Remember Shuffle

Trick-or-treat yourself to a Chris Wade appearance on Remember Shuffle to discuss the Ron Swan-Song of NBC’s 2000 sit com lineup, Parks and Recreation. A show that is good despite its cringe politics rather than because of them, Parks and Rec features an ensemble cast of exceptional improvisers putting on excellent performances. After describing each character and their improv point of view, the Shuffle Bois move on to discuss some of the themes and big ideas of the show, including Obamacore millennial optimism, austerity, corporate power in America, and the sad state of the average American citizen.Chris and the Ch...

The machine has told us that you are inexorably fated to listen to this episode on Minority Report. An exceptional Steven Spielberg joint from the 2000s, it’s a techno-thriller, neo-noir, whodunit that also functions as a meditation on fate, predestination, and free will. It’s also an extremely prescient film in many ways and a really good movie. After describing the Y2K backstory behind the film, the shuffle bois do a beat-by-beat plot summary before turning to the themes and big ideas of the film: fate and predestination, prescience, and Spielberg’s fixation on the nuclear family.

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Very Nice.Huge thanks to Brother Isaac for guesting on this episode! Check him out @coexist.inc on instagram, as well as his podcast, Coexist Inc., here, and on twitter as @coexistinc Check out our website to search for episodes at: remembershuffle.comGive Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

The Shuffle Bois are joined by subject matter expert and author Matt Singer to discuss 2000s Frat Pack comedies. The crew and their guest first attempt to describe the traits of this particular sub-genre of highly successful 2000s comedy film, defined by raunchiness, improvisation, and  frequent collaboration across a recurring group. They then trace the history of these films from Animal House, to Old School, through to the end of the decade with Step Brothers. En route, they discuss the death of comedy and the various trends and forces that led to its untimely demise, they analyze how these films a...

The Shuffle Bois turn to the world of tabletop gaming in the 2000s. After briefly tracing the pre-Y2K history of the Warhmmer 40K world and game, they take a look and the state of the hobby in the 2000s. They do a tapas-style meal of faction snapshots, before talking about some themes and big ideas, including the grimdark world, the expansive lore, pastiche, satire, and the esoteric nature of the game and the high barriers to entry.
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⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes i

Remember Shuffle is joined by Freddy G ( https://www.instagram.com/orangefreddyg/ ) to discuss the 2000s comedy stylings of one Joe Rogan. While his 2000s work all takes place before this insatiably curious polymath’s meteoric rise to Podcast God, we can trace this man’s evolution from hack 90s road comic to the weed-guy, reddit-minded figure we recognize today. The Shuffle Bois and Freddy review each of the three specials that came out during our decade of interest before turning to some of the recurring themes and big ideas, both those found within Rogan’s comedic oeuvre (like is fixati...

The release of Matt Johnson’s Tony has us mulling on a 2000 book which had a profound effect on the culture: Kitchen Confidential. We explore the tell-all book, Bourdain’s cable TV shows, the documentary RoadRunner and the 2026 film based on the book (starring Stavros Halkias, hell yeah dude). We talk about the food culture of the year 2000, and how much it changed over the following decade, counter culture and competency in the kitchen. ⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.  

The full 90 minute episode is LIVE on the patreon.⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffle
The shuffle bois turn to one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time, The Legend of Zelda, and trace its evolution throughout the 2000s decade. From the (overrated?) Ocarina of Time, to the brooding existentialist masterpiece that is Majora's Mask, the swashbuckling pirate cell-shaded Wind Waker, and the dark and gritty reboot Twilight Princess, they leave no stone un-thrown in their history of the franchises. Throughout the episode they discuss the mechanics that make the games great, their iconic scores, and th...

The Shuffle Bois turn to one of the largest and certainly most memorable reactions to the global financial crisis of the late 2000s , Occupy Wall Street. In part seven of their ongoing series, they take a look at the socialists, anarchists, daily show liberals, and obvious federal plants who descended on Zuccotti Park in Fall 2011. After tracing the history of the movement, they then describe the types of people who attended as well as some of the themes and big ideas of this story - globalization, horizontality vs verticality, idealism vs pragmatism, as well as the roles of both the...

It’s time for another Euro Trip and resume our story of the 2008 Financial Crisis and the subsequent Great Recession. Austerity Bites as we visit Greece, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Iceland and the UK to see what the heck is going on across the bloody bond in the economies of Europe. Have you ever looked at monetary policy of the Euro and thought “It’s all Greek to me!” well then this episode is for you as your Shuffle hosts simplify as much as possible the inner workings of a 17 state shared currency system. ⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠...

