“Youuuuuu’re listening to The Dollop,” the bi-weekly American History Podcast begins. Every week, Dave Anthony reads a story to his friend Gareth Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about.
Since it’s debut in 2014, The Dollop has consistently ranked in the iTunes top 100 and The Guardian rated the show as one of the 50 best podcasts of 2016. Hosts Reynolds and Anthony have recorded a number of live episodes in various U.S. cities, Canada and three tours of Australia. Live shows both inside and outside the U.S. often include additional guests, including Patton Oswalt, Wil Anderson, and Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff of the podcast My Favorite Murder.
In 2017, a book format of the popular show was published titled United States of Absurdity: Untold Stories from American History featuring 29 stories that had previously been featured on the podcast, including Cleveland’s historically pride moment (and one of the funniest episodes they’ve ever done), “Ten Cent Beer Night.” A favorite moment of many Cleveland fans of the show consists of Gareth Reynolds learning about our tragic Cuyahoga River fires:
“The river’s on fire!”
“Pour some water on it!”
“No, this fire LIKES water!”
“Then pour some fire on it!”
“NOOO!”
This is the first time The Dollop will record in Cleveland, and given the fact they’ve already tackled Balloonfest, it’s anyone’s guess what Cleveland historical moment or person they’ll tackle at Playhouse Square.
The Dollop’s live show is Friday, Sept. 14, at 8 p.m. in the Ohio Theatre. Tickets are available on the Playhouse Square website here.
Gareth seems way more hyped than Dave to come visit us…
This article appears in Aug 15-21, 2018.