10 Years of The Weekly Planet Podcast
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It hit me recently that I've been listening to The Weekly Planet podcast for roughly 10 years now.
It wasn't until after scrolling back to the first episode date, on September 30, 2013, that I realized that I'd been tuning in more or less since the show started. I think the first time was around December of that year, with the episode called "Best and Worst Movies of 2013." I was hooked—and I listened regularly every week from then on, and still to this day.
I write about movies here often, and with particular franchises and series from over the years, part of their staying power has been in the ways that they've accompanied me as I've grown up; Harry Potter through elementary school, the MCU and Stranger Things through middle and high school, even Dune since I got married. Ironically, though, I think that this particular podcast may have been an even more symbiotic part of my life than any of those things, particularly because it was present not only in movie theaters, but in many of the idle, everyday moments too.
If you don't already know about The Weekly Planet, let me regale you with their tale.
James, the podcast's creator and a goat dressed like Han Solo. Mason, the cohost, tram driver, pig rolling down a hill, and an "internet celebrity man." The dog, simply called "dog." James' son. A big sandwich. A regular room, also known as the Man Cave. The guy who doesn't know anything about Star Wars. McGee. Claire Tonti, also known as Greg. James' brother (the one Mason likes.) Acclaimed comedy director Edgar Wright. James' other brother (the one Mason doesn't like.) Rap-Rat, a rapping animated rat from a "video-board-game" from the 90s. The action figure of General Crix Madine. Little James. The occasional cameo of Aunty Donna. The guy in a hessian sack costume swinging flaming chains. The kid who showed up in one episode and started ominously bouncing a lacrosse ball against the wall of James' house like an Edgar Allen Poe novel. Tucker, the Tuckerbag mascot. These are the characters we're dealing with. And they're all very, very Australian.
The Weekly Planet used to be the official podcast of ComicBookMovie.com, which (if you listened to the show back then) would be stated by James in a quickly-mumbled spiel at the start of every episode—if he could get it in before Mason started singing "Somebody Save Me" from Smallville. Quickly, however, the show gained an identity all its own. Somewhere once in those early years, Mason casually threw out the phrase "red hot comic-book movie news shooting up your butthole," which rapidly became the de-facto (listener-submitted) theme song of the show—along with the very memorable catchphrase "Grab Dat Gem," also coined during the review of Guardians of The Galaxy when Mason suggested that if you find yourself living in a universe of space-magic and cosmic powers, you should be unafraid to grab dat gem (or infinity stone) because it's probably your destiny. Listeners embraced it.
The listeners (also known as the Weekly Wackadadoos) proved to be a big part of The Weekly Planet's DNA; when the show needed a theme song for the letters segment (which was already about reading stories and questions from the audience,) there was a period of many months where every episode featured a different musical submission from a Weekly Wackadadoo...which still might be my favorite period of the show's run. Another section that heavily involved listeners was the category of versus episodes, where people would submit a fight combo they wanted to see (like Willy Wonka vs. Doc Brown) and James and Maso would debate who would win in a one-v-one fight starting on a standard American football field in the Weekly Planet Battleworld. Even people who didn't like the show ended up being wrapped into its fabric with a segment like "H8 Mail (But the Hate Has an 8 In It)." And over time, some listeners like RAW Collings and others began to work behind the scenes to edit together the "Best of The Weekly Planet" special every year, moderate the Reddit forums, and make animated versions of the best bits from the pod. It was (and still is) a very vibrant and lighthearted community bursting with creativity.
The real charm of The Weekly Planet has always rested on a single fact, though: James and Mason are both, by all indicators, genuinely humble and good-natured individuals. It's undeniable that the world of comic-book movie podcasts is full of entitled nerds with rage problems. In the midst of the screaming, the Weekly Planet lads have always been voices of laid-back good humor and lighthearted Aussie quippery, poking fun at the extremes of internet culture and resisting the pull toward genuine vitriol—except, of course, when James rants about putting the bins out, reserved seating, or his infamous Coriander vendetta. Early on in the show, James developed the movie rating system of "Best Movie Ever" or "Worst Movie Ever" with nothing in between, to mock the hyperbolic language often found in his YouTube comments—which has served as a fun counterbalance against taking any of this too seriously. Over the years, the only thing I've ever found myself repeatedly baffled by is Mason's total and unashamed willingness to award "Best Movie Ever" to something completely below average—but at that point, well, a little positivity usually brightens my week anyway. I've always particularly loved the way that Mason articulated disagreement about Batman v Superman to a listener who wrote in, perfectly embodying the ethos of the show: "It's fine and it's cool but you're wrong but it's fine if you feel that way, enjoy what you like, but it's definitely wrong but it's cool." If you didn't read that in Maso's voice, you'll never know what it truly means.
Even on controversial topics, the two lads have handled themselves with shocking grace and levelheadness throughout the show's decade-long tenure. Opinions on movies have ranged wildly, but never once have the boys ever stooped to using words like "woke" or "SJW," except, ya know, all the time in an ironic way. And lest you say the either of them is uncommitted to taking a stand, James has been unafraid over the years to briefly wade into political territory, poking fun at people like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, or studio executives like David Zaslav—but even at their most political, the two of them have never punched down.
The true joy of the show, though, has always lied in the friendship between its two hosts. There's something endearing about the same two mates continuing to have entertaining conversations, arguments, improv bits, and catch-ups over the last 10 years without losing steam or joy. James and Mason make the perfect podcasting pair for a lot of reasons; James is a great instigator, host, and bloody man of the world; Mason has the wit and comedic timing to make light of whatever insanity he's presented with. James is usually the one who recaps events for Mason to react, which makes it even funnier when Mason has a particular knowledge or story (often about comic-book history) to tell in great detail, from "The Great Howard the Duck Switcheroo" to the lore of Reed Richards and the Ultimate Nullifier. James, meanwhile, often puts on the persona of the levelheaded and responsible one in the room—which only accentuates it when he willingly and very entertainingly loses his cool over a mundane aspect of adult life. And then there are the bits, from Old Crone Rey to James' ever-changing closing catchphrase.
In the midst of all that, it's been almost inspiring to see two guys in their 40s continue to express youthful imagination and playfulness without becoming entitled and self-aggrandizing manbabies; maybe I'm being dramatic, but seeing (or hearing) James come into his own as a semi-responsible husband and father ("as a father!") while still hosting a fun podcast about comic-book movies has been genuinely moving over these last few years.
I don't listen to many podcasts for sheer pleasure; most of the time when I'm listening to something while driving or eating, I justify it by saying it's educational or somehow edifying. I don't make those excuses for The Weekly Planet, though; every time I turn on the show to hear what James and Mason have got to say this week, it's just for the fun and familiar company of it. It might feel strange to write a love letter to a podcast, but it's hard to overstate how large a presence that two voices can be when you've listened to them for that long. Maybe it's a parasocial connection, but I do find it comforting to think that The Weekly Planet has been with me throughout much of the time that I was growing up, coming into my own life, and listening to the same two Aussie boys talk about superhero movies all the way through. These past few years of constant travel and moving, there have been few true constants in my life—but the Weekly Wackadadoos have been one of them. I hope it lasts another 10 or 20 years...or at least until James gets tired and needs a permanent vacation.
Anyway, where's the gorilla and who ate all my pasghetti?