A podcast of fascinating facts! What do extraterrestrial radio signals and a mushroom from Texas have in common? What is a “number station“ and why is it so spine-tinglingly creepy? Join comedians Shane Rogers and Duncan MacEwan for an entertaining and hilarious deep-dive into obscure facts from science, history and pop culture.
Episodes
3 days ago
3 days ago
Warning: This one is brutal.
On this week’s karma-packed episode of MFFI, cringe along with Shane and Duncan as they delve into some of the most notorious animal attacks in history. From the killing of Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) by a startled stingray to the public tiger-mauling of Roy Horn (of Siegfried and Roy), explore instances of hubris and outright stupidity that resulted in shocking animal-on-human violence. This episode won’t help your insomnia, but it’s a wild ride…
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In this episode:
- Animal Attack Facts
- Danger Level: Cats vs. Dogs
- Danger Level: Humans vs. Snakes
- Unprovoked Ferrets
- Defense Strategies
- Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn
- Roy vs. Mantecore
- Timothy William Dexter aka Timothy Treadwell aka Grizzly Man
- The Death of Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard
- Werner Herzog and Jewel Palivak
- The Crocodile Hunter (Steve Irwin)
- Terri, Robert, and Bindi
- The Stingray
- Dingoes Got My Baby
- Alice (Lindy) Lynn Chaberlain-Creighton and Michael Chamberlain
- Azaria Chantel Loren Chamberlain
- Uluru
- Greg and Sally Lowe
- The Conviction
- The Pardon
- The Vindication
- Sandra Herold, Charla Nasha, and Travis the Chimp
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Thursday Jan 19, 2023
Thursday Jan 19, 2023
Duncan isn't a fan of the found-footage genre, which only made Shane more excited for this topic. What's in your top 5? Tell us in the Discord...
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Thursday Jan 12, 2023
Thursday Jan 12, 2023
Welcome to the "Social Media Schadenfreude" episode, in which Shane and Duncan delve into the misfortunes of the fortunate.
First up: MySpace, the has-been of the social networking world. Next: TikTok, the latest all-singing/all-dancing/all-spying flavor of the month. And last but not least, the endless stream of drama and chaos that is Twitter, from its beginnings as a 240-character bullhorn to its current incarnation as the pet project of a billionaire in freefall.
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In this episode:
- Primitive Social Media
- Samuel Finley Breese Morse
- Morse Code
- Telegraph Chat Culture
- The Rise of the Internet
- BBS
- CompuServe
- CB Simulator
- CBIG and the Rise of Online Dating
- America Online
- AOL's Disastrous Merger with Time Warner
- Classmates.com: The Proto Facebook
- Sixdegrees.com: The Proto MySpace
- Friendster: Proto MySpace #2
- MySpace: The First Juggernaut
- Tom Anderson, Everyone's Friend
- Lord Flathead
- The Top 8
- News Corp. Acquisition
- Specific Media and the Justin Timberlake era of MySpace
- The Ascendence of Zuckerberg
- Odeo Spawns TWTTR
- The Founders: Noah Glass, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, & Jack Dorsey
- Backstabbing and Drama at Early Twitter
- Twitter's Big Break: SXSW
- The Myth of Musk
- The Elon Era at Twitter
- Crashes and Burnings
- Trashfires Galore
- Is There a Rock Bottom?
- ByteDance Spawns Douyin
- Douyin Spawns International TikToks
- Trump v. TikTok
- Government v. TikTok
- TikTok is Shady AF
- The All-Powerful Algorithm
- "Toxic" Content
- The Current State of the Socials
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Thursday Dec 29, 2022
Thursday Dec 29, 2022
From Nixon's infamous Smoking Gun audiotape to the OJ Simpson "lost confession,” cases of missing and recovered media have commanded public attention and left a lasting impact on the cultural zeitgeist. In this week's muckraking episode of MFFI, Shane and Duncan unearth the most fascinating and bizarre cases of lost-and-found media in history.
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In this episode:
- Christine Chubbuck and the First On-Air Suicide
- Fritz Lang's Metropolis
- O.J. Simpson, The Lost Confession
- The Nixon White House Tapes
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Thursday Dec 22, 2022
Thursday Dec 22, 2022
Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays! As a special holiday bonus for all of you Insomniacs (regardless of whether you've been naughty or nice), enjoy this full-length After Midnight episode in which comedian and long-time friend of the show Cory "Showtime" Robinson joins the boys to debate the top 5 craziest, strangest, most viral moments of 2022.
What's in your top 5? Tell us in the Discord...
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Thursday Dec 15, 2022
Thursday Dec 15, 2022
How is Santa Claus connected to cannibalism? Which Christmastide holiday commemorates the slaughter of children? How should you decode the cryptic numerology message 20+C+M+B+22? And what's with all of those airborne reindeer? Welcome to Ghosts of Christmases Past, in which Shane and Duncan explore how tree-worship and animal sacrifice evolved into the bizarre, festive, highly commercialized holiday we know today. So whether you're feeling the Christmas spirit or just feeling jaded and grinchy, grab a cup of heavily-spiked eggnog, get cozy by the yule-log, and join the boys as they unpack the fascinating pagan history of Christmas.
