Folgen

  • 60 Pirate King

    60 Pirate King
    Dec 15 2024
    Ahoy, Matey, and welcome aboard the Curiosity Sloop. Prepare to have your timbers shivered as Commodore Einstone pulls back the thin veil separating kings from pirates, debunks the myth of buried treasure and explains maritime terms from the Golden Age of Piracy. Get familiar with the Gentleman Pirate, the Prince of Pirates, the Robin Hood of the Sea and learn which monarch was so obese they needed to be carried around in a sedan chair, which made popular keeping goldfish as pets, which exhumed their ancestors to shoot at the corpses and whom they all condemned to perform “The Marshall’s Dance”. PLUS, Blackbeard, Black Sam, Black Bart, Jack Sparrow and Captain Kidd’s cat! Batten down the hatches and crack a cask of grog for Pirate/King.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 26 Min.
  • 59 Foolin' With You

    59 Foolin' With You
    May 4 2024
    Court jesters have been associated with positions of authority throughout time in memorial from the Pharoah Neferkere to the conquests of Atilla the Hun to the Battle of Hastings and through the Age of Discovery. These wisecracking wearers of the "cap and bells" have gone by various titles: minstrel, juggler, jolly, clown, comedian, joker, harlequin, and fool. Join Albort as he gets acquainted with the innocent and clever funambulists of Bloody Mary, the King of 1,000 slippers, the Virgin Queen, and the Bard of Avon. You will also discover what made Lord Minimus so anomalous, Archibald Armstrong so dastardly and the Groom of the Stool so indispensable.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 7 Min.
  • 58 1986: Balki In Space

    58 1986: Balki In Space
    Nov 22 2023
    1986 (a 365-day time frame fraught with discharge of toxic material, skyjackings, and espionage) was dubbed the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. And why not? The U.K. and Netherlands officially ended the 335-Years War, Hands Across America was raising funds for hunger and homelessness, the late Martin Luther King Jr. was honored with a Federal Holiday, and Pee-Wee Herman bridged the gap between adult and child, encouraging all humankind to be themselves. The curiosities of MCMLXXXVI also include the pirating antics of Captain Midnight, the theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman, the scandalous Iran-Contra affair, and premiere of Perfect Strangers.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 12 Min.
  • 57 Simpsucation

    57 Simpsucation
    Jun 7 2023
    Since The Simpsons debuted over three decades ago, Albort’s Jeopardy game has been embiggened exponentially. But for the Simpsons, he would never have known about Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, or William Alton Carter’s Billy Beer; and that’s just scratching the surface. This episode celebrates the random factoids learned from the longest-running animated sitcom and highlights the real-life personalities some of its characters are partially modeled upon, such as Joe Quimby/Ted Kennedy, John Frink/Julius Kelp, Clancy Wiggum/Edward G. Robinson and many more. Woo-hoo!
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 10 Min.
  • 56 Cliché Cache

    56 Cliché Cache
    Oct 9 2022
    How many movies have you seen that feature a wardrobe montage, a protagonist tearing out an IV to hastily leave the hospital, post-coital bed-sheets that magically only cover the woman’s chest, or characters uttering stale lines like, “We’ve got company”, “No time to explain”, or “He’s behind me, isn’t he?” All are examples of clichés but they aren’t just confined to films and television. Join Albort as he dissects some of the common clichés used in everyday language from the ‘bee’s knees’ to ‘cat’s pajamas’ to ‘the early bird catching the worm’. You’ll also get familiar with Pipe Dreams, Pink Elephants, Drug Store Cowboys and meet the "most fecund maker of American slang." Gadzooks!
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    36 Min.
  • 55 Magnetic Tape, Joysticks, and Pizza Theaters

    55 Magnetic Tape, Joysticks, and Pizza Theaters
    Apr 16 2022
    It's been fifty years since Atari’s revolutionary game, Pong, ushered in a Renaissance for video arcades in America and gave rise to the animatronic house bands of Chuck E. Cheese and Showbiz Pizza. Albort experienced it in real time and invites you to join him for a stroll down memory lane with detours at the 1982 World’s Fair, Blockbuster Video and the hilarious antics that take place within “Shadowrama” all while avoiding the Noid. As a bonus you’ll get familiar with the “pleasure principle”, time shifting, parallel visual processing, the innermost thoughts of Pac-Man’s enemies, negative option billing and the “Netflix Effect”.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std.
  • Better Half E4 - Pearls, Pants Suits, And The Golden Age Of Capitalism 1944 - 2022

    Better Half E4 - Pearls, Pants Suits, And The Golden Age Of Capitalism 1944 - 2022
    Feb 5 2022
    This is the final episode of our four-part Better Half mini-series containing six lectures apropos to the First Ladies from the Cold War up to the present time. What is known of the First Ladies of the United States we have covered up to this point comes down to us via the press, memoirs, what can be divined from letters, paintings, anecdotes, and personal artifacts. Following World War Two, fashion became ever more critical as visual media embedded itself into politics. We begin with a material girl who hated the dry-cleaning in WASHington DC so much, she shipped it to KC to be done properly, one whose favorite press time answer was "No Comment", a multi-linguist beauty reportedly "full of the devil", a billboard-busting, millionaire First Lady that word-skirmished with Catwoman, "a good piece of literature on a shelf of cheap paperbacks" circuiting a leper colony, a fashion model dancing instructor credited with a life-saving blip, a promiscuous FLOTUS who shook hands with a serial killer, a "Glamourous paragon of chic" going to war with drugs attired in "misappropriated" crimson finery, a FLOTUS to have three Air Force bombers named after her and a private cabin on the Love Boat, the first to be a lawyer/Senator/Secretary of State/Presidential Candidate/Grammy Winner, the only First Lady with a master's degree in Library Science, the first African American First Lady, the nation's second foreign-born FLOTUS single-handedly takes on cyberbullying, and a Quaker City sports junkie controversially uses her rightfully earned title.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 57 Min.
  • Better Half E3 - Amelia And Eleanor's Excellent Adventure 1933 - 1944

    Better Half E3 - Amelia And Eleanor's Excellent Adventure 1933 - 1944
    Feb 5 2022
    This third installment of our four-part Better Half mini-series departs from the regular format as it is not focused solely on the First Lady of the United States of America and only features one of them. Today's narrative was built around the 1933 evening when Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt ducked out of a party at the White House to take a spontaneous flight to Baltimore. The two would forever be associated with aviation, Amelia for obvious reasons and Eleanor for traveling over 40,000 miles throughout her serving terms. Despite their thirteen-year age difference, the two had much more in common than air travel. Both taught, authored books, endorsed products for sponsors, fought for civil rights and refused to take their husbands' last names (a technicality for Eleanor). Put your seat tray up and buckle in for Amelia and Eleanor's Excellent Adventure.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    43 Min.