recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Quinton Reviews

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* Guests

Quinton Kyle Hoover, known professionally as **Quinton Reviews**, is a YouTube media critic.

## Appearances

Quinton was a favorite YouTuber of Lars, a fellow ravenous Doctor Who fan. Efforts were made from almost day one to try to reach out to him about having him on the show as a guest.

Over the course of several months in 2019, the hosts were finally able to procure his appearance on an episode in May.

The episode featured many hypothetical questions, being an appreciated topic by Quinton. The trio also established the "Friday" cover by The Annoying Orange as the single piece of internet content that would trigger the most viscerally negative reaction in the person hearing it for the first time.

This episode remains a personal favorite for Lars, as he was pleased that a content creator he looked up to got along so smoothly with Joe and himself.
Jeremy Kaplowitz

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* Guests

**Jeremy Kaplowitz** is the editor-in-chief for Hard Drive.

## History

Hard Drive is a video game-themed spinoff of The Hard Times, a punk/hipster-themed online satirical publication in the vein of The Onion. Jeremy is responsible for it.

Jeremy was a guest on The First Podcast in February 2020.
Kdin Jenzen

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* Guests

**Kdin Jenzen** is a voice actor and YouTuber who works for Inside Gaming.

## History

Kdin was a guest on The First Podcast in April 2020.

The episode contained a notable reading of the three shells method; while Kdin is a transgender woman, she still occasionally uses her old masculine-sounding voice for voice work. Lars requested that she do a read of the shells method in an extremely gruff voice, leading to hilarity.
Camillia

Le **camillia** est une plante qui pousse au Sagarika, très prisée par les elfes des Hautes Lignées.

Alors que cet arbuste d'aspect quelconque semble n'avoir aucun effet sur les autres races, il s'agit pour les elfes d'un puissant sédatif dont ils ne peuvent se passer – au point que cette plante a joué un rôle important dans les efforts de colonisation du Sagarika par les Hautes Lignées.

## Sources

1. ↑ Extrait de l'*Herbarium sagarikense* de Georg Eber *(GBR, p.47)* (lien)
Joe's geographical knowledge

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* Lore/references

Joe has demonstrated on the show to have **a surprisingly poor grasp on geography** and location knowledge, to the amusement of the other hosts.

## Specific erroneous claims

* Stockholm being a city in Germany
* Puerto Rico being very close to Florida
* Ukraine and Scandinavia being close enough that citizens from the latter may be mistaken as citizens from the former

## Post-Europe trip improvement

After Joe returned from his Europe trip, Joe was known to possess slightly more geographical knowledge, but still with the odd mistake here and there.
TVFilthyFrank2

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* Guests

Eli Margolis, known online as **TVFilthyFrank2**, is a YouTuber who has taken it upon himself to continue the lore and plot from *The Filthy Frank Show*.

## History

Joji Miller was the original creator of *The Filthy Frank Show*, a bizarre YouTube television series which featured strange skits, multiple characters with elaborate backstories, music videos, and Q&A segments. After several years, Joji partially retired, and would eventually fully retire from the show and its characters.

Eli decided to attempt an unauthorized "continuation" of *The Filthy Frank Show*, roughly akin to being the "Second Doctor" version of Filthy Frank. His commitment to the character and mannerisms of Frank have been called uncanny and hilariously accurate, though some have described his act as derivative and unnecessary.

Eli appeared on The First Podcast in May 2019. He stated on his episode that, if Joji were to ever publicly express dislike of his channel, he would immediately discontinue. The interview was conducted mostly out of character, with occasional questions directed to "Frank" in character.
The piss soap question

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**The piss soap question** is a hypothetical question that Lars and Joe ran into the ground after asking it on multiple episodes starting with the Huggbees appearance.

## Question wording

> *You find out there's a really popular brand of soap in France that was made from your piss as a baby. Responding to a public request, your mom sold a company your urine when you were an infant, and due to some unique physiological quirk of yours they found it perfect to base their soap line on. What do you do with this knowledge?*
>
>

## History

The question came from a series of DMs sent to The First Podcast from Tim the Curator.

The hosts found it unusually amusing and proceeded to ask the question to about a half dozen guests over time. Some guests were flummoxed by it, while others immediately embraced it. Jake Truemper even requested it be asked.

After reaching a point of saturation (much like the duck question), Lars officially decided to retire the question in June 2019.
Icelandic Joe

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**Icelandic Joe** is an unidentified male, presumably from Iceland, who looks like Joe.

## History

One of the patrons on the Discord server (an Icelandic man named Ben) spotted an individual with an uncanny resemblance to Joe, former co-host of The First Podcast, and managed to take a stealth photo of him.

This was at a time where Joe was shaving his head, and was still wearing glasses. The resemblance was particularly striking because of it.
Doplex

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Current channel icon

**doplex** is a YouTube channel run by Amir, co-host of The First Podcast.

## Explanation

Amir started doplex with a friend in 2015, with the earliest remaining video currently published dating to 2016. The name, as explained on Amir's first guest episode, was a combination of "dope" and "duplex", as in, a double house (representing the duo). After a while, his friend exited the channel, but he decided to keep the name.

