radio

Frank Tavares -- known as “the voice of NPR” -- has died. For decades, his was the friendly but authoritative voice that told public radio listeners that “funding for NPR comes from Lumber Liquidators,” or “the Pajamagram Company.”

Veteran radio reporter and editor John Dankosky is leaving Connecticut Public, the organization announced Monday. 

Dankosky, who has worked at the company for 25 years and is the executive editor of the New England News Collaborative, has taken a voluntary separation option offered to longtime employees.

Connecticut Public, the entity that operates Connecticut Public Television and WNPR radio, is offering voluntary buyouts to some longtime employees. 

As 2018 draws to a close, The Nose makes its final appearance on our schedule this year. And so we've brought in a nine-person Nose to do a special, live, nighttime broadcast of our best ofs (and maybe worst ofs?) of the year.

Seriously: a show about towels.

There's the history of towels, towels in Christianity, Terrible Towels, Towel Day.

Oh, and there are actual towels too.

Bernardo Bertolucci directed The Last Emperor (which won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director), Last Tango in Paris, The Dreamers, 1900, and Little Buddha, among other movies. Bertolucci died on Monday. He was 77.

In the years since it was released with an X rating in 1972, the infamous Last Tango in Paris -- and its infamous "butter scene" -- have complicated Bertolucci's legacy. In the days since Bertolucci's death, our friend David Edelstein made a tasteless butter-scene joke on Facebook, retracted the joke and apologized, and was fired from NPR's Fresh Air.

Last week's Nose painted itself into a bit of a rhetorical corner and somehow found itself arguing that Idris Elba is too old to be James Bond. And while historically that's true, it's not an argument we're proud to have made. Thankfully, this week, the universe has been kind enough to redeem us with the announcement of your new Sexiest Man Alive: Idris Elba. Of course, that's no reason not to make a new bad argument about Elba, like that he's, say, too macho to be the sexiest man alive?

And: The Amazon Prime series Homecoming is a few firsts. It's Julia Roberts's first TV series. It's the first scripted TV drama based on a podcast. And it's Sam Esmail's first new television project since Mr. Robot.

In terms of box office, 2017 was the biggest year in the history of horror cinema. One wonders: Why? And then this year has brought us Hereditary, A Quiet Place, and now Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House.

This hour: a look at our current horror through the lens of our current horror.

So, when Prince died (which was two-and-a-half years ago), we announced that we were finally going to retire our theme song (which was a Prince song). And then we promptly did... nothing at all.

Earlier this year, though -- and in typical Colin McEnroe Shovian fashion -- we decided that this non-problem was a big problem. And so, in order to try and hopefully finally fix this non-problem big problem, we did a whole show about theme songs -- ours and other people's.

So we did a Nose last week. It was good. It was about the second season of Slow Burn and the third season of Serial, and it was kind of also about how both of those shows tie into our present moment in interesting ways and that that's kind of interesting and suchlike.

We thought it went well.

You probably would've thought so too.

Except you didn't hear it, so how would you know? That present moment that I was just talking about got in the way: We were preempted by some Senate Judiciary Committee vote or something.

So we brought the show back for this week. We hope you'll like it now too.

It's been... quite a week. It kinda seems like nothing happened in pop culture at all this week, doesn't it? Regardless, The Nose has a mandate to satisfy.

Slow Burn is Slate's scripted, narrative impeachment podcast. The first season covered Watergate and President Nixon. The second (and current) season is covering Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton. It has a strong, willful woman at its center. It has some sexual malfeasance. It has some questionable testimony.

Serial is This American Life's scripted, narrative true crime podcast. The first and second seasons covered Adnan Syed and Bowe Bergdahl. The third (and current) season covers the court system in Cleveland. It has some justice and plenty of injustice. It has some lawyerly delays and obfuscation. It has at least one questionable judge.

So, when Prince died (which was two years ago), we announced that we were finally going to retire our theme song (which is a Prince song). And then we promptly did... nothing at all.

Over the last few weeks, though -- and in typical Colin McEnroe Shovian fashion -- we've decided that this non-problem is a big problem. And so, in order to try and hopefully finally fix this non-problem big problem, we're doing a whole show about theme songs -- ours and other people's.

It’s the holiday season -- the perfect time to kick back and get lost in a new podcast... or two... or three... or four. But how do you decide what to listen to?

Tom Ashbrook. John Hockenberry. Michael Oreskes. David Sweeney. Garrison Keillor. Tavis Smiley. Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz. Charlie Rose.

There's no way around it: The sexual misconduct reckoning that's happening in media and politics and elsewhere has hit public television and radio particularly hard.

This hour we wonder why, and we take your calls.