimes, even if you have) the visions that come rushing to your mind at the mere mention of their names are images from movies. Woody Allen and Diane…
Listen15 Real Science Stories That Would Make Great Sci-Fi Movies
If you're a movie fan in 2017, you're hard pressed to find many original sci-fi films. There are a lot more Alien: Covenants and Blade Runner: 2 0 49s than Ex Machinas. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just sometimes sci-fi fans…
Listen11 Under-the-Radar Comics That Ought To Be Amazing Movies
Another summer in the books, another summer of somewhat pleasing comic book movies. Wonder Woman was good! So was Spiderman! Guardians of the Galaxy was...a movie! What's next? Oh no. Don't say it. Justice League. [cue the sound of failure from The…
Listen20 Unheralded Geniuses Who Basically Invented Modern Movies
For many people, filmmaking begins and ends with the director. We call it a director's medium. It's their vision that guides the entire production and it's their name that gets the praise when a movie is good, and gets dragged through the…
ListenA Farewell To Cracked Editor-in-Chief Jack O'Brien
Serious Talk. It's Jack's last episode. After 11 years at Cracked, our intrepid editor-in-chief and podcast host extraordinaire Jack O'Brien is hanging up the cleats to tackle new projects, end world hunger and find the Zodiac killer. But that doesn't mean this…
ListenHumanity's Greatest Moments Brought to You By Drugs & Booze
Even though drugs and alcohol have been a social lubricant since before we could write anything down, we like to think of history as this boring, stuffy museum exhibit where kings and queens drank iced tea, ate flavorless biscuits and had sex…
Listen23 Convoluted Movie Schemes That Need A Second Look
The term 'movie magic' typically refers to the technical brilliance of bringing dinosaurs to life onscreen or how Denzel Washington can make an entire theatre of men and women pregnant with a single knowing glance. But there's a second type of movie…
ListenCommonplace Ideas Invented More Recently Than You Think
Nowadays, there's a huge emphasis on eating natural foods. Staying away from GMOs, pesticides, and processed sugars is generally thought of as a good thing. Some call it the paleo diet and it's a way to harken back to a simpler time,…
ListenWhy Modern People Might Have The Worst Sex Lives Ever
When you think about ancient human history, you probably think about sex, right? Who doesn't? And when you do, you probably imagine in your head (because you love envisioning your eldest relatives gettin' down) a very bland, puritanical form of sex where…
ListenJafar Is Disney Moses: Secretly Heroic Villains
Did you ever notice how every movie villain is just really ugly beyond belief? Emperor Palpatine? WRINKLED UP UGGO. Jafar? POINTY FACE. Scar? LITERALLY NAMED AFTER HIS FACIAL DEFORMITY. It's fucking dark when you think about how many movies this applies to;…
ListenCracked Book Club: Kurt Vonnegut's Little-Known First Novel
You're probably familiar with Kurt Vonnegut's required reading, or rather the Kurt Vonnegut books your high school English teacher required you to read. 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' 'Cat's Cradle,' and maybe 'Breakfast of Champions' were rays of satirical sunlight in your curriculum between long stretches…
ListenThe Best Fictional Universe To Be a Corpse
Congratulations! You've died in a fictional universe where the afterlife exists! How cool is that? Aren't you happy you're not in the Tarantino-verse? Instead of your soul escaping to the great unknown, you get to hang out and make pottery with Whoopi Goldberg,…
ListenFamous Sayings You Should Stop Listening To
If you know that the early bird gets the worm, I'm sure you also know to stop and smell the roses, that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, and variety is the spice of life. Or maybe not, because those…
ListenMovies That'd Be Better From a Different POV
Most disaster movies make cannon fodder out of almost every single living person on the planet who isn't a president, a fighter pilot, or the one scientist who has the key to solving the alien/meteor/whatever problem. What about the rest of us?…
ListenBONUS! Why All Your Favorite Movies Are About The Apocalypse
From 'Mad Max' to 'San Andreas' to 'The Avengers,' the most popular movies of our times are about how we fear our world will end. We're obsessed with stories of drought, natural disaster, nuclear war, zombies, aliens and robots. We fear the…
ListenA Genealogy of Modern Fear
If you turn on the TV or scroll through Facebook for any short period of time, it seems like we're consumed with fear. There's always a new airborne virus or a new piece of legislature destined to sink the country into Purge-like…
ListenTiny Cause, Huge Effect
We've all heard about the butterfly effect: a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, and weeks later that results in a hurricane somewhere else. But that doesn't actually happen, right? We can't prove that a butterfly can affect…
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