e414. Strings Attached: Puppetry, from Marionettes to AI

Puppetry is one of the oldest and most respected performance art styles in the world. Except, in America we have reduced it almost entirely to the domain of children’s entertainment. Or have we? Maybe puppets are all around us in every kind of media. Maybe we’re actually using puppets every day and we don’t even…

e413. Teen Beach Movie Revisited: a Conversation with the Screenwriter

A few weeks ago Mav and Monica did a very special show where three of Mav’s current students from his “Introduction to Popular Culture” class where the students joined us to explain their view of one of their favorite movies, Disney’s Teen Beach Movie and both its cultural relevance and its usefulness as an academic…

e410. Teen Beach Movie: Metaphor, Methodology, Memories, and Millennials vs. GenZ

Sometimes an episode idea comes out of nowhere. Recently, Mav overheard several of his students discussing a movie from their childhood before his morning class. After he laughed at their description, the students challenged Mav to do some “homework” and watch the movie. He agreed, and incorporated the movie into his lesson the following week.…

e408. Wonder Woman: Boundaries, Bondage, and Breakthroughs

Wonder Woman is almost certainly one of the most enduring characters in all of pop culture. She’s certainly the most famous female superhero of all time. But we would argue that she’s significant even beyond that. Why? Well, let’s talk about it. On this week’s show Mav, Wayne and Monica are joined by returning guest…

e405. Fantasy Box Office Draft 2026

It’s that time again! Every year we have one very special show where all of the hosts get together to reveal the results of last years Fantasy Box Office Game AND to draft for the upcoming year. Last years game was a barn burner that basically came down to the very end where it could…

e401. F-M-K!

It’s finals week. Well, ok, finals are over, so that means it’s finals GRADING week, the worst week of the academic semester for anyone who teaches for a living. It can really burn you out. So, for this week we decided to do something of a pallet cleanser episode. Longtime listeners might know that VoxPopcast…

e400. 400 Episodes?!?! Holy $#!†!

Wow… somehow we’ve managed to do 400 of these! On today’s very special anniversary episode of VoxPopcast we have the entire regular team of hosts to reminisce about the history of the show and the current state of popular culture and our predictions for where we think pop culture is going to go in the…

e399. The Show Must Go On! Navigating Main Character Exits and Recasts

There’s this funny thing that happens with TV shows. Because of the nature of human actors, TV shows are the one type of serialized media where a natural change to the series might be FORCED to occur because forces outside of the narrative require the change of the narrative. That is to say that in…

e395. Stealing the Fives (with permission of course)

Every once in a while we like to step away from our usual serious… well… serious-ish, pseudo-academic intellectual pursuits and just do something a little fun. This is one of those weeks. Last week our friends at the Protagonist Podcast debuted a new game that they called “the Fives” and this week… well, we are…

e393. Eerie Elders: The Horror of Growing Old

It’s SPOOOOKY SEASON!!! Actually, it has been for a couple weeks and yet we really haven’t gotten into it. But now it’s time to fix that. A year ago we did an episode about “creepy kids” in media and why they are both so unsettling and so fascinating. Well, this year we thought we’d look…