Geek Juice Radio Review

Geek Juice Radio - Episode 25 - Geeks in The Media - June 21, 2012.

Geek Juice Radio is a podcast about geek culture.  New episodes of GJR air every Thursday Night at 5pm CST/6pm EST on Jackalope Radio.

Opening: As the podcast episode opens we are treated to the words "Horrible, masturbating Star Trek fan", as spoken by the main host of the show Alex Jowski (I've been watching this program for almost a year now. I discovered it thanks to another podcast called Radiodrome). This is what Geek Juice Radio usually opens its programs with, a humorous and somewhat controversial line that might draw people in (it drew me in).  

I chose this podcast because I was familiar with it, and it subject matter really appeals to me. There are so many episodes that I loved listening to, that it was hard for me, so I had to choose randomly. I didn't watch Geek Juice on my Ipod or any other portable player. Instead I watched it on my laptop. 

Intro: The theme song features Alex Jowski saying the words "Geek Juice Radio". While various people who also appear on the show say "funny" lines that were spoken from previous episodes ("You dropping bricks on dogs", "Its a break if you enjoyed it" etc...), which ends with Jowski saying the words, visit our website at "Geekjuicemedia.com", in order to entice people into actually going to the main site in case they are watching the show from a different site such as Soundcloud or Audio Archives. The entire sequences is played to a song that I'm not familiar with, and have not been able to find the name of online despite typing the lyrics. 

Alex Jowski introduces the show, saying that they have a great show ahead of them tonight, while Josh Hadley interrupts him and calls him a lying piece of shit, in what is clearly done for humorous purposes (I found it to be pretty funny). Alex then responds with "wishful thinking you know". Josh Hadley introduces himself with "I am in a mood", Kevin Daley "I am in a different mood", and guest star Dustin Kidd (he's not a regular on the program) "I'm here again".

My review: Geek Juice Radio is an absolutely fantastic podcast to listen to. Its hilarious and the cast (Jowski, Daley and Hadley who is currently a semi-regular right now) plays off each other really well. I'm a big fan of movies and video games, so the subject material of most episodes interests me a lot. While some of the jokes and references could be considered inappropriate and insulting to some, I get most of them and laugh. I also love the reference and talks about obscure movies.

This particular episode deals the topic of the stereotypical portrayal of geeks in the media. As someone who is a geek himself (especially when it comes to comic books) I'm not a huge fan of the stereotypical portrayal of geeks as losers.  Although I enjoy shows like The Big Bang Theory (at least I used to), as Kevin Daley points out geeks in real life are familiar with girls and sometimes even socialize with people. It’s not as black n white as it looks. Just cause your familiar with say Batman from Nolan's Batman trilogy, doesn't mean you can say you know everything about Batman, especially if you've never read a single Batman comic in your life for example. When something becomes mainstream most people are ignorant to think that they know everything about that franchise and property from watching a few movies. For example, Lord of The Rings as Josh Hadley points out, with the books was more an underground thing in the 70's and 80's, and then Peter Jackson's trilogy comes along and people act like it’s the greatest thing, even though they weren't familiar with the original book trilogy prior.

This episode is very funny, especially learning how Daley and Hadley named their pets. Hadley has a pet rabbit named Tor Johnson, and Daley named his pet gerbils after Stroker and Hoop after a short lived adult show. Hadley even mentioned that if his next dog looked all wise he’d name it Orson Welles.

The cast and crew, often goes on tangents, but most of those tangents are fun and interesting to know. For example they go from talking about geeks and the mainstream to talking about Orson Welles and a commercial he did for The Paul Masson, where he was completely drunk. As well as talking about and referencing animated series like Pinky and The Brain, The Critic, and The Simpsons. 

Even if I don't agree everything that's said (particularly when Josh talks about Kevin Smith) and Josh Hadley can often come off as very unlikeable (he even admits that he can sometimes be a very unhappy person especially when he gets angry) and he can make me angry at times. The people involved with this podcast clearly have a love of geekdom, and it shows. They know their stuff.

The podcast's target audience is pretty easy to tell. This podcast is all about geek culture, different movies subjects, video games, books, comic books etc... Things that people have an obsession with, or know a lot about.

As someone who knows a lot about geek culture, watching this podcast gives me a different perspective on opinions on franchises and whatnot. This particular one gives me a good idea on something I'm familiar with and addresses a stereotype in mainstream media that needs to address. This podcast usually runs at 52m, which includes the 2 minute closing song at the end.

For me, Geek Juice Radio has always been fun and fascinating for me to watch.