Deep Cuts
195 episodes - English - Latest episode: 25 days ago -Hosts Dave Baker and Andrew Price walk you through the ins, outs, and the nitty gritty of an astonishing story from pop culture or history that you won't believe you've never heard before.
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Episodes
Phantom Patriot, Deep State Superhero | Case File #44
December 23, 2020 10:10 - 2 hours - 160 MBHe was a masked vigilante who stormed a private club for the wealthy elite in hopes of uncovering a deep state trafficking ring. In the early 2000s, Richard McCaslin had become obsessed with the idea of the Deep State and the New World Order, and the fact that Reptilian overlords were controlling humanity from behind the scenes. Specifically, he had hear from Alex Jones that there was a private club in Northern California called Bohemian Grove where some of the richest, most powerful celebrit...
The Worst Harry Potter Fanfic Ever Written | Case File #43
December 16, 2020 07:21 - 1 hour - 72.4 MBIn 2006, the worst fan fiction ever written was released. We still haven't figured out who actually wrote it. My Immortal is a bizarre, intensely terrible fan fiction published on the internet from 2006 to 2007. It features a Hot Topic-clad, suicidal, goth, My Chemical Romance-loving female vampire protagonist who goes to Hogwarts and has romances as well as conflicts with the cast of Harry Potter - except all goth'd and Hot Topic'd out themselves. It's a truly hypnotically awful piece of wri...
How Our Adam Sandler Hoax Went Viral | Case File #42
December 09, 2020 08:21 - 1 hour - 103 MBThe strange story about the time we accidentally went viral for a hoax about Adam Sandler singing the entire Hamilton musical. In 2017, we recorded a weird inside joke bit where an impressionist, Matt Harbert, meticulously re-recorded the entire smash Broadway musical, Hamilton, in his Adam Sandler impression. We posted it online and nobody listened for years. Then, in 2020, out of nowhere, after we'd long forgotten about it, it became a huge viral hit on Tik Tok and Spotify. This is the anat...
When Congress Tried to Ban Video Games w/ Jackson Stewart | Case File #41
December 02, 2020 09:35 - 1 hour - 88.6 MBMortal Kombat caused a chain reaction of parental fear in the 90s, so congress tried to ban video games. Video games fought back. In the early 90s, home video game consoles exploded in popularity. But with the newfound success came attention from concerned parents who didn't like seeing their kids exploding each others' heads in the violent fighting game, Mortal Kombat. This lead to a massively important congressional hearing in 1993 that would decide the fate of video games forever. This hea...
Mother Teresa, Saint of Lies and Death | Case File #40
November 25, 2020 09:56 - 1 hour - 57.8 MBShe is the most well-known Saint of the modern era, but her true legacy is full of cruelty, torture, and death. Throughout the 1950s - 1990s, Mother Teresa rose to prominence as one of the most well-known and celebrated humanitarians in history. She ran hundreds of hospitals and clinics to help rehabilitate the poverty and disease-stricken poor out of the kindness of her heart, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and was officially granted Saint status by the Catholic Church. We literally use ...
Bigfoot Ruined These Men's Lives | Case File #39
November 18, 2020 07:47 - 1 hour - 81.4 MBSupposed footage of Bigfoot ruined these two men's lives, ended their friendship, and ushered in a new era of misinformation. In 1967, Bob Gimlin and Roger Patterson captured the legendary footage of Bigfoot walking through the woods in Northern California. You've seen the video, but did you know the full story behind it? The fact that Roger Patterson used the video to transform himself into a traveling conspiracy theory circus ringleader, or that it ruined the two men's friendship, or that n...
The Card Game That Predicted 9/11 | Case File #38
November 11, 2020 10:48 - 1 hour - 82.2 MB"Illuminati" is a trading card game from 1994...that predicted the September 11th terror attacks? In the early 80s, Steve Jackson Games released a game called Illuminati. And then in the early 90s they came out with an expanded trading card game version of it to capitalize off of the popularity of Magic: The Gathering. It was a fun game about conspiracy theories that developed a cult following. But, years later, people started noticing that it was predicting major world event after major worl...
