Dean and Phil knew they were going to be celebrating the career of the great actor and star James Caan on this week’s show and then the floodgates opened, with many beloved character actors exiting the stage, so after a brief and hilarious cold open, Season 3 Episode 23 begins with “Celebrity Deaths”. Then, the whole concept of “celebration” as a lost “art” gets explored, before your friends in podcasting use it as a springboard to discuss several current television series and a handful of truly brilliant performances. The big screen will not be ignored either, as the cinematic output of Edgar Wright gets examined through the prism of his recent ghost story (Last Night in Soho) and a baseball comedy classic from the 1970s gets revisited.

Although this show is 85 minutes long, there’s no truth to the rumor that we will be changing our name to YOUR “Chillpak Hollywood Hour AND A HALF!” Celebrities just keep on dying and your friends in podcasting keep right on remembering them! On this week’s show, music legend João Gilberto, Disney star Cameron Boyce, “Laugh-In” comic Arte Johnson, and automotive icon Lee Iacocca have their lives and accomplishments celebrated. Then, Dean and Phil dig into the archives to sample what they were talking about 12 years ago this week. Roswell, UFOs and an ill-fated “sister” podcast all get discussed. After that, Dean and Phil share an email from a loyal listener like you (yes, YOU!) involving the best ways to ensure a television series’ quality during its entire run. This leads to a conversation about the best TV finales, the worst TV finales and how lucky we are when some awesome shows don’t even GET finales! Oh, yeah, and Phil has eye surgery and post-op procedure stories to share! 

Dean previews this weekend’s X-Fest convention all about “The X-Files”, and discusses the latest on his streaming comedy series “Gravity Hole”. In “Celebrity Deaths”, Dean and Phil celebrate the great singer Leon Redbone, the last of the Mohawk code talkers from World War II, and the socialite whose conviction and subsequent acquittal of murder formed the basis of the Oscar-winning Reversal of Fortune. Phil hips Dean to the breaking news about the Canadian genocide of indigenous women, and they commiserate over the latest mass shooting in the USA. They share an email about the (non-existent) Bowling Green Massacre. They assess the current state of movies in theaters, on HBO, via Netflix, and more, especially through the prism of reviewing two new comedies, a western revival, and one of the longest-developing projects in recent Hollywood history. Because next week’s show might be a mostly a pre-recorded interview, this week’s show is an extra 12 minutes long, offers something for almost everyone, and is jam-packed full of podcasty goodness!