9to5.cc Podcasts: Including Go Plug Yourself (gpys) & 9to5 Entertainment System (9es)

The Montreal arts & entertainment podcast that asks Montreal comedian Oren Shbiro: “What was the last time you got lost?” That question was asked of course by our previous guest Steve Leckman from Programmes Coyote on our last episode. This week, Chris Venditto and I welcome Oren Shbiro to the show. Oren joined us at the back of Grumpy’s to talk about connecting with audiences in Montreal and online, the rush of comedy and figuring out the tempo of a headlining set of comedy. Speaking of headlining: Oren’s got his first ever headlining set at the Comedy Nest coming up on April 26th presented by On Da Clock so you should probably buy tickets for that here. Oren is one of Montreal’s best working comedians and honestly if you take away one thing from this podcast it’s that you should probably go out and see more local comedy. Oh hey – did we mention that our own Chris Venditto will be performing a headlining showcase at The Comedy Nest on May 31st as well? Yeah, you

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is fine. There, now you don’t need to listen to the podcast. No wait.   The Super Mario Galaxy Movie came out on Easter because it’s FULL of Easter Eggs, listen now to hear about all of them. You won’t believe #24!   Seriously though, about halfway through the movie I was pretty exhausted from the way it was throwing Nintendo references in my face without barely any rhyme or reason. It was pretty watchable but with that talented of a voice cast I was really hoping for a little more room for them to shine. Ah well.   So we shot humans into space and they got further away from the planet Earth than ever before. That’s pretty cool right? Well, there’s a few conspiracy theories kicking around that the Artemis 2’s heat shields aren’t up to snuff after some issues that were identified with Artemis 1. NASA says they figured it out and everything will be ok so I’m really hoping everything goes smoothly when they land on Friday.   Jono watched The Grey Man on Netflix an

The Montreal podcast Go Plug Yourself asks Steve Leckman from Programmes Coyote: You have to diffuse a bomb – do you choose to ask the audience, go 50/50 or phone a friend? That question was asked by Lucie Gee and Dan Carin promoting Le Mini Grand Yes And on our last episode. Steve Leckman is the Director of Programmes Coyote / Coyote Programs. Coyote Programs offer kids and teens the chance to get out in nature, have an adventure and take risks (while still supervised by skilled and knowledgeable grownup guides). They offer after school programs, daycamps, mentoring and getaway camping trips where kids experience screen free time in nature and foster creativity, resilience and to quote one of the kids “skills they might need in the zombie apocalypse.” If this sounds amazing (because it is), Coyote Programs is gearing up for their summer registration period. Reach out to Steve and team here. Steve joined Chris Venditto and I to talk about these programs, how important they are in 2026 to cou

We only really talk about Sam Kieth’s passing towards the end of the episode but I think we should have probably talked about his work more off the top.   I can’t really understate how hard The Maxx hit when I first stumbled upon it in the early 90s. I came to Sam Kieth’s work through the animated series but later when I dug into his comics (including his work on Sandman) I found myself pushed further and further down the path as an “indie comics” kid.   Are Jim Mahood and Jhonen Vasquez two of my favorite artists if not for the work of Sam Kieth? Probably not.   Jim Lee on Sam Kieth:   “”Kieth, who was not just a big name coming off his sensational run on Marvel Comics Presents, but a friend who also loved talking about the psychological underpinnings of our favorite characters. My pitch to Sam back then was simple: come do whatever you want. Total creative freedom. Own it all. Take it wherever you want-or nowhere at all. And Sam ran with it and launched his creation ‘the Maxx

The Montreal arts and entertainment podcast Go Plug Yourself asks Lucie Gee and Daniel Carin (from Le Mini Grand Yes And Improv Festival): “Who was your first celebrity crush?” That question was asked by Jason Rockman & Ryan Stick back in episode 331. A few months ago we had Lucie Gee and Costa Tsimiklis on the show to talk about the debut edition of the burgeoning improv festival “Le Grand Yes And” – well guess what? They’re back at it with a new edition festival they’re calling “Le Mini Grand Yes And” – this springtime edition is focused more on producer-centric improv shows (the main edition will be focused more on improv troupes). We’ve brought back Lucie Gee and one of those producers (and friend of the show) Daniel Carin to talk about “Le Mini Grand Yes And” in general and Dan’s show “Improv By The Fireplace” which will be kicking off the festival. We talk about the Oscars, improv comedy’s standing

If you haven’t heard of Nirvanna The Band The Show then you’re doing yourself a disservice. I’m actually pretty shocked that both Jon and Scott aren’t more familiar with it. Tracking down the Viceland episodes seems to be a bit of a trick these days but there is still a delightful fansite that has thoughtfully preserved the Nirvanna The Band webseries episodes for your enjoyment.   If you have a chance to check out Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie in theaters I’m fairly sure you won’t be disappointed. However, it was produced by Crave so if you have that service I’m sure you’ll find it on streaming soon enough.   While you’re at it you should probably check out The Dirties, Operation: Avalanche and BlackBerry too.   Since everything is fine in the world we spend some time talking about how CEOs eat their hamburgers. If you haven’t seen the footage I think it’s somehow both more and less cringe than you think it is. On first watch I thought it wasn’t so bad, but then I watched it again and d

The Montreal arts & entertainment podcast that asks Jason Rockman & Ryan Stick: Which Montrealers do you respect the most and the least? That question asked by Carmina Berbari Daou & Raquel Maestre. Jason Rockman & Ryan Stick are two guys who seem to know a little bit about everything in pop-culture. Comic books, horror movies, wrestling, old school television, music and more. Sound familiar? Together they host The Rockman Power Hour which is at 147 episodes and counting featuring everyone from The Damn Truth to UFC fighter Rashad Evans to Todd McFarlane… oh I could go on. Do yourself a favour and check out The Rockman Power Hour wherever you get your podcasts (and it’s a video podcast on Youtube too!) Jason Rockman’s latest endeavour is Morning Gory Productions a new collaboration with a few other horror nerds in Montreal to bring retro cinema experiences to our city. They’re starting off with a bang tomorrow night, March 6th at Cinéma du Muséee with a double feature o

We talked about this a lot last episode: Scott and Keith really like the Winter Olympics. Jono? He didn’t even wake up to watch the Men’s Hockey Gold Medal game against the USA. I guess not only is he not a fan of sports he also hates his country.   I’m not even sure Jon is Canadian at all – how much do we really know about this man we’ve recorded 357 podcasts with really?   Anyways, the Canadian Men and Women’s Hockey teams failed us and lost to Team USA in overtime in both games. That sucked. Then Kash Patel was somehow let into Team USA Men’s locker room after the game and that sucked even more.   We go over our favorite moments of this edition of the Winter Olympics that are mostly just the best memes honestly.   Also – if you read the blog post for episode 356 you’ll remember that I was hyped about Ski Mountaineering. Well it didn’t disappoint.   We wrap things up with finally getting Sinners onto “The List” and for some reason Scott made himself watch “Kraven t

The Montreal arts & entertainment podcast that asks Carmina Berbari Daou & Raquel Maestre of the Montreal Indie Comedy Collective: “If you could party on any planet, real or fictional, what would it be?” Then we ask: “Ass or titties?” (thanks for that Shosho). Those questions came to us from Serag and Shosho back in our last episode (hot top: you can still buy tickets for their show on February 28th). Welcome to a brand new episode of the Go Plug Yourself Podcast – this week we welcome Carmina Barbari Daou and Raquel Maestre from the Montreal Indie Comedy Collective to talk about all of the joys of producing comedy shows in Montreal, how they got started, how they work together and so much more. They host monthlies like Thursday Stand-Up? Cool! and Queer Laughs and they are also producing a bunch of other shows too! Sarah jumps on for this episode and honestly we don’t talk enough about the fact that Carmina found a perfect used copy of Travel Scrabble. For a minute

Scott and Keith really like the Winter Olympics. Jono? I guess he’s probably meh on them and sports in general.   Maybe that’s why Jon has maybe like 5 minutes of talk time in an episode that is almost entirely devoted to the main sporting events of the last week (being of course the SuperBowl, the Winter Olympics and Kid Rock popping up out of a stage like a muppet in a fur coat only to lip synch his way through “Bawitaba”).   The Winter Olympics have always been more compelling to me than the Summer edition. Is it because we have snow and ice in Canada and that’s the main ingredient of basically every sport at the Winter Olympics? Maybe. But also it’s because the sports themselves are just so much more hard core.   Take a look at the winter biathlon. It’s a cross country ski race where you have to randomly stop and shoot targets with a rifle. Why did they randomly inject shooting a gun into a race?   Let’s take a look at the debuting sports in the last Summer and Winter Olympics, shall w

The Montreal arts & entertainment podcast that asks comedians Shosho Abotouk & Serag Meletian: “What’s your favorite breakfast cereal both now and as a kid?” That question asked, as always, by our previous guest Nazeer Khan. You may remember that we had Shosho on the show a few months ago to talk about the runaway success story of merging comedy with crochet. Well, she’s at it again and this time she’s got our own Walter J. Lyng and longtime friend of the show Serag Meletian bringing the laughs as The Crochet & Comedy show takes over historic Café Cleopatra for The Yarn Ball on February 28th. There will even be prizes! Things go off the rails as they so often do and we end up talking with Shosho and Serag about Devon Sawa, telegrams, payphones and Bad Bunny. What else did you expect? We’re back at Grumpy’s for this one and fully embody the spirit of the chaotic safespace that is this wacky little podcast. Remember to subscribe and tell your friends on Tikt

So about halfway through the recording of this podcast you will hear Scott exclaim “Fuck that guy!” and it will be revealed that he is talking about Matt Damon.   To peel back the curtain a little about our recording process we usually take a little water break around the 30 minute mark. It lets us make sure everything is going well with the recording, refill water glasses, go to the bathroom, etc.  Sometimes we have a little chit chat that isn’t necessarily relevant to the podcast then we reset, hit record and get on with the show.   Scott hates Matt Damon so much that he could not contain himself during this little break. Well, Matt Damon was in the news recently talking about how Netflix wants filmmakers to constantly recap the plot of their movies since they assume people are only paying half attention. That’s pretty good podcast talk so we decide to jump into it as our next topic.   I say, “I’ll hit record and you tee this one up Scott” and he proceeded to tee it up by saying “Fuck that gu

The Montreal arts & entertainment podcast Go Plug Yourself asks comedian and producer Nazeer Khan: What new grocery store item are you most excited about? That question asked in our previous episode by Dr. Tyler Lemco. It took a little bit of coordination (which is also why we’re a day late in posting this episode) but we finally managed to get Nazeer Khan on the show. If you don’t know, Nazeer Khan is one of Montreal’s finest comedy producers and is producing shows all over the Greater Montreal area. From the West Island, to Downtown, to the Plateau (allegedly) and all the way up to Deux Montagnes. Want to know more? Of course you do. If you’re in the West Island, do yourself a favour and follow the West Island Comedy Night (@westislandcomedynight on Instagram) and for the rest of the city check out Comedy Cave MTL (@comedycavemtl on Instagram). Nazeer Khan joins Walter J. Lyng and I to talk about mixed-martial arts and comedy and then Zak Kik shows up for the back half of the sho

We know that we occasionally get a little into politics news on 9ES but we also recognize that can be a huge bummer. So instead we talk about Predator: Badlands. It’s not that we don’t care about what’s going on[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9ES354: The Jig Is Up appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

The Montreal arts & entertainment podcast Go Plug Yourself welcomes back Tyler Lemco and asks the question: “Who in your life do you think is most likely a time traveler?” That question asked as always be our good friend Sarah[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post Tyler Lemco Returns! Dr Lemco’s Creative Club – GPYS 327 appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

As we do most years we are taking advantage of the final episode of the year to take a look back at the year that was. 2025 was, as years go, “a bit of a year” for most of us.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9ES 353: An Audio Portrait of 2025 appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

You know what the Go Plug Yourself gang got you for the holidays? A podcast a day early! Our generosity knows no bounds! It’s time for our most chaotic episode of the year! It’s the Go Plug Yourself shit show[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post GPYS Holiday Sh*t Show! appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

We missed out on ranking Wake Up Dead Man on this one but I guess that’s fine because it gives Keith another few weeks to watch it and then all three of us can chime in on Rian Johnson’s latest[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9ES352: Mole Man Really appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

The Montreal arts & entertainment podcast that asks comedian Sarah Warren: “Which love song do you wish was written about you?” That question was asked a few episodes ago by the wonderful Lou Laurence who was promoting her debut album[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post GPYS 326: Sarah Warren Returns! appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

Really the only thing that stops us from being just like Jesse Plemons in Begonia is that none of us are beekeepers.   Waitaminute- Jon is a beekeeper. I guess it’s time for us to kidnap a CEO. This podcast[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9ES351: Wide Appeal appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).