Verhoeven's Toupee, Guide to Neo Fascism | Case File #37
November 04, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 79.1 MBUtopia. Dystopia. These are the two options we thought we had. But there's a third, and we're living in it. Andrew and Dave, your intrepid hosts, have been chipping away at a theory for basically the entire existence of Deep Cuts. It's all about how the year 2020 has revealed that we are living in neither a utopian or dystopian society, but rather a third and more surreal option. A concept that we've coined to describe the world we're currently live in where satire isn't any more absurd than ...
Hillsmer's Halloween Special | Case File #36
October 31, 2020 20:13 - 40 minutes - 36.6 MBJoin Dave, Andrew, and Hillsmer on a very special Halloween episode of Deep Cuts. Additional incidental music credits: The Deadboy Detectives 01001000 01100001 01101001 01101100 00100000 01010011 01110000 01100001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01010011 01100001 01110100 01100001 01101110 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Man With a Penis on His Arm | Case File #35
October 28, 2020 07:00 - 59 minutes - 54.8 MBOne day his penis just fell off. But doctors had an experimental new way to grow it back... 4 years ago, Malcolm MacDonald developed a rare blood infection. His outer extremities turned black - including his penis. However, unlike the rest of his limbs, one day Malcolm got out of bed and his penis fell off on the floor. He went through a period of shame, depression, and low confidence. That was until some doctors came to him with an experimental idea for how to restore his manhood. And it inv...
Flat Earth Pt. 2 w/ Mark Sargent | Case File #34
October 23, 2020 08:59 - 1 hour - 97 MBA weird, somewhat disturbing interview with the leader of the Flat Earth Movement, Mark Sargent. A few years ago, an idea started catching on that was exclusively perpetuated by social media algorithms on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. The idea was not a new one - in fact it was 100s of years old. It was the idea that our world is, in fact, not round but flat. More specifically, it's a flat disk covered by an impenetrable dome that was built by some kind of ancient celestial being that ...
Flat Earth Society, Death of Truth | Case File #33
October 21, 2020 20:57 - 2 hours - 124 MBThey think the Earth is flat. Their looney beliefs are more dangerous to society than they seem. A few years ago, an idea started catching on that was exclusively perpetuated by social media algorithms on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. The idea was not a new one - in fact it was 100s of years old. It was the idea that our world is, in fact, not round but flat. More specifically, it's a flat disk covered by an impenetrable dome that was built by some kind of ancient celestial being that ...
Act of Killing, Genocide Community Theater | Case File #32
October 14, 2020 08:27 - 2 hours - 129 MBOne filmmaker got men who committed a genocide to play themselves in a movie about the genocide. In the mid-60s, a fascist regime in Indonesia enlisted several paramilitary militias and two-bit gangsters to murder millions of innocent people labeled as communists. The event was re-written in their history books as heroic, and all the men responsible for the genocide are still in charge and walking free. Nobody knew the truth about what really happened until documentary filmmaker, Joshua Oppen...
Lisa Frank, Abusive Drug Den | Case File #31
October 07, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 66.1 MBLisa Frank and her husband used all that money to throw cocaine parties and abuse their employees. All throughout the 90s, Lisa Frank products were the huge back to school craze of the decade. Girls everywhere wore their brightly-colored backpacks, stored paper in their vibrantly-rendered folders, and wrote their homework onto kitty-and-puppy-adorned notebooks with dolphin-and-tiger-emblazoned pencils. They couldn't get enough of Lisa Frank. However, behind the scenes in an office building in...
