Best Puck University Podcasts (2025)

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Jane Fonda’s Workout, Part 1: Jane and Leni (Encore) 58:31

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4d ago58:31

58:31

In 1982, the Jane Fonda Workout became the best-selling home video of all time. Over decades, it and its 22 follow ups would spawn a fitness empire, sell more than 17 million copies, and transform Fonda into a leg-warmer-clad exercise guru. And 40 years after its initial release, when the COVID pandemic hit, the workout had a moment yet again. Peop…

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#492 Cam Squires, Island Life & The Devils 1:01:41

3d ago1:01:41

1:01:41

#492 Cam Squires, Island Life & The Devils by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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#491 Jake Furlong, California Hockey & Moosehead Forever 1:02:29

10d ago1:02:29

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#491 Jake Furlong, California Hockey & Moosehead Forever by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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#490 Braeden MacPhee, Jr. Career, UNB & Getting Better 1:06:39

10d ago1:06:39

1:06:39

#490 Braeden MacPhee, Jr. Career, UNB & Getting Better by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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How to Hunt a Mammoth, and Other Experiments in Archaeology 57:03

19d ago57:03

57:03

Experimental archeology is, simply put, archeology that involves running experiments. Where traditional archaeologists may study, research, analyze, and theorize about how artifacts were made or used, experimental archaeologists actually try to recreate, test, and use them to see what they can learn. In doing so, they have given the field a whole n…

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The Bad-Mouthing of British Teeth 51:01

1M ago51:01

51:01

From The Simpsons’ Big Book of British Smiles to Austin Powers’ ochre-tinged grin, American culture can’t stop bad-mouthing English teeth. But why? Are they worse than any other nation’s? June Thomas drills down into the origins of the stereotype, and discovers that the different approaches to dentistry on each side of the Atlantic have a lot to sa…

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This pollster predicted Trump's surprising 2024 coalition. How's it holding up? 51:14

1M ago51:14

51:14

Back in 2023, Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini wrote a book that laid out a path for how the party could win future elections with a working class multiracial coalition. Later that year, Amy talked with Patrick on this very podcast where they discussed whether Trump could expand his base to include those voters of color. Well, as we saw, he did.…

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Mailbag: Drug Names, Cow Abductions, and the “Ass-Intensifier” 48:01

2M ago48:01

48:01

In this episode we’re opening our mailbag to answer three fascinating questions from our listeners. How did “ass,” a word for donkeys and butts, become what linguists call an “intensifier” for just about everything? How do pharmaceuticals get their wacky names? And why do we all seem to think that aliens from outer space would travel to Earth just …

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Introducing The Sporkful | Is Your Recipe Lying To You? 29:04

2M ago29:04

29:04

If you look at any list of best-selling cookbooks, certain words come up over and over again: quick, easy, fast, effortless. But is it actually possible to deliver deliciousness in no time? Or are these recipes too good to be true? This week, The Sporkful talks with intrepid journalist Tom Scocca, who exposed the dirty secret about caramelized onio…

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The center of the political universe is Michigan 29:04

2M ago29:04

29:04

This week we are diverging from our normal Odd Years format to introduce you to another Cook Political Report product, Editors Roundtable. This podcast features a rotating cast of our Cook Political Report team breaking down the latest news, analysis and insights about the most important House, Senate and Gubernatorial contests in the country. We l…

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The White Noise Boom 52:58

2M ago52:58

52:58

White noise has a very precise technical definition, but people use the term loosely, to describe all sorts of washes of sound—synthetic hums, or natural sounds like a rainstorm or crashing waves—that can be used to mask other sounds. Twenty years ago, if you’d told someone white noise was a regular part of your life, they would have found that unu…

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The Comeback of Cuomo and the Rise of Mamdani 35:32

2M ago35:32

35:32

Most of the political attention these days is centered in D.C, but there's a pretty fascinating primary contest happening just a train ride north in New York City. The Democratic primary for mayor of the Big Apple features a crowded field of Democrats, including some well known names like former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was forced to resign after…

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The Boston Cinematic Universe 47:37

2M ago47:37

47:37

This episode is a first for Decoder Ring: a live show, recorded at the WBUR Festival in Boston, Massachusetts. Given the setting, we decided to take on a Boston-based cultural mystery: namely, the “Boston movie.” Beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hollywood has churned out a whole cycle of films drenched in Beantown’s particularities, cri…

