History Podcast / DeadAuthors

* Chapter 6: "Gertrude Stein" (Guest: Creator/John Ross Bowie)
* Chapter 7: "Creator/PGWodehouse" (Guest: BrianStack)

* Chapter 9: "Creator/JorgeLuisBorges (Guest: Nick Kroll)
* Chapter 10: "Creator/ArthurConanDoyle" (Guest: Chris Tallman)
* Chapter 11: "Creator/JRRTolkien" (Guest: Matt Walsh)

* Chapter 24: "{{Creator/Plato}}" (Guest: Jason Mantzoukas)

* Chapter 28: "Creator/WaltWhitman" (Guest: James Adomian)

* Chapter 31: "[[Lterature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl Anne Frank]]" (Guest: Jamie Denbo)

* Chapter 30: "Creator/WilliamFaulkner" (Guest: Thomas Lennon)
* Chapter 34: "Creator/RoaldDahl" (Guest: Ben Schwartz)
* Chapter 35: "Creator/OscarWilde" (Guest: Jon Daly)

* Appendix D: "[[Creator/KurtVonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.]] and Erma Bombeck" (Guests: Seth Morris as Vonnegut; Brian Huskey as Bombeck)

* Chapter 39: "Creator/FlanneryOConnor" (Guest: Lennon Parham)
* Appendix F: "Creator/ErnestHemingway and Sun Tzu" (Guests: Josh Fadem as Hemingway; Fred Armisen as Changqing)

* Chapter 44: "{{Creator/Confucius}}" (Guest: Eugene Cordero)

* Chapter 15: "The Creator/MarquisDeSade" (Guest: Andy Daly)

* Preface: "[[Literature/TropicOfCancer Henry Miller]] and Creator/SylviaPlath" (Guests: Eddie Pepitone as Miller; Jen Kirkman as Plath)

* DeliberateValuesDissonance / FairForItsDay: In-universe. Though Wells' guests are, by and large, an educated and talented (or at least prolific) group, they still fall victim to the biases and hang-ups of their eras, and the show doesn't shy away from it. Taken UpToEleven with H.P. Lovecraft, a paranoid, neurotic, fervently racist man whose white-supremacist views were wildly offensive even by the standards of 1920's science fiction.

* Chapter 4: "Creator/BenjaminFranklin" (Guest: Creator/Scot Aukerman)

* Chapter 48: "[[Literature/IKnowWhyTheCagedBirdSings Maya Angelou]]" (Guest: Tymberlee Hill)

* Chapter 1: "Creator/EmilyDickinson" (Guest: Andy Richter)
* Chapter 3: "Creator/DorothyParker" (Guest: Jen Kirkman)
* Chapter 4: "Creator/BenjaminFranklin" (Guest: Scott Aukerman)
* Appendix A: "Creator/CharlesDickens and Creator/OHenry" (Guests: Hal Lublin as Dickens; Marc Evan Jackson as William S. Porter)
* Chapter 5: "Creator/CarlSagan" (Guest: Matt Gourley)
* Chapter 6: "Gertrude Stein" (Guest: John Ross Bowie)
* Chapter 7: "Creator/PGWodehouse" (Guest: Brian Stack)

* Chapter 12: "Creator/MaryShelley" (Guest: Laraine Newman)

* Chapter 42: "[[Literature/DonQuixote Miguel de Cervantes]]" (Guest: Horatio Sanz)

''[[MeanCharacterNiceActor (Ron breaks character and begins giggling in delight)]]''

* BrownNote: "Excalibur", by L.Ron Hubbard, would have driven anyone who wrote it insane... if he had remembered to write it.

* ScaryBlackMan: Iceberg Slim. Justified, as the real Iceberg Slim was a violent pimp.

-->'''H.G.:''' Do you know who I think might do a cracking job? There's this fellow out of The Big Bang Theory-
'''Serling:''' Blank. Don't know what you're talking about.
'''H.G.:''' Well, he's good at playing weirdos, and I wonder if we could get him to smoke, if he might do a half-decent job.

''[[MeanCharacterNiceActor (Ron breaks character and begins giggling in delight)]]''

''Serling:''' Blank. Don't know what you're talking about.
''H.G.:''' Well, he's good at playing weirdos, and I wonder if we could get him to smoke, if he might do a half-decent job.
''Serling:''' Guy with a recurring on a show is gonna headline a feature? Do you even know how show business works?

* "Chapter 12: "Creator/MaryShelley" (Guest: Laraine Newman)

* Chapter 21: "[[Literature/TheHeroWithAThousandFaces JosephCampbell]]" (Guest: Jeremy Carter)

* Chapter 31: "[[Lterature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl AnneFrank]]" (Guest: Jamie Denbo)

* ShoutOut: H.G.'s fanciful tale about hunting Jack the Ripper across the time stream in Episode #20, then accounting how it got adapted for Hollywood, is a summary of ''Film/TimeAfterTime''.

* Appendix E: "Lord Byron and Norman Mailer" (Guests: Dana Gould as Byron; Frank Conniff as Mailer)

* Preface: "[[Literature/TropicOfCancer HenryMiller]] and Creator/SylviaPlath" (Guests: Eddie Pepitone as Miller; Jen Kirkman as Plath)

* Appendix D: "[[Creator/KurtVonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.]] and Creator/ErmaBombeck" (Guests: Seth Morris as Vonnegut; Brian Huskey as Bombeck)

* Preface: "Creator/HenryMiller and Creator/SylviaPlath" (Guests: Eddie Pepitone as Miller; Jen Kirkman as Plath)

H. G. Wells (Creator/PaulFTompkins) uses his time machine to take illustrious deceased authors to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater for interviews. Hours of longform improv ensue with such performers as Creator/KristenSchaal, Creator/AndyDaly, and Creator/JohnHodgman. For four years it ran to promote [[http://826la.org/ 826LA]], a nonprofit organization devoted to teaching wriing skills to students age 6-18. Tompkins ended it on August 18, 2015 for reasons of time and money.