His content consists of a variety of sketches, reaction videos, retrospectives and general commentary pieces.
Joe's garden

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* Lore/references

Joe currently maintains **a small garden of plants**.

## History

After moving home to his father's house in the wake of a major breakup, Joe began an indoor and outdoor gardening project in order to provide some solace from situational depression.

Joe allowed members of the Discord server to recommend names for each plant. Lars requested one of the plants be named "ALIEN HANDS", after a Maxmoefoe quote from an episode of Nerd City. Most naming requests, including the one made by Lars, were granted.

Occasionally, Joe will give a "plants update" on air when prompted by the recording chat.
Asian Jake Paul

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**Asian Jake Paul** is a YouTube vlogger that, along with the regular Paul brothers, has drawn significant dislike from Lars and Ohan.

## History

Asian Jake Paul is notorious for being a "douchebag among douchebags" in the YouTube vlogging sphere. Part of this comes from what he is: a constant excessive flexer with a bizarrely limited vocabulary and an insufferable demeanor. Another part of it comes from what he isn't: tall, blonde and handsome enough to get away with it. In short, Asian Jake Paul can be described as everything that is wrong with modern YouTube, but also with no redeeming qualities.

On an episode with Flexstyle, Lars satirically hypothesized that the latter was a major fan of Asian Jake Paul, who has a terrible habit of flexing on his fans, and that he wanted to make his music producer name a tribute to him.

On an appearance by Lars on the Double D Podcast, he mentioned that even Jake and Logan Paul were not quite as bad as Asian Jake Paul.

On an episode with Chikichu, Lars asked the former to tell off Asian Jake Paul if his clout ever became high enough to do so.

## Nickname

While this individual has a regular channel name, as well as a real name, the internet largely saw fit to refer to him only as the nickname Asian Jake Paul when satirical YouTube commentator iDubbbz dropped a "Content Cop" criticism of him.
Joe is an alien

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The sum total of idiosyncrasies, strange choices and behaviors on Joe's part throughout the show led Lars to suspect that **Joe was potentially an alien in disguise**.

## History

On any other podcast, Lars would likely be the "zany" one, but Joe took the cake on this one during his tenure. To say that he is an eccentric individual would be quite an understatement. The way he acted on-air, and even in real life, could be incredibly bizarre. He has a strange living situation, has an odd fascination with luggage that borders on sexual, has questionable geographical knowledge, enjoys bizarre fashion combinations, and so on.

Over time, his unusual persona ;ed Lars to suspect that Joe is actually an alien presenting himself as a human. This culminated on the Quarantine Special episode, in which Lars compared Joe to the protagonist from *Poorly Disguised Angel Comics*.

Either to add to the joke or to sloppily assuage suspicion, Joe would frequently, and without any prompting, declare on-air, "I'm not an alien!" Lars has compared this to someone introducing themselves at parties, "Hi, I'm Dave; I'm not gay." This would, of course, lead most people to suspect that Dave is gay.

He would also occasionally "slip up" and refer to humans as earthlings, or make a reference to them in a way that implies he is not included in that category.

On Facebook Messenger, Lars has Joe's nickname set to "Poorly Disguised Alien".
Sirancha

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**Sirancha**, real name presumably Sierra, is a podcast host and the partner of Asterios Kokkinos, a guest and friend of the show.

## History

Sirancha hosts THE LOUDEST PODCAST, alongside several additional podcasts, with Asterios Kokkinos.

She was a guest on an episode of The First Podcast in November 2019.

Both Asterios and Sirancha have been invited back for a third (or in Sirancha's case, second) guest appearance in a half a year or so.

## External Links

### Show

* iTunes
* Google Play
* Stitcher
* Spotify
* RSS Feed

### Social Media

* Twitter
* Instagram
Buttered Side Down

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**Buttered Side Down** is a YouTube comedy duo that produces surrealist first-person sketches. These sketches regularly break the laws of physics in order to amuse the audience.

## History

There are tentative plans to have the creators of BSD on The First Podcast as guests when their schedule clears up.
OverClocked ReMix

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**OverClocked ReMix** is a notable website and community devoted to electronic remixes of video game soundtracks.

## History

OverClocked ReMix began in 1999. In his teenage years, Lars was a fan of the site, as he had an interest in video games and the music contained within them. He has mentioned on the show that this was, at the time, one of the few alternatives to seeking out MIDI versions of the tracks.

As of current, The First Podcast has had two prominent OverClocked ReMix composers on the show: RoboRob and Flexstyle. There are plans to have more of them on, including the creator of OverClocked ReMix itself, and notable composer Danny Barranowsky (if possible).

In a sense, OC ReMix can be considered something of a friend of the show.
"Beach" from Plok

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**The track "Beach" from the Super Nintendo video game *Plok*** is, according to Lars, video game music's undisputed masterpiece.

He never shuts up about it.

## To be fair

Have you heard this track? It's in 7/8 time, using the stereo channels for all they're worth, and an absolute sonic headfuck drawing from both multiple genres and multiple decades. Also this was during an era where "bleep bloop" was still very much a thing.

Also, your brain simply isn't equipped to handle the hard left turn at 0:49. Somehow the track manages to garishly change into a completely different song, without provocation, in the middle of an odd time signature, with the subtlety of a baboon... yet sound incredible in doing so.

