The Colin McEnroe Show

All calls: Sometimes the goo gets out

09 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

The Nose looks at ‘Dept. Q’ and ‘Pee-wee as Himself’

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dept. Q is a new Scottish detective mystery series on Netflix and created by Scott Frank and Chandi Lakhani based on the book series by Jussi Adl...

This show isn’t waterproof, but your raincoat might be: The history of waterproofing our tech and everyday products

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever broken your phone or computer by dropping it in water or spilling a drink on it? This hour, we discuss the relationship between the ever...

From totes to Birkins, handbags hold the keys to the world (along with your wallet and phone)

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For many of us, handbags are an essential part of our lives. They allow us to leave the house with everything we need, and they also can be another pl...

Two thumbs up: A show all about fingers

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Touch, grip, read, dance, gesture — what can’t they do? Our fingers are so vital to our everyday life, sometimes it seems they have minds ...

All calls: This is your host on ketamine

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

An hour with Griffin Dunne

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Note: This episode contains strong language. Griffin Dunne is Jack Goodman in John Landis’ classic horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London ...

The humble fly

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are thought to be about 17 million living flies for every human alive on Earth. They’re predators and parasites and pests, but they’...

How robots, and our attitudes toward them, have evolved

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What counts as a robot? This hour, a look at what robots are and the latest in robot technology. Plus, how robots were used and thought about in medie...

Building utopia

27 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over 500 years ago, Sir Thomas More wrote about utopia. Since then, countless communities around the world have worked to create their own versions of...

We can never escape The Rock: A look at Alcatraz

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump has instructed his administration to work toward rebuilding and reopening the notorious maximum security prison on Alcatraz Islan...

The value of expertise in a world where everybody knows everything

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What is the status of expertise in our world? This hour we look at the so called "death of expertise." We talk about the role of experts throughout so...

All calls: Just because you’re exhausted doesn’t mean you have to turn into a Ringwraith

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

From zeppelins to dirigibles to the Goodyear Blimp, airships capture our imagination

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There’s something almost romantic about airships. The image of a giant, floating aircraft feels both nostalgic and futuristic. In the early 20th...

Why ticks are on the rise and how humans are fighting back

19 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You may have heard that tick borne diseases are on the rise. But don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. This hour, we’re taking ...

Is this just the worst era of American pop culture … ever?

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Writer and critic Spencer Kornhaber just published a similarly-titled piece in The Atlantic: “Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture...

A salute to accordions

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Here are some songs from your life, "Backstreet Girl" by the Rolling Stones, "Joey" by Bob Dylan, "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads, "Boy In The ...

What Wikipedia can teach us about truth, information, and random trivia

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Wikipedia has lately been under attack, accused of bias and spreading propaganda. And for years students have been told not to trust the source. But a...

All calls: Which is worse, translating Cicero or laughing to death?

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

Our tribute to Jill Sobule

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our friend, the singer, songwriter, and performer Jill Sobule, died May 1 in a house fire in Woodbury, Minnesota, near Minneapolis. She was 66. Jill a...

Fashion Critic Vanessa Friedman discusses Trump's (second) first hundred days in fashion, clothes and politics, and more

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New York Times’ Chief Fashion Critic, Vanessa Friedman, joins us for the hour to discuss fashion in President Donald Trump's second administ...

Are you still the you that you used to be? And other questions of self-continuity

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Are you the same person, today, that you were when you were a little kid? Are you the same person, right now, that you will be in the last years of yo...

O Romeo (and Juliet): The lasting appeal of Shakespeare’s tragedy

06 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Shakespeare’s tragedy about two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, has appealed to audiences for centuries. It’s been adapted countles...

All calls: Are we living in a simulation? Are you thinking of leaving the U.S.? Book bans, gaslighting, the economy, and more

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we take your calls about anything you want to talk about. You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Subs...

The Nose looks at ‘Sinners’ and our culture consumption in anxious times

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sinners is the fifth feature film written and directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan. (Coogler has never made a feature without Jorda...

