The Dollop

The Dollop is a podcast hosted since April 2014 by American comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds. Each episode centers on an event or person from history selected for its humor or peculiarity. Typical episodes feature historical narratives - usually, but not always, from U.S. history - described by Anthony and commented on by Anthony and Reynolds.[1][2]

The Dollop
Presentation
Hosted byDave Anthony
Gareth Reynolds
GenreComedy, history
LanguageEnglish
UpdatesBi-weekly
Length30–90 minutes
Production
No. of episodes461
Publication
Original releaseApril 25, 2014 (April 25, 2014) – present
ProviderAll Things Comedy
Websitethedolloppodcast.com

Background

The podcast began as a way of preparing for Anthony's one-man show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It was a solo project where Anthony would talk out loud about various subjects. Unsatisfied with the initial results, Anthony decided to change to a history focus, and invite other comedians to listen to the stories. Gareth Reynolds was the first guest; after his performance, Anthony decided to keep him as the only permanent guest.[3] Anthony was inspired by the book A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn because it taught him that the history he was taught as a child was full of lies.[4]

Reynolds and Anthony have recorded a number of live episodes in various U.S. cities,[5] as well as Canada[6] and five tours of Australia.[7] Live episodes performed outside of the U.S. have featured stories from those respective countries; for example, topics covered in Australia included the Emu War and Arthur Phillip. Live shows both inside and outside the U.S. often include additional guests, including Patton Oswalt,[3] Wil Anderson,[7] and Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff of the podcast My Favorite Murder.[8] Occasional episodes reverse the format, and consist of stories selected and read by Reynolds to Anthony (for example the episode on Nim Chimpsky).[9]

As of late October 2019, the podcast has produced more than 400 episodes.

On 5 August 2019, the first season of The Dollop: England (& the UK) was announced. The first of ten episodes was released on 15 August 2019.

A sister podcast, called El Dollop, was announced on March 16, 2020. It is a spanish version of the Dollop. It is hosted by Eduardo Espinosa who reads to José Antonio Badía as Dave does to Gareth on The Dollop.[10]

Reception

Since shortly after its debut, The Dollop has consistently ranked in the iTunes top 100.[11] In 2016, The Guardian rated the podcast as one of the 50 best podcasts of 2016.[12]

Controversy

On July 9, 2015, Alan Bellows of the history website and podcast Damn Interesting posted an open letter, accusing The Dollop of plagiarism.[13] Following this incident, Anthony claimed that all research and writing for new episodes was done by himself and others specifically for The Dollop, with sources referenced on a separate website.[4][14] However, in August 2019, Slate's national editor Josh Levin alleged that Anthony performed a live episode of The Dollop in 2017 that lifted almost entirely from Levin’s reporting, with no public credit.[15] Author Paul Brown further accused The Dollop of piecing together another 2017 episode from snippets of his book The Rocketbelt Caper.[16] Anthony subsequently posted a public apology to Levin on the podcast's Reddit discussion board, acknowledging this pattern as a personal failing and promising to do better in the future.[17]

Book

In 2016, Anthony announced the upcoming release of a book featuring stories like those discussed on the podcast.[18] It was revealed that this book would be titled United States of Absurdity: Untold Stories from American History, and would be released in May 2017.[19] The book featured twenty-nine stories that had previously been featured on the podcast.[20] As of June 2017, United States of Absurdity ranked #15 on the LA Times bestseller list.[21]

List of episodes

References

Notes

  1. "The Dollop". allthingscomedy.com.
  2. "Seven Podcasts to Try Out Over the Holidays | Nerdist". Nerdist. 2014-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  3. Jones, Kevin (4 November 2015). "EARFUL: Dave Anthony Makes History Hilarious with 'The Dollop'". KQED. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  4. "Episode 151 - Dave Anthony". Humans of Twitter. decidertv.com. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  5. Burbank, Megan (23 November 2016). "Dollops of Wisdom". The Portland Mercury. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  6. "Dollop Live Podcast". Highline Ballroom. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  7. James, Dylan (11 September 2016). "The Dollop - Down Under 3". Australian Stage. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  8. McQuilkin, Matthew. "Los Angeles / Podcast Festival". The Literary Exhibitionist. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  9. Eakin, Marah (18 April 2016). "The hosts of The Dollop on gator-wrestling rubes and history's greatest lessons". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  10. Comedy, All Things (2020-03-16). "Introducing El Dollop!". All Things Comedy. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  11. "iTunesCharts.net: 'The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds' by Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds (American Podcasts iTunes Chart)". www.itunescharts.net. Retrieved 2017-06-24.
  12. Heritage, Stuart; Verdier, Hannah; Dean, Will; Harper, Leah; Phipps, Jason; McConnell, Fred; Slaney, Rowan; Mumford, Gwilym; Locker, Melissa (21 December 2016). "The 50 best podcasts of 2016". Retrieved 15 September 2017 – via www.theguardian.com.
  13. "Updated: A Special Note to the Writers at The Dollop". www.damninteresting.com. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
  14. "Popular podcast accused of plagiarism". The Daily Dot. 2015-07-11. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
  15. "Josh Levin on Twitter". 2019-08-25.
  16. "Paul Brown on Twitter". 2019-08-26.
  17. "davidanthony1 comments on "Thoughts on the Josh Levin thread on the First Welfare Queen and plagiarism?"". reddit. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
  18. "The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds by All Things Comedy on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts.
  19. Anthony, Dave; Reynolds, Gareth; Oswalt, Patton (9 May 2017). "The United States of Absurdity: Untold Stories from American History". Ten Speed Press – via Amazon.
  20. "'The United States Of Absurdity' Looks At Our Dark (And Hilarious) History". Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  21. "Bestsellers". latimes.com. Retrieved 2017-06-24.

Further reading

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