Chris Hansen, Exploitative Conman Pt. 3 | Case File #30
September 30, 2020 09:35 - 2 hours - 113 MBHe used to be a hero, but now he exploits the abuse of children for views and money. In the 80s and 90s, he was a hard-hitting journalist, tackling some incredibly important stories that shed light on issues like slave labor, the crack cocaine epidemic, and child trafficking. In the early 2000s he was host of the insanely popular TV show, To Catch a Predator. For a while, Chris Hansen was a legitimate celebrity, probably the most famous of any reporter, and beloved by all as a literal hero do...
Chris Hansen, Exploitative Conman Pt. 2 | Case File #29
September 23, 2020 06:39 - 1 hour - 106 MBHe used to be a hero, but now he exploits the abuse of children for views and money. In the 80s and 90s, he was a hard-hitting journalist, tackling some incredibly important stories that shed light on issues like slave labor, the crack cocaine epidemic, and child trafficking. In the early 2000s he was host of the insanely popular TV show, To Catch a Predator. For a while, Chris Hansen was a legitimate celebrity, probably the most famous of any reporter, and beloved by all as a literal hero do...
Chris Hansen, Exploitative Conman Pt. 1 | Case File #28
September 16, 2020 08:51 - 1 hour - 72.1 MBHe used to be a hero, but now he exploits the abuse of children for views and money. In the 80s and 90s, he was a hard-hitting journalist, tackling some incredibly important stories that shed light on issues like slave labor, the crack cocaine epidemic, and child trafficking. In the early 2000s he was host of the insanely popular TV show, To Catch a Predator. For a while, Chris Hansen was a legitimate celebrity, probably the most famous of any reporter, and beloved by all as a literal hero do...
Did Bella Thorne Break Online Sex Work? | Case File #27
September 09, 2020 07:55 - 1 hour - 103 MBA single photo this former Disney Star posted on porn app, OnlyFans, might have destroyed an industry. When former Disney Channel star, Bella Thorne, decided to break the Internet with a bold new experiment in which she would join the massively popular paid content service OnlyFans - largely used by online adult stars and sex workers - and then make a movie about it, what eventually was supposed to be her attempt at shedding light on the industry and de-stigmatizing it, actually led to a situ...
George Zimmerman, Murder Profiteer | Case File #26
September 02, 2020 09:10 - 1 hour - 97.7 MBFor years he's been profiting off of the trauma of a teenage boy's murder. In 2012, George Zimmerman saw 17-year-old Trayvon Martin walking through his semi-gated community and became suspicious. The teenager had decided to walk to a nearby convenience store for a snack, but Zimmerman felt like something was just not right. He pursued the boy, and eventually got into an altercation with him that ended with the death of Martin. A lengthy court case ensued, and Zimmerman was eventually acquitte...
Speed Racer Secretly Changed Cinema | Case File #25
August 26, 2020 07:37 - 1 hour - 70 MBIt was a financial and critical flop, but it secretly changed the way movies are made. In 2008, the Wachowskis released a weird, experimental live action adaptation of the 1960s anime classic, Speed Racer. The movie starred Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, and Susan Sarandon, and was not well-received by critics, audiences, and totally flopped at the box office. It has a small continent of fans (including us of course), but ultimately became a forgotten footnote - lost to time. Ho...
Who ACTUALLY Created Spider-Man? | Case File #24
August 19, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 81.3 MBDid Stan Lee & Steve Ditko create Spider-Man? Or was the idea stolen from a Halloween costume? In the Silver Age of comics in the 1960s and 70s, things were an existential mess from a creator perspective - especially at Marvel comics. There were no artist or writer unions, characters were often created in bull pen-type situations where authorship was given to the company at large instead of the actual people doing the creating. And, in a system where creator-ship was not properly recorded, an...
Laz Rojas, One Man Movie Studio | Case File #23
August 12, 2020 09:20 - 2 hours - 126 MBHe made a 4 hour movie where he played over 100 characters by himself, but he ended up homeless. In 1994, Laz Rojas desperately wanted to break into the entertainment industry as an actor, writer, and director. He had written literally hundreds of scripts, but couldn't get anybody to pay attention to them. So he shot a 4 hour film that was a collection of random scenes from all of the various scripts he had written. The only thing is - he didn't have any friends or collaborators to make it wi...
