“Tangent” creators, writers, personalities and MSU students Derek Russell and Tucker Colburn are not new to the podcasting medium. Their “Smallville” podcast, “Starkville House of El” appeals to a mass of fans of the CW show, while their more recent “Heroes” podcast, “The 10th Wonder,” has been wildly successful.”Tangent” is a horse of a different color. The show promises to be vastly different from the other shows, with a chance to appeal to a wider audience since it is not constrained to any one topic.
“[The show] came about just because people that listen to our other shows dig the way that we talk amongst ourselves and how we make each other laugh,” said Colburn, a freshman history major. “We want everyone that listens to [‘Tangent’] to feel like they’re coming into the middle of a conversation, leaving it at certain points, and then coming back and we’re already talking about something else.”
To accomplish this effect, the show starts by fading in to the two hosts talking about a particular topic, then fading out again as if the listener were leaving the room, said Russell, a senior in theater and secondary education. This eliminates the abruptness of starting and stopping a conversation on the air. Instead of focusing on one subject, “Tangent” can focus on just about anything.
Two topics are chosen for each episode: one a general interest topic, such as “podcasting” in the first episode, and the other a favorite film of Russell and Colburn’s.
“Somewhere in the midst of the two topics we get off on a tangent,” Russell said. “‘Nothing’s off limits as long as it’s off topic’ is the tagline of the show.”
The show’s slogan gives a brief idea of what can be expected of “Tangent,” but Russell and Colburn will not be the only two voices on each show.
Each episode of the podcast will feature a celebrity guest that will add his or her own thoughts to the mix, ensuring that each episode will be different from the last.
The first episode features Cedric Yarbrough of “Reno 911” and “The Boondocks” going off on a tangent about airports with Russell and Colburn.
“I, like Snoop Dogg, have a lot of drugs and weapons on me all the time,” Yarbrough dryly said in the episode. “I hate having to get rid of those.
“Setting up interviews with celebrities is all a matter of maintaining a good relationship with their publicists, Colburn said.
“We’ve messed up a couple of times and forgot that we called publicists two or three times before about different people and they’ll be like, ‘All right. Are you calling again?'” he said.
The duo’s efforts have proven fruitful on many occasions, though, as they’ve already set up appearances of guests Dana Snyder (“Aqua Teen Hunger Force”), Mike Nelson (“Mystery Science Theater 3000”), Alex Borstein (“Family Guy,” “MadTV”) Erik Stolhanske (“Super Troopers,” “Beerfest”), MC Chris (“Sealab 2021”), Maria Bamford (“The Comedians of Comedy”) and Don LaFontaine, the movie voiceover master.
Russell and Colburn plan to have LaFontaine’s famous voice on a promo for “Tangent.”
“We’re going to offer some money for charity and see if he’ll professionally do [a trailer] and send it to us,” Russell said.
By filling guest slots with personalities like LaFontaine, “Tangent” will maintain its weekly release schedule, unlike the other podcasts, which rely on new episodes of the TV show to keep the information dynamic.
“Tangent” varies from the other podcasts in more ways than just its structure, though.
“Apart from the celebrity interview, the newest thing, really, on ‘Tangent’ is a female voice,” Colburn said. “We haven’t had that on our other podcasts.”
Fellow podcaster Aly Greaves will lend her voice as the show’s narrator, opening the show and each of its segments.
The show will also feature comedic segments apart from the central topics. Each show begins with the hosts humorously talking about what they were doing immediately before the podcast.
Every episode will also feature a “Revelation of the Week,” a one-liner spoken over tense music that reveals some disturbing bit of information about one or both of the hosts.
Colburn said he hopes each new episode will clock in at about 25 minutes. The episodes will premiere every Monday, and the first two are currently available for download from iTunes or www.tangentcast.com.