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In this episode:
- Christmastide
- Christmas Eve
- The Feast of Saint Stephen, Protomartyr
- Childermas, The Feast of the Holy Innocents
- Herod the Great
- The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, Octave of the Nativity, Solemnity of Mary
- The Feast of the Holy Family
- 12th Night, Epiphany Eve
- Chalking the Door
- Saturnalia
- The Holiday of Yule
- Yule Boar, Yule Goat, Yule Log
- Anglican Revelers vs. Puritan Grinches
- The Story of the Nativity
- December 25th Becomes the Arbitrary DOB
- Christenmas, Christ Mass, and Xmas
- Christmas Trees
- Saint Nicholas of Myra, aka Saint Nick, aka Nicholas the Wonderworker
- Sinterklaas
- Christmases Around the World
- Reindeer
- Thomas Nast
- Haddon Sundblom and Coca-Cola
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Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Thursday Dec 01, 2022
Which countries have abolished the death penalty, and which countries execute the largest number of convicts? What are the most popular methods of dispensing capital punishment? Who was the last person executed publicly in Europe, and America? Has anyone survived a public execution? Find out the answers to all of these disturbing questions and more in this week's punitive, vengeful, and relentlessly morbid episode of MFFI.
**Note: this episode includes all of the graphic details you'd expect based on the topic. If dark humor isn't your jam, there's no shame in skipping this one.**
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In this episode:
- The Most Popular Methods of Execution: Guillotine, Firing Squad, Gallows, Gas Chamber, Lethal Injection, Electrocution
- Jamestown and The First American Execution: Captain George Kendall
- The Current State of the Death Penalty in the States
- Virginia and Texas Vie for Capital Punishment Supremacy
- Furman v. Georgia and the 4-Year Pause (1972-1976)
- Unitary Trials
- Capital Punishment Resumes
- The Supreme Court Chips Away at the Death Penalty
- Federal Versus State Charges
- TFG Reinstitutes Executions
- Federal Executions: The Worst of the Worst
- Lethal Injection and Julius Mount Bleyer
- Death-Cocktail Shortages
- Current State of Capital Punishment Worldwide
- The Rationale for Public Executions
- The Last Public Executions: Rainey Bethea (Kentucky 1936) and Hamida Djandoubi (France 1977)
- The Death Penalty as a Deterrent
- Capital Punishment for Lesser Offenses (Drug Dealing, Blasphemy, Apostasy)
- Failed and Botched Executions
- Antonio Franks, 1872, Fiji
- Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty
- Exonerated Death-Row Inmates
- Conclusions
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Thursday Nov 17, 2022
Thursday Nov 17, 2022
Few characters from pop culture are as divisive as clowns. Simultaneously endearing and terrifying, the archetype of the clown has persevered throughout the ages despite being reviled by a significant portion of the world’s population. There’s even a word for the fear of clowns: coulrophobia.
So how did ancient jesters and tricksters evolve into the unsettling, white-faced, crazy-haired clowns of today? And what makes the figure of the clown so durable? Find out in this week’s buffoonish, pratfalling, skin-crawling episode of MFFI.
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In this episode:
- Ancient Egypt and the "Dangas"
- Ancient Greece
- Ancient Rome and the “Stupidus”
- Court Jesters and Fools
- Loki
- The Hayuka
- Carl Jung's "Trickster" Archetype
- Commedia dell'arte
- The Pierrot
- The Harlequin
- Joseph Grimaldi ("Joey")
- Philip Astley and the Circus
- The Whiteface, the Auguste, the Character and the Hobo
- Emmett Kelly’s “Weary Willie”
- Charlie Chaplin (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr.)
- Music Hall and Vaudeville
- Marcel Marceau, Michael Jackson, and the Art of Mime
- Bozo the Clown
- Fear of Clowns: Coulrophobia
- The Joker
- Stephen King's It
- The Clown Panic of 2016
- Insane Clown Posse and the Jugallos
- Terrifier 2 and "Art the Clown"
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Thursday Nov 03, 2022
Thursday Nov 03, 2022
Super strength, super hearing, the ability to fly; many of the standard superpowers from comic books are commonplace in the animal kingdom. But those abilities barely scratch the surface when it comes to the awesome potential of evolutionary adaptation. In this latest episode, Shane schools Duncan on the most unique and powerful critters in the animal kingdom.
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In this episode:
- The Ninja Slug (Ibycus rachelae)
- Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus)
- Mimic Octopus and Wunderpus photogenicus
- Lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae)
- Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum)
- Flea (Siphonaptera)
- Frog Hopper (Cercopoidea)
- Red Kangaroo (Macropus rufus)
- Immortal Jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii)
- Electric Eel (Electrophorus Electricus)
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Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Every society faces an inevitable dilemma: what to do with dead bodies? Join Shane and Duncan as they travel across the globe and throughout history to explore Sky Burial, plastination, "Dancing with the Dead," and the most famous death ritual of all: mummification.
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In this episode:
- The World's Oldest Known Burial Site: Qafzeh
- Death Rituals Around the World
- Famidihana: Dancing With the Dead (Turning of the Bones)
- Buddhism and "Sky Burial"
- Viking Funerals
- South Korean "Death Beads"
- Western Funerals
- Mummification
- Autolysis and Decomposition
- Putrefaction
- Intentional vs Unintentional Mummies
- Otzi the Iceman
- Juanita, the Peruvian Sacrifice
- Egyptian Mummies
- The Book of the Dead
- The Ka, the Ba, and the Akh
- The Journey Through Duat
- The Hall of Maat
- The Judgment of Anubis
- Heart-Weighing
- Ammit
- The "Most Perfect Method"
- King Tut (Tutankhamun)
- Howard Carter and the Discovery of King Tut's Tomb
- The Death Mask
- The Legacy of Mummification
- Plastination
- Vladimir Ilyach Ulyanov Lenin
- Summum: The Mummy Cult
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