The Greatest Hoax in Hip Hop | Case File #22
August 05, 2020 07:42 - 1 hour - 100 MBTwo Scottish guys fooled the world into thinking they were American rappers for almost a decade. In the early 2000s, Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain were college students and best friends. They also loved hip hop and wanted to do something more with their lives than live a small-town Scottish existence. They formed a rap group and got good. However, after various auditions they quickly learned that, no matter how good they were, nobody would ever take two Scottish rappers seriously. So...they fabri...
Aum Shinrikyo, Anime Death Cult | Case File #21
July 29, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 83.3 MBA cult started by a blind Japanese man went on to become a deadly terrorist organization. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Shoko Asahara was rising in the ranks as one of the most powerful cult leaders in history. He had over ten thousand followers, and slowly over the course of several years would launch several deadly terrorist attacks against the country of Japan - a few of which are the worst attack that Japan has ever experienced. They did all of this while producing anime recruitment ...
Is Britney Spears A Prisoner? | Case File #20
July 22, 2020 10:38 - 2 hours - 157 MB12 years ago she lost control of her life. Is it for mental health reasons, or something far more evil? In 2008, after a very public mental health scare in which pop star Britney Spears shaved her head and had several violent outbursts, her father, Jamie Spears, was granted a permanent conservatorship over her. Conservatorships are usually reserved for the mentally unwell or handicapped, or the old and infirm, and make it so you are not legally allowed to make your own decisions, vote, drive ...
The Shaggs, Imprisoned Girl Group | Case File #19
July 15, 2020 05:38 - 2 hours - 152 MBThey were three young girls held prisoner by their father and forced to become a rock band because of a prophecy. They ended up becoming a huge cult hit, beloved by many - including Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain who lists their album as his third favorite of all time - and one of the most influential indie bands of all time. They were musical geniuses in the category of "outsider music." They also hated playing music, never wanted to be a band, and were held prisoner as teenagers by their fath...
Jared Leto, Cult Leader? | Case File #18
July 08, 2020 07:41 - 2 hours - 152 MBActor Jared Leto has slowly been growing a cult-like following for the last several years. What's his endgame? You know him from his films throughout the 90s, 2000s, leading up to today, as well as from his band 30 Seconds to Mars. Did you also know that, for the last several years, he's invited thousands of people to a large gathering that happens on a remote Island in some exotic area of the world? They started out as basically music festivals, but slowly they have morphed into something di...
Matthew Nolan, the Third Brother | Case File #17
July 01, 2020 06:54 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MBHe's the brother that director Christopher Nolan doesn't want to talk about. Because he's a murderer. You are familiar with the massively successful British filmmaker, Christopher Nolan, who has directed films like the Dark Knight, Inception, the Prestige, and the Tenet. You might also be familiar with his brother, Jonah Nolan, who co-created HBO's Westworld. But did you know that there's a third Nolan brother? Why have you never heard of him? Well, likely somebody paid a lot of money to make...
Andrew W.K., Fictional Character | Case File #16
June 24, 2020 06:49 - 4 hours - 221 MBHe was a one-hit wonder rocker who loved to party, but nobody noticed he was a complete hoax. In the late 90s/early 2000s, Andrew W.K. exploded out of nowhere with the anthemic, epic party anthem "Party Hard" complete with a stylish music video depicting him thrashing onstage in front of a giant mural of his bloodied face. After that, he became a novelty fringe element of pop culture - occasionally popping up to sing about or talk about partying. Ultimately we all kind of forgot about him. Ho...
