This week, we released the 100th episode of The Fantasticast. In a break from showcasing tropes of The Fantastic Four (nearly) ever day, we're celebrating this milestone with a week of special blog posts taking a behind-the-scenes or sideways look at the show. Today, we go counting... with some help from Blandine Francois...
100 episodes of the Fantasticast is a lot.
It's the first time I've hit 100 anythings. I stopped just shy of 100 comics reviewed on the World of Superman. The 20 Minute Longbox had 38 episodes. This 100 is a big deal for me. But, it's not the only big number involved in the show. If I were a fancy graphics designer, I'd come up with a nice, shiny info graphic. But I'm not, so you'll have to settle for good old text instead.
The Episodes
If you sat and listened to all 100 episodes on the feed (not including the trailer, or the compilation episodes), then you'd be listening for 135 hours and 43 minutes. If you've been listening since episode one, then congratulations: You've spent over 5.5 days in our company. Try not to think about that too much... If you listened to Dr Martin Luther King Jr's famous 'I Have A Dream' speech 485 times in a row, you'd be spending the same amount of time. And you'd have less Galactus.
The Comics
If you take into account 86 issues of the Fantastic Four, 6 annuals, 34 issues of Strange Tales, one annual, and a whole selection of guest-appearances and cameos, we've covered 172 comics. 176, if you count our Christmas Podcasters' Choice episodes. Oh, and 2 movies. But we'd rather forget about those.
The Guests
We've supplemented our deranged ramblings on 27 episodes with the deranged ramblings of 16 good friends, roped in as co-hosts. We recently took a look at these friends, check out the posts from yesterday and Monday.
The Breakdowns
Apart from my regular fits of despair at the amount of editing required to get this show out at midnight every Friday night, the episodes break down like this. Sort of. A bit.
40% total running time spent commenting on the comics.
24% total running time spent making geeky references, including our regular obscure Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy references.
12% total running time spent reading e-mails, giving the history of the month, introducing the show, the UK number ones, etc.
12% total running time spent making innuendos (this number rises sharply if you take a look at the episodes before I clean them up).
8% total running time spent by Andy sniggering, snorting and guffawing at the above innuendos. Hey - in you end oh!
4% total running spent singing the Airwolf theme.
Like all good statistics, 71.6% of the above is made up, 64% was based on actual research, and the remaining 32% was supplied to me by my girlfriend.
Come back tomorrow when we'll... well, I don't actually know yet. There'll be something, but at this moment, I have no idea what!