Lars has described the track as being "seventh grade material in a first grade class", not in the sense that he considered it grade school level, but that its creator was clearly overqualified for the simple SNES track project (in a good way). The composer, Tim Follin, was working on the level of what one might see in today's video game console generation.

## But still

It's just a random video game track from a bygone era. One does not need froth at the loins because of it.
Barack Obama

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**Barack Obama** is an American citizen and notable politician who was formerly the 44th President of the United States. This is being stated in case there is some podcast listener who somehow did not know this, although it would be very unlikely that they did not.

While the presidency of Obama was certainly imperfect, as all presidencies are, he currently exists as a bittersweet reminder of basic decorum and tact that the former leader has rejected wholesale.

## Show significance

Lars and Joe are fans of Obama and frequently reference him on-air when his presidency or persona comes up in conversation.

Additionally, Obama is, believe it or not, a friend and former colleague of David Housholder, Lars's father. Obama also follows Lars on Twitter.

Lars has stated that it is not actually completely inconceivable that he could arrange having him as a guest appearance on a future episode, given his social connections to the man; however, he is going to wait until the show has the kind of fanbase that could justify a guest of such magnitude.
The Spiderman 2 Pizza Theme

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There is a **pizza man theme in the game "Spiderman 2"** which is infamously bad. It hits hard with a an aggressive and tone deaf structure leaving the ears feeling violated.

Part of its infamy comes from the fact that this theme was played during a segment of the game that was very difficult, requiring players to hear it over and over again. It is probably burnt into the brains of a lot of gamers from the 2000s era.

Lars subjected Alexis to this theme on an early deleted episode. She found it to be quite bad but also thought it was kind of fun.
Feel free to flex

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**"Feel free to flex"** or some variant thereof is a common expression used by Lars toward guests.

## Explanation

The term *flex* in modern slang refers to bragging about one's triumphs and/or qualities in a manner that is intended to impress. Often, but not always, the term has a negative connotation if the bragging is perceived as awkward or unnecessary.

Occasionally a guest will walk back their comments when they feel they have bragged too much. Lars will offer this in return. Ostensibly, as this is a talk show episode that exists to learn about a notable person, it is not inappropriate for said guest to talk about their accomplishments; some "flexing" is fine.
Pepsi

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**Pepsi** is a brand of soft drink that has made it into the podcast discussion on multiple occasions after its company released a widely panned commercial featuring Kendall Jenner. Before the controversy, Pepsi was simply a second-placer in the “cola” soft drink industry.

## Show relevance

The company recently dropped an ill-advised commercial in which socialite Kendall Jenner saved the day at a protest by handing a can of Pepsi to a riot control officer, with a song backing that suggested something of actual political significance was happening.

Unsurprisingly, this rubbed people the wrong way. Here and there, the hosts have commented on the controversy with amused annoyance; their tone is usually very sarcastic. Guest host Richard Quiner once suggested ironically that Pepsi should run a counter-commercial against Gillette, suggesting people “drink a Pepsi and chill, snowflakes”.

Lars contends that the Pepsi-brand drink Mountain Dew is still alright.

Toward the end of his tenure, Joe regularly pretended to advertise Diet Pepsi on the show as a "sponsor".
Rusty Cage

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* Guests

**Rusty Cage** is a musician and YouTube content creator.

## History

Rusty was a guest on The First Podcast in September 2019. He mentioned being more than welcome to come back on as a guest again at some point.

There are tentative plans to get him back on with Simian Jimmy (formerly Mumkey Jones).

Rusty also crashed an episode on August 2020 with DaftPina, alongside mrmeatman, Ohan and efryo.
Canceled episodes

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In the history of the show, there have only been two episodes that have been canceled by the hosts.

## Episodes

* An episode with disgraced comedian Maddox was canceled after troubling revelations about him.
* An episode with an author was originally scheduled in April 2019 to promote his book. At the time, the show was beginning to focus almost exclusively on YouTubers and musicians, and the hosts determined that the appeal of said episode would not meet their current standards. Although his name was listed on the upcoming guests list, they now decline to disclose the name out of respect (since it wasn't his fault).
Jackie Exoh

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Jackie Nadler, known by her stage name **Jackie Exoh**, is a Chicago and LA-based house DJ. She was an extremely early guest, and is a friend of the show.

## Appearances

Jackie went to college with Lars. She appeared on an early episode of the podcast. She found My Immortal to be particularly amusing.

Jackie spent several minutes speaking on sexism in the EDM industry. She also briefly renamed the show to "The Poop Podcast" when an increasing amount of pooping-related topics were discussed.

There were initially plans to have Jackie back on the show, before the podcast started shifting away from local guests in favor of renowned internet names.

## Jewish background

At the beginning of the episode, it was revealed that Jackie's father is Jewish, thus prompting Lars to state that Joe should be there because he's also Jewish. Due to her hair forming a "jewfro" as a child, her family would jokingly refer to her as "Howard Stern", which disturbed her.