Sing, muse, of this summer’s blockbuster movie event! The shuffle bois have opened their bag of winds and been blown off course from their regular scheduled programming of 2000s content to review Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. After giving some background on the world, compositional nature, and characters of the Homeric source material, the Shuffle bois trace the sprawling plot of the film before turning to its themes, including proper guest-host etiquette (xenia), the bronze age apocalypse, guilt and trauma, fate and hubris, and human-divine relations. Give us a follow on the Patreon here for some more Homer content:https...

Join us on the patreon to hear the full episode!⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleThis week, we’re unpacking Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, the latest project from BlackBerry director Matt Johnson. From its origins as a webseries in the 2000s, to it’s Vice Cable channel (?) show, to the now first (good) "time travel to the 2000s" movie.Join us as we break down the manic, delusional duo of Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll. We discuss:  Nostalgia, Guerrilla Filmmaking, Canadian Identity, and Postmodernism.

The Shuffle Bois return to the well of 2000s Sword and Sandal films with the movie that started it all, Ridley Scott's 200 film Gladiator. After setting the table with some historical context about how the Roman Empire worked and the nature of actual historical gladiators, they turn to the film itself. They discuss the film's very end of history take on Roman history and politics, the nature of spectacle in a highly stylized film, the sexless hedonism of Gladiator, and its anachronistic view of patriotism. They close out with Ben giving a little book report on a wacky late antique...

Raise Your Glass-Stegal, tonight’s the night, this podcast episode will go on forever, but it’s also the last podcast of your life. Remember Shuffle regular Colette Shade joins us to talk about the culture of the Great Recession: Recession Pop, Stomp Clap, the Death of Bling Rap, DIY, Prepping, Indiesleaze, and so much more—forget the banking executives, let’s do a people’s history of the Great Recession.⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.  For more on Colette Shade, check out her website and give her a foll...

Join us on the patreon to hear the full , almost 2 hour (!) episode. https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffle
The Shuffle bois are joined by resident fashion correspondent Colette Shade author of “Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on a future that never was.”) to review a masterpiece of 2000s cinema, The Devil Wears Prada. This is a film that simultaneously attempts to be a scathing satire of the fashion industry, a character study of an anti-hero in a deeply flawed industry, and a paint-by-numbers rom com about a woman trying to have it all. After describing its charac...

In part four of their ongoing series on the Great Recession, the Shuffle Bois turn to a topic near and dear to their hearts, the automotive bailouts of 2008/9. When cheap and easy credit dried up due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the dominos of financialization began to fall, the three struggling American automotive companies were hit particularly hard. In this episode, the shuffle bois go through the history of the automotive industry, laying out both its long term chronic and short term acute issues, before tracing the Obama administration's response. It's a sprawling episode covering labour relations, corporate mismanagement...

Honey, I shrunk the stimulus! In their third entry on the Great Recession, the Shuffle Bois trace President Obama's response to a cratering economy. After introducing the cast of neolib ghouls with whom Obama surrounded himself, they go through the history of Fall and Winter 2008/9 up to Obama's signing of the stimulus package. They also discuss Keynesianism, the Cassandras of the time, what might have been, and the Clintonite presidency that we actually got. Check out our website to search for episodes at: remembershuffle.comGive Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also make...

Check out the full 90+ minute episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleRemember Shuffle turns to one of the most average "indie" bands of the 2000s, The Killers. After briefly describing the history of this group, the Shuffle Bois do three album reviews of the Killers' 2000 discography, tracing their evolution from something resembling a post-punk revival act to something resembling Bruce Springsteen-inspired heartland rock. They also discuss the reverse British invasion, indie sensibilities, the beautiful mind of Brandon Flowers, and the place of the Sun Belt in the 2000s.to reach out to Dillan for Audio engineering/editing: dillancmusic...

We Watched the Watchmen (2009). The 200s most underdiscussed super hero movie, we are going to Deconstruct the Deconstructors in this weeks episode, looking at how the 1980s alternate history comic by Alan Moore was adapted for a late-2000s audience by Zach Snyder. Watchmen as a movie fits perfectly in the 2000s as a reaction to the suite of movies that had come out in the decade–as it itself is a criticism of myth, exceptionalism, and marketing. We are joined by Discourse Stu of Marvelous! Or, The Death Of Cinema, you can find them:On their website: https://www.mar...

In episode two of their ongoing series on The Great Recession, the Shuffle Bois turn to the folks who profited from the collapse of the housing market, as described and immortalized in Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short" and its 2015 film adaptation. After describing the major characters of this story, they then turn to a plot summary of the film, peppering in some digressions on 2000s culture and the nature of sub prime lending companies. Then, as always, they turn to their themes and big ideas, including the enrichment of the contemptible and the noxious social effects of Ayn Rand's...