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"This will get done, the question is how painful it is to get there." Puck's Leigh Ann Caldwell on the politics of the "Big Beautiful Bill." 43:45

3M ago43:45

43:45

President Trump's signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is crawling its way through Congress. Having passed the House by a single vote, the so-called BBB is in the Senate where various Republican factions - the fiscal hawks, the centrists, the populists - are divided over how to resolve their many competing priorities over the nati…

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The Laff Box (Encore) 36:17

3M ago36:17

36:17

Decoder Ring is marking its 100th episode this year. To celebrate, we’re revisiting our very first episode from 2018, which asks: What happened to the laugh track? For nearly five decades, the laugh track was ubiquitous, but beginning in the early 2000s, it fell out of sitcom fashion. What happened? How did we get from The Beverly Hillbillies to 30…

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"We've become the crossing guard party." A Conversation with Pod Save America's Dan Pfeiffer. 39:30

3M ago39:30

39:30

When we booked this episode with Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer several weeks back, our plan was to talk about the Democrats and their strategy and messaging around Trump - something Dan's been writing about for his Substack, Message Box. Should Democrats just focus on the economy? Should they raise alarm bells over deportations? How loudly …

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The Glaring Problem with Headlights 43:17

3M ago43:17

43:17

Something seems to have happened to car headlights. In the last few years, many people have become convinced that they are much brighter than they used to be—and it’s driving them to the point of rage. Headlight glare is now Americans’ number one complaint on the road. The story of how and why we got here is illuminating and confounding. It’s what …

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Rahm Emanuel Has a Message for Democrats 47:02

3M ago47:02

47:02

Rahm Emanuel has held many titles: Congressman from Illinois, DCCC Chairman, Chief of Staff to Barack Obama, Mayor of Chicago, and Ambassador to Japan under President Biden. These days, he doesn't have an official position at the moment. But that's not stopping him from giving some very pointed advice to Democrats on every possible platform: cable …

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Republican Strategist and Podcaster Josh Holmes on the Midterms, Tariffs and Why Authenticity Matters 48:08

4M ago48:08

48:08

You may know our guest today, Josh Holmes, as one of the hosts of the popular political podcast, Ruthless. For those of you who don't know, Ruthless is to the conservative media sphere as Pod Save America is to the liberal media ecosystem. But long before he started his podcasting gig, Amy knew Josh as a Republican political operative. He was chief…

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Off-the-Wall Stories of Off-Label Use 52:01

4M ago52:01

52:01

Products often tell you exactly how they’re intended to be used. But why leave it at that? As a culture, we have long had a knack for finding ingenious, off-label uses for things. In this episode, we take a close look at a few examples of products that are ostensibly meant for one thing, but are better known for something else entirely. We explore …

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"Trump voters are starting to ask questions." Pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson on 100 days. 46:34

4M ago46:34

46:34

We are 100 days into the second Trump administration and there's no better person to help us understand what voters are making of these first months of Trump 2.0 than Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson. Kristen is a founding partner of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm. She's a contributing opinion writer for The New…

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How “Chicken Soup” Sold Its Soul 48:49

4M ago48:49

48:49

Chicken Soup for the Soul was the brainchild of two motivational speakers who preach the New Thought belief system known as the Law of Attraction. For more than 30 years, the self-help series has compiled reader-submitted stories about kindness, courage, and perseverance into easily digestible books aimed at almost every conceivable demographic: Ch…

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By this measure, America is actually a little less polarized these days 36:06

5M ago36:06

36:06

Way back in the late 1990s, Cook Political Report founder Charlie Cook had an idea to rank all 435 congressional districts by their partisanship - in other words, whether a district is more Republican or more Democratic. That way, we'd be able to see, at a quick glance, which members of Congress represented districts that were either slightly or st…

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Spring Break Forever 48:08

5M ago48:08

48:08

The infamous annual ritual of spring break—where thousands of college students head to the same warm location and go crazy—can seem like it’s always been here. But it hasn’t. The spring break phenomenon is a holdover from midcentury teen culture that has endured by changing, just enough, to be passed from one generation to the next. In this episode…

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Trump's Top Ad Man Pulls Back the Curtain On 2024 48:36