Joe deeply regrets not meeting Jackie because he thinks she sounds funny and smart, and wishes they could ramble about Jewish culture.
Joe's expertise

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* Lore/references

**Joe's expertise** was a recurring gag on the show in which Joe would randomly claim masterful knowledge of a subject.

He would then proceed to "demonstrate" his knowledge by blatantly reading a Wikipedia article or website about the topic. The point of the gag was that he purposefully made it extremely obvious that he was trying to get away with it.

Since the guests tend to be new to the show, the gag had an essentially infinite shelf life; Joe would pull it out quite frequently, amusing and annoying the guests with obvious typing and clicking while claiming "I'm an expert in that." When called out on the fact that he's reading an article, he would continue to deny it, saying "I'm not reading an article, I'm an expert on that. This is based on memory."

This gag was essentially retired in late 2019 as the hosts switched to higher quality microphones with less noise capturing, set up on booms and shock guards; the typing and clicking that made the gag amusing would, unfortunately, become nearly impossible to hear.

## History

The gag originated on an episode with Ohan, where he claimed to be an expert on the video game Bloodborne. When tested on this claim by Lars and Ohan (the latter of which stating, "I'm gonna gatekeep you right now"), he can be heard furiously Google searching for the answers.
Jesus Christ

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**Jesus Christ** is the former stage name and now legal name of an entertainer who does Fiverr and YouTube videos in character as the biblical Jesus.

## History

Jesus grew up in Bakersfield, California as a member of the Latter Day Saint movement, at the age of 15 he received a patriarchal blessing that said he would aid the movement and the church though computers.

He started his career as a Jesus impersonator in May of 2015 on Fiverr doing custom scripted impressions of the religious figure but only really gained steam once Pewdiepie hired him for a video in January of 2017.

Jesus was a guest on The First Podcast in 2020.
Hunter Hawes

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**Hunter Hawes** is a radio host in Chaska, Minnesota and a friend of the show, having made recurring guest appearances on The First Podcast.

## Appearances

Hunter has made several appearances on the show, in order to discuss liberal politics. While the hosts have moved away from having political guests, he remains a friend of Lars from real life.
Pronunciation of H

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* Lore/references

**The way that Lars pronounces the letter H** is a light gag on the show.

## History

In American English, the letter H is always pronounced "aitch". A growing trend in the UK, however, is to pronounce it "haitch". Linguists agree that the former is the standard pronunciation, but in British English the latter is considered an acceptable variant.

Lars picked up the nonstandard pronunciation from, in his own words, "watching too many Pyrocynical videos". As such, he will pronounce H as "haitch" on the podcast. While this does not come up extremely often, the semi-frequent mention of h3h3Productions brings it out.

This is not unusual for him, as he enjoys many subtle linguistic variants, such as "an historic".

In later episodes of the show, Joe started feigning indignation whenever Lars does this, leading to some form of the following exchange:

> Joe: It's **aitch**, Lars. Aitch.
>
>

> Lars: Yes, that's what I'm saying. Haitch.
>
>
"Let them talk" episodes

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**"Let them talk" episodes** are episodes of the show where the following takes place:

* The hosts give the guest the stand...
* They ask them questions, and...
* They proceed to let them talk for more or less the entire time.

## Explanation

Most episodes of the show have the format of a casual conversation, with roughly equal contributions from the guests, Lars and (formerly) Joe. The hosts generally prefer to do this style of episode.

Some, however, work better with the hosts simply feeding the guests questions. Examples of guests which benefited from this format included KneeCaps and TVFilthyFrank2.
You heard it here first

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**"You heard it here first"**, or sometimes, **"You heard it here first, folks"**is a catchphrase used by Lars and (formerly) Joe to denote significant new information or moments that happen during the show.

As the show is the first podcast ever, it follows that there should be a lot of firsts on it.

## Examples

* Former California State Senator Josh Newman made his first announcement of his re-election campaign for 2020 on-air.
* Creator of The Elder Scrolls Vijay Lakshman agreed to the first fan-submitted item in his upcoming spiritual successor video game series, Mythborn: the Blades of Glory, a pair of lethal ice skates.
* TeeKlef gave the origin story of his stage name for the first time on an interview; while presumably it was not a secret per se, it was inaugural telling of it on official record.
* Actress Marieve Herington filled in the rest of the story for her How I Met Your Mother character "Betty", imagining that she stuck around in Ted Mosby's class for some time due to interest in his love life, but ultimately moved on with her life. She acknowledged, however, that she also may be stuck in Architecture 201 to this day. This was the first new bit of HIMYM story development in years since the series conclusion (although it may or may not count as canonical).
* Huggbees first announced what would eventually be released as the Cr1tiKal music video "2019 Guy".
* mrmeatman revealed his real first name, Michael.
* Chikichu revealed his real first name, Will.
* ShadowForks revealed that the reason YouTube comedian iDubbbz had been posting ridiculous "Save the Squirrels" videos for the last year or so is because of an upcoming squirrel-related mobile game, which he had the privilege of beta testing.
* Kevin from Defunctland revealed that he would make a video on WestCOT.
Quick sidebar

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Once in a while on episodes, Lars and/or Joe would call in some way for a "**quick sidebar**" from the conversation with the guest.

## History

The first sidebar was actually requested by Huggbees, and the hosts would keep the tradition going over later episodes when appropriate.