The fundamentals of our economy are… present. Welcome to Remember Shuffle’s ongoing multi-part series on the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing Great Recession. The Shuffle Bois begin with some table setting to explain  the complex financial instruments and deregulation that led to the crisis - mortgage backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and synthetic collateralized debt obligations - and introducing the rogues gallery of characters for this story. They then go beat-by-beat through the collapsing economy of 2008 and trace the decisions that were made by those running the banks as well as by those in power. They...

Join us on the patreon to hear the full 67 minute episode. https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleWhat ahre ye doin in mah slop? Remember this one folks? It’s Shrek, the 2000s postmodern fairy tale created to spite the traditional source of children’s animation. Remember Shuffle delves into all 4 of the Shrek movies, and talks about the wide swaths of memes and Shrek deconstruction that exist online for this middle-brow phenomenon. Jordan Peterson, Dada-ism, and the male id–no one has ever done Shrek analysis like this before. 
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The Shuffle Bois, and returning guest Isaac, return to the well of comic book super hero fare to discuss the 2000s X-Men films. Being the pre-MCU, paleo-super hero films that they are, they can't help but be somewhat different from and more interesting than what came after. After summarizing the plots of the three main X-Men films from the decade, the Shuffle Bois talk themes - assimilation vs exclusivity, marginalization, and the LGTBQ allegory of these films, before closing out with a description of style and echoes in the culture. Huge thanks to Isaac for guesting on this episode! Check...

Do you like Remember Shuffle? Their early work was a little too derivative for my tastes, but when Epic Bacon Reddit Guy came out in '23, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole episode has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the riffs a big boost. They’ve been compared to The Rewatchables, but I think Remember Shuffle has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.Anyways, here’s the American Psycho episode on Brett Easton Ellis’ mise-en-scene satire of 80s yuppie culture.Check out our we...

This is a demo, check out the full episode at: ⁠patreon.com/RememberShuffle⁠
Remember Shuffle turns to one of their favourite kinds of film that we don't seem to get many of anymore: mid-budget, middle brow popcorn films, in the form of Steven Spielberg's 2002 film "Catch Me If You Can." The Shuffle Bois use this film as a springboard to discuss the state of Boomer Culture and Boomer Nostalgia in 2002. After describing the plot of the film, they do a mini-book review of the "source material," the lying, bragging, horny memoir of Frank Abegnale Jr, before turning to the them...

What happens when the exploitative and unethical world of fashion modelling meets the exploitative and unethical world of reality TV? The results may not surprise you. Remember Shuffle returns to the world of reality TV with a deep dive on America’s Next Top Model, featuring former contestant Sarah Hartshorne as expert guest correspondent. After tracing the history of the show and placing it in its particular historical moment, when every celebrity job was getting the reality show treatment, they dig into two retrospective sources on the show - Sarah’s book and a recent Netflix documentary, before turning, as alwa...

With the campaign of Barack Obama in 2007-2008, the U.S. saw a resurgence in interest in Nelson Mandela, with Americans projecting a parallel with our own first black president. You can almost hear the gears turning in Clint Eastwood’s mind watching 2009’s Invictus–hoping to goad Obama towards symbolic reconciliation rather than expropriative redistribution. We look at Obama’s initial posturing and discuss whether or not he was doing the Mandela affect.Huge thanks to Isaac for guesting on this episode! Check him out @coexist.inc on instagram, as well as his podcast, Coexist Inc., here, and on twitter...

Welcome to our O.C. episode, Bitch! The Shuffle Bois are joined by Dan (IG: @troop_hater ) to discuss an incredible piece of teen melodrama, postmodern comedy, and Trojan horse for character-driven drama, The O.C. After briefly describing the backstory of the show's creation, they analyze the show's memorable characters and do episode deep dives on three of their favourites. They then turn to the show's many themes - class conflict, race, religion, and politics. They close out with a discussion of the show's style and incredible soundtrack.
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/this is a demo, check out the full episode at: patreon.com/RememberShuffleAnother listener suggestion yields beautiful, ripe fruit for the pod as we follow up our last episode on Cyberwarfare with a movie whose plot is essentially the fictionalization of the warnings in the book “This is how they tell me the world ends”.Much to ponder on this Intellectual Property reboot whose buddy cop pairing is…a Boomer and a Millenial. Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. 

New military industrial complex just dropped! In this spiritual sequel to our drones episode, the Shuffle Bois take you, the listener, into the exciting cloak-and-dagger world of the black market cyber weapons trade. After defining key terms - hackers, vendors, clients, and zero days - they trace the history and developments of this new field of warfare through the 2000s. They then analyze some of the themes and big ideas that underlie this topic - globalization, the lack of regulation in the tech sphere, and the role of the deep state in creating this problem. They close by looking at...