5M ago48:36

48:36

On the last podcast, Amy talked with Chauncey McLean, head of the Democratic super PAC Future Forward, about their media strategy for Kamala Harris and why things didn't work out as they had hoped. For this podcast, we turn to the ad strategy of the Trump campaign with John Brabender, the chief creative officer for the media company BrabenderCox. J…

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How Books About Things That Changed the World… Changed the World 56:24

5M ago56:24

56:24

Look in the nonfiction section of any bookstore and you’ll find dozens of history books making the same bold claim: that their narrow, unexpected subject somehow changed the world. Potatoes, kudzu, soccer, coffee, Iceland, bees, oak trees, sand, chickens—there are books about all of them, and many more besides, with the phrase “changed the world” o…

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#489 Stacey Maclean, SHOOT THE PUCK! & Water off a duck's back 49:03

5M ago49:03

49:03

#489 Stacey Maclean, SHOOT THE PUCK! & Water off a duck's back by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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Data Analytics Was Supposed To Be How Dems Dominated Politics. That Didn't Happen in 2024. 54:31

5M ago54:31

54:31

Back in the 2012 cycle, Chauncey McLean was a young staffer on the Obama campaign working in the newly developing field of data analytics. Six years later, McLean put those data science skills - and the ones he developed while working in the private sector testing ads for commercial products - to work as head of the Democratic super PAC, Future For…

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Why Men of Color Might Be the New Swing Voters 39:49

6M ago39:49

39:49

We've been wanting to have Terrence Woodbury on the podcast for a long time. The reason is that he's a pollster who has done some amazing work with demographic groups that made a big difference in the presidential race last year, but also in previous cycles: Black voters, voters of color, and younger voters. And if many Democrats were surprised by …

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Truck Nutz (Encore) 39:29

6M ago39:29

39:29

Truck Nutz is a brand name for the dangling plastic testicles some people affix to the bumpers or hitches of their vehicles. Also sold as Bulls Balls, Your Nutz, and other brand names, these plastic novelties have a powerful symbolic charge and are often associated with a crass, macho, red state audience. But truck nuts are a surprisingly complicat…

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From Title IX to Caitlin Clark 1:01:46

6M ago1:01:46

1:01:46

Last year, as March Madness kicked into gear, there was one athlete everyone seemed to be talking about: Caitlin Clark. The then University of Iowa guard was on her way to leading her team to the NCAA finals, selling out stadiums everywhere she went and creating an unprecedented level of excitement around women's basketball. This interest followed …

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#488 U18 Major Playoffs, OVI Goal Chase & The Blue Jays? (IN HOUSE) 1:00:20

6M ago1:00:20

1:00:20

#488 U18 Major Playoffs, OVI Goal Chase & The Blue Jays? (IN HOUSE) by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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Jerry Lewis’ Lost Holocaust Clown Movie 56:52

6M ago56:52

56:52

In 1972, Jerry Lewis—the actor and filmmaker known for slapstick comedies like The Nutty Professor—took the biggest risk of his career when he decided to make a drama called The Day The Clown Cried, about a circus clown who ends up in Auschwitz. This could have been a landmark as one of the first portrayals of the Holocaust in American cinema. Inst…

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#487 Behind The Scenes, 4 Nations Face off & Boston (IN HOUSE) 1:08:18

6M ago1:08:18

1:08:18

#487 Behind The Scenes, 4 Nations Face off & Boston (IN HOUSE) by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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Editors Roundtable: 2026 House Races We Couldn't Agree On And Why Our Ratings Will Change 29:33

6M ago29:33

29:33

This is a special episode in your podcast feed. You are about to hear a recent edition of Editors Roundtable, our Cook Political Report podcast where our team of editors trades behind-the-scenes analysis and dives into the weeds on races and elections. If you're a political junkie - and chances are high that you are if you're listening to this - su…

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Chuck Todd on Political Journalism and Why He's Passionate About Local News 52:10

6M ago52:10

52:10

Few people in Washington have shaped the political media ecosystem like Chuck Todd. Amy first met Chuck more than 25 years ago when he was the editor of what was then one of the most innovative news media disruptors of its time - The Hotline. The Hotline was political media's first aggregator using the breakthrough technology of the 1990s - the fax…

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#486 4 Nations Finals, Boston Trip & Captain Canada (IN HOUSE) 57:11

