Why do people keep starting — and listening — to rewatch podcasts?
For practically every TV show from the early aughts that earned a loyal following — think Suits, Gilmore Girls, The Office and more — there is now a rewatch podcast trying to recapture its former glory, often hosted by the series' stars or creative team.
While there is fun to be had in hearing behind-the-scenes stories and cast reunions, the sheer number of rewatch podcasts available today has us asking: has nostalgia bait gone too far?
Today on Commotion, culture critic Niko Stratis joins host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share why she got into the world of rewatch podcasts, both as a host and as a listener.
WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube (this segment begins at 16:25):
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Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Cartoon characters teach children about faith
CHRISCROSS, Sumuslim, Ninjew and Taekwonhindu are not your average superheroes. True, they are all part of a team that fights injustice, rescues people in trouble, demonstrates powers and prowess beyond their years, and are stars of their own action-adventure animated television series. Unlike most superheroes, however, they also are all characters with a deep connection to their individual faiths. That's why they, and their cartoon series, are known as God's Gang. Chriscross is a Southern Baptist preacher and karate master who can deflect any object that is thrown at him. Sumuslim is a hulking sumo wrestler who uses his hypno-storytelling power to combat evil doings. Taekwonhindu, as her name implies, is a taekwondo expert who deploys her telepathic powers to thwart villains, and the fourth member of the gang, Ninjew, has laser vision and access to a Kabbalah sourced invisibility powder. In each episode, the gang receives an assignment from the angelic Ms Dogma, a dog working from heaven, and is assisted by a French accented aerial reconnaissance gatherer, Le Dove, who is a dove. They travel to their missions in a van that can transform into other kinds of vehicles and are sometimes helped out by their Buddhist friend Kungfuda. YouTube Taekwonhindu (from left), Ninjew, Chriscross and Sumuslim are all characters in the animated series God's Gang. By combining their powers and the shared values inherent in their separate faiths, the gang demonstrates the good that can be accomplished when people from different backgrounds and with different beliefs respect one another and cooperate. With God's Gang, faith is a concept that unites rather than divides. God's Gang was created by Israeli hi-tech entrepreneur Nimrod-Abraham May and written by the Emmy and Grammy award-winner Rob Kutner. It premiered on YouTube in September 2024, with Love Is in the Air Hole, an episode revolving around the gang's mission to rescue endangered blue whales. Another episode, We Didn't Start The Fire: Wildfire & The Mysterious Hero was released this past winter, and many more episodes are currently in the works. In an interview on TikTok Live, May explains that he came up with the idea for the gang about 20 years ago, but waited to pursue it until he felt he had the necessary knowledge and spiritual grounding to do so. 'I was lacking the understanding of spiritualism and the understanding basically of what the world is made of, why we are here and where we come from,' he says in the interview. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 'So,' he continues, 'I went on a 15-year search for God. Obviously the first place you look is religion. And I started looking to Judaism because I'm Jewish and then I decided it's not enough. I want to see what Christianity has to say and Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism and that only created more curiosity to learn more.' That curiosity in turn led him to delve into Kabbalah's Book of Creation, the Sumerian scripts and many other sources of spiritual knowledge. Then, when he finally felt ready to pursue his vision, May invited Buddhist and Hindu experts, imans, a Baptist pastor, and a rabbi to sit on an interfaith council. That council advises May, his animators and writers and ensures that the faith depictions in his cartoon are accurate and inoffensive. While May adds that he plans to introduce characters from the Sikh, Druze and other smaller religions in future episodes, he also emphasizes that God's Gang, in spite of its content and title, is not intended to promote religious adherence. 'We are not a show about religion,' he says. 'We are not trying to preach and we are not coming up with a one world religion. We are basically an entertainment company that wants people to come together to unite through shared values, the values that we believe are based on the bright side of life, which are kindness compassion, integrity and truth and love.' swchisvin@ The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER
CBC
14 hours ago
- CBC
What Bruce Springsteen's lost albums reveal about him as an artist
