In what it is a partially money-themed episode, Tony and Kevin first explain where the many “heres” are wherein listeners can empty their wallets. Then, in the first segment, “Bingo Night at the Kushners,” Ivanka and Jared Kushner try to recover some of their social and economic capital by holding a bingo night for their new neighbors in Lower Heights. Next, in a new “Unclogging the Spam Filter,” Kevin and Tony try yet again to coax a large sum of money from another nice British widow who contacted them and so many others on her robo-email list. Finally, in “36-Hour Cable News,” we learn how much more news there can be when time is stopped for an extra twelve hours a day. Apparently, there’s just a lot of waiting around, with little to do but to empty your wallets, here.

Men in Charge

Season 9, Episode 18: Empty Your Wallet Here!

In this episode, Kevin and Tony encourage the Listener to call in to the station to nominate “Men in Charge” for an award, given that the show is now, legally, award-eligible. “Best Hair” award for the hosts? Why not? “Most Likely to Succeed Recede into Oblivion”? That too. But because self-congratulations can take the show only so far, matters move to the further adventures of “Emily Wellingtonford, Canadian Mine Owner and Usurer,” in which Emily continues her dalliance with Constable Coors, while the elderly Mrs. Wepford, locked in a utility closet, dreams herself into a nightmarish reality. Next, Kitty McQueen, feline chanteuse whose star is always starting to rise, finds herself singing to an entire stadium of… well, you’ll just have to listen in. Finally, Tony and Kevin leave the basement where the Men in Charge spam filter is kept and head to Brazil in response to a spam ad for laborers at a soybean farm. Our hosts gather all the credentials they can muster to prove their

Season 9, Episode 17: Remember, We're Award-Eligible!

In this full-length radio play, an unrelated sequel to “Kubrick, Shaw, Haldane & Clarke, Case 1,” this serendipitous band of scientists, film auteurs, and other non-scientists investigate the death of a window washer in the 1960, all without the assistance of Artie Shaw, who still insisted on title credit. But is the cause of death a good enough crime to merit the magisterial title of “Murder”? Unearth your inner snob, Listener, and hear for yourself!

Season 9, Episode 16: Kubrick, Shaw, Haldane & Clarke, Case 2

Given the outcry, however muted, for the further adventures of “Wine Tasting with Men in Charge: The Next Generation,” Kevin and Tony oblige with further misuse of the Listener’s time. It’s a full-length episode, broken only by a commercial for “Bob Hacks Property Management.” Kevin and Tony’s wine-tasting avatars, Tamsin and Kennedy, find themselves confronted by oddly familiar counterparts in Mom jeans and wedge sandals. Is this time travel? A bad dream triggered by sausage sulfites? Tune in to find out, or wait for the movie!

Season 9, Episode 15: Wine Tasting with Men in Charge--the Next Generation

In this episode, Tony quickly dispenses with the title, “Objet d’Eric,” and lurches off in an unprecedented rant about shame-shaming and the idiotic “Who’s to say…?” question, until Kevin presses hard with his strangely soft philosopher hands to bring Tony down from his sputtering summit. With a deft segue, they then move into the episode’s segments. First, “Spic and Spandits 2”: Chloë and Madison go on tour with their redecorating banditry but bang into the long, hairy arm of Johnny Law. Next, there’s a commercial for “Kent Jennings’ Puzzle Grubs,” a handy solution to the problem of jigsaw puzzles further ruining an already ruined beach vacation. Finally, we return after many years to “Wine tasting with Men in Charge,” but it’s moved to the Next Generation—and this time the bad idea is Kevin’s. Is he ashamed? You bet he is.

Season 9, Episode 14: Objet d'Eric

It’s the midseason end of Season 9 and thus the beginning of reruns/the Apocalypse. Many End Times predictions go under the discussion knife, however untreatable. But this episode's three and a .5 segments will help the Listener prepare for the next End Times. First, we have a commercial for “Don Capoblanco's Pizza Village,” a mafia-run entertainment center for the whole family! Next, we go to the Threadbare Preparatory Academy to listen in on a faculty meeting, which is the heart of every school, where we learn what fire alarms are really for. Next, Kevin and Tony host a Big Name NPR reporter, showing her a good time by collecting dangerously realistic sound effects. Finally, Tony and Kevin wish everyone—absolutely everyone—a happy holiday, regardless of the holiday and whether on not anyone actually wants one.

Season 9, Episode 13: Not Another End Times!

This episode is the only one bold enough to address the overly casual use of modifiers (ie: “Actual”) and their power to corrupt the very concept of a “category” and thus the mind’s ability to form patterns. Tony and Kevin had better not be the only ones pissed off about this. But tempers are tempered by the episodes’ segments. First, the call-in show “Ask Your Weasel Trainer!” ruins a promising NPR career because of too much clawing and biting. Next, “Octadextromethylcyclotetradiazepam” tells the cruel story of a drug that is far too successful at changing your life at the expense of others’. Thirdly, in “Bad Nancy Drew,” two teenage girls try to undo Nancy Drew’s legacy by building criminal cases against the innocent. Finally, “Existentialists on a Hovercraft 3!” finds our hovercraft-wrecked protagonists all damp from the surrounding water as they wait for rescue from either the Coast Guard, the Salvation Army, or an exciting new hybrid!

Season 9, Episode 12: Actual Turkey Necks

What’s worse—selling your body or your very soul and the soul of your country? Let Tony and Kevin answer that, because apparently the New America can’t. Maybe this episode’s segments will help, or maybe not… First, “Dr. Orville Preacher, On Your Healthiness” returns with more pseudo-quasi-medical advice, and hapless sidekick Tim Wattles melts into his final, gelatinous phase. Then we make another visit to the rocky west of Ireland for “Fiona Lynch’s Irish Burrito Stand and Backyard Boxing Gym.” Will young Liam McTaggert be plucked away from Fiona’s clutches by a wealthy American relative? Finally, there’s “Kitty McQueen,” a feline chanteuse who has trouble with a Manx boyfriend and a top dog cop. Boy can she sing, though… (These segments were written by Kevin Decker, Tony Flinn, and Ann Porter, which no one thought to mention during the show, damn it!)

Season 9, Episode 11: No Prostitution Today, Thank You!

From his earthen bunker, Tony describes how he ended up even farther into the depths of the earth while just trying to make some extra room for new rats. From his sewer, Kevin smiles benignly. This episode attempts to get at the nature of some strange relics they both found while exploring their pandemic-era digs: glassware in the shape of cans, with removable lids. When cans were made of glass, indeed! And the confusion doesn't stop there, as we travel back to the Sumerian Era of Mesopotamia for Fertile Crescent Sumerian Investigators's latest episode, "The Big Ziggurat" and Lieutenant Lugalzaggesi is excited about a new form of torture: waterboarding. After that, Roger Basement, host of "What's New with You?" talks with his newest guest about Videoconferencing Tips. Listen in and you'll be communicating online as effectively as Jeffrey Toobin in no time! Finally, Vladimir Putin is summoned to Laboratory X below the Kremlin to examine a new time-travel device. In "Back to the Putin,"

Season 9, Episode 10: When Cans Were Made of Glass

Tony and Kevin again present a curated collection of four of their funniest sketches since last episode. First, however, they must dissect the meaning of their chosen episode title, "Spittoon of the Zeitgeist." Whatever the current zeitgeist is, they agree that it belongs in a spittoon. Then, starting with a fresh spittoon, they lead into the sketch "The Pharmacist that Doesn't Like to Hear About Your Medical Conditions" which, although enormously funny, is also self-explanatory. Then it's an episode of the new talk show virtually no one is talking about, "Now We're Worshipping...." This week, the object of pious veneration is...snakes! With a special guest appearance by Snake Deity! Then it's off to the ivy-covered ivory tower of your local university, where people just trying to protest violently are being taught "How to Protest Peacefully." Finally, we return to the latest chapter in the saga of Salesdog Spot, who nails his audition at a casting call, then aims to nail a potted

Season 9, Episode 9: Spittoon of the Zeitgeist

As the ambiguity of the title indicates, this episode explores “ambiguity” in three of its nuances. Count if you don’t believe us, and then never believe us again. Coincidentally, this episode unleashes three segments: 1) The return of “Chester Hehdridge,” who meets a pair of near-worthy opponents in a parking lot; 2) a commercial/true-life drama, “Dictator Paints,” in which a nearly invisible reporter spies on a transaction in an authoritarian paint store; and 3) “Whose Desuetude is Recrudescent,” in which mean-spirited documentarian Thor-Igor Rasmussen interrogates Novak Djokovic, famous line-judge-hitting tennis player, just to be mean-spirited. So listen, learn, and then forget.