6M ago57:11

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#486 4 Nations Finals, Boston Trip & Captain Canada (IN HOUSE) by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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#485 Jon Cyr, Fundraisers & Kraft Hockeyville 1:00:00

7M ago1:00:00

1:00:00

#485 Jon Cyr, Fundraisers & Kraft Hockeyville by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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The Scratch-Off Ticket’s Instant Win 37:18

7M ago37:18

37:18

You may never have thought very hard about scratch-off tickets, but that’s part of their power. They’re a form of gambling that’s simply a pedestrian part of American life. But not so long ago, they were risky and innovative, the killer app of their time and the must-play game of the state lottery. In this episode, Ian Coss, host of the new podcast…

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#484 Tortorella, Team Canada & "Maritime Mafia" (IN-HOUSE) 1:01:27

7M ago1:01:27

1:01:27

#484 Tortorella, Team Canada & "Maritime Mafia" (IN-HOUSE) by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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"This is not chaos for chaos's sake." Molly Ball on Trump 2.0. 55:23

7M ago55:23

55:23

Whether you expected it or not, it seems pretty safe to say that President Trump's first days have been defined by its intensity, a very fast moving news cycle, and often, the trademark chaos we remember from his first term. And that's why we love conversations like this one with The Wall Street Journal's Molly Ball. She's the kind of journalist wh…

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#483 Oliver Moore, University of Minnesota & Team USA 58:09

7M ago58:09

58:09

#483 Oliver Moore, University of Minnesota & Team USA by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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Jump, Jive and Fail: The ’90s Swing Craze 1:04:01

7M ago1:04:01

1:04:01

When we got multiple listener emails asking about the swing revival of the late 1990s, host Willa Paskin’s first, knee jerk reaction was just: no. She lived through it, and remembers it as being so incredibly corny and uncool. Insofar as the swing revival persists in the cultural memory, it’s usually as a punchline or as head-scratcher, a particula…

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#482 Super Bowl, 4 Nations Face-off & Rantanen Trade (IN-HOUSE) 59:35

7M ago59:35

59:35

#482 Super Bowl, 4 Nations Face-off & Rantanen Trade (IN-HOUSE) by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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Gen Z's Gender Divide Goes Beyond Politics 41:34

7M ago41:34

41:34

We are kicking things off with a topic Amy has been fascinated by - the gender divide in American politics and why it’s so pronounced among Gen Z. In the past, young voters have reliably supported the Democratic candidate for president, regardless of gender. Just four years ago, a majority of both young men and young women voted for Joe Biden. But …

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#481 McDavid Crosscheck, Ovi Goal Race & Ice Jam Recap 1:04:01

7M ago1:04:01

1:04:01

#481 McDavid Crosscheck, Ovi Goal Race & Ice Jam Recap by High Button SportsBy High Button Sports

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Get ready for a new season of The Odd Years! 1:12

8M ago1:12

1:12

We started The Odd Years in 2023, which was both a literal odd numbered year, and also a political odd year; a year when there were no national elections. But Amy enjoyed these conversations so much - and so did you - that we kept going into 2024 even though it was an even year. We just couldn’t help ourselves. As we head into another odd year, we …

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I am Tupperware, I Contain Multitudes 43:09

8M ago43:09

43:09

The storage container is a stealthy star of the modern home. It’s something we use to organize more of our stuff than ever before, and also something other people use to organize their stuff for our viewing pleasure. Its role as a source of soothing, satisfying, potentially viral clicks is new, but storage container innovations are not – something …

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Can Michael Vick, Tyler Perry, and Record Applications Redefine HBCU Legacy? 1:11:56

8M ago1:11:56

1:11:56

This podcast now serves as a platform to amplify the voices of HBCU students and alumni, revealing the profound impacts they have on their communities and beyond. Each episode dives deep into the rich stories that extend past homecoming, highlighting the resilience, innovation, and achievements that continue to shape the HBCU legacy. By tuning in, …

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Introducing Planet Money: Can Money Buy Happiness? 30:02

8M ago30:02

30:02

People often say that money can't buy you happiness. Sometimes, if you ask them to tell you more about it, they'll mention a famous 2010 study by Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton. That study found that higher household income correlates with greater emotional well-being, but only up to around $75,000 a year. After that, more mon…