Stuff You Should Know transcripts.
Every episode, searchable and free.

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

• 2026-10-06 Stand-Up Comedy Pt I Chuck and Josh do their best to tackle “the craft,” which most normal people call stand-up comedy. Stand-up dates back to the vaudeville days but it really started to take off in the 60s when comics stopped wearing suits and started getting edgy. Se Transcript →
• 2026-10-03 Selects: How Bras Work Bras are loved and hated, sometimes at the same time. But as difficult and restrictive as they can be, they rescued women from a much cruel contraption: corsets. The question remains, though, do women need bras at all? Listen to this classic episode to Transcript →
• 2026-10-01 Let's Thank Universal Pictures for Monster Movies! Basically everything you think of when you think of vampires, mummies, werewolves, and Frankenstein all come from a spate of films made in the 1930s, and every one of them by Universal Pictures. Amazingly, they are still among the best films ever made. Transcript →
• 2026-09-30 Short Stuff: The Retirement Curse Is retirement bad for your health? Well it certainly can be if you don't take steps to prevent it. Listen in to learn more about the "retirement curse." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Transcript →
• 2026-09-29 A Good Walk Ruined: The History of Golf The history of golf is a bit muddled, but once it was truly born in Scotland, it started the beginning of lifelong obsessions for people dumb enough to pick up a club and give it a try. Learn all about the early history of the most frustrating game ever Transcript →
• 2026-09-26 Selects: Wetlands! Wetlands! Wetlands! It’s time to get jazzed up for some Earth science of the waterlogged variety. Join Chuck and Josh in this classic episode as they tour some of the most interesting ecosystems on the planet and learn why we need to stop destroying them post haste. See Transcript →
• 2026-09-26 Introducing 3 Putt Bogey 3 Putt Bogey is a golf podcast hosted by Chuck Bryant and Adam Pranica, two mid handicappers who are just good enough to know exactly how bad they still are. The name says it all: one great shot, followed immediately by the kind of self-inflicted disast Transcript →
• 2026-09-24 Emily Post: Ettiquette Queen In today's episode, we detail the life and times of ettiquette queen Emily Post. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Transcript →
• 2026-09-23 Short Stuff: Mabon Mabon is often called the Pagan Thanksgiving but though it seems like it’s as ancient as Halloween, it’s actually only around 50 years old. But, pagan or not, it’s a great chance to really feel the fall and thank Mother Earth. See omnystudio.com Transcript →
• 2026-09-22 Our Big Fat Dream Episode No you’re dreaming – go ahead, pinch yourself – we’ve finally made an episode on dreams! We’ve done episodes on lucid dreaming, night terrors, sleepwalking, sleep paralysis – basically everything but dreams themselves. Well, at long last her Transcript →
• 2026-09-19 Selects: Fallout Shelters: Probably Useless (Let’s Never Find Out) The advent of nuclear weapons and the Cold War kicked off a craze in the US for building rec rooms with foot-thick reinforced walls and outfitted with survival rations and board games. Would they work? Probably not. Find out (but not really) in this cla Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: What is Collective Hysteria? Throughout the history of the world, there have been many cases of what is known as collective hysteria - groups of people, usually young women, who all exhibit the same physical symptoms of non-existent conditions. Is it psychosomatic? Is it group thin Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: What was the Philadelphia Experiment? The Philadelphia Experiment is a bad movie from the 1980s, and also the conspiracy theory that refuses to die, despite virtually zero evidence of its occurrence. Learn all about this strange non-event in today's show. See omnystudio.com/listener for pri Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: Mermaids: Not a real thing Mermaids aren't real. That much we know. But the history and lore of these magical and sometimes menacing creatures of the sea is pretty interesting stuff. Learn all about these half women/half fish today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informa Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: Will We Find Evidence of Aliens by Their Engineering Projects? In 1960 physicist Freeman Dyson suggested that in the hunt for alien life, we should search for evidence of massive engineering projects that encapsulate stars with solar arrays to harness their energy. Could we humans ever make one ourselves? See omnys Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: The Mystery of the Mary Celeste When the Mary Celeste was discovered floating and abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean one day in 1872, the legend of the ghost ship was born. Why did the Mary Celeste’s crew disappear? Was it pirates? Mutiny? UFOs? Well, probably not that la Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: The Max Headroom Incident In 1987, a very strange broadcast intrusion occurred in the city of Chicago. For just a couple of minutes, the odd TV character Max Headroom appeared onscreen in the middle of an episode of Dr. Who. He spoke in garbled tones, brandished a marital aid, a Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: Dragons: As Real as Mermaids Dragons are like mermaids in that they're not real. And that's about where the comparison ends. Learn all about dragons today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: The Creepy Legacy of the Hotel Cecil The Hotel Cecil in downtown Los Angeles has had no less than 16 unnatural deaths, from suicides to murders and everything in between. Listen in to the history of this decidedly creepy hotel. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Transcript →
• 2026-09-18 SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: What's the deal with blue people? The famous blue people of Kentucky are no longer blue. But why were they like that in the first place? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Transcript →