Phoenix Jones, Living Superhero | Case File #15
June 17, 2020 08:52 - 1 hour - 94.9 MBHe was a real life costumed hero dedicated to stopping crime, but in the end his story was a supervillain origin. Phoenix Jones was a real life costumed superhero that operated out of Seattle, Washington for several years. Every night, seven days a week, he patrolled the streets of Seattle at night with his crew of fellow costumed heroes and a camera person. Anywhere he could find crime being committed - robbery, theft, drug deals, assaults - he would put himself in harm's way, chase and appr...
Jay J Armes, Spy With No Hands | Case File #14
June 10, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 94.8 MBHe was the world's greatest private eye who was also a double amputee. He also lied about his entire life. In part 1 of our three-part "Kayfabe Trilogy", we explore the crazy life and astonishing lies of Jay J Armes - a man from El Paso, Texas who lost both of his hands in a horrible accident as a child, and went on to become a globe-trotting private detective responsible for solving thousands of crimes - including rescuing Marlon Brando's son from kidnappers - starring in television and film...
Paul Lynde, the Center Square | Case File #13
June 03, 2020 07:00 - 45 minutes - 42.1 MBHe was a beloved comedian and linchpin of Hollywood Squares, but he was also a tortured soul with a tragic life. In the 70s, Paul Lynde enjoyed success as one of the most popular comedians of the time - notably with his role as Uncle Arthur on 'Bewitched' and as the center square on Hollywood Squares. However, what many of the time didn't know is that Lynde was dealing with deeply-routed demons from childhood trauma that resulted in massive drug and alcohol addiction. And, eventually, his hed...
Tony Wong, Comics Mobster | Case File #12
May 27, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 77.8 MBHe was the Stan Lee of Hong Kong comics, but his practices eventually landed him in prison. Throughout the 70s and 80s, Tony Wong produced hundreds of Hong Kong comics, or Manhua, based on his long-running franchise Little Rascals/Oriental Heroes. Despite the fact that it was an open secret that he was largely lying about how involved he was with the creation of his own comics - most of them clearly being drawn and written by ghost artists and Wong merely taking credit for them - he became th...
Theft of the Mona Lisa | Case File #11
May 20, 2020 05:53 - 1 hour - 63.8 MBThe Mona Lisa was once a very ordinary painting, but one man made it the most famous one in the world. In 1911, a man with an inside connection stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre by simply walking in and taking it. At the time, the Mona Lisa was regarded as a fairly insignificant minor work by the legendary artist, Leonardo DaVinci. However, all of that would change with the ensuing investigation, and the global attention that the theft would receive. After that, the Mona Lisa became the mos...
The Sentry | Case File #10
May 13, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 67 MBA comic writer discovered the first superhero Stan Lee ever created. It was the greatest hoax in comics history. In 1999 it was discovered that Stan Lee had created a superhero character BEFORE the Fantastic Four - long-believed to be the first superhero comics characters he'd ever been a part of. His name was the Sentry, and he was co-created by an artist named Artie Rosen back in 1961 and then promptly forgotten by Lee, never to be published. Then, in the late 90s, comic book writer Paul Je...
Bond Scandals with Matt Fraction | Case File #9
May 06, 2020 07:45 - 2 hours - 111 MBThese are the bizarre, inspiring, and sad stories of the scandals that rocked the James Bond franchise. George Lazenby was the second man to play James Bond after Sean Connery left. However, he had never acted before and tricked producers into casting him. Kevin McClory was a producer who managed to somehow win the rights to make his own bootleg James Bond movies in court. Both men left lasting marks on the franchise, but both men also spent the rest of their lives trying to recover from the ...
Lonnie Johnson | Case File #8
April 29, 2020 07:00 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBLonnie Johnson invented your childhood, but big business tried to steal all his money. Lonnie Johnson is an American inventor and engineer, and in the early 90s he invented and patented some of the most important aspects of any 90s kids' childhood. We would have had a lot of boring summer days without his contributions. However, after selling his inventions to big toy companies, he started noticing over the years that they were doing everything in their power to not pay Johnson his cut of the...