In most occasions, the gag is that the hosts will not actually exit the Discord call, yet still have a private conversation anyway. They will jokingly "complain" about the guest's performance in a supposedly secretive manner.

Often the guest will chime in, themselves being in on the gag, to point out that they can still hear the hosts. At this point, the hosts will feign awkwardness and resume the episode proper.
Stamper

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Will Stamper, known online as **Stamper**, is a Newgrounds animator and a member of SleepyCabin. He also is a voice actor on Hazbin Hotel. Additionally, he streams as "DickPlanet" on Twitch with his friend Jake.

## Appearances

There were plans for an episode of the show with Cryburger and Stamper in early spring 2020. While the episode was actually recorded, technical issues prevented its edit and release. You had to be there.

Stamper returned for "take two" in June 2020.
Spaghetto

Tresten, known professionally as **Spaghetto**, is a Youtube Let's Player, video game mod creator and co-host of The First Podcast. He has appeared as a guest on The First Podcast multiple times.

His videos initially focused almost exclusively on Doki Doki Literature Club, but over time he branched out to other games and genres to diversify his audience.

Up until 2020 he hosted the Pastacast, with a few other hosts including Tiege. Joe and Lars both made guest appearances on this show. In June 2020, Tresten launched The Spaghetto Podcast with Joe.

## History

Spaghetto was referred to the show by his "uncle" Tiege, where the latter awkwardly asked Lars and Joe on a voice call if they would have him on as a guest. The hosts looked into the matter and decided to have him on in April 2019, with Tiege also appearing on the episode.

Since then, Spaghetto has become a friend of the show, frequently hanging out on the Discord server as something of a respite from his much more active server based on his YouTube channel. He is also now a patron. His main artist has been known to contribute drawings of Joe, Lars, and Tiege for promotional purposes.

Both Lars and Joe have been guests on the Pastacast in 2019.

Tresten contributed a love ballad to the show for its anniversary episode, producing an infamous belly laugh from Lars as Joe pictured the former sprawled out across a grand piano while singing it.

Lars was in talks to have Spaghetto back on once the latter reached 10000 subs. The episode ended up falling through initially, but the trio resolved to have him come back on for episode 101 in December 2019. Lars has described the second Spaghetto episode as perhaps one of the most rough raw recordings, with Joe behaving over-the-top extra and a good deal of dead air that needed to be fixed in post.

Spaghetto now hosts The Spaghetto Podcast with Joe.
Jerry Holkins

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**Jerry Holkins**, pseudonym "Tycho Brahe" is an American cartoonist.

He writes the Penny Arcade webcomic and created the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) with his artist Mike Krahulik. He also founded the Child's Play charity organization in 2003.

## History

Jerry is an upcoming guest on The First Podcast in most likely early 2020.
The three shells method of pooping

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* Lore/references

**The three shells method of pooping** is a hypothetical method of fecal waste removal that was originally alluded to in the movie "Demolition Man".

## History

The movie in question only alludes to the method, not providing any explanation as to how it would work. The internet would later attempt to discern what the method could possibly be, creating the image displayed on this article.

Whenever Lars remembers during an episode of the show, he will see if the guest is willing to do a read of the copypasta. Guests who have indulged him include:

* Kill Bill: the Rapper
* Rav
* Spaghetto
* FrankJavCee
* Brendaniel
* Ricepirate
* Kdin Jenzen
* Nyanners
* Michael Kovach
* Stamper

On the episode with Kill Bill: the Rapper and Rav, the former remarked with surprise and delight that one of his favorite rap records by artist Lakutis was named "Three Seashells", presumably based on the Demolition Man reference.
Boomer

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* Lore/references

A **boomer** is one of the following:

* A member of the Baby Boomer generation, a demographic cohort comprising approximately those born between 1945 and 1960, or
* Someone espousing a boomer mindset or stance, regardless of age.

## Explanation

Boomers have come into a fair amount of criticism in the late 2010s, as they began to utilize social media more openly. This exposed other generations to their opinions and attitudes, which, while far from universal, tended to share some common traits:

* Casual homophobia, transphobia, sexism, religious bigotry, ableism, and xenophobia
* An extremely condescending attitude toward all three of the newer generations (most of which they seemed to conflate into a single group of "millennials")
* A below-average willingness to critically examine their beliefs and have rational discussions with people seeking to challenge them

In 2019, the dismissive phrase "OK, Boomer" rose to prominence, intended as a conversation-terminating declaration that the individual has tried to use reason and logic to combat a boomer's views, but has run out of patience and is metaphorically throwing one's hands up in the air out of frustration.

## Show relevance

Boomers have been discussed frequently on The First Podcast. The hosts will quickly label any boomer attitudes they encounter, occasionally in jest (such as toward Ohan).

Balenaproductions noted that he had quit Facebook because of incessant boomer memes.

Sarah Z commented that the term "OK, Boomer" has potentially problematic connotations, but finds the phrase perfect after many fruitless attempts to engage with boomers in actual dialogue.

CallMeCarson jokingly categorized Lars and Joe as boomers on his guest appearance.
Troll 2

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* Lore/references

**Troll 2** is a movie that Joe and Lars reviewed on a now deleted episode of The First Podcast with guest Chelsea Sanders.

