Lovett or Leave It - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I’ve been following this show since 2018. No show has brought me more joy and optimism than this one. Every single episode makes me hysterically laugh, sheds light on darkness with comic insight, empowers people while making fun of them, builds community, holds people through collective pain and gives us hope for a better future.

I cannot recommend this show enough to any who wish to feel less alone in this very divided world.

This would top my list for funniest podcast. It has me laughing out loud every Saturday morning. The pace and territory of the humor reminds me of Jon Stewart. It’s relatively fearless when you compare it what’s become of Colbert, Noah and Oliver since the start of the pandemic.

What’s especially impressive is how Lovett manages to succeed week after week with an endless rotation of new guests. I’ve discovered new comics that I like by listening to this show. The dialogue feels organic and brilliantly improved.

There are a few things I’d change if I could.

Most importantly, there are too many ads. This is a larger Crooked problem and it’s why I gave up on Pod Save America. I will genuinely never purchase Jura whiskey or a Helix mattress because of how many dozens of ads I’ve been served about those products. I listen to 5-7 podcasts regularly, and Crooked Media has the worst ad-to-content ratio of all of them, by far. I swear some episodes are 25% ad content.

The other things I don’t like are more subjective:

I find the intro songs to be annoying because I listen to the podcast at 1.5 playback.

I find the outro High Notes to be generally too moralizing and kitschy. They’re too often little sound bites of “good liberals” who are humble-bragging about doing the right thing, or telling a story of overcoming some personal trial, but only in safe and uncomplicated ways.

Overall, this is an amazing podcast and I love recommending it to friends. I appreciate and admire Jon and I’d gladly pay to get an ad-free version of the feed.

I listen to A LOT of pods, but this one is my favorite. It is the perfect balance of satire, silliness, outrage, and a call to action. Lovett is simultaneously calming and hysterical. I don’t know how he does it, but I hope he keeps doing it forever.

I’m a new listener of PSA and Lovett or Leave It, but I must say, I’m a fan. When these guys can make commercials interesting (who made the food pyramid...the Olive Garden?!) I’m hooked. I want to give a special shout out to Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Cuomo Jeopardy, both of these segments gave me life. Thank you for making this colossal shitshow that we call modern politics both interesting and funny. It give me hope. Sort of.

The show used to be funny and something to look forward to on Saturday mornings. Now, it’s an unpolished mess of whiny humor. The opening news recap segment has transformed into Jon bringing on a guest to essentially tell him he is funny. Skits where somebody portrays another person or character (e.g. Willy Wonka, Bernie Sanders, Chris Kattan as a bird) make the bad skits of SNL look great. Jon is a talented interviewer and that skill has not waned. Will only check back in to listen if Akita Hughes, Guy Branum, Kara Swisher, Ira Madison III or Louis Virtel make an appearance as they have always been highlights.

The entire show has this tendency to be public therapy for jon. Often insightful and hilarious, but also some of the worst exhibitions of unforced errors for a political public identity. The live audience is subjected to entirely unexamined classism, fatphobia and ableism and occasionally directly mocked for their own conditions (Jon made fun of an audience member during a “therapy” segment who described having a potentially serious psychosis and being nervous about hurting their friends, saying that they shouldn’t worry because maybe the people they were worried about hurting “weren’t really there”). This strained audience relationship makes the campaigns for fundraising for a good cause or getting out the vote to promote democratic messaging feel absolutely hollow and soulless even when those campaigns are presented well.