Planet Money: Economics in the Alien Franchise Isn’t Science Fiction
Even if you’ve never seen an Alien film, you probably know about the monster in the franchise. The Xenomorph has an elongated head, a second set of jaws that protrude…
Imaginary Worlds: The U.S. of Play
Part 1: Wagons, Bears and Dolls In honor of the 250th anniversary of the USA, we are doing a series of mini stories across two episodes that explore American toys…
Imaginary Worlds: Is Money Ruining Fanfiction?
The world of fanfiction has changed a lot since our 2017 episode, Fanfiction (Don’t Judge.) At the time, I thought that 50 Shades of Gray – the novel that began…
Imaginary Worlds: The Father of Sword and Soul
Charles R. Saunders loved Tarzan as a kid, but he was also repulsed by the racism in those books since Charles was Black. So, he created a counter narrative about…
Celebrating 300 Imaginary Worlds
Imaginary Worlds has reached another milestone – 300 episodes! We already celebrated the 200th episode and the 10th anniversary of the show, but in those episodes, we mostly kept the…
Imaginary Worlds: Sinners Gives Hoodoo Its Due
Sinners got a historic 16 Academy Award nominations, which was remarkable for a film with vampires. But the film is also a rich exploration of race, religion, culture and music…
Imaginary Worlds: Searching for Cryptids
When I was growing up, Bigfoot appeared regularly on the covers of supermarket tabloids, so I assumed he was a joke. But I’ve discovered that he’s part of a larger…
Imaginary Worlds : This Animated Life
As longtime listeners know, I worked in the animation industry before switching careers and going into broadcasting. Today’s episode features a trio of conversations that trace the history of animation…
Imaginary Worlds: Creature Double Feature
In honor of the spooky season, we present two monstrous origin stories -- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. We know when these books were written in the 19th…
Imaginary Worlds: Music of a Forbidden Planet
In the 1950s, the avant-garde music scene in New York and the movie studios of Los Angeles might have seemed like opposite ends of a cultural spectrum. But they came…