## Review

None of the three participants on the episode were a fan of the film, and they dissected a considerable amount of its scenes to talk about what was wrong with it.

In particular, problems with the film included:

* Idiosyncratically poor dialogue
* A complete lack of trolls, with goblins used instead
* The usage of several random people as "actors" who had no acting experience whatsoever, one being a mental patient on day release
* Choices and behaviors by the characters which were frequently devoid of any logic whatsoever
* A scene that attempted to be sexy by having two characters eat corn until it started popping
* Jarring background music
* Notoriously poor special effects
* Scenes that made it to the final cut which featured glaring technical problems, such as a fly landing on the actor's face
* An oddly specifically hostile attitude toward vegetarians
* "Ancient cake recipes"
Verbal ASE

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**Verbal ASE**, real name Adym, is a YouTube rapper and beatboxer.

## History

Adym was a guest on The First Podcast in June 2020. Lars particularly enjoyed the episode, with Adym being a great sport despite many technical issues and also having a solid sense of humor.

Adym and the hosts will likely be working together in the future on as of yet undetermined projects.
Useless Superpowers

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* Lore/references

Useless Superpowers is a segment in which Lars and (formerly) Joe deliberate, usually with a guest, on what they would like their "useless superpowers" to be.

## History/explanation

Unlike many other early segments of the show, asking guests what their useless superpower would be has been a very long-standing tradition that has stood the test of time.

An easy explanation for its staying power is the combination of its lighthearted nature and its simplicity in answering. It only takes a few moments for an average person to produce an appropriately amusing answer. Thus, the segment has become a gift that keeps on giving.

## Criteria

The criteria for choosing a Useless Superpower is that it is allowed to be marginally useful. In other words, it may benefit the life of the host very slightly, but not to any life changing degree. If it has no use at all, it wouldn't be a power, of course.

In later episodes, the hosts have requested that the guest (or themselves) only choose a power that they cannot already do. For example, the ability to memorize obscure and trivial Bible information would not count as an answer, since this is already physically possible for anyone with the time and drive for it.

## Some of the powers discussed on the show

* The ability to generate five dollars a day
* The ability to dispense any condiment he wishes out of his mouth or penis
* The ability to flip a coin, in which heads would give one fifty more fans, and tails would end one's career
* The ability to instantly learn any dead language
* The ability to lay a chicken egg out of one's butt
* The ability to parallel park, but not very well
* The ability to understand all languages extremely poorly
* Instant hair loss
* The ability for one's music to receive a single free listen per day on Spotify
* Inherent knowledge of TeeKlef's spring release schedule
* The ability to secrete molten lava out of one's head
Why Am I Muted?

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* Lore/references

**"Why am I muted?"** or some variant thereof, is a question that is *inevitably* asked by at least one audience member every single time the hosts record a live episode of the show.

## Explanation

Episodes of The First Podcast are almost always recorded live on the Discord server. Anyone can tune in if the episode is a regular one and not a bonus one, but obviously only the hosts and the guest(s) are unmuted outside of the live question segment.

For one reason or another, someone in the audience will inevitably ask why they are muted and can't talk during the recording. The current record for someone doing this is about thirty seconds into the episode.

Some people who do this are probably younger folks who have showed up because of the guest in question, and maybe don't understand exactly what is happening, so they assume it is a normal voice call (albeit with an abnormally large amount of callers) and get confused.

Others do so as a joke to elicit a response from the hosts.
We asked

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* Lore/references

**"We asked"** is the simple and straightforward answer that Lars and (formerly) Joe give to guests, as well as the hosts of other podcasts they go on, when asked how they have gotten such huge guests on The First Podcast.

## Explanation

The First Podcast has had some proportionally absurdly large guests on, from Pogo on the very first episode, to the literal creator of the Elder Scrolls, to CallMeCarson, to California's former State Senator Josh Newman, to the creators of Cyanide & Happiness. Guests of this size and importance would be right at home on a much larger podcast.

The reason the hosts were able to have them on is because they asked. It really is that simple.

Several people have noted that this answer feels inadequate, as it seems like "there should be more to it". In reality, however, the boys found an email address, sent an invitation, and got a yes.

## Theory

Lars hypothesizes that, while assuredly the big guests they've had on get asked to appear on things on a regular basis, there are probably a lot of people who don't even bother, since they assume everyone else is already asking.

What this means is, hypothetically, the inboxes of the guests are not *as* full as one might think, and thus it is not unrealistic to assume some may see said email.
Hidden references

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* Lore/references

Lars hides **a considerable amount of audio references to a variety of media** throughout The First Podcast in the editing room.

See if you can check them all off your list during a binge of the show!

## List of references

This list is by no means complete, but it's a start.

