Since we are now living in the era of the Sonic and Super Mario Bros movie, not to mention HBO’s The Last of Us, Remember Shuffle is taking a look at how the big-budget video game adaptation all began back in the 2000s. They review three films that, even if profitable, have been totally memory-holed by society: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Max Payne (2008), and The Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time (2010). They also do some quick rapid-fire reviews of Resident Evil (2001), Doom (2005), and ...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 38 min
Remember Shuffle returns to the world of videogames and discusses one of the best-selling PC games of all time and a pillar of 2000s video gaming, The Sims franchise. They describe the most iconic features of The Sims (simlish, woo hoo, pool accidents), analyze what drew people to this consumerist capitalist dollhouse simulator, and debate the best and worst ways to play this game.
May 20, 2023•1 hr 13 min
There is no Spoonfeeding in this absolutely flawless, perfect film from outside the purview of the dumb decade the Shuffle bois do a podcast about, The Matrix (1999). Sadly, they cannot say the same for the film's 2000s era sequels - movies so bad, they retroactively ruined a great movie. Ben and Jordano look at how The Matrix, an End of History era sci-fi action, hacker thriller, kung fu movie changed the game in so many ways both then and now: from parodies, to memes, to legacy sequels, to the...
May 06, 2023•1 hr 43 min
It’s the second entry in Remember Shuffle’s “type of guy” series, and in this episode we are turning away from the meatspace hipster culture we discussed in the first entry and looking to the online world of atheism, bacon, and, of course, posting. The Shuffle Bois look at a particular kind of posting culture, the Epic Bacon Reddit Guy, a culture that flourished on Reddit (naturally). They break down the Epic Bacon Reddit Guy’s sense of humour, analyze and trace their love of bacon, and deconstr...
Apr 22, 2023•1 hr 13 min
Remember Shuffle is going international. On this episode, the Shuffle Bois and a couple cosmopolitan guests take a look at the 21st century’s Most American Book and Film™: Eat, Pray, Love. They analyze Elizabeth Gilbert’s autobiographical memoir about a Karen finding herself in Italy, India, and Indonesia, and en route discuss the author’s selfishness and narcissism, her hilarious orientalizing portrayal of Italy, and her specific version of American protestantism in which you get to become God....
Apr 09, 2023•1 hr 5 min
This week, the Remember Shuffle returns to the world of the sitcom to discuss everyone’s favo[u]rite show about a mid-level paper company, The Office. They discuss the show’s unforgettable characters including Michael Scott, the well-intentioned moron with a heart of gold, Dwight, the “white trash bushido” paper salesman, and Andy, the downwardly mobile failson. En route, they discuss the changing setting of the sitcom from the domestic space to the workplace, the phenomenon of the Bullshit Job ...
Mar 11, 2023•1 hr 21 min
I only like Remember Shuffle’s earlier stuff. On this episode, the Remember Shuffle crew put on their armchair sociologist hats and do a new kind of episode. Rather than discussing a movie, book, or album, they cover a countercultural figure that rebelled against the mainstream in the 2000s, The Hipster. The first entry in our “type of guy” series, the Shuffle Bois discuss why The Hipster emerged in the 2000s, their philosophies of irony, nostalgia, and a priorism. Also, What are the 3 types of ...
Feb 24, 2023•1 hr 13 min
The Shuffle bois are joined by two of their favo[u]rite podcasters, whom you may know from Chapo Trap House, Hell of Presidents, or the recently-released Hell on Earth podcast, Matt Christman and Chris Wade. They discuss one of the candidates for G.O.A.T. 2000s sitcom, Arrested Development. They discuss its portrayal of both the “failson” and the media-career desperate American, walk through the show’s commentary on everything from the Iraq War to Southern California land development fraud, and ...
Feb 04, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Some Remember Shuffle episodes are about influential, fundamental pieces of pop culture that help explain the pop culture landscape that we find ourselves in today. This is not one of those episodes. On this episode, the Shuffle Bois unpack and analyze Spike TV, the 2000s TV network for men, and one of its original brogram, The Deadliest Warrior. After walking through Spike TV’s unhinged manifesto, the Shufle Bois scientifically deconstruct every aspect of the Deadliest Warrior: its three milque...
Jan 20, 2023•1 hr 18 min
In a pod, in the cloud, the Shuffle Bois and special guest BillBurr Baggins leave the POW camp of life and talk about a hopeful, optimistic, escapist fantasy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The first entry in Peter Jackson’s masterpiece trilogy, so many things make it great: its fundamentally sincere and positive message, the spectacular worldbuilding and execution of Peter Jackson’s vision, and its perfect pacing (despite its extended runtime). We also trace the behind-the-s...
Jan 06, 2023•1 hr 19 min
Of the three presidential elections that happened in the Y2K decade, 2008 was, without a doubt, the most entertaining. It features a fascinating cast of characters: alien body-snatcher Hillary Clinton, sex rascal Bill Clinton, legend-icon-moment Barack Obama, foreign policy war psycho John McCain, and the ineffable Sarah Palin. She’s ineffable in that she can’t talk right. Put all these people on the national stage, and you’re guaranteed a spectacle only rivaled by 2016. We walk through the mara...