The Evil Within | Case File #7
April 22, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 80.6 MBAndrew Getty spent 15 years making a horror movie, and it ended up killing him. Grandson of oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty, and cousin of John Paul Getty III, who was famously kidnapped and tortured as a 16-year-old boy in 1973, Andrew Getty became haunted by night terrors that were so vivid and horrifying that he decided the only way he could get rid of them was to channel all of his fear into a self-financed horror movie. Beginning in 2002, he spent the next 15 years, and 6 million dollars, meti...
Cynthia Rothrock, Girl With Guns | Case File #6
April 15, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 71.5 MBShe was the greatest action star of the 80s you've never heard of. Her career should have been bigger. Cynthia Rothrock was a World Champion martial artist that transitioned into Hong Kong action films in the 80s despite being an American from Scranton, Pennsylvania. She went on to be in some of the most underrated action films of all time. Every heard of the 1985 film, "Yes, Madam!"? Well, it launched an entire genre of movies, the "Girls With Guns" genre, and she was co-lead alongside Miche...
Message From Space | Case File #5
April 08, 2020 07:00 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MBThe most expensive film in Japanese History was an insane bootlegged Star Wars ripoff. In 1978, at the height of the global 'Star Wars' craze following the release of the first movie in George Lucas's legendary franchise, tons of knockoff Star Wars movies were produced to try and capitalize off of the space craze. However, there was only one of those movies that was notable for A: being directed by the same guy who directed 'Battle Royale,' B: Having all of its sets and costumed designed by t...
Hergé, Nazi Collaborator | Case File #4
April 01, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 91.1 MBThe creator of 'The Adventures of Tintin', Hergé, willingly worked for Nazis for years. He's one of the most beloved comic artists in history, deservedly so, but many fans don't want to discuss this dark aspect of his career. For years he produced his long-running comic, 'The Adventures of Tintin,' for Nazi-run magazines in German-occupied Belgium and even collaborated closely with Nazi-sympathizers. Was he himself a Nazi sympathizer, or just struggling to survive in the tumultuous world of c...
Tom Hanson, Zodiac Killer Hunter | Case File #3
March 25, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 70.1 MBHe made a movie about the Zodiac Killer to catch the real Zodiac Killer. It almost worked. In 1973, Tom Hanson wrote and directed the world's first movie about the Zodiac Killer - an infamous serial killer that terrorized Northern California for months, killing multiple victims. The movie was released mere months after the grisly killings. It was one of the most flagrant examples of exploitation cinema, but was there another motive for making the movie besides just shamelessly capitalizing of...
The Mother of the Matrix | Case File #2
March 18, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 64 MBShe claimed Hollywood stole 'The Matrix' and 'The Terminator' from her. Many still believe her. Sophia Stewart says that she wrote a book in the 80s that was the basis for both smash-hit movie franchises, 'The Matrix,' and 'The Terminator,' and that her ideas were unceremoniously stolen by The Wachowskis (directors of 'The Matrix) and James Cameron (director of 'The Terminator'). She also claims that she sued Warner Brothers over copyright theft and won $1 Billion dollars, but that the WB has...
The Stratemeyer Syndicate | Case File #1
March 11, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 96.3 MBThe secret backstory behind 'The Hardy Boys' and 'Nancy Drew' is much darker than you ever imagined. These two beloved classic children's mystery novel series written by Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene that have entertained children and adults alike since the 1930s. Or are they? What if we told you that Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene never existed? And that Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and a slew of other children's mystery books from your childhood were all created by one man -- the shad...
Deep Cuts - Official Trailer
February 25, 2020 18:01 - 2 minutes - 5.23 MBHosts Dave Baker and Andrew Price walk you through the ins and outs of a particular topic in film, television and pop culture, no matter how strange or obscure. No matter how small a factoid seems to be, Dave and Andrew will explore its origin and maybe even correct some misconceptions on commonly held pop culture beliefs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices