''The Dollop'' is an American comedy history

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

in which comedian

Dave Anthony David Sean Anthony (born August 26, 1967) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, and podcaster. He is best known as the creator and co-host of the comedy podcast '' The Dollop'', in which he tells notable stories from American history to ...

reads stories from American history to his friend and fellow comedian Gareth Reynolds, who usually has no knowledge of the topic that will be discussed, with the two commenting on and reacting to the stories. Each episode centers on an event or person from history selected for its humor or peculiarity. Typical episodes feature stories or events that are usually, but not always, from American history; they are described by Anthony, and he and Reynolds often improvise comical scenarios.

Background

The podcast began as a way of preparing for Anthony's one-man show at the

Melbourne Comedy Festival The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is the largest stand-alone comedy festival and the second-largest international comedy festival in the world. Established in 1987, it takes place annually in Melbourne over four weeks, typicall ...

, a solo project where he would simply talk about various subjects. Unsatisfied with the initial results, he decided to change to a focus on history and invite other comedians to listen and react to the stories. Reynolds was the first guest and was initially set to be replaced with a revolving cast of comedians, but after his performance, Anthony decided to keep him on as co-host. Anthony was inspired by the book ''

A People's History of the United States '' A People's History of the United States'' is a 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional "funda ...

'' by

Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...

, which made him realize that the history he was taught in school was often false or littered with

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

in order to present the U.S. in a more positive light. Reynolds and Anthony have recorded a number of live episodes in various U.S. cities, as well as Canada and five tours of Australia. Live episodes performed outside of the U.S. have featured stories from those respective countries; for example, topics covered in Australia included the

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and

Arthur Phillip Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Greenwich Hospital School from June 1751 unti ...

. Live shows both inside and outside the U.S. often include additional guest comedians, including

Patton Oswalt Patton Peter Oswalt (born January 27, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer. He is known as Spence Olchin in the sitcom ''The King of Queens'' (1998–2007) and for narrating the sitcom '' The Goldbergs'' (2013–present) as ...

Wil Anderson William James Anderson (born 31 January 1974) is an Australian comedian, writer, presenter, and podcaster. Early life William James Anderson was born on 31 January 1974 in Sale, Victoria, and grew up on a dairy farm near Heyfield, Victoria.< ...

, and ''

My Favorite Murder ''My Favorite Murder'' is a weekly true crime comedy podcast hosted by American comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. The first episode was released in January 2016. The podcast debuted at #25 on the iTunes podcast charts and peaked at ...

'' hosts

Georgia Hardstark Georgia Hardstark (born June 8, 1980) is an American television host and podcast personality. She is the co-host of the true crime-comedy podcast ''My Favorite Murder'' along with comedian Karen Kilgariff. In 2018, Hardstark and Kilgariff co-found ...

and

Karen Kilgariff Karen Kilgariff (born May 11, 1970 in Petaluma, California) is an American writer, comedian, singer, author, actress, television producer, and podcast host. She began her career as a stand up comedian in the early 1990s and later became a televis ...

. There are sometimes episodes called "Reverse Dollops", which consist of stories selected and read by Reynolds to Anthony, such as the episode on

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. There are also shorter episodes called "Smollops", which usually last less than 30 minutes. On 5 August 2019, the first season of ''The Dollop: England (& the UK)'' was announced. The first of ten episodes was released on 15 August. A sister podcast, called ''El Dollop'', was announced on March 16, 2020. It is a Spanish-language version of ''The Dollop'', hosted by Eduardo Espinosa, who reads to his co-host José Antonio Badía.

Reception

Since its initial release in 2014, ''The Dollop'' has frequently ranked in the iTunes Top 100. In 2016, ''The Guardian'' rated the podcast as one of the 50 best podcasts of 2016.

Controversy

On July 9, 2015, Alan Bellows of the history website and podcast '' Damn Interesting'' posted an open letter accusing ''The Dollop'' of plagiarism. Following this incident, Anthony claimed that all research and writing for new episodes was done by himself and others specifically for ''The Dollop'', with sources referenced on a separate website. However, in August 2019, ''

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'' national editor

Josh Levin Joshua Benjamin Levin (born March 15, 1980) is an American writer and the national editor at ''Slate'' magazine. Levin also hosts the magazine's sports podcast, '' Hang Up and Listen.'' Biography Early life Levin was born and raised in New O ...

alleged that a 2017 live episode of ''The Dollop'' was lifted almost entirely from Levin's reporting with no public credit. Author Paul Brown further accused ''The Dollop'' of piecing together another 2017 episode from snippets of his book ''The Rocketbelt Caper''. Anthony posted a public apology to Levin on ''The Dollop''

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, acknowledging this pattern as a personal failing and promising to do better in the future.

Book

In 2017, the two hosts released a book called ''United States of Absurdity: Untold Stories from American History'', featuring 29 stories that had been discussed on the podcast.

List of episodes

References