Undercooked Analysis is winding down as a regular podcast, but David springs a cruel trap on Allen and Abysmii with one more Julia Grane story that fails spectacularly to prove the argument posed by the title. Also, Future David comes out of retirement.
Listen to the voice in the static with The Unlicensed Signal.
David and returning guest Ben Paddon have a Halloween tale to tell, as an old man recollects his dark experience one October 31st in the swamps of the Deep South. But first, they have to shamelessly plug the 2nd season of Ben’s Jump Leads audio drama.
Story by Dartmouth and Friends.
It’s the final episode of Poe Standards! Allen and David return for one more go at the worst of Poe (according to some rando) with a story set in Venice. Is this a tragic romance, a case of obsession, or something more? And how does it compare to the other stories covered thus far?
Story by Edgar Allen Poe, first published in 1834. Read along here.
All weird tales must come to an end, even the world’s weirdest criminal’s. We wrap up these serial adventures with the inexplicable return of Bostiff, the reveal of Doctor Satan’s peculiar plot, and a rare moment of humility from Ascott Keane. But we’re not quite done with Doctor Satan yet…
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, September 1936.
It’s the end of the road for Doctor Satan’s stint in Weird Tales, but was the best saved for last? Abysmii, Allen and David aim to find out as the villain’s plot manifests in a millionaire’s retreat, where Ascott Keane finally gets called out and a sinister new character enters the picture: Madame Sin.
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, September 1936.
A finale so weird, it had to be done twice! Well, sort of. Abysmii, Allen and David manage to patch together two different recording sessions to put a bow on this finale, where Doctor Satan gets egg on his face, Ascott realizes he doesn’t own a gun, and Bostiff gets an unceremonious sendoff.
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, May 1936.
Normally reserved for our Patreon audience, we’d like to offer a full-course of Choice Dregs for you to try. These rambling warmups are normally what get us into the show, and due to a technical snafu we’ve got this delicacy as a backup. Topics include Platonic body horror, allegedly-prudish generations, fictionalizing how work kills you, War Planets virus and Date Everything.
The penultimate Doctor Satan story dials things way back after the last entry, leaving David, Allen and Abysmii to wonder again about the logical continuity of the series. Ascott Keane is somehow wowed by Doctor Satan’s ability to hypnotize people, an ability he himself possesses and uses to track his foe; meanwhile, Frank Exposition goes to a kissing party with a 10-cent book.
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, May 1936.
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the debut Five Nights at Freddy’s musical, David and Kaela reminisce with AJ and Gwen and discuss how the initial puppet-based collaboration with Markiplier turned into one of Random Encounters’ biggest undertakings, growing to become an entire series with its own myriad stories, challenges and lore.
Part 4 of Poe Standards takes people-watching to complicated and needless extremes as Allen and David witness a protagonist who has nothing better to do than spend an entire night pursuing an odd-looking stranger throughout London, legitimately for no real reason.
Story by Edgar Allen Poe, first published in 1845. Read along here.
Part 3 of Poe Standards has an upset: some things in the tier list got moved around, and now there’s an additional story for Allen and David to read! Poe tries his hand at writing a more esoteric fable, and our hosts try to discern what in the world is going on in this narrative of demon headpats, a man on a rock and hippopotami.
Story by Edgar Allen Poe, first published in 1838. Read along here.
Part 2 sees a strangely philosophical side of Paul’s storytelling as Ascott Keane pursues his nemesis into the land of the dead, meets his deceased father, and battles Doctor Satan in a sphere of damned souls. But has the continuity been restored? Does Girse show up? And who exactly is the “dictator of Texas?” David, Allen and Abysmii aim to find out!
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, March 1936.
David, Allen and Abysmii hesitantly return to the tales of Paul Ernst after being left chilled by the previous entry. Thankfully, it seems Doctor Satan is up to his old tricks of weird crime, with a plan involving speaking to the dead via a peculiar “antidote.” Will Ascott Keane have to follow suit? Why is he keeping a tiny corpse in his pocket? And is the new best character one that the hosts create almost by accident?
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, March 1936.
The gang try their hands at another weird little TTRPG, this time about a wayward cab ride through the cosmos. Join driver Albert the Grey (Papreeka) and passengers Gretchicus Secundus (Abysmii), Lars (Kaela) and T3K3 (David) as they attempt to achieve their own conflicting goals while navigating through shifting interstellar hazards (and learning the rules), from gooey egg clouds to space cats.
Game by gothHoblin. Get it for yourself here.
Part 2 of Poe Standards - the newest UCA segment that might only last 4 episodes - sees Allen and David reading what begins as an essay but continues into a cautionary tale about intrusive thoughts, self-destructive tendencies, and murdering people with candles.
Story by Edgar Allen Poe, first published in 1845. Read along here.
Horror as a whole owes a lot to Poe, but as proven time and again, even masters of the craft have their apparent duds. Allen submits to David the first of four F-Tier Poe narratives (based on some rando’s opinion), which apparently contains an allegory as two drunken sailors have a completely bewildering encounter in a plague-quarantined part of London.
Story by Edgar Allen Poe, first published in 1835. Read along here.
David, Allen and Abysmii invite special guest Brad to an initiation: a fresh pair of eyes on the some of shortstory1’s most recent work. Will a new perspective bring new insights into these unusual stories?
Read along with us:
1. “I clean up crime scenes while naked”
2. “The special toilet paper”
3. “My intelligence and emotional intelligence will now be off balanced”
4. “All men must wear a burqa”
5. “To move to the next day we must all do something disgusting”
Just when David, Allen and Abysmii were getting comfortable with this series, Paul throws a curve ball of seeming incompetence when the story forgets a certain character died in a prior chapter; meanwhile Ascott and Beatrice play dress-up to survive, and the main showdown turns into a anti-climactic Pokemon battle.
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, January 1936.
With a new year of mounting dread upon most everyone’s heads, David, Allen and Abysmii decide to ease into it with the ever-comforting Luciferian antics of Doctor Satan. This time, he’s getting into the insurance business is a fittingly weird way, and is once again using fire as the catalyst for his plot. How many fat businessmen will Ascott Keane sacrifice in the pursuit of his greatest foe? How many people will be added to the Faint Counter? And how in the world is Doctor Satan still unknown to the elite class that he’s targeting?
Story by Paul Ernst, first published in Weird Tales, January 1936.
Content Warning: reference to suicide
UCA is officially 10 years old, and to belatedly acknowledge this, Kaela has a special Christmas gift for David: Holiday-adjacent pulp from Weird Tales, written by the author of The Phantom of the Opera. The duo that started it will have contend with sailors, street fairs and the notion that Baby Jesus might actually be the one delivering gifts on Christmas Eve.
Story by Gaston Leroux, first published in Weird Tales, December 1930.
