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Overview[]
In early 2018, Ryan and Brian decided to relaunch the podcast. In advance of the relaunch, they created a teaser consisting of little more than a single word puzzle. The puzzle consisted of a set of clues, and when the answers to the clues were spoken aloud and in sequence, they collectively sounded like the phrase "Fill Me In is returning."
The revised and revamped Fill Me In now airs weekly on Tuesdays. The program runs longer than in its first incarnation, with episodes typically ranging from 75 to 110 minutes.
Highlights[]
- Includes 70 episodes, the longest season in the history of Fill Me In
- Ryan moved to Cloverdale, CA
- The Dodgers meet the Red Sox in the World Series
- A puzzle is hidden in the podcast, unbeknownst to the hosts
Interviews and Guests[]
- S4E152: Ken Stern, joon pahk (live, in Maine with Brian)
- S4E169: Angela Olson cohosts with Brian
- S4E180: Laura Braunstein cohosts with Brian
- S4E188: Angela Olson cohosts with Brian
- S4E191: Amanda Yesnowitz cohosts with Brian
- S4E195: Oscar Cimmet does the opening bumper
- S4E199: Jeff Talbott cohosts with Brian
- S4E200: Peter Gordon does the opening bumper
- S4E204: Laura Braunstein, Ben Smith
Episodes[]
| Num | Date | Title | Synposis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 138 | 3/27/2018 | Take Two | Ryan and Brian are back! It's like seven years never happened, except for those three hours when we failed to successfully record this episode the first time. |
| 139 | 4/3/2018 | We're sorry, Peter. | |
| 140 | 4/17/2018 | Ciao, Ragazzi! | After a quick week off, Fill Me In is back to fill your ears with all the latest happenings in the crossword world. Hear Ryan talk about the CTA. Listen to Brian remember nicknames. Greet Thor as he brings us another round of Thunder. |
| 141 | 4/24/2018 | Big Crunch, Intense | This week's episode of Fill Me In is full of soup, Yoda, the return of the Filet-o-Fish, and the inherent problems with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. We also reference puzzles, puzzle people, and at least two Patricks. |
| 142 | 5/1/2018 | The Water Wall | This week's episode is full of stringed instruments, British game shows, chickens, and soup (but not chicken soup). Listen as Ryan comes up with something brilliant but doesn't know what to do with it and Brian invites all our viewers to Maine. |
| 143 | 5/8/2018 | Suddenly, See More | This week, Ryan and Brian find out what happened to Ryan's brilliant idea from last week, Brian talks about covering a musical theater artist in cat hair, and they briefly mention soup. |
| 144 | 5/15/2018 | Basketball and Silence | This week, Ryan and Brian discuss color blindness, Cats, and unsolvable Only Connect puzzles. |
| 145 | 5/22/2018 | Isn't This All About a Sandwich in Connecticut? | This week, Ryan and Brian do some cryptic pub quizzing, identify the Hebrew Hammer, and have their copyrights infringed upon. |
| 146 | 5/29/2018 | I'm Slow, I'm Busy, I'm Tired... | This week, Ryan and Brian distribute royalties, talk about their math skills, and go for speed. |
| 147 | 6/5/2018 | 30% Overdone Silkscreening | This week, Ryan and Brian use calculus in their daily lives, enjoy mirror symmetry, and listen to a voicemail. |
| 148 | 6/12/2018 | I Don't How the Other Legs Work | This week, Ryan and Brian discuss the Tonys, argue about hints, and decide that Prince Charles is a carnivore. |
| 149 | 6/19/2018 | The Cleverness of Interlocking Words | This week, Ryan and Brian are talkin' Broadway, discussin' puzzles, and thinkin' about eatin' soup. |
| 150 | 6/26/2018 | A Bowl of Liquid With Stuff in It. | This week, Ryan and Brian learn how to remember cocktail ingredients, continue to be afraid of the National Puzzlers' League, and discuss the merits of aquatic uvulae. |
| 151 | 7/3/2018 | The Good Name of Quality Scansion | This week, Ryan and Brian deal with Ryan's poor audio (sorry about that), discuss the ever-changing states of laundry, and debate who would be a better politician. |
| 152 | 7/10/2018 | We've Abandoned TWO Cars on the Highway | This week, Ryan and Brian struggle with boat terminology, can't identify red candy, and continue to battle the demons of the deckers within. Also, Soup Talk with special guests joon pahk and Ken Stern! |
