Adventures in Odyssey Wiki:Podcast
| “ | So tell your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors … about the AIOWiki Podcast. | ” |
This is the AIOWiki page for the official AIOWiki Podcast! This page is updated with behind-the-scenes info about each edition. For more general information about the podcast, see here: The AIOWiki Podcast.
Development
On January 4th, 2017, AIOWiki user Scientific Guy (aka "Lee") put “An AIOWiki podcast...” on his list of projects, the result of several months of considering the possibility of one. Although AIOWiki is one of the most popular AIO fansites, it didn't have a podcast. There was only one AIO-related podcast still running: Audio Theatre Central. The original intent of the AIOWiki Podcast was a "news" feature that kept listeners informed of the latest edits on the wiki, although it later changed to include more discussions and interviews.
To even see if a podcast was something wiki users would enjoy, a poll was made with the question, “Scientific Guy is thinking about making an AIOWiki podcast. On a scale of 1 – 10, what do you think?” The second-highest vote was “11,” with “What?!?” (below “1” at the bottom) receiving a plurality of 44% percent. With that “vote of confidence,” Scientific Guy created the AIOWiki Podcast.
Reddo, the owner/developer of AIOWiki, approved the official continuation of the podcast on July 3, 2018.
Editions
Podcast #0
When the AIOWiki Podcast was being developed, Lee decided that the first podcast would be a test of sorts; thus the number 0 was used. Arista (Riley) Maxwell was enlisted to be the co-host for the podcast. The first podcast was completely scripted, going over Album 63, the recently released Club episode schedule, the Get in the Show! contest, and the cruise to the Bahamas. An original draft for the script did not include the titles for some of the Album 63 episodes. The lines were recorded and edited, along with Club music, an intro featuring pieced-together lines from the Official Podcast and its outtakes, and a closing segment with the soundtrack from "A Forgiving Heart."
Podcast #1
This podcast featured the first segments without music, during which Lee and Arista read the Get in the Show! scripts. The podcast was intended to be something to do while waiting for news to surface, and was supposed to be released before the submission deadline. Unfortunately, due to delays in editing, it was released on June 25, nine days after the deadline. To make up for it, the next podcast was released sooner than expected.
Podcast #2
This is the shortest podcast, at 5:17. Having such a short podcast was the original intent of the AIOWiki Podcast, but it wasn't working as best as it could have. A change of format was needed.
On another note, this podcast was the first to feature the catchphrase, "So tell your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors about the AIOWiki Podcast."
Podcast #3
Podcast #3 would have been the shortest podcast, at about three minutes, if it were not for the segments that were included. In the original version, a full plot summary of "Find a Penny, Parts 1 and 2" was included, read by Arista and Lee. It was included due to Album 63 being (accidentally) fully released on July 13 instead of week-after-week. However, Podcast #3 was released 9 days after the legitimate release of "Find a Penny, Part 2," so the summary did not serve its intended purpose. Afterwards was the AIOWiki Podcast's first episode review. The plot summary added 10 minutes and 40 seconds of content to the podcast.
Podcast #4
Again, a feature of the podcast was not working. Longer than even the longest Odyssey episode, "In My Image," Podcast 4 is the longest AIOWiki Podcast, clocking at 48:21. The version without plot summaries is 16 minutes and 15 seconds shorter. Additionally, "Crash Course" was reviewed before "Have a Heart" or "B-TV: Revenge" as a failed effort to make the plot summary released before the episode itself. It wasn't. The decision was made to cancel the plot summaries for the two yet-to-be-reviewed episodes of Album 63.
Again, like Podcast #2, this podcast demonstrated something new: Arista was put slightly to the left in stereo and Lee was slightly to the right.
Podcast #5
The reviews for Album 63 were finished with "B-TV: Revenge" and "Have a Heart," with "Friend or Foe" getting the highest rating of all six episodes. It was announced that Nathan Hoobler and Sam Suksiri would appear on the next podcast.
The audio files for these reviews were lost after the first recording, so the review had to be redone. Several minutes still exist of the original, unreleased review.
Podcast #6
The interview with Nathan and Sam lasted about 50 minutes, so "part I" of the interview was featured in this podcast. This podcast did not feature a normal ending: the music faded out without the usual catchphrase being said, instead replaced by "To hear the rest of the interview, you know the drill: keep listening."
Podcast #7
Since Podcast #0, the first one, the numbering system had not made complete sense, but Podcast #7 fixed that. While Podcast #6 was "the seventh," Podcast #7 was also called "seventh," so that the numbering system would be fixed. The podcast simply faded into the intro music, but included a normal ending. At the end, Lee said, "This new info is totally under the radar," which was a nudge for the Odyssey ScoopCast to release its teased interview with Nathan Hoobler.
Podcast #8
Podcast #8 has a plot summary of the 30th Birthday Live Show, as Lee was presumably the only one from the Odyssey fan community in attendance, thus making it a plot summary that actually worked. This podcast had two references to general developments, along with a third that was introduced with the release Podcast #8. First, Audio Theatre Central featured a clip of Lee reading the credits in episode #102 (although referred to as #101 in AIOWiki Podcast #8). Second, at the end, Lee mentions "another interview," referring to an upcoming (yet-to-be-released) conversation with Grayson Smith. Finally, the RSS feed for the Podcast was created two days after the Podcast #8's release, allowing listeners to subscribe to it.
Podcast #9
This podcast was the review for "Your Honest Opinion, Please."
Podcast #10
The Boredom Buster Podcast was a podcast with 9 editions. AIOWiki Podcast #10 put the Podcast one step ahead of all the other podcasts that eventually died out.
Podcast #11
Podcast #11 is different in that it has two April Fool's jokes in it: an introduction announcing the demise of the podcast and a negative fake review of "Sir Buddy's Snowy Day," followed by a genuine, unanimous 5-out-of-5 review of that episode.
Podcast #12
Podcast #12 went through several revisions before the final form was decided. At first it was going to be a regular podcast, with news and reviews. But, in the meantime, Lee created AIO Audio News, a website which drew much more attention than did the AIOWiki Podcast, and which became what the Podcast was supposed to be all along: a medium for news. With the announcement of the nominations for the 2018 Avery Awards, Podcast #12 became Lee and Arista's choosing of their winners. …And then the podcast was changed again, since the Avery Awards discussion would reveal the ratings for "David and Absalom" and "Out of the Picture." The podcast was released without news segments, however.
This was the first podcast to feature Grayson Smith in the intro music.
Podcast #13
The opening of this podcast featured a slight warning about the review of "Out of the Picture," since it became slightly more negative than the previous ones. While Arista relatively liked the episode, Lee gave it his lowest rating so far. Still, the podcast was a long, objective discussion about the episode.
Podcast #14
The Avery Awards discussion was moved from Podcast #12 to Podcast #14, allowing for further production on the Awards segments and a retrospect look at every review so far. This podcast featured considerably more scripted segments than usual. For instance, the intro wraparound was a collection of inside jokes for the podcast, the discussions in between Awards segments were scripted (with clips from the Official Podcast), and the ending of the podcast was a re-rating of each Album 63 and 64 episode, based on the new 15-category rating rubric.
Podcast #15
Grayson Smith joined Lee and Arista for an interview in Podcast #15. An interview with Grayson was decided on in November 2017, and the interview itself was recorded in June 2018, but Podcast #15 was not released until November 2018. Editing for the podcast was completed before Podcast #14 was released, so #15 was released one week after #14. There was only one unique line of script for this podcast, at the beginning.
Podcast #16
This podcast began the review series of Album 65, starting with "The Shame About Fame." Arista co-authored part of the script for this podcast.
Podcast #17
In Podcast #17, a review of "Not What I Expected," Lee's and Arista's ratings were some of the lowest of any previous episode, Lee's being 0.5 and Arista's 2.5. The review aimed not to be negative, but to show the fun parts of the episode while explaining why they didn't seem to work, in Arista and Lee's opinion. This was the first podcast to feature a "post-credits scene": a deleted discussion of Lee defending Kathy Buchanan, despite his low ratings of her episodes.
The intro to this podcast was a parody of the Adventures in Odyssey Blogcast.
After the reviews of Podcast #17, it was announced that Gracie Marchiani would be joining the reviews of the next podcast.
Podcast #18
We all suffer from chronic procrastinitis, some more than others, and unfortunately, Lee has an acute case of it. That, combined with the length and scope of the reviews being recorded, pushed the release of the next eight episode reviews to past the release of Album 67 in the AIOC. To prevent the podcast from going stale, and to give an update on the progress, Lee and Arista redid the Get in the Show! scripts from 2017, with some improvements (at least for Arista).
This was the first podcast not to be painstakingly edited: Verbal stumbles, coughs, dead space, etc. were kept in.
In the wraps of this podcast, it was forecast that the next eight podcasts would be the reviews of the remaining Album 65 and 66 episodes.
Podcast #19
Podcast #19 began the era of podcasts with guest hosts. Starting with this podcast, five podcasts in a row would include guests. Gracie Marchiani, owner of the Welcome To Odyssey blog, joined for the next three podcasts, starting with #19, the review of “Divided We Fall.”
Because podcasts with guests were, and are, harder to coordinate, the release of this podcast and the next two after it was delayed until December 2019. While these podcasts were released back-to-back, that pattern did not continue into 2020.
The wraps music to Podcast #19 was performed by Grayson Smith, a piano arrangement by Lee of the score of “A Forgiving Heart.” At the end was included a sponsorship message of the Audio Theatre Central Seneca Awards, read by Arista. The message has been included in every new podcast to date.
Podcast #20
Released on December 22, 2019, AIOWiki Podcast #20's intro script was written by Hannah Morgan, an AIO fan-fiction author, and edited for use on the podcast. Gracie Marchiani again joined for a review of “The Sandwich Initiative.”
At the end of this podcast, comments from AIOWiki on Podcast #19 were read. This trend has also continued to date. A “post-credits scene” of Arista discussing Marvel “post-credits scenes” was included.
Podcast #21
Tying Podcasts #6 and #7 for the most people featured on an edition is this podcast, a review of “The Toy” with Gracie Marchiani and Hannah Morgan. While Gracie was mostly quiet during the recording, she was able to voice her opinions well during the beginning and end of the review. Hannah, on the other hand, sparred with Lee on several points during the review. Arista rated the episode the lowest, to the surprise of the other reviewers (mostly Lee).
Because of the crawling production time on recent podcasts, a different approach was taken to part of this podcast. Instead of hyper-editing the review, as had been done in every podcast except #18, a segment toward the beginning remained unedited, with “Hmm”s, pauses, and verbal fumblings left in.
A reference to the WODFAMCHOCPOD was included towards the end: “Tweet at us!”
From this point, the AIOWiki Podcast's runtime increases drastically. This podcast clocks in at 40:21.
Podcast #22
“There lies a secret…” are the opening words to Podcast #22. For the next three podcasts, trailers from AIO Audio News are included for the Rydell Saga episode being reviewed. Izak (CartoonNostalgia on AIOWiki) joined Lee and Arista for this and the next review, this one being “The Good in People.” Izak and Lee gave very high ratings for this episode, while Arista’s rating came in at 3/5.
This review was halfway between WODFAMCHOCPOD-style editing and hyper-editing, with audio inconsistencies and headphone bleed edited out. The wraps ended up being much longer than anticipated, so music from SoothingRelaxation on YouTube was used in addition to the normal music. This music was also used during the plot summary of Podcast #8.
This podcast and the ones following are not hosted on AIOWiki due to file size. This podcast's runtime is 56:34.
It was announced at the end of this podcast that the next edition would be a review of “A Sacrificial Escape.”
Podcast #23
(This was the first AIOWiki Podcast to include an intro promo by JD Sutter for the 2020 ATC Seneca Awards.)
Breaking the pattern thus far of the AIOWiki Podcast, and in anticipation of the release of “Revelations, Parts 1 to 3,” the AIOWiki turned on this podcast to instead focus on the Rydell Saga episodes. Recorded on the day of release of “Further from the Truth,” Izak returned to review “A Sacrificial Escape.” Izak surprisingly gave the episode a low rating, Arista came in at a low 4.5, and Lee gave his first rubric Perfect 5. The review for “Much Ado About Jealousy,” recorded before this review, came in at high 4.5/5’s for both Lee and Arista, and by rating standards is the highest-rated (by a yet-to-be-released rating) episode on the podcast. “A Sacrificial Escape” is second-highest.
This was also the first podcast after Podcast #18 to go by the WODFAMCHOCPOD-style review of minimal editing, with only noise removal and censorship in the editing process. As such, the length of this podcast is 115:23.
Podcast #24
This is the shortest production time for an AIOWiki Podcast review, taking exactly two weeks from recording to release. It was also the very first to feature “single-pass” production, AIO Audio News-Reviews-With-Ryan style: Lee only listened to the full recording once before going back and adding clips and making tiny changes. While it was fun to have Izak on previous podcasts, he was not invited for this review, not because he would have made the podcast worse (he probably would have livened it up some), but because Lee had figured out at this point that the slow production time was due to guest hosts (also procrastination). So Lee and Arista reviewed “Further from the Truth” alone, taking 135:21 to do so.
When “Further from the Truth” was originally released, Lee hosted a listening party with Arista, Jo (from Welcome To Odyssey), Hannah Morgan, Ryan Matlock, and Timmy Baze (from the comments of AIO Audio News). The recording was going to be released on AIO Audio News, but when the episode became a huge disappointment to Lee, he lashed out against it in private (on the recording) and chided it in public (posting to Audio News, “I hate this episode,” which was later retracted with an apology). Because of that, Lee’s opinion of “Further from the Truth” was not fully released until this podcast, and, even objectively, the episode scored a 1/5. Arista’s rating was 1.5/5.
The intro of this podcast incorporated Trailer 3 of Lee’s “Further from the Truth” trailers from Audio News, and the music from it replaced the normal intro music.
Arista was a little groggy and sleep deprived when recording the wraparound, which was why her voice was slightly deeper.
At the end, Arista and Lee swapped the “So, tell your friends” lines, with Arista saying Lee’s lines and vice versa.
Throughout the podcast, it was mentioned that an interview had been recorded with Phil Lollar, and it was mentioned at the end that it would be two parts long.