From boredom to handwriting: Christine Rosen on the embodied experiences we lose to technology

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we talk with Christine Rosen about her book, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World. We talk about how technology ...

There are rules for punctuation, but we don’t always agree on them

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Should people use the Oxford comma? Is there a correct number of exclamation points per email? If someone ends a casual text with a period, does that ...

We're still pushing the boulder on the meaning of Sisyphus

29 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, a look at the myth of Sisyphus, and how we invoke it today. Plus, we'll hear from a musician who has found inspiration in the story, and we...

All calls: Temporary tattoos, Americans emigrating, ‘MobLand,’ and more

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

Cut for time: More from our Bacharach / Warwick show at Watkinson

26 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Note: This episode contains strong language. Easily the hardest part of turning something like our live event celebrating the chemistry between Burt B...

The Nose looks at ‘Conclave’ and ‘MobLand’

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With rare exceptions, The Nose doesn’t usually cover movies from the previous Oscar season once the actual Oscars have happened. But major world...

What the world needs now: The chemistry of Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, it’s our show on the relationship and chemistry between Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick (and the lyricist Hal David) recorded live ...

Nothing to see here: Erasure in history, art and more

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, we look at the political erasure of history, and its impacts. Plus, we talk about why artists destroy their own work or the works of others...

The fungus among us

22 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since we just spent a number of years thinking about viruses, here’s a question: Should we be pretty worried about funguses, too? This hour, a l...

All calls: Remembering Pope Francis, grammar complaints, face touching, and more

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we took your calls about anything you wanted to talk about. You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Su...

Long live the movie musical

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The movie musical died a long, slow death a long time ago. Right? Well, except that there’s Wicked. And Spielberg’s West Side Story. And H...

Why both the American dream and tragedy of 'The Great Gatsby' still resonate today

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This year marks 100 years since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby was first published. And it turns out that it took a whil...

Where have all the public toilets gone?

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column proclaiming that "America Is Not Made for People Who Pee." It hit a nerve. People responded w...

The echoes of the Red Scare can be heard today

15 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we talk about the history of the Second Red Scare, a period also known as McCarthyism. We learn about why the Scare took off in the United S...

All calls: Protests, comedy, universities, bees, and more

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we took your calls about anything you wanted to talk about. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Suppor...

Wild and crazy guys: A look at ’80s comedies

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, John Belushi, John Candy, Rick Moranis. Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Beverly Hills Cop, Cad...

‘The Good Place’ creator Michael Schur explains how to be a good person

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You know Michael Schur from the shows he’s created, like The Good Place, Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. This hour we talk with Sch...

Why Jane Austen’s work endures, on the page and screen

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jane Austen completed six full-length novels. And today, 250 years after her birth, those novels are all still present in our culture. This hour, a lo...

Damn the torpedo (bats): Baseball is back!

08 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Finally, baseball is back! This hour, a look at all the fun, weird, interesting storylines in this new season — including, yes, the so-called to...

All calls: Rhododendrons, the economy, pickleball, and more

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we took your calls about anything you wanted to talk about. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Suppor...

The joy of bad movies

04 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There’s something kind of special about the experience of a really great, really bad movie. Think Red Dawn or Under Siege. Snakes on a Plane or ...

Shall we dance?

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we dance? The answer is more complicated than you might think. Dancing has served a multitude of functions for various cultures throughout hist...

We’re still bananas for The Monkees

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, a look at why, more than half a century after they first came walking down the street, we’re still bananas for The Monkees. GUESTS: ...

A look at cultural manias from Liszt and orchids to the Beatles and beyond

01 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From fueling some of mankind's most violent events to inspiring your daughter's latest pop star obsession, mania has become an indispensable force in ...

All calls: Sen. Chris Murphy, John Donne, rooting for blowouts (or not), and more

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

The Nose looks at ‘Adolescence’ and ‘Long Bright River’

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Adolescence is a four-part Netflix limited series crime drama. It is written and created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, who also stars. Adolescenc...

