Language English Debut January 13, 2016 | No. of episodes 59 plus 21 minisodes | |
Genre True crime stories, Comedy Updates Weekly on Thursdays, minisodes on Mondays Audio format Podcast (via streaming or downloadable MP3) | ||
My Favorite Murder is a weekly comedy podcast hosted by American comedians Karen Kilgariff, best known for her work on Mr. Show, and Georgia Hardstark of Drinks With Alie and Georgia, and Slumber Party with Alie & Georgia on the Feral Audio network.
Contents
Premise
Kilgariff and Hardstark each select a single murder or true crime story to recount and discuss, occasionally sharing additional "hometown murder" stories submitted by friends and fans. The podcast mainly consists of the dialogue between the hosts rather than a detailed recounting of the cases discussed. Early episodes were thematically based, examples including cannibalism, unsolved murders, or "weird murders". The thematic concept was abandoned early on in the series.
Kilgariff and Hardstark have both referred to the podcast as a sort of therapy to deal with their own anxieties about murder. Both hosts express compassion for both the victims and perpetrators of the crimes they discuss, attempting to ensure that their discussion combats common problematic themes in true crime, such as discrimination against the mentally ill, sex workers, and women.
Early episode titles included murder-themed puns and pop culture references, such as "Thirty Let The Bodies Hit The Four," a reference to the Drowning Pool song "Bodies", "I 28 His Liver With Some Fava Beans and A Nice Chianti," reminiscent of a famous line from The Silence of the Lambs, and "SE7ENteen," a reference to cult-classic Se7en.
Format and structure
The podcast is in large part improvisational, with the bulk of it consisting of discussion between the two hosts rather than a detailed recounting of facts. The discussion between the two hosts is not restricted to True Crime and the hosts will often spend the first half of the podcast discussing current events or their personal lives. The hosts frequently misremember facts and apologize for their errors in the following episode. Both hosts have repeatedly stated that the podcast is meant to be an informal, comedic podcast rather than a nonfiction one.
While full episodes are released weekly on Thursdays, ranging in length from 60–120 minutes, mini-episodes dedicated solely to the topic of "hometown murders" are released Mondays and are only 30–45 minutes long. Shows are usually recorded in Hardstark's Los Angeles apartment. At times, the hosts interact with the show's audio engineer Steven about the topics at hand.
Reactions and response
My Favorite Murder quickly gained a large fan following, including a Facebook group with over 118,000 as of March 2017, and was swiftly syndicated beyond the original Feral Audio site to such places as Google Play Music and iTunes. Media reaction to the program has been largely positive, with the phenomenon of the podcast's rapid popularity documented in many outside sources such as Rollingstone.com, Marieclaire.com, HuffingtonPost.com, and Bustle.com. Articles praise the show for normalizing an interest in true crime amongst listeners who previously considered themselves morbid or odd, discussing the sense of isolation and compartmentalization that often arises in those with outlying but healthy interests. Likewise noted are the predominance of female listeners which is consistent with data showing true crime fans are predominantly female. Fans of the show, who refer to themselves as "Murderinos," frequently create merchandise with quotes from the latest episode, including the show's sign-off catchphrase, "Stay Sexy, Don't Get Murdered" and "You're in a cult; call your dad" (a reference to an early episode regarding Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple cult of Guyana). Many of the show's profits from donations or direct sale of goods are donated to local police departments to fund examination of the backlog of untested rape kits.
As of October 5, 2016 My Favorite Murder was #10 on the overall iTunes podcast charts and #1 in the Comedy category and has around 450,000 downloads per episode.
Elle.com invited Hardstark to write about the JonBenét Ramsey case following the The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey to discuss her reaction and share her theories on the case.