On the Smithsonian and Sneaking in the Sidedoor—Lizzie Peabody and Justin O’Neill, Smithsonian Institution

The idea behind this show is pretty simple: We invite scholars, makers, and professionals out to brunch for an informal conversation about their work, and then we turn those brunches into a podcast.

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Lizzie Peabody and Justin O’Neill are the host and producer, respectively, of Sidedoor, a podcast from the Smithsonian Institution. Justin also happens to be a Notre Dame alum. But that’s not the reason we invited them to come on this show. In fact, we didn’t even know about Justin’s ND connection when we asked.

No, we reached out to them because we listened to and loved their episode titled “The Worst Video Game Ever?” and immediately decided these were podcasters we had to talk to if we could. Lizzie and Justin were kind enough to take us up on the offer, and thanks to the magic of Zoom, host Ted Fox got to ask them himself why Atari’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was such an epic fail of a video game.

They also talked about Sidedoor’s field trip episode—which offers a great reminder that when we say “the Smithsonian,” we’re not just talking about one museum—as well as the surprising history of the spacesuits that allowed Neil Armstrong to take that “one giant leap for mankind.”

Lizzie and Justin even turned the questions on Ted at one point. Here’s to hoping he did our anteater friend at the Potawatomi Zoo proud.