5 of Five

Need a laugh?

I’m conflicted. The dissonance of firing up the blog again, rooting on my Phillies, and hoping to get out for my birthday this weekend despite such unending pain existing half a globe away is acute. Yet I just passed an hour listening to Episode 5 of the podcast Strike Force Five while doing some graphics work for an upcoming project and the only reason I’m not incapacitated from cackling out loud nearly the entire time is that my asthma’s so bad I’ve kind-of unconsciously trained myself not to push out breath as I’m silently convulsing in hysterics.



Strike Force Five united late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers in a series of highly candid, very lightly structured conversations, sponsored to bring in money for their staffs as the strike by the Writers’ Guild of America halted production of their programs. Twelve installments were released over six weeks.

I’d listened to maybe two podcasts before, since I can’t read or write if people are talking. Even music with lyrics is largely reserved for chores and/or purely listening. But I’ve missed Colbert, Oliver, and Meyers and I like shop talk about that world, so I gave Strike Force Five a tumble, although download problems and lack of opportunity per the preceding meant their shows returned as I was a mere couple of episodes deep.

Anyway, I highly enjoy the hosts’ interplay and because it never quite rises to the level of bullying I utterly adore how the rest dunk on Fallon. Nowhere is this more in evidence than when he brings it on himself in Episode 5, the group’s self-professed favorite so far, which except for a riotous amalgam of callbacks at the end stands pretty well on its own.


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