| 153 | 7/17/2018 | The Original Marshmallow Sandwich | This week, Ryan and Brian figure out how to get to Cloverdale from San Francisco, induct two people into a brand new club, and search the deckers of their souls. |
| 154 | 7/24/2018 | The Purest Form of the Hunt | This week, Ryan and Brian figure out how to get Ryan a part in Into the Woods, discuss the joys of John Williams, and finally get the date right. |
| 155 | 7/31/2018 | A Taco Is No Different Than a Peanut Butter Bender | This week, Ryan and Brian wake up early, argue about toast, and convert nanoseconds to kilograms. |
| 156 | 8/7/2018 | There Is a Big Difference Between a Plate and a Pizza | This week, Ryan and Brian go back to the Merriam-Webster well, discuss various systs, and, shockingly, talk about sandwiches. |
| 157 | 8/14/2018 | The Number One Cream Cheese Delivery System | This week, Ryan and Brian discover pralines, discuss the possibility of debating sandwich semantics, and listen to a VOICEMAIL. |
| 158 | 8/21/2018 | People Coming Together To Do Something Positive | This week, Ryan and Brian have nightmares, reminisce about Robert Redford, and recap Lollapuzzoola. |
| 159 | 8/28/2018 | Semantic Shift Happens | This week, Ryan and Brian wonder how Superman flies, debate the open-mindedness of Whole Foods, and figure out which Tiffany did what. |
| 160 | 9/4/2018 | You Were Silent, And Then You Just Agreed With Me | This week, Ryan and Brian think about going off to see the Wizard, tweak the creative team for Numbers Are Numbers and Numbers Don't Lie, and enjoy a one-sided Thunder Round. |
| 161 | 9/11/2018 | We're Off To Do the Podcast... | This week, Ryan and Brian get swept up, follow a road, and find out what's behind the curtain. |
| 162 | 9/18/2018 | A Starburst of Hooray | This week, Ryan and Brian carp about websites, analyze lyrics from RENT, and get excited about the Moh's Scale. |
| 163 | 9/25/2018 | An Isotope of Toast | This week, Ryan and Brian grind up cereal, screw up spoilers, and put up a play. |
| 164 | 10/2/2018 | We are bootylicious. | This week, Ryan and Brian make some progress on a meta or two, fail to find good apps for the iPhone, and (with help) determine that you can't take a plane to the grocery store. |
| 165 | 10/9/2018 | When Were Refrigerators? | This week, Ryan and Brian make some progress on a meta or two, fail to find good apps for the iPhone, and (with help) determine that you can't take a plane to the grocery store. |
| 166 | 10/16/2018 | How do you pronounce it, "mauve" or "mauve"? | This week, Ryan and Brian are obsessed with baseball (what else is new), talk soup (what else is new) and get cranky about crosswords (what else is new). |
| 167 | 10/23/2018 | Understand the concept rather than arguing the semantics. | This week, the Dodgers face off against the Red Sox, the Wall Street Journal challenges our comprehension of written instructions, and Erik Agard wins Jeopardy. We think we edited out worst of the garbage, but who knows. |
| 168 | 10/30/2018 | This is Ryan Hecht. He's alive. | This week, the baseball season comes to a close, Ryan loses all hope in the future of mankind, Brian fails to console his friend, and we try (hopelessly) to explain how the visual elements of the pigpen cipher work. |
| 169 | 11/6/2018 | Puzzlegirl doesn't want to talk about sandwiches. | BREAKING NEWS! This week, Ryan bemoans his beloved Dodgers in silent quarantine, and Brian welcomes special guest host Angela Olson Halsted to the show! |
| 170 | 11/13/2018 | That’s a long time to listen to the crinkling of cellophane. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan returns to the airwaves, Brian agrees to eat a Cynthia Nixon sandwich, and no one knows which puzzles in Panda Magazine to start with. |
| 171 | 11/20/2018 | Take him away, boys! | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian attempt to translate a Russian crossword, anagram the capital of Ecuador, and reverse engineer a contest puzzle. |
| 172 | 11/27/208 | How does it feel to want? | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian recover from Thanksgiving, reminisce about their lost youths, and valiantly attempt to explain how logic puzzles work. |
| 173 | 12/4/2018 | I know English; I know nothing else ... or six French things that don't revolve. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian celebrate a birthday, cheer for a maybe-debut from a Fill Me In viewer, and talk hot dogs without addressing a predictable question. |
| 174 | 12/11/2018 | What, there are only three beasts and a title? | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian struggle with time zones, time lords, and what time of day they record the show. |
| 175 | 12/18/2018 | You must velvet the beef. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian revisit the past, solve the Rubik's cube, and celebrate Christmas a week early. |
| 176 | 1/1/2019 | [Middle of a backpack is a terrible clue.] | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Brian completely forgets Christmas, Ryan totally remembers his anniversary, and the two of them celebrate the onset of 2019 with a supersized episode. |
| 177 | 1/8/2019 | Agitate them to make a lot of extra potato-ness | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan tries to remember a movie (Police Academy), Brian tries to remember a word processor (Bank Street Writer), and the two of them release the show without proof-listening. |
| 178 | 1/15/2019 | I am nuts with the California version | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian share an ocean, lust after television heroes, and dream that one day you'll help them create a puzzle. |
| 179 | 1/22/2019 | Could be the best tasting lettuce and tomato hamburger ... ever! | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian keep the hot side hot, the cool side cool, and try to solve all the puzzles. |
| 180 | 1/29/2019 | Begone, optimism! (with special guest cohost Laura Braunstein) | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan is stranded in Utah, and Brian is joined by special guest cohost Laura Braunstein! |
| 181 | 2/5/2019 | What seems like nonsense is just cleverly disguised brilliance. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian verb Ben Zimmer, calculate the likelihood of traveling to Egypt, and learn how to make a bubble wig. |
| 182 | 2/12/2019 | Dad raves, that's gonna be the next topic. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian threaten to rave, play Word Sweep, and receive a perplexing phone call. |
| 183 | 2/19/2019 | Okay, you’re royalty — Lord Ryan of the Hecht | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan is correct, Brian rejects chili, and collectively, they enjoy 71.4% of something. Look at the math! |
| 184 | 2/26/2019 | If anyone is near Tyler, nudge him. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian get haircuts, trade bits, and threaten to recall old crap from the first run of the podcast. |
| 185 | 3/5/2019 | Between me and progress is my lack of time. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Brian doesn't know enough about smashing watermelons, Ryan doesn't have enough viewers on his YouTube channel, and things get ranty in the Thunder Round. |
| 186 | 3/12/2019 | The best most delicious food in the whole world is reward pizza. | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian struggle to wake up for whatever it is we insist on doing to our clocks every spring. |
| 187 | 3/19/2019 | Crossword Mysteries! The Musical | In this week's episode of Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian watch "Crossword Mysteries" and wonder if Will Shortz is hiding something. |
| 188 | 3/26/2019 | Ryan WHO? | In this special post-ACPT episode of Fill Me In, guest cohost Angela Olson Halsted talks tournament with Brian. |
| 189 | 4/2/2019 | These are very, very clever questions, and you are butchering this experience. | This week, on Fill Me In, Ryan and Brian discuss an ACPT scoring scandal, Yu Darvish's season debut, and whether or not Dan Feyer deserves 15 seconds more than everyone else. |
| 190 | 4/9/2019 | Hello, Americans | This week, on Fill Me In, Ryan invents a new segment, manifests music out of thin air, and leaves Brian searching for answers to ... everything. |
| 191 | 4/16/2019 | Quahogs as big as your head. | This week, on a special extended episode of Fill Me In, Brian is joined by guest cohost Amanda Yesnowitz, tUPVEaSLtUA. Also: news from the UK, The Pinch Snapper, and CheatGate2019. |
| 192 | 4/23/2019 | Leave this hand away from you. | This week, Ryan and Brian fight through illness to bring you the best in crossword podcasting. We apologize for sounding like crap. Get this week's contest here (and listen to the show for the password). |
| 193 | 4/30/2019 | A toilet-like spiral to hell (or, this is not what youth looks like) | This week, Ryan oversleeps and in doing so, reduces the length of the podcast by half. Well done, Ryan! Get last week's (which is also this week's) contest here (and listen to the show for the password). |
| 194 | 5/7/2019 | $63,286 | This week, Brian guesses soda and salary, Ryan doesn't go to dinner with anyone famous, and no one understands the Monday puzzle. |
| 195 | 5/14/2019 | If there's a conversation to be hat at all, it must be amongst the animals. | This week, Ryan and Brian recap animal noises, reluctantly receive fruit, and feel joy for two of seven New York Times puzzles. |
| 196 | 5/28/2019 | The absolute horror of real life. | This week, Ryan and Brian remember Panda Magazine, a viewer reups a club membership, and the Oracle's expertise in mathematics is rejected. |
| 197 | 6/4/2019 | We got totally slammed for Aladdin. | This week, Ryan and Brian hash out the ups and downs of a day in Learned League, discuss poor pronunciation, and Ryan recounts a surprise visit from a fan! |
| 198 | 6/11/2019 | If you don’t want me to watch the ball, you can go get it out of the ocean. | This week, Ryan and Brian ignore the New York Times, focus intently on the Muppets, and (once again) feel the impending threat of cheating. |
| 199 | 6/18/2019 | Facts can be pejorative, it turns out. (Or, two pieces of naan with something spread in the middle.) | Ryan is hanging out with Weird Al Yankovic this week, so Fill Me In is graced with the brilliant wit and charm of guest host Jeff Talbott, Not The Dentist and Compleatist.
But here's the thing. We don't do tech very well. And Jeff's side of the recording got a little janky at times, and two things happened. One, we had to filter his voice so he sounds slightly non-human. And two, there is sometimes a bonus echo of Brian (often out of sync). And unannounced thing number three, Brian is out of town and trying to mix this on his ancient laptop, so -- you know what, you already downloaded the episode, so our stats still look good. |
| 200 | 6/25/2019 | An innocent person has no defense | This week, Ryan and Brian celebrate a milestone with two fictional and two real guest voices. See if you can tell the difference! |
| 201 | 7/2/2019 | American crosswords : cryptic crosswords :: baseball : cricket | This week, Ryan and Brian discuss tertiary Muppets, how to make soup, and get a phone call from a runaway groom. Also we may have cut it out of the show, but we were reminded about when Shane Victorino hacked our blog. |
| 202 | 7/16/2019 | Let's roll dice and pretend to be monsters | This week, Ryan and Brian talk metapuzzles, 20-sided dice, and argue the merits of "live action" Disney remakes (though much of that may have been cut from the episode). |
| 203 | 7/23/2019 | Bantercast | This week, Ryan and Brian discuss flats, cats, and hats (except maybe not hats). |
| 204 | 7/30/2019 | Is there something else white and crumbly you can put on top of feta and cauliflower? | This week, Ryan and Brian revisit NPL puzzles and learn a little something about the history of the diagramless, but the feature of the day is FOOD! Special guests Laura Braunstein and Ben Smith take us to Foodie Faceoff! |
| 205 | 8/6/2019 | But if I start going east, I'll continue going east forever | This week, Ryan and Brian watch the Dodgers, learn about orange(s), and discuss music theory and hot dogs. |
| 206 | 8/13/2019 | We evolved into the heightening bone | This week, Ryan and Brian discuss Carol Channing, Edward I of England, and whether joon pahk can play all the instruments. |
| 207 | 8/20/2019 | Doesn’t meat not want to be left out? | This week, Ryan and Brian wrap up Season Four, recap Lollapuzzoola, and debate the shelf life of pizza. |