Dec 15, 2022•1 hr 48 min
Nowadays, the content mill churns out superhero fare at maximum capacity. Whether that’s the endless multicoloured sludge of the interconnected MCU across platforms, or the Justice league being released twice - with viewers being able to see both the soy Whedon and self-serious Snyder cuts, but what if we told you that there was a time before society took seriously movies based on baby brained picture books? And these two films from the Y2K era, more than anything else, changed that. Today the S...
Nov 19, 2022•1 hr 26 min
On this episode of Remember Shuffle, the Shuffle bois return to the world of… well I wouldn’t call it “literature,” but maybe books? We’re talking about the ultimate mormon edging fanfic book: Twilight. We discuss how to write around sex and temptation through vampire metaphors (so as to maintain your mormon sensibilities), the attraction to danger and mystery that may or may not be universal, and the many, many toxic aspects of the Edward-Bella relationship. We also discuss the horrendous movie...
Nov 02, 2022•1 hr 9 min
What’s the worst you’ve ever screwed up at work? Whatever it was, we promise you it’s not as bad as today’s topic. In this episode’s Reading Series, we discuss the media’s influence on and culpability in the lead-up to the Iraq War. We focus on two commentators who, despite being hilariously, comically, aggressively wrong, failed upwards to prestigious positions in the liberal media sphere: Joe Scarborough and Megan McArdle. When it comes to holding people accountable, the Shuffle Bois can proud...
Oct 27, 2022•1 hr 11 min
The 2000s were such an apolitical decade that even the folk music and abortion movies lacked any social commentary. Remember Shuffle takes a look at 2007’s “Juno” and asks some Very Important Questions™: is Juno an indie film darling that struck gold, or a cynical cashing-in on the twee craze of the aughts? Is it a sweet film about an independent and self-sufficient teenager maturing and embracing vulnerability, or is it a coded message to the working class that the bourgeoisie is fracturing and...
Sep 10, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Are you a right-wing chug who’s tired of the Lib woke media ramming its PC content down your throat? Are you a lib who worships the ground Obama walks on, and wants to watch some of the former president’s favo(u)rite shows? Are you dissatisfied with your life and want to escape to a world in which bad things don’t happen? Are you illiterate? Today Remember Shuffle is discussing Entourage, a show that would satisfy all four of those hypothetical viewers. The Shuffle Bois discuss how Entourage was...
Aug 29, 2022•1 hr 7 min
In hono(u)r of the recent marriage of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Remember Shuffle is looking back at how their fairy tale love story began: with full-page ads in the press, intense paparazzi attention, and what is likely the most offensive and terrible film of either of their careers, Gigli. After discussing the power couple, the Shuffle Bois go beat by beat through Gigli, so that you don’t have to. You can find Tessa and her standup at tessamfleming.com and on IG @TessaFleming...
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 12 min
On this episode, the “Music Heads” of Remember Shuffle discuss Green Day’s American Idiot: the 2000s’ quintessential protest album, a zeitgeist-capturing punk rock opera about suburban angst, and the source material for a superfluous and unnecessary Broadway musical about sitting on couches. We break down what makes this album an incredible 2000s time capsule, investigate how Green Day wrote an apolitical protest album that no one will cancel you for, and bafflingly wonder why this got the music...
Aug 02, 2022•1 hr 24 min
Grab your Doritos, Xbox controllers, and Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel and buckle up for a tight 57-minute conversation about the Halo franchise-- a formative video game series of the childhoods and adolescences of millennials everywhere. Along the way, we attempt to discuss the surprisingly deep lore of the Halo universe, talk about the rise of “The Operator” in both politics and culture, and Cortana's slow creep into being a strange sex symbol. Nota bene: Dan Carlin does not appear in this episode, ...
Jul 14, 2022•58 min
Hi, we’re Remember Shuffle, and this is our Jackass episode. In this episode we discuss the absolute masterclass of early 2000s reality TV that is MTV’s Jackass. We analyze the pure, anarchic, joyful chaos of the 2000s reincarnation of Diogenes' cynicism, look at how the Jackass energy has been diffused throughout our pop-culture, and touch on why the nostalgia cycle of reboots seems to be shortening.
Jul 03, 2022•1 hr 12 min
This week, the public intellectuals of Remember Shuffle are a literature podcast. We discuss the absolute masterpiece that is the Robert Langdon's Literary-Crypto Universe, unpacking the dense symbology Dan Brown’s Magnum Opus. Along the way, we discuss the gradual mainstreaming of conspiracy theories starting in the early 2000s, the laziest movie adaptations Hollywood has ever crapped out, and produce our own Dan Brown plot. Few People Realize Real Lies.
Jun 07, 2022•1 hr 28 min
Finally, they made a movie just for the fellas. You have made it to the end of the rainbow, and awaiting you is a triple feature of a discussion of the 2000s cult classic, The Boondock Saints; Overnight, a documentary about its director; and The Boondock Saints 2, maybe the worst film ever made.
May 12, 2022•1 hr 11 min
Remember How I Met Your Mother? HIMYM had HEAT in the 2000s--more viewers than The Office, more episodes, more catchphrases, and even a Hilary Duff spinoff that launched this year! And yet it feels like this show is never talked about today. Even though it ended only it passed right through our culture like a 2000's Tiger King. We examine why.
May 05, 2022•1 hr 9 min