Today, Bruce Springsteen decided to grace fans everywhere with not just one album, but seven albums of previously unreleased music. The box set, Tracks II: The Lost Albums, contains 83 new songs which showcase the Boss's love of country and orchestral music. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud chats with music journalists Carl Wilson, Vish Khanna and Niko Stratis to discuss the massive new release from Springsteen. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion on Serge Fiori's legacy and Lorde's new album, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Niko, this is a box set that spans from 1983 all the way to 2018, the vast majority of it recorded in the 1990s. Where was Bruce in this era? Why did he have so much music stockpiled, but not released out to the public? Niko: The '90s are such a funny period for Bruce. He has referred to people saying that that's his lost decade. He has very few records come out in the '90s. He has two come out at the same time, Human Touch and Lucky Town. Lucky Town comes out in '92. He does Streets of Philadelphia in '93. And then Ghost of Tom Joad comes out in '95. And that's kind of it. It's not until The Rising comes out in 2002 that we get anything new from Bruce. So it is this lost period. He's moved to California at this time. He's in Los Angeles, he's having kids, he's having a family — and he's made a lot of music, we just never heard it. Listening through this now, it is interesting to hear: where was Bruce in this era that we didn't really hear a lot from him? What did he sound like? What was he doing? What was he trying to do? And how would this have felt if it came out in the years that he recorded them? Had he put a country record out in '95 when he also did Ghost of Tom Joad, would people have been into it? And it's impossible to know the answer to that question. But now we have 83 tracks through which to wonder: what would have happened if Bruce was just throwing spaghetti at the wall his entire life? Elamin: Suddenly, you get this moment, Vish, where you are not confronted with, but blessed with, shall we say, a gigantic flood of new Bruce Springsteen songs that range in their styles. We have a country-style album. We have some orchestral stuff. He's working with a lot of different styles. What's it like waking up and being like, "Oh my gosh, look at all this, the Bruce bounty?" Vish: I think those of us who follow older artists are becoming accustomed to people putting out outtakes or unreleased material collections. In my memory — and I might be wrong — I can't think of anything like this. I can't think of any artist of his calibre being like, "Here's seven complete albums I made. I put out other stuff instead of this. So here you go." So when these collections come out, one thing beyond just marveling at the music that we get to hear, fans have to reckon with what our favourite artists' decision making processes are, their indecisiveness, their contemplation, the fact that they really think about these things. This particular set had me thinking: what if Bruce and Dylan — Bob Dylan, by the way, is who I'm referring to there — what if Miles Davis, Neil Young, all these people had Bandcamp or SoundCloud? Can you imagine? These days everyone's just like, "Hey everyone, I made a record last week, here you go." These folks sit on these things and I think it's kind of interesting because we're like, "OK, you didn't put this out? It's perfect. This is great." And I think the other thing we wrestle with as fans is: the stuff that did come? I don't know if it's as good as this now. I just think it's fascinating that Bruce and some of the other people I mentioned are able to provide us these alternate histories, while they're alive. That's really unusual to have all these people be like, "Here's what I did, here's what I could have done, here you go." Elamin: Carl, when you look at this box set, what does it tell you about what Bruce Springsteen wants us to know about him right now? Carl: It doesn't tell us anything we don't already know after the last 15 years or more of outtake albums and bonus discs. We're aware that Bruce produced work like a MF at all times. There is this project, I think, in the last decade of really putting the archives in order, alongside telling his story and his autobiography, alongside doing the Broadway show based on the autobiography, alongside making these documentaries. Bruce Springsteen wants to tell the Bruce Springsteen story. And the interesting thing is that he's willing to tell it now in a broader way. When Vish was talking about the choices that were made to put these albums out or not, I think a big part of it is that a lot of those projects here didn't suit the story that Bruce wanted to tell about Bruce Springsteen at particular times. They're not the heroic man of the people, masculine Bruce Springsteen at all times. They're kind of the weird artist Bruce Springsteen, obsessively making stuff in the garage studio. At various points, he veers away from putting out the orchestral pop album, from putting out the synthesizer album, from putting out the more mainstream country album instead of the Woody Guthrie-esque country album. So all of those choices show up here. And there's a romance to the idea of lost albums. And there is also the indications of strategy and fears about public perception and all of those kinds of things that are the backside to all of that.
CBC
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- CBC
Will The Bear's new season get the show back on track?
Season four of The Bear came out last night. After the acclaimed television show lost its lustre in season three, can the chef-focused show redeem itself in the new season? Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud sits down with line cook and TV junkie Grace Onasanya and film critic Rachel Ho to talk about the latest season of The Bear and what the series continues to tell us about the tensions between the culinary arts and the restaurant business.
