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Unpopular Opinion or "Unpops" is a weekly internet comedy podcast created and hosted by comedian and columnist Adam Tod Brown. It is also the umbrella brand for a network of podcasts produced by Brown. It is marketed as "the world's most trusted podcast". The show is an extremely popular and critical success on SoundCloud and iTunes.
Contents
Early History
The podcast debuted on December 20, 2013 and was usually recorded at Cracked Studios in Santa Monica, California. The show has also been recorded at the Stand Up NY Labs in New York and SyFy's Reactor host, and comedian David Huntsberger's home studio, which Brown and May coined a 'Murder Barn'.
The show was co-produced with Cracked.com audio specialist Brett "Mayor of Podcast City" Rader, who was often a guest on the podcast. The show often featured Rader's ongoing, semi-fictionalized feud with regular guest Jeff May.
The show has a variety of comedians, writers, actors, and musicians to discuss current topics, the challenges of show business, and, until late 2016, Brown's weekly column posted on Cracked.
The show also has a number of running gags such as the Howard Dean Scream, Adam asking a co-host how they have been doing only to interrupt them rudely with Nanowar of Steel music, speaking about their casual and recreational use of marijuana and other prescription drugs, supplementing income as a struggling comedian by giving rides via Uber, Brown and guests misusing the phrase Gift of the Magi, the show's voicemail line for fans to vent about their problems or ask questions, guests' love for comedian and Cracked.com editor Alex Schmidt, the use of the word "cunt", and Brown's love for the McDonald's McRib sandwich.
The opening song is Octopussy by Los Juanitos and the closing theme is Gang Fight by Countless Thousands.
Notable Guests
The show has featured a number of notable guests, including:
Aaron Covington, co-screenwriter of Creed
Conan and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson writer Laurie Kilmartin
Golden Globe winning actress Rachel Bloom
German rapper Casper called in to the show to talk about his career and experiences touring in the United States.
Zachary Carothers and Erik Howk of Portugal. the Man appeared on an episode of the now-defunct Your State Is Insane to talk about growing up in the state of Alaska
The show is also well known for interviewing former co-host of American Idol Brian Dunkleman, who talked about the incompetent producers, Ryan Seacrest's attempts to sabotage Dunkleman due to a jealous dark side, and the way the show treated its contestants.
Kickstarter campaign and new shows
On August 3, 2016 a crowdfunding campaign to build a recording studio in Brown's Los Angeles home went live on Kickstarter with a target of $7,500. This was reached in less than a week and when the campaign ended on September 2, 2016 425 people had pledged $22,761 toward the project.
In mid-August 2016 a subscription service was launched using the Connectpal platform. While the original weekly Unpopular Opinion show remained free to access, a variety of new subscriber-exclusive weekly shows were added to the Unpops brand. In early 2017 some of the new shows were also offered free, but only on a biweekly release schedule.
During the transition from a single podcast to a network of shows, several new running gags have been introduced such as potential sponsorship by Online-Stopwatch.com, #FastballatChets (see section below), a cereal based on Black Pete, and anecdotes regarding Warhorse, a semifictional character based on the Blue Mustang statue at Denver International Airport.
The podcast became fully independent of Cracked.com following Brown's departure from the company in October 2016.
#FastballAtChets
In mid-October 2016 Unpopular Opinion guest and co-host of several new shows, comic Chet Wild, launched a social media campaign on the Unpops network (#FastballatChets) to have the band Fastball play a concert in his living room. Public support on Twitter for the campaign was immediate and considerable, with many listeners to the Unpopular Opinion network retweeting using the #FastballatChets hashtag.
In addition Wild recorded his own cover versions of several Fastball songs and posted them online, and had celebrities such as Ben Folds and Norm Macdonald appear in videos with him to share their support for the campaign. On January 6, 2017, politician Mike Gatto endorsed the campaign by tweeting the hashtag.
On January 13, 2017 Fastball singer and guitarist Miles Zuniga appeared on the Unpopular Opinion show The Least Anticipated Podcast of the Week for an informal interview. He did not endorse the campaign.
On February 11, 2017 host of the Food Network's Ginormous Food comic Josh Denny formally endorsed the campaign on Twitter.
As of January 26, 2017, Jeff May is barred from entry to the #FastballatChets living room concert after becoming the "official enemy" of the movement, according to Wild in an episode of Least Anticipated Podcast Of The Week. Wild has said that only the members of Fastball are able to pardon May and, as such, the ban remains in place as of February 11, 2017. During the February 2, 2017 episode "The Banned List", the list of persons who have been declared persona non grata and banned from the #FastballatChets living room concert had been expanded to include Twitter user @cleoslebowski, in addition to Jeff May. Later that day, "jk"/@cleoslebowski apologized to Wild via Twitter but while the apology was accepted the ban remained in place. On March 4, 2017, Twitter user "Zombie Banana"/@BurnItDown2016 was banned from the event by Wild following an inflammatory tweet aimed at Wild. On March 8, 2017, the sister of Twitter user "Bad Hombre Sammy"/@sombrerokingdom was banned by Wild for confusing Fastball with Smash Mouth and for liking a cover version of Fastball's Out Of My Head by a different artist. On March 8, 2017, in the episode The Best Television Episodes of All-Time of LIST! CAST!, commenter Bryan R. Powers was banned by Wild for badmouthing the band's appearance on Charmed (Wild clarified the ban included any Pay-per-view broadcast of the concert, not just the physical event at his home).
On February 16, 2017 Applebee's officially endorsed the campaign on Twitter.
On February 22, 2017 Unpops alum Brian Dunkleman endorsed the campaign.
As of March 26, 2017 - day 160 of the campaign - the living room concert had yet to take place.
Shows broadcast on the Unpops network
As of Marc 2017 the subscriber-exclusive podcasts included: