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Animation and video games have been a huge part of the geek experience for as long as most of us can remember. And although a lot of work goes into producing quality media in these channels, one of the highest-profile aspects of games and cartoons? Their voices. Although voice acting as the definition of an "invisible" art, the performance of these actors is absolutely crucial for bringing these projects to life. Interestingly, the group of first-call artists responsible for performing these characters is a relatively small, and very elite club. And since you know their voices far better than their names or faces, we thought we'd take some time to highlight the people behind the performances. So tune into this episode as Saint and Jim take you on a tour of the folks responsible for bringing such rich sounds to the characters in digital and animated entertainment.

Kids' movies are a lot of fun, aren't they? Bright colors, engaging characters and wacky hijinks aplenty have always been a great way to keep youngsters entertained. HOWEVER. Those of us of a certain generation have distinct memories of certain "children's" movies that raise the question, "What the hell were they THINKING?!?" Sure, that animated film about bunnies or puppies may have LOOKED innocent on the surface. But when our parents plunked us down in front of them and left the room, we were nevertheless often subjected to themes and imagery that haunt us to this day. Depending on the movie, we had to deal with everything from cute horses dying of depression, to kidnappings by candy-waving maniacs, to straight-up body horror that wouldn't have been out of place in a Cronenberg or Carpenter production. So join Saint and Jim for this lively jaunt back in time for a look at some of the more traumatizing, nightmare-fuel kids' entertainment that your youthful self was in NO way prepared for.

If you're a geek (and chances are FAR better than fair that if you're reading this you qualify), then you're probably a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For nearly four decades (gulp!) these titanic terrapins have been entertaining audiences with their escapades across countless types of media. Comics. Toys. TV. Video games. And soon, a brand-new, star-studded animated feature from none other than  über-nerd Seth Rogen. Of course, the last 40 years of turtle tales haven't been without ups and downs of controversy, and this latest iteration is no different. So join Saint and Jim for this episode as they break down the history, present and future of the half-shelled heroes. PLUS: "The Last of Us", more tech woes, and why the Peach isn't in the 'fridge for once.

Seems like every few years, a weird phenomenon happens in the popular culture: a nerdery purveyor will make a boo-boo in production, and then undertake drastic measures to literally bury their mistakes. It's not exactly a PATTERN, per se — but it's happened just often enough to be curious. To wit: the folks behind the ubiquitous Funko Pops — those impossibly proportioned chibi-style figurines depicting everything from rock stars to video game characters to your uncle's best friend — apparently overestimated how many toys they should make for the year. And rather than liquidate, donate, accumulate or procrastinate, the company opted for a much weirder solution: evacuate. Meaning they're just dumping the beady-eyed little bastards into a landfill. Yeah, really. And they're not the first geekufacturer to have done so. Want to know more? Give this episode a listen, and we'll dig into it together. PLUS: more Twitter takeaways, Marvel movements, and DC drama (both comics, and Washington).

Video game development is a famously arduous process. That's largely thanks to competing factors like time, budgets, and technological limitations. Still, video games are a multi-billion dollar business. So developers throughout the history of digital entertainment have had to find ways to work around obstacles that might otherwise impede their progress. And man, have they ever come up with interesting workarounds. In this episode, Saint and Jim look at some of the surprising ways he creators of games have discovered to get over their stumbling blocks in order to create experiences you'll treasure — in hopes that you won't notice the palette-swaps, pop-in, and NPCs wearing whole-ass trains as a hat. Plus: bonus rambling about revisionist literature edits, more "Velma" grief, and why the "Dilbert" dude is such a waste of space.

Let it never be said that we don't suffer for our art. This week, Saint and Jim take on a pretty unexpected subject: Kidz Bop. And not just Kidz Bop, but Kidz Bop bops that REALLY shouldn't exist. From laughable lyric changes, to subject matter that had to be so sanitized that it bears almost no resemblance to the original, to how useless it all ultimately is psychologically...your hosts try to look at every perplexing corner of these most inessential of pop-music cover versions. I mean, did we as a society really NEED a cherubic chorus of chirpy tweens offering us their squeaky-clean spin on "Lips of an Angel", "Thrift Shop" and "So What"? Well, no. But they exist. So we had to break them down. And since this one was such a nightmare to edit (due to both subject matter and the sheer number of clips necessary), we'd REALLY love you if you gave it a listen.

By now, it's hardly news that James Gunn and Peter Safran have been handed the reins of the newly rebranded, soon-to-be-unified DCU (which the powers-that-be are dropping the "E" from now in order to emphasize the continuity). That said, the news of the slate of projects they're focusing on first just dropped, and it's...interesting? On this edition of the Fuel Your Fandom podcast, Saint and Jim take a look at the announced plan for DC's on-screen direction, and engage in a whole lot of nerdy speculation as to what it could all mean for superhero media.

Hey, guys. Did you miss us? We sure as hell missed you. Saint and Jim return to the Fuel Your Fandom podcast for our Season 5 opener, and boy HOWDY did a lot of crazy stuff happen over our holiday hiatus. As such, we don't really have a theme for this installment other than playing catch-up on all the news that's fit to nerd. So if you feel like joining us for a lively bounce-around touching on video games, streaming stuff, movie happenings, superhero goings-on and the latest in sparkling consequences, then let's kick off our fifth run of shows with a bang — together.

Hey, Friends of Fandom. Saint and Jim don't really have a topic this week. They just wanted to spend a little time just before their holiday hiatus to reflect on a great year of guests, geekery, good times, and — most of all — gratitude. So that's what they did! Thanks to everyone who was a part of Fuel Your Fandom in 2022. We appreciate you all. And here's to Season 5 to come!

The Man. The Myth. The weirdest legend of them all. How has it taken Saint and Jim this long to get around to the national treasure that is Weird Al? Not only is he universally beloved and an undeniable creative genius, he’s also a peerless parodist, funny filmmaker, virtuoso squeezeboxer, and all around nice guy. On this episode, your intrepid co-hosts are joined by Al superfan Josh Bohmbach of The Benchwarmers Sports Trivia podcast. What results is less a “podcast” per se, and more just three nerds gushing endlessly about a legitimate icon. Couldn’t be helped. He’s just so awesome. So earhole it up, and let’s get weird.

Something curious has been happening in the land of live music lately. Cover bands and tribute acts have ascended to a level of draw (and ticket sales) previously only reserved for their "original" counterparts. Whether a given band is emulating a single celebrated act or representing a specific genre's greatest hits, the public's appetite for familiarity has never seemed higher. Is it nostalgia? Post-covid "comfort food"-style tendencies? Or something else? Today, Saint and Jim are joined by Kevin Sucher, Grammy-nominated producer and bandleader of America's favorite Yacht Rock band The Docksiders, to break this one down.

Few characters have captured the imaginations of escape-seekers like the ultimate gentleman spy. Y'know, 007. Bond. James Bond. The "license to kill" guy. In this episode, Saint and Jim are joined once again by friend of the show and host of the "Mission Log" Star Trek podcast, John Champion. In a Blofeld-worthy twist, he's actually not here to talk Trek this time. But he IS good enough to help us dive into some Bond-centered subjects that might leave you shaken AND stirred. Among them: how do we parse the misogyny of Bond's earliest outings with modern standards? Who was the best Bond? Is there a future for the character after "No Time to Die"? How much of a difference is there between Fleming vs. Broccoli? And how good is all that music, anyway?

First things first: MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING FOR THIS EPISODE. If you somehow haven't seen "Wakanda Forever" yet, then please save this one for later. Reason being, Saint n' Jim both saw it the weekend it opened, and were so moved by it that the usual months-out spoiler moratoriums are out the window. But if you HAVE seen it, then we hope you enjoy the breakdown of all the reasons why this film is one of the best the MCU has produced thus far. Among them: rich depictions of culture, incredible action, powerful Afro-futurism, touching tributes, inspiring depictions of Black excellence, and SO many implications for the MCU as a whole it'll make your head spin. Earhole it up!

There's no denying it: technology is an integral part of all of our lives. We all have smartphones in our pockets. We'd get lost without GPS. And most of us don't really remember much before the internet. But our reliance on tech isn't necessarily a net positive. As we've seen given some of the news stories that have recently surfaced involving Facebook, Twitter, layoffs, and other "we'd rather not think about it" kind of stuff, sometimes tech can be more trouble than it's worth. In this edition, Saint and Jim take a look at our over-reliance on tech, and what it means for the culture.

We all know that TV and movies aren't real life. And most contexts, it's a really good thing they're not. That's good for a lot of reasons. But one of the biggest ones is — let's face it — some of our favorite fictional characters would be horrible people to know in real life. And we don't even mean the sociopaths and supervillains. We're talking about beloved characters who just happen to be low-key horrible people. In this episode, Saint and Jim take a look at why we'd never actually be friends with these folks. Of course, they also dip into some news, tangents, and meandering. Like they do.  

There's no doubt about it — there's never been a better time to be a nerd. Given the abundance of entertainment aimed directly at us these days, it's become obvious that the geek have truly inherited the earth. HOWEVER. How much of a good thing is TOO much? Given the frankly absurd proliferation of movies, comics, TV shows, video games and countless other channels of media, it's feeling ever more impossible to keep up with it all. In this edition of the FYF podcast, Saint and Jim take a closer look at just how bloated the nerd mediasphere has become, and how overwhelming it feels trying to keep up with it all. So if you can find the time (amid obsessing over your growing Netflix queue, stressing over your heavy Kindle backlog and sighing over the fact that they just announced 17 new "Assassin's Creed" games), we'd love it if you could earhole this one.

Some weeks, episode themes reveal themselves. Others, there's just so much nerd news, it can be hard to narrow it all down into one installment. This was one of the second kind. In this edition of the Fuel Your Fandom podcast, Saint and Jim face down an absolute deluge of newsworthy geek-o-sphere goings on, and hand-pick some of the biggest standouts. And in an unprecedented move, some late-breaking nerd news sent the boys back to their mics to record an addendum — since something absolutely huge happened just after they wrapped up. So get this in your earholes, and get plugged in to what's up.

Time travel is a sticky concept. While the IDEA of trekking through the timeline is totally feasible (especially given commonly accepted Einsteinian theory), the PRACTICE of traipsing across the ages can be complicated, indeed. What happens if you encounter yourself? Are you risking disrupting the timeline? Can you give yourself stock tips?  How do quantum physics factor in? In this edition of Fuel Your Fandom, Saint and Jim are joined by time travel expert and filmmaker John Lampson, who breaks down the three types of temporal travel, his favorite on-screen examples of the concept, and why so many of the paradoxes that could theoretically arise for active chrononauts shouldn't be a real worry in reality.

Spoopy season is here, and Saint and Jim are celebrating with a special guest. Stephen King superfan Zach Dahlem joins us for a look into the bestselling horrormeister's career and catalogue, including both on-the-page and on-screen versions of his works. We'll take a look at King's early pulpy stuff, his mid-period "recovery" works, and how he's been taken more seriously in the third act of his arc — whether he wants to admit as much, or not. As per usual, we'll have some winding little tangents along the way. But you knew that already. Happy earholing!

Technology moves fast. Sometimes a little TOO fast. As such, for every overnight success in tech, there are countless overhyped "next big thing" gadgets and/or services that are announced, released, and then fall flat on their digital faces. Sometimes it's immediate, other times early adopters are left with slowly obsoleted zombie gear, and on occasion, something just ends up being vaporware that never sees the light of day. And then, there are those pieces of failed tech that still have devotées years later despite having fallen out of favor with the tech tastemakers. On this episode, Saint and Jim take a look at the long and winding road littered with the corpses of tech flops. As a "bonus", fans of meandering run-ups will also be subject to listening to them prattle on about racist snowflakes, the increasing speed of digital movie releases, and the coming rise of the "synthespian."