* 18 Carat Affair
* 2 Girls 1 Cup
* 2K Games
* (500) Days of Summer
* Ace Attorney series
* Alex Jones
* Arrested Development
* Bag Raiders
* Barney
* Bernie Sander
* Big Shaq
* Billie Eilish
* Bioshock Infinite
* Bizarre Inc.
* Blank Banshee
* BMW Vision M NEXT
* BoJack Horseman
* Capcom vs. SNK
* Change Da World, My Final Message
* Colossal is Crazy
* Community
* Curb Your Enthusiasm
* Cuphead
* Danganronpa
* dark cat
* Daytona USA
* Death Note
* Dee Dee Wonder
* Demolition Man
* Descent II
* Desired
* Disneyland
* DJ Bitman
* Donkey Kong Country
* Donkey Kong Land
* Einhander
* Eric Andre
* Family Guy
* Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
* Filthy Frank and Pink Guy
* Final Fantasy series
* Fleetwood Mac
* Freakazoid
* Friends
* Frozen
* Garfield Kart
* George Clanton
* Guilty Gear X2
* Gus Johnson
* h3h3Productions
* Harry Potter series
* Hello Internet
* Hit or Miss
* Horrible Bosses
* Hot Dad
* Hypnospace Outlaw
* I Hate Everything
* iDubbbz
* Inception
* Internet Comment Etiquette
* Jak & Daxter
* Joe Jackson
* John Mulaney
* JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
* Key & Peele
* Kill Bill and Rav
* Kingdom Hearts series
* LFB
* Logan Paul
* Lone
* Lovely Planet
* Maddox Lost
* Mario Kart Wii
* Marvel vs. Capcom 2
* maxmoefoe
* Mega64
* Metal Gear Solid
* Metroid Fusion
* Michael Haggins
* Mitch Murder
* Moist Meter
* My Bloody Valentine
* MySpace: The Movie
* NakeyJakey
* NBA Jam
* Nerd City
* NFL Blitz 2000
* No One's Around to Help
* Old Spice
* Onra
* Otis McDonald
* OutKast
* Papers, Please
* Paul McCartney
* Phantasy Star Universe
* Planet Puzzle League
* Plok
* Pogo
* Pokemon game series and anime
* Portal series
* Puffer Fish
* Pyrocynical
* Quinton Reviews
* Roblox
* Radiohead
* Rooster Teeth
* Run the Jewels
* Rusty Cage
* Saints Row IV
* SCP Foundation
* Sears
* SebastiAn
* Seinfeld
* Shoe0nHead
* Silent Hill 2
* Sonic Mania
* Sonic the Hedgehog 2
* Spongebob Squarepants
* SSSniperwolf
* Star Fox
* Star Trek: The Next Generation
* Stars of the Lid
* Steel Angel Kurumi
* Super Castlevania IV
* Super Mario 64
* Super Mario Bros. 3
* Super Mario Odyssey
* Super Mario RPG
* Super Mario World
* Super Metroid
* Super Smash Bros series
* telepath テレパシー能力者
* The Biggest Problem in the Universe
* The Bloody Beetroots
* The Create Unknown
* The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
* The Mighty Boosh
* The Office
* The Simpsons
* The Wilhelm scream
* theneedledrop
* Thomas the Tank Engine
* Tiege
* Tony Hawk's Underground
* Uncharted 4
* Undertale
* Unus Annus
* videogamedunkey
* VAPERROR
* Virtua Fighter 5
* Vsauce
* Vulfpeck
* Watch Dogs 2
* Wii Sports
* Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
* Windows Longhorn
* World of Warcraft
* Workaholics
* XXYYXX
* YG
* YouTube Rewind
We Don't Suck

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* Lore/references

**We Don't Suck** (stylized "WeDon'tSuck") is a podcast hosted by Kill Bill: the Rapper and Rav, both of whom have made guest appearances on The First Podcast.

Lars has noted to Bill that Joe and himself are willing to be a guest on their show if ever needed, although now that Joe has left the show, this offer has probably ended.

## Style

We Don't Suck is mostly a conversational podcast, with many gags and plenty of absurd humor. Stylistically, the show somewhat resembles earlier guestless episodes of The First Podcast (though there are very occasional guests). Lars would summarize it as, "What if we went with the original format, but got zanier and funnier?"

Often when Lars and Joe reference We Don't Suck on air, the former will insert a clip from the latter podcast's intro song in place of the stated name.
Thought Cops

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* Lore/references

**Thought Cops** is a weekly topical podcast run from Chicago by stand-up comedians Grant Mooney and Kevin Podas. The hosts, as well as the editor Zwick, are friends of the show.

## Podcast

Each episode of the show features Kevin and Grant, and often a special guest (or several of them). The podcast focuses on "outrage culture", usually of the American variety. The hosts will discuss several news stories which caused a sense of outrage in the general populace, usually mocking the subjects in question.

Despite the name and premise, Thought Cops is not really a political show whatsoever. While it would not be difficult to guess where two millennial stand-up comedians living in an urban area land on certain issues, the two decidedly do not use the show to debate. The intent is to dissect the topics in a comedic fashion and have a laugh.

Staples of the show include:

* Greeting the guest(s) from last week
* Presenting the show as taking place in the fictional "Neo-Chicago"
* Two Minutes of Hate, in which the hosts and guest will rant briefly about a pet peeve
* Beef Before Potatoes, where the hosts address something from a previous episode
* Grant saying "Aren't we all?" and Kevin saying "News to me!"
* Praising and/or consuming Jeppson's Malört, a disgusting liqueur
* Weekly voicemails from fans

## Appearances

The members of Thought Cops have made appearances on the show, both as a solo guest (Grant) and as a duo. There were plans to have Kevin as a solo guest at some point, but those plans seem to have stalled. Instead, Lars arranged for an episode with both Thought Cops and Zwick in February 2020.

