July 28, 2019

EP. 302 — 12 Bizarre Mike Pence Stories Nobody Ever Brings Up

Forty-eight people (and counting!) have been Vice President of the United States…and if you can name more than a few of them, you might love history as much as Alex Schmidt does. After all, VPs do a little-respected job that’s “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” And that’s not us saying that. That’s Vice President John Nance Garner (Veep #32) self-roasting with that. Still, look closer at that history, and you’ll find nine out of forty-eight VPs became the P. Nine out of forty-eight! 18.75%! Doesn’t that make every Vice President worth examination? Shouldn’t we pay them as much attention as their boss gets? Especially when the current Vice President is a secret maniac, with a shady past, and a little too much Garfield enthusiasm?

On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers Broti Gupta (Speechless, The New Yorker) and Andrew Ti (Yo Is This Racist) for a look at baffling true tales of VPOTUS Mike Pence. Discover all the weird strange goofy things sprinkled throughout his past as a hot-take blogger, tobacco truther, campaign fund misuser, football game gaslighter, and other lousy things nobody has the mental bandwith to call him out on. Also stick around for the Dollar Store Machiavelli crap Mike Pence almost pulled to make himself your Commander in Chief at the last minute.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/12-bizarre-mike-pence-stories-nobody-ever-brings-up/

Recent Episodes

January 26, 2020

Freedom sucks…and that is why we have to defend it. Because our democracy involves doing a lot of stuff that takes energy, takes time, and lacks that Michael Bay Quality that only a surprise missile launch can provide. So on this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt and special guest Jason Pargin (who writes for Cracked as David Wong) are exploring the ways being afraid of everything (an easy action) can stop us from being free. Discover the decades-long tradition of some Americans wanting to give up everything in exchange for not needing to think, the centuries-long tradition of people inciting fake panics, and the reasonable ways you can help change things for the better.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/why-fear-based-democracies-arenE28099t-free-with-jason-pargin/

January 19, 2020

How’s your local shopping mall doing? Have you checked on it lately? Swing by sometime, because its department store might’ve turned into a call center or a hospital or a go-kart track. On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by the one and only Kai Ryssdal (Marketplace, Make Me Smart) for a look at surprising, strange, and shocking stories from all over the U.S. economy. Discover an international pig flu, a 26-word statement that built the modern Internet, and more amazing ways cash is ruling everything around you. By the way, if you’re an American listener, you spent the past few years funding an astonishingly huge bailout. Surprise! Listen for details!

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/5-parts-u.s.-economy-that-are-stranger-than-you-think

January 12, 2020

Movies, TV, gaming: three things that are theoretically a waste of time. Oh sure, they deliver value in the art sense, and comfort in the goofing-off sense. But what if they’re more valuable than that? What if consuming shows and playing video games (accidentally) turns people into real-life heroes? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/writers Caitlin Gill and Alex Watt for a look at the surprising number of times that exact thing happened. They’ll explore stories of regular people who saved a life thanks to skills gained randomly from cartoons, sitcoms, ‘World Of Warcraft’, and more silly entertainment.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/9-times-pop-culture-accidentally-taught-people-to-save-lives/