On this week's show, the regular band is back together, and I am a rock. I am an island.
Specifically, now that the original feverish excitement over the Veronica Mars Kickstarter and what how it might change the landscape has subsided, we take a look at what it might mean for the future and what questions both fans and creators will have to face going forward if the audience is going to be more involved in directly funding projects. How do you make sure the creator still has creative freedom? Is it a problem with literally going with "giving the people what they want"? And how do we make sure that as fans become incredibly excited about having increased ownership and agency, their pure enthusiasm doesn't crowd out those questions?
As if that's not enough smacking down for one week, we also go head to head — and in this case, one head is mine and one is Stephen's — over whether it makes any sense to stack sitcoms against each other and especially whether it's fair to use conversational quotability to crown The Simpsons the greatest sitcom of the last 30 years. (Spoiler alert: It's not what I would have chosen.)
So basically, this is the week I make myself Public Enemy Number One. I'm sorry, whole internet.
Finally, we close with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is understandably happy about someone who may be almost as devoted a dad as he is. Trey is happy about a movie I kept telling him he should see (hooray!), and also about an upcoming big night for funny women. Glen is happy about a book that accompanied him in recent travels. And I, while the content is sad, am thrilled by the quality of two recent radio episodes you can still find online. I am less thrilled but secretly amused by something very different.
Find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me, Stephen, Glen, Trey, Jess, and our esteemed producer emeritus and music director, Mike Katzif. (And if you miss Mike, as we do, you can hear him from SXSW in this special late-night dispatch.)
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