This is a Patreon demo. Join to hear us do a deep dive into the end of the Cold War in Germany, Ostalgie, and the most internationally famous film in the artistic movement, Good Bye, Lenin!Sometimes, you need to gaslight your sick mother for the greater good. Remember Shuffle is joined by Nick of the Corner Späti podcast for their first foray into foreign film, 2003's Good Bye Lenin, the best known instance of Ostalgie in film internationally. After recapping the plot of this halfway-zany, sitcom-style tragicomedy, the Shuffle Bois discuss what role nostalgia plays in contemporary Germany, t...

What’s the only thing that can stop 80 bad-guys-with-a gun, 1 Good-Guy-with-a-lot-of-guns. The year is 2006 and the adolescent Baby Boom Echo is about to be treated to a variety of brainless action options at the cinema. Come explore two of the latter-decade’s finest genre movies–unapologetically themselves and honest about what they are offering: cartoonish aestheticized violence. ⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.And don't forget to check out our Patreon!
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"We have to go back! (?)" Remember Shuffle turns to one of the premiere network TV dramas of the 2000s, ABC's "Lost," proof that you can't quite fit the round peg of creator-driven, prestige-style drama into the square hole of a traditional TV network. After introducing the ensemble cast of melodramatically tragic characters, the Shuffle Bois + Sam do season-long plot recaps of a show that became increasingly unhinged as it went on, going from a survival drama to an alternate-universe, time-travelling, metaphysical quest between good and evil. They then analyze the very obvious themes of this show - faith, fate, leadership...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Shuffle Bois! It’s your yearly Christmas episode drop, and this year we’re taking a look at two instant classics from the 2000s, Robert Zemeckis' “Polar Express” (2004) and “Christmas Carol (2009). These two films represent Robert Zemeckis’ attempt to transcend the limits of the fleshy human body through the power of computers and technology. And they stink. In this episode, you’ll hear the Shuffle Bois describe and analyze the phenomenon of “The Uncanny Valley” and how these films fall into it. They also discuss Charles’ Dickens’ rad-lib politics, the changing nature of Christmas in the 19th...

This is a Patreon demo. Join to hear us close out our Lord of the Rings series with our Return of the King episode!Get in loser, we’re going to Elf Heaven. Remember Shuffle closes out its review of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy with a Return of the King Review. The Shuffle Bois do a quick plot recap of this sprawling entry to the trilogy before discussing the film’s style and themes - including sacrifice, decadence, and feminism in Tolkein’s world. They then close out with a more freeform conversation that includes a discussi...

“Remember when” is the lowest form of conversation–we put that theory to the test on this episode on the pokemania of the late 90s and early 2000s. After unexpected success in Japan, Pokemon launches in America in late 1998 and becomes ubiquitous in America soon after as not a single media, but as an entire world accessible through video games, TV, cards, movies, and plush toys. We discuss the globalocalization of Pokemon by Nintendo, Kawaii and the Otaku in this episode. ⁠Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.And don't...

This is a Patreon demo. Join to hear part one of our book club on the history of the Soviet Union as well as a Return of the King episode in two weeks!Part 1 of our 2 (?) part series on Sheila Fitzpatrick’s ‘The Shortest History of the Soviet Union’. In this part 1, we cover the years 1860-1960 starting from the emancipation of the serfs to the end of Kruschev. ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffle ⁠⁠And make sure you sign up through the browser–not through the app, to save yourself 50%!Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberSh...

For their 100th episode spectacular the Shuffle Bois turn to what might be the most influential piece of media from the 2000s, The Apprentice. Since 2015 we have lived in a world dominated by the toxic runoff of a 2004 game show. The Shuffle Bois continue their discussion of reality TV they began with Survivor to talk about the many noxious societal effects of this dumb, exploitative genre. After tracing the history and explaining the format of the show, they do a recap of the show's first season as well as its first "celebrity" iteration. They then discuss themes and big ideas...

Part 1 of our 2 part series on Mark Burnett. Survivor took over American culture by storm, becoming a dominant fixture of TV that changed the economics of TV production for the worse. We dig into themes of the desert island as ideal, orientalism, and labor bargaining. The Apprentice coming next week for episode 100!
Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.

The Shuffle Bois turn for the first time to the world of fashion and analyze the rise and fall of the iconic teen fashion brand of the 2000s, Abercrombie & Fitch. To do so, they are joined by Colettte Shade, author of “Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on a future that never was.” They discuss the meteoric rise of this teen fashion icon, the alleged sex criminals that formed its brain trust, and what the types of marketing targeted at young people said about consumerist aspirations in the 2000s. Huge shoutout to the book “The Abercrombie Age: Millennial Aspirat...