Hello From The Magic Tavern: Episode 1

    “Hello From The Magic Tavern” is hosted by Arnie Niekamp. He is the main character of this fictional narrative podcast. The podcast starts off with an  advertisement about Earwolf and how they discuss “Hello From The Magic Tavern” on social media . The next voice is a man advertising a different podcast that the listeners should go support. After roughly a minute of listening to the podcast, there is a fictional advertisement brought to your ears by Usidore, he is the crazy wizard character in the narrative podcast. The music transitioning over to when the host starts to speak really draws you into a medieval setting. 

    Arnie fell through a portal behind a Burger King in Chicago, Illinois and stumbled into this magical land, called Foon. Thankfully he fell into this portal with his podcasting gear. Through the portal, he is able to gain a strong enough wi-fi connection to upload podcasts to our world. In the podcast he is interviewing a badger named Chunt and a wizard named Usidore. Each character is very different from one another and keeps the listener entertained. In the podcast Usidore seems to be the character that gets made fun of and is crazy, to keep the story more interesting for different audiences.

The characters do a really good job of setting the scene. When I was listening to “Hello From The Magic Tavern”, I could envision the three characters in an old tavern standing around and talking. In the first episode, Arnie mostly asks Chunt questions. Chunt is a badger that can change into other animals. His mother was a manticore and his father was a hunger ghost, which is a ghost of someone who died starving. 

The wizard tries to interrupt a lot and talk about his quest or the dark lord that must not be named. During the podcast, Usidore will go into an insane “wizard state” where he just mumbles to himself . During the interview, Chunt mentions that the town in which the tavern is based in is called Hogface. People come to the tavern  from Foon to escape from life or just a casual place after work. 

In the podcast “Hello From The Magic Tavern”, I believe that they use extravagant characters and personalities to make the podcast more intriguing. When there is music in the background, it definitely helps set the scene for the listener. This podcast was a little hard for me to wrap my head around because of how fictional it was. Arnie and the other characters, definitely do a fantastic job of keeping their voices interesting and never monotone. Their voices made me feel interested to keep listening and even listen to another episode.The host wanted to keep his first episodes short, so that the audience wouldn’t be bored and would want to continue listening. I wish the first episode was a little longer, so that I would have a better understanding of what was going on. To get a better grasp on the story, I listened to the second episode of the series. 

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1 Comment

  1. Hi Anna!

    The podcast name “Hello From The Magic Tavern” by Arnie Niekamp is already telling me how silly and fun the episodes are going to be! From what I’m hearing about the first episode, my assumptions are correct and it definitely is an adventure to a fantasy world that will leave you amazed.
    It’s interesting to me that the host decided to choose a crazy wizard and a badger that can change into other animals to even be present in the same place at the same time in a tavern, I think that leaves the readers and especially me to find it very comical and just bizarre. Not only that but there’s even apparently a dark lord that must not be named! Although the selection occurs to be very random, it’s still definitely a match made intentionally, it seems the host did a good job of developing their own characters and personalities for each presence.
    I’ve never listened to a fictional podcast before but it seems like this is the kind of podcast you just turn on to have a good time, to escape reality for a bit and have something funny and light-hearted to listen to. The podcast I listened to: “RedHanded” is a true crime podcast which means the content tends to be pretty heavy at times so the contrast is stark between these two episodes. I think it’s easier to listen to these types of podcasts more often, and it’s something your whole family might enjoy as well. Something that I do think about both these stories, whether fictional or not, is that they are both engaging. “Hello From The Magic Tavern” has wild and over the top characters that have their own voices and “RedHanded” has outlandish crimes that leave the listeners shocked but also very invested into what’s happening.
    Even though I thought I would never listen to a fictional podcast, I think I might give this one a try!

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