Any ranking of the best of the best must come with the caveat that the ranker hasn’t seen/heard everything, and that’s especially true in the case of podcasting, despite it being one of the youngest entertainment mediums around. Obviously I didn’t listen to every podcast released in the 2010s, but I did listen to my fair share. My feed mainly consisted of comedy, pop culture, and comedic pop culture shows. But even if I confine myself to those categories, I cannot claim that I was anywhere near comprehensive. So then, what you are about to read is the revelation of my podcast journey I went on in the past decade.

The Shows I Absolutely Loved the Most
1. U Talkin’ U2 to Me?/R U Talkin’ R.E.M. RE:ME? – A comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of two of the greatest, uh, rock ‘n’ roll music bands of the past 30 years, hosted by two very funny guys, Scott (Aukerman) and (Adam) Scott.
2. How Did This Get Made? – There are a lot of bad movie podcasts out there, but only this one really asks the question, “How did this get made?”
3. Blank Check with Griffin & David – A critic (that’s David) and a comedian/actor (that’s Griffin) discuss the filmographies of directors who have been successful enough to have podcasts dedicated to them.
4. Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend – Conan O’Brien makes me laugh. On this podcast, he talks to his friends, or possible future friends. Laughs ensue.
5. Comedy Bang! Bang! – Host Scott Aukerman MC’s a comedy circus.
6. Harmontown – After Dan Harmon was fired as Community showrunner following Season 3, he started hanging out with friends in the back of a comic book shop, and they just kept hanging out week after week, and plenty of other people decided that they wanted to listen.
7. Judge John Hodgman – Author/actor/humorist John Hodgman (you might know him “PC”) adjudicates real-life personal disputes as a modern-day wise King Solomon.
8. Topics – Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter (of Stella fame) discuss various topics, like architecture, Santa, and snow. And if something funny happens along the way, that’s okay, too.
9. Pop Culture Happy Hour – A bite-size survey from NPR of what’s worth talking about in the worlds of movies, music, and TV.
10. Unspooled – Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson discuss all 100 films on the AFI’s list of the greatest American films of all time. They get great guests.
11. Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project – Andy Daly is a funnyman who has various kooky characters in his repertoire. He gives each of them an episode to run wild.
12. The Ron Burgundy Podcast – Ron Burgundy is one of the most enduring fictional characters of the 21st century, and therefore by law, he must host a podcast.
13. Good One: A Podcast About Jokes – Vulture‘s Jesse David Fox really likes analyzing comedy, so he invites comedians on to discuss some of their best bits.

An Acclaimed Podcast I Didn’t Listen to That Much
WTF with Marc Maron

TV Recaps (Especially Community)
TV: it’s what for dinner. And for dessert, it’s a podcast that recaps TV. I myself have listened to ones that cover RuPaul’s Drag Race (Drag Her), Conan (Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast), and Hollywood Game Night (Show & Yell).
But the show I most like to hear recapped on a podcast is my favorite show of all time, Community, and there are several of those available. And a Movie: A ‘Community’ Retrospective and Fundamentals of Community Podcasting are two that I have enjoyed that are now on indefinite (?) hiatus, while Fluffy Town has popped up recently and is thankfully still trucking along streets ahead.

Friends’ Podcasts
Some of my friends host podcasts now, like Cult Movie Cult, which discusses cult movies, and Dead Times, which discusses movies in which people are dead or dying (i.e., horror films).

Other Shows on My Regular Rotation
Fighting in the War Room (Movie, and sometimes TV, discussion)
Primetime (Hosted by Emily VanDerWerff)
Pop Mom (previously Mom on Pop)
Shipping Room Podcast (Fictional romance discussion)

Defunct Shows on My Former Regular Rotation
The Awards Show Show (Oscars)
I Think You’re Interesting (Hosted by Emily VanDerWerff)
In Your Dreams with Chris Gethard (Dream analysis)
The Vulture TV Podcast (TV discussion)

And finally, at the end of the decade, I got into the podcast game myself! It’s called That’s Auntertainment!, and it’s a pop culture discussion podcast (that might sometimes be funny) that I co-host with my Aunt Beth.