Season 9, Episode 8: Our Ambiguities Make Misunderstanding Almost Normal!

Tony and Kevin discuss reasons why some people are tall and whether or not any of them have any reason to be. Usually they don't. Also attentive listeners will be able to divine Kevin and Tony's true heights. Prepare to be unsurprised. This episode features three award-winning-adjacent scripts: 1) Didier Vendage, on "Disgruntled Belgian Talk Radio," receives an offer to marry into the Belgian Royal Family, but (chuckle) not in the way he'd like; 2) Next, writer Jarrett Langford inaugurates "The Kevin Decker Radio Hour," which seems to be missing something, but at least Putin is interviewed; 3) and finally, we meet "Leona Perkins, Insensitive Geneologist," where we learn not to trust the information on fast food menus. The sobbing at the end is great, too. Meanwhile, if you're unnecessarily tall, start deferring to short people.

Season 9, Episode 7: Tall for No Reason

Listener protestations to the contrary, Kevin and Tony decide it's time measure the inadequacies of their audience up against their own. Let's just say it doesn't turn out well for the listeners. To cheer up those mortified folks, the show moves on to this week's pre-award-winning segments: First, we're back to "Heaving Bosoms," chapter 15, with the old geezer Crone baby, and a new wrinkle-removing product. After that, a new convenience store adventure at the "Bilk N' Go," Capitalism is re-examined, and maybe derided. Thirdly brings us a return to the "Bad Advice Demon," featuring drunken poetry about laundry. Finally, we have the return of "A Man Called Bamby." Mr. Bamby has fled the bar where two mafia goons were roughing up his voice-over persona, but he's not home free. Hang onto your wallets, listener.

Season 9, Episode 6: Your Inadequacies and Ours, Compared

When Maestro (c)-sponsored magician Doug Henning retired from his spankly jumpsuits and stage magic in 1985--destined to get a haircut, his fans guessed that he might get heavily involved with David Lynch and George Harrison in the Transcendental Meditation movement--and that he might run for MP B lackpool for the Natural Law Party. When it is revealed, in 1995, that Henning was Canadian, all of this is both confirmed and problematized. This special picks up that story where it left off many years ago, and features special appearances by Don ("Miami Vice") Johnson, Bob Uecker, Dr. Ruth "Where's the Beef" Westheimer, President Clinton, and a special surprise science popularizer! You care, but maybe you shouldn't?

Season 9, Episode 5: Doug Henning's World of Magic VIIII, 1995

In this episode, Kevin and Tony—from the comfort of their sewer and earthen bunker respectively—discuss ways that arming the citizenry inevitably leads to peace. At the same time, necessarily, they explore which kinds of mold provide good body insulation when it grow on clothes and skin. With all that resolved, our boys move on to this episode's four segments. First, in “Dangerous Cousins-in-Law Part 2,” Darlene and Mabel play an alphabet game to guess the crime that Regina is planning. Second, it’s a new Jarrett Langford script: “Dungeon Doctor,” in which a doctor and nurse roll the dice to determine a patient’s treatment. Third is “Civics in a Bottle”—learning history from beer and wine labels. Why not? Finally, in “Spic and Spandits,” Chloë and Madison move their cast-off (but expensive!) furniture from their houses to yours—whether you want them to or not! But relax. Maybe they’re armed.

Season 9, Episode 4: Relax, We're Armed!

“Men in Charge" is an uncertainly ironic sketch comedy show, written and performed by Kevin Decker and Tony Flinn, along with a cast of the talented willing.

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Men in Charge

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