A tribute to the proud and peaceful pigeon

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

B. F. Skinner thought pigeons were so smart they could be used to guide missiles during World War II. He proposed a system in which pigeons would esse...

Historian Timothy Snyder helps us understand this current moment through the lessons of history

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Timothy Snyder is the author of the books On Freedom and On Tyranny. He joins us this hour to talk about the latest in our co...

From hot mics to mic drops, a celebration of the microphone

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The microphone makes everything we do on the radio possible. This hour we celebrate the invention and look at the role of microphones in music. Plus h...

All calls: The zipper merge, ‘American Pie,’ music streaming services, and more

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, the conversation winds around to the zipper merge, Don McLean’s “American Pie,” our 15th anniversary party, model trains ...

From The Bad Ideas Dept.: Today’s show is not about tapirs

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re celebrating the show’s 15th anniversary (which was last year, but never mind about that part). Over those 15+ years, we&r...

Live from a forest: Discussing hiking, archaeology, invasives, and Connecticut's trails

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are more than 800 miles of Blue-Blazed Hiking Trails in Connecticut. Today we're doing our show from one of them. There are things out in the wo...

March Madness 2025

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

March Madness is here! And for the 15th* time, the only logical thing to do is to get improv comedian Julia Pistell and the actual Bill Curry together...

What the history of the McKinley era, tariffs, and the Gilded Age can teach us about the present

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump has found inspiration for tariffs and more in the 25th President of the United States: William McKinley. This hour, we look at ...

All calls: Will we ever get back to The Shire? Is Colin ok? Is anyone? And more

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. The...

The Nose looks at ‘I’m Still Here’ and the dearth of old movies on Netflix

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui) is a Brazilian, Portuguese-language political biographical drama based on the memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva. ...

An unusually strange event: Nikolai Gogol, ‘The Inspector,’ and ‘The Nose’

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“The Nose” may be Nikolai Gogol’s most famous short story. It’s a surrealist — and self-consciously, self-awarely surrea...

Necks: More than just something we have a pain in

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do you feel about your neck? Maybe you only think about it when you’re sore from sleeping wrong or from sitting at a desk all day. But for c...

Bring back the beaver!

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Beavers build sophisticated dams and deep-water ponds that slow erosion of riverbanks, create cooler deep-water pools for temperature-sensitive plant ...

All calls: Dissent, Adam and Eve, therapy, and more

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls, calls about anything, everything. And...

How WWE got a chokehold on U.S. politics

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In January, World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) Monday night show, Raw, moved to Netflix. The move comes around the time that a known WWE fan and Ha...

Turns out common sense isn’t all that common

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump has been using the phrase “common sense” a lot. But it turns out that this is nothing new for politicians. This hou...

The secret lives of numbers

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Numbers are so fundamental to our understanding of the world around us that we maybe tend to think of them as an intrinsic part of the world around us...

All calls: Booing, showering, pinball (again), suits, and more

04 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

The Noscars 2025

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve never done this before. The Nose has done Oscars shows any number of times, but they’ve basically all been preview shows of one kind...

The Nose looks at ‘Severance’ and ‘Rosebud Baker: The Mother Lode’

28 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Severance is a science fiction office comedy psychological thriller series created by Dan Erickson and executive produced and primarily directed by Be...

The romance of the north

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's cold, snowy winters like this that make us question why we choose to live in a place where snow, sleet, and wind define one-third of the year. &n...

A show about how we pick the music for shows

26 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You may notice that we curate our music rather carefully, the music we use going in and out of segments. This hour, a look at how we do that, what our...

All calls: Pinball, voting with your dollars, winter, model trains, and more

25 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we took your calls about anything you wanted to talk about. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Suppor...

Beyond woods and roads: The life and poetry of Robert Frost

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You have probably encountered poet Robert Frost through his famous poems “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” or “The Road Not Tak...

‘Live from New York!’ A look at ‘Saturday Night’ and ‘SNL’

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This past weekend, Saturday Night Live celebrated its 50th anniversary with a concert and a special. This hour, a look at the institution SNL has beco...

One man’s bureaucracy is another’s “deep state”

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump and his new administration have been dismantling the U.S. government's administrative state, what they call the "deep state." This hou...

Shell we talk about eggs?

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What else besides an egg can give us human life, culinary delight, life-saving vaccines, jarping, the Clowns International Egg Registry, and...

All calls: Reacting to Trump's presidency, football, the genius of younger generations, and more

18 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we take your calls about anything you want to talk about. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support ...

A look at one of our most forgotten presidents: Chester A. Arthur

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour is all about America’s 21st president, Chester A. Arthur, who took office after President James Garfield was assassinated. We look at ...

Should theaters have to tell us the real movie start times?

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

State Sen. Martin Looney has proposed a bill in the Connecticut legislature that would require movie theaters to publish the actual start times of mov...

The secret language of animals and how we're learning to understand it

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Do you ever wish you could have a conversation with your pet, or the bird outside your window? This hour, we learn about how animals communicate with ...

An appreciation of squirrels

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I’ve had some well-documented trouble with our neighborhood squirrels over the last few winters. It could be that most homeowners in the Northea...

Everyday Carry: Unpacking what we carry with us and why

11 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What’s in your pockets right now? Phone, wallet, keys … maybe some discarded receipts or old gum? This hour: what we carry with us every ...

All calls: Talking with friends, the King of Haiti, worrying about the future, and more

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we took your calls about anything you wanted to talk about. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is av...

The Nose looks at ‘Sing Sing’ and ‘American Primeval’

07 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sing Sing is a theater and prison drama directed by Greg Kwedar and written by Clint Bentley and Kwedar from a story by Bentley, Kwedar, Clarence &ldq...

'I once had a dentist named Dr. Fillmore': Stories of nominative determinism

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a theory that people are drawn to work that fits their name. This hour, an exploration of nominative determinism. Plus, a look at the di...

It’s time to talk about the alphabet in the room

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most of the Western world is organized by alphabetical order, which is so much more than the 26 letters that make up the alphabet. Alphabetical order ...

Eventually the world will end. Why can't we stop imagining it?

04 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. The end of the world has been something humans have...

All calls: Connecticut’s Grammy winners, the ‘SNL’ music doc, and just a general searching for the way forward

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

From ‘Ninotchka’ to ‘Love Actually’: A celebration of the romantic comedy

31 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In his book From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy, Scott Meslow lays out two ways to tell if a given mov...

Occam’s razor makes the case for simplicity in a complex world

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Occam’s razor states that “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” This hour is all about Occam’s razor: where th...

The weird and fundamental idea that is zero

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Zero is considered by many mathematicians to maybe be humanity’s greatest achievement. This hour, a look at the strange and essential conce...

A big, hulking, concrete look at brutalism

28 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Crawford Hall at Yale. The Louis Micheels House in Westport. The Babbidge Library at UConn. Hotel Marcel in New Haven. Connecticut is dotted with stun...

I'm having writer's block writing this headline about writer's block

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone has likely experienced some form of writer's block in their lives — when you sit down to write and the words just won't come. This hour...

‘A kind of musical Mark Twain’: A look at Randy Newman

24 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Randy Newman has been nominated for 22 Academy Awards (he’s won twice), for 23 Grammy Awards (seven wins), and for three Primetime Emmy Awards (...

How should we treat the dead?

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, we look at our cultural fascination with dead bodies. What do we owe the dead? What can the dead teach us? What does a body represent to yo...

Socrates' lessons on life, death, and conversation with Agnes Callard

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, philosopher Agnes Callard joins us to talk about her new book, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life. GUEST:  Agnes Callar...

All calls: The inauguration, ‘The Price Is Right,’ Van Gogh, Klaus Schulze, and more

21 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting ...

The Poet Laureate of Rock ’n’ Roll: A look at Bob Dylan

17 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re at a point where, for many of us, there has simply never been a popular culture in which Bob Dylan wasn’t a towering figure. And wit...