Joe and Lars made a guest appearance on the 111th episode of Thought Cops.

### Show

* iTunes
* Google Play
* Spotify
* Stitcher
* RSS Feed
* YouTube
* Patreon (Fire Bros)

### Social Media

* Twitter
* Instagram
* Reddit
* Discord
Vsauce2

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* Lore/references

**Vsauce2** is a YouTube channel run by Kevin Lieber and produced by Matt Tabor. The two also host a podcast called The Create Unknown.

## History

Kevin and Matt were guests on The First Podcast in 2020. Matt became a friend of the show, often conspiring with Lars behind the scenes to get certain guests on The First Podcast and talking about the content creation meta.

They also were one of the first creative projects outside of The First Podcast to break the news that Amir would be joining as co-host, when the latter was on as a guest.

In September 2020, Lars cooked up the idea with Matt for a fake "war" between The Create Unknown and The First Podcast, in which each show would take tongue-in-cheek potshots at each other on-air and elsewhere to drump up hype for one another.
Voicemails

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* Lore/references

Occasionally on early episodes, Lars and Joe would listen to **a voicemail from the audience** on-air. The pace has been slow, as they found it awkward when listening to one when a guest was present; future voicemails are likely only to be read on guestless episodes.

## Content

At first, all of the voicemails listened to on-air were either fans or previous guests asking Joe about the last time he cried.

On the 1-year anniversary episode of the show, the hosts got drunk and listened to voicemails of Discord members congratulating them on reaching a year milestone.
Anthony the Starbucks Chessmaster

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* Lore/references

According to Joe, he was taught how to play chess at a high level via the teachings of **an unknown chessmaster named "Anthony" at Starbucks**.

## History

On several episodes of the show, Joe mentioned his supposed chess prowess. He claimed to owe his knowledge and skill to an alleged chessmaster named Anthony (the last name of which he has never been able to recall), who taught him and several other children how to play chess at Starbucks as some sort of hobby.

During a bonus episode in February 2020, Lars investigated international chess rankings and discovered that:

* The 2600 ranking Joe had claimed, while not bad per se, was below the official Elo rating cutoff, and was thus not considered significant.
* No person named Anthony in the international chess rankings could have plausibly matched Joe's description.

## In fairness

While the idea of the claim being 100% true was summarily debunked, it is not remotely outside of the realm of plausibility that some guy, who might as well be named Anthony, did indeed help teach Joe how to play chess at a coffee shop. It is unclear whether this was a long-term bit from Joe, or an either intentional or unintentional confabulation.
Turkish Star Wars

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* Lore/references

***Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam* (*The Man Who Saved the World*)** is a Turkish film, colloquially referred to as "Turkish Star Wars" in the west. While not mimicking the plot of Star Wars, it does utilize a lot of bootleg footage from it, hence the nickname.

## Relevance

Lars and Joe did a scathing review of this film on an episode of the show with Robert Thompson of Dick Neptune. They leveled many criticisms against it, such as:

* Liberal illegal usage of footage from Star Wars, music from Indiana Jones, etc.
* Overly long introduction which creates an unnecessarily lengthy backstory that sums up as "We became able to go to outer space"
* Aggressive, almost antagonistic sound design consisting of a single sound effect loudly repeated ad nauseam
* Jarring scene transitions with no attempt at a cohesive, pleasant viewing experience
* Overbearing machismo enforced by the two main protagonists, who seem completely obsessed with women even while enduring dire circumstances, and possess a very raw and smelly sense of style
* Bare-bones dialogue (such as: "Where are we?" "I dunno.")
* Ridiculous costume and weapons design
* Ludicrous amount of fight scenes, most of which are solved by the protagonist either smacking enemies with bizarre hand motions or jumping over them
* Heavy-handed, shoved-in religious themes
* A mid-film "training" montage which consists almost entirely of the protagonist smacking rocks
* Depiction of brutal child murders
* Shoehorned "love" plot which occurs entirely via lengthy smiling stares between the protagonist and the damsel in distress
* Characters kissing with their eyes open like absolute psychopaths

## Tony

In processing the film, Lars imagined a hypothetical person named "Tony" who was the sound designer for this movie. Tony is given many orders, depicted by Lars as being shouted by the director, to insert or include a variety of sound decisions that he does not understand are going to be painful for the audience.

## Final thoughts

Robert contended that he enjoys the movie despite its flaws, or perhaps *because* of them; the film does have a certain sense of charm for being idiosyncratically bad.

Lars thought that, while it was a bad film, it was not on the level of Shark Exorcist. However, he particularly loathed the sound design, calling it a "Holocaust for the ears".

Joe mentioned that he stopped taking notes about 45 minutes into the film, since "nothing happens" for the rest of it. While not technically true, Lars and Robert understood what he meant; the second half of the movie was mostly skimmed over in the review, as very few significant plot details arise during it.