A BBC boss saw an AI-generated episode of the series and deemed it 'pretty good.'

Episode 312

Officials in England are alarmed at the state of Mentmore Towers, the 19th century estate that served as Wayne Manor in the 2005 film “Batman Begins.”

Episode 311

I talk with Steve Arnold, Emmy-nominated production designer of the hit Apple TV series Widow’s Bay. We discuss the careful worldbuilding needed to blend horror and comedy, real and fake history, and ...

Episode 309

The world of fanfiction has changed a lot since we covered it on the show in 2017. I talk with Fansplaining editor Elizabeth Minkel about the controversial fanfiction-to-media pipeline and how that’s ...

Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey is part of a long line of film adaptations, but Homer’s epic poem has quietly shaped another medium: role-playing games. The structure of The Odyssey is practicall...

In honor of America's 250th anniversary, we're continuing our mini-series on iconic American toys and games that took on lives of their own. Strong National Museum of Play curators Michelle Parnett-Dw...

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the USA, we are doing a series of mini stories across two episodes that explore American toys and games. This week, we look at early childhood objects that became ...

If you’ve started a podcast it’s likely you’ve dreamed of being behind the mic, and building a connection with your listeners who feel like you’re

Anime and manga are a global phenomenon, and their popularity continues to grow. Many of these stories are populated by supernatural beings called yōkai. Even though yōkai can be portrayed as ghosts, ...

In the subgenre of analog horror, there’s something sinister or supernatural lurking in the horizontal lines and vertical holds in those old VHS tapes. Filmmaker Chris LaMartina explains why he want...

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 a warrior named Imaro who lived in a ...

Pop culture has been full of Jekylls and Hydes: Bruce Banner and The Hulk, Norman Bates and Mother, Walter White and Heisenberg, The Nutty Professor and Buddy Love. They all echo the archetype that Ro...

John Watson is a former army doctor who became a true crime podcaster when he met a consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes. You can hear about the cases they’ve solved in the podcast Sherlock &am...

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 spotlight off our...

When I interviewed Andy Weir in 2021 about his novel Project Hail Mary, he told me that the movie adaptation was already being planned starring Ryan Gosling. The big question was how would they brin...

When director Guillermo del Toro asked Tamara Deverell to be the production designer on his film adaptation of Frankenstein, she had a good idea of what he wanted. Del Toro had been dreaming of maki...

Gene Roddenberry’s name is synonymous with Star Trek, but he relied on a team to bring his vision to life. Most of his writers were men with one exception, the trailblazing Dorothy Fontana. Profession...

Imagine if Bruce Wayne had no money, if Superman grew up on Krypton and came to Earth with emotional scars, or if Wonder Woman had been raised in Hell. Welcome to the Absolute Universe – a dark parall...

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 in 1930s Mississippi. P...

Scarlet Hollow is a successful indie video game – and that’s no small feat. It’s been a long journey, and the game is made almost entirely by two people: Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias of Black T...

Darby McDevitt is a narrative director and writer at Ubisoft. He’s worked on multiple games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which spans time periods from Ancient Greece to Victorian England. But...

In my annual audio drama, I interview several folklore figures who are synonymous with the holiday season outside America -- but they’ve been overshadowed by the cultural juggernaut of Santa Claus. So...

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 and even stranger world of cryptids ...

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 animatio...

When director Guillermo del Toro asked Tamara Deverell to be the production designer on his film adaptation of Frankenstein, she had a good idea of what he wanted. Del Toro had been dreaming of maki...

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 century. But what inspired the imaginations of the rebellious teenager Mary Shelley, or the beleaguered theatrical promot

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 together (and blew apart) when MGM...

Podcast Episode · Imaginary Worlds · 09/24/2025 · 34m

Movies that change cinema often come from outsiders – whether it’s Orson Welles making Citizen Kane or George Lucas making Star Wars a.k.a. Episode IV: A New Hope. The excellent graphic novel Lucas W...

I just voted for this finalist to win a Signal Listener's Choice Award. You should too.

I didn't want the summer to end without joining in on the 50th anniversary celebrations of Jaws. I spent summers on Cape Cod as a kid, where I often heard that Jaws was filmed nearby on Martha’s Viney...