* BadLiar: Creator/LRonHubbard cheerfully whipsaws between honesty, denial, and outright nonsense at every opportunity, stating his philosophy is that [[IRejectYourReality "the truth" is whatever you happen to think it is at the moment]] (or whatever ''he'' tells you). Most of Part 1 is just him [[MilesGloriosus listing his many bizarre, contradictory accomplishments]].

* BrownNote: "Excalibur", by Creator/LRonHubbard, would have driven anyone who wrote it insane... if he had remembered to write it.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance / FairForItsDay: In-universe. Though Wells' guests are, by and large, an educated and talented (or at least prolific) group, they still fall victim to the biases and hang-ups of their eras, and the show doesn't shy away from it. Taken UpToEleven with Creator/HPLovecraft, a paranoid, neurotic, fervently racist man whose white-supremacist views were wildly offensive even by the standards of 1920's science fiction.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Creator/AynRand does not care about the plight of Native Americans, preaches a callous philosophy and is a homophobe. She's still opposed to laws which deny homosexuals the right to marry.

-->'''Creator/AynRand''': I read a book on modern architecture you had in the time machine.
-->'''Creator/HGWells''': There's a bit of luck.
* OldShame: Invoked; to show them as WartsAndAll, any author's crimes or prejudices will come up and usually be discussed at length. Subverted often, since pretty much only Creator/DrSeuss and Creator/RoaldDahl are actually ''ashamed'' of these things (or in Dahl's case, performer Ben Schwartz is ashamed to have been a fan when he learns of the author's [[http://www.avclub.com/article/paul-f-tompkins-picks-his-best-episodes-prolific-p-217293 anti-semitism]]).

* PsychopathicManchild: Creator/LRonHubbard talks with a boyish enthusiasm and a lot of charisma about all the dishonest and downright evil things he did.
* ScaryBlackMan: Iceberg Slim. Justified because the real Iceberg Slim was a violent pimp.

* ShownTheirWork: Andy Daly knows A LOT about L. Ron Hubbard. Thomas Lennon also had studied Creator/WilliamFaulkner at college.
* SitcomArchNemesis: Creator/JulesVerne is deeply, passionately hated by H. G. Wells and it comes up often. It's just because Verne is also credited with pioneering modern science fiction and doesn't write the sorts of stories Wells thinks of as science fiction. Creator/AynRand uses the info to needle him, Creator/RodSerling indulges him.

* WinBackTheCrowd: In-universe, Creator/DrSeuss is called on his racist statements about Japanese-Americans. He takes his beloved book ''How The Grinch Stole Christmas'', applies the moral to his own case, and gets applause. Wells is amused / annoyed by how that gets a bigger reaction from the crowd than condemning Nazis.

H. G. Wells ([[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman Paul F. Tompkins]]) uses his time machine to take illustrious deceased authors to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater for interviews. Hours of longform improv ensue with such performers as Creator/KristenSchaal, Creator/AndyDaly, and Creator/JohnHodgman. For four years it ran to promote [[http://826la.org/ 826LA]], a nonprofit organization devoted to teaching wriing skills to students age 6-18. Tompkins ended it on August 18, 2015 for reasons of time and money.

* BrownNote: Excalibur by Creator/LRonHubbard would have driven anyone who wrote it insane... if he had remembered to write it.

* ActorAllusion: As Iceberg Slim is describing his foray into pimping as a means of coping with a bad breakup:
-->'''H.G. Wells:''' Did you, at the time, feel that you had become... [[Series/Undateable undateable?]]\\

!! The episodes contains (in-universe) examples of:

* OldShame: Any author's crimes or prejudices will come up and usually be discussed at length. Subverted often, since pretty much only Creator/DrSeuss and Creator/RoaldDahl are actually ''ashamed'' of these things (or in Dahl's case, performer Ben Schwartz is ashamed to have been a fan when he learns of the author's [[http://www.avclub.com/article/paul-f-tompkins-picks-his-best-episodes-prolific-p-217293 anti-semitism]]).

* PanderingToTheBase: Anne Frank is reluctant to read the famous "people are basically good at heart" passage of her diary, claiming she only wrote it because she knew it was something her audience would want to read. Considering her living conditions and attitude towards some of the people she lived with, it's possible and understandable she did not sincerely feel like writing that. It's also asserted in the interview that Frank supposedly started writing the diary because she'd heard there would likely be interest in these sorts of memoirs after the war, so the whole diary was probably MoneyDearBoy.

* WinBackTheCrowd: Creator/DrSeuss is called on his racist statements about Japanese-Americans. He takes his beloved book How The Grinch Stole Christmas, applies the moral to his own case, and gets applause. Creator/HGWells is amused/annoyed by how that gets a bigger reaction from the crowd than condeming Nazis.

!! The episodes contain examples of:

* ShownTheirWork: Andy Daly knows A LOT about L. Ron Hubbard. Creator/ThomasLennon also had studied Creator/WilliamFaulkner at college.