Benson and the Little Giant
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Benson and the Little Giant is a podcast that highlights the rather peculiar relationship of the show’s two protagonists, who purport to have been friends since childhood: Dakota Benson and JB, the Little Giant.
The show delves into such diverse topics as philosophy, politics, and popular culture as the vehicle for its comedic themes. Its central premise is the dichotomy in the lives of Benson - who is depicted as morbidly obese, married and largely jovial in nature – and JB, the Little Giant – who is cast as abnormally short, single and somewhat jaded in his view of reality.
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[edit] History
Benson and the Little Giant made its debut on February 12, 2006 and continues to the present day. Unlike more traditional broadcasts, however, the availability of new episodes has been unpredictable. The show abruptly went on hiatus in April 2006 after only nine episodes, returned in March 2007 with a single episode, then disappeared again for seven months only to return with a flurry of ten episodes to finish out the year. Nevertheless, the first ten shows have traditionally been classified as “Season One” and the second ten as “Season Two.” “Season Three” commenced with the release of a new episode on March 1, 2008.
The show has undergone several format changes since its inception. The most significant took place at the beginning of Season Two, when Benson and the Little Giant began using Gabcast technology for recording of individual episodes via full-duplex telephonic media; CastBlaster technology had been used to record the show using multiplex channels during Season One. Thus, despite the increased production flexibility brought about by the change there is a noticeable degradation in sound quality between the two seasons of the show.
[edit] Audience
Though the science of measuring a podcast’s audience is still in its infancy,[1] indices suggested a modest audience of around 100 listeners of Benson and the Little Giant in February 2006. That number rose exponentially the following month, however, topping 800 listeners in March and nearly 3,000 listeners in April of that same year. Projected listenership figures dropped thereafter, coinciding with the show’s hiatus for the rest of 2006. An aggressive internet marketing campaign – primarily centered around the popular MySpace community – resulted in the show’s zenith of more than 5,000 listeners in December 2006. Current figures show an audience of about 800 listeners a month as recently as March 2008. Most of the Benson and the Little Giant audience is situated in the United States, though there seems to be a significant listenership in Italy and the United Kingdom as well.
[edit] Syndication
Benson and the Little Giant is syndicated by BYOB Productions and is available for free on Apple, Inc.'s iTunes, as well as on various web-based podcast aggregators. The complete series is available via RSS feed http://bensonandthelittlegiant.com/podcast.xml.
[edit] Episodes
| No. | Name | Season | Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Meet and Greet | One | Feb 12, 2006 |
| 2 | The Love Show | One | Feb 19, 2006 |
| 3 | Rock of Ages | One | Feb 26, 2006 |
| 4 | The Sum of All Fears | One | Mar 5, 2006 |
| 5 | Babble | One | Mar 12, 2006 |
| 6 | Best Of | One | Mar 19, 2006 |
| 7 | All in the Family | One | Mar 26, 2006 |
| 8 | Don’t Look Back in Anger | One | Apr 2, 2006 |
| 9 | Crush | One | Apr 9, 2006 |
| 10 | Reunion | One | Mar 4, 2007 |
| 11 | Born Again | Two | Oct 13, 2007 |
| 12 | Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love | Two | Oct 17, 2007 |
| 13 | Blue | Two | Oct 20, 2007 |
| 14 | 3s a Crowd | Two | Oct 24, 2007 |
| 15 | Draggin’ | Two | Nov 1, 2007 |
| 16 | Inside Baseball | Two | Nov 4, 2007 |
| 17 | Best Of, Vol. 2 | Two | Nov 8, 2007 |
| 18 | Cereal Killer | Two | Nov 12, 2007 |
| 19 | The Reel World | Two | Dec 16, 2007 |
| 20 | This Was the Year That Was | Two | Dec 20, 2007 |
| 21 | Return of the Crush | Three | Mar 1, 2008 |
| 22 | A Brief History of Time | Three | Mar 21, 2008 |
| 23 | Romancing the Stone | Three | Apr 7, 2008 |
[edit] Recurring Themes
Several themes have emerged from Benson and the Little Giant episodes over the past two years. The show repeatedly emphasizes the heterosexual nature of the relationship between its hosts, juxtaposed against frequent homoerotic content in their discourse. The two repeatedly stress that “they’re not gay” to offset the pronounced chemistry they display in their interactions.
The show’s content evolves using three primary devices. Development of the Little Giant character employs frequent use of the vignette (literature) technique, while the Benson character relies more on theater of the absurd as a recurring motif. Interaction between the two characters is heavily dependent on stream of consciousness writing as a technique for content generation.
One of the earliest themes to emerge was the fictional premise that the Little Giant character was the son of one of the Statler Brothers, detailing offbeat and increasingly implausible scenarios. As the show progressed, JB's recurring infatuation toward a variety of unavailable women manifest itself, a purported outgrowth of his single status as contrasted with that of the married Benson. Content centered exclusively around the Benson character has been more heavily weighted (no pun intended) toward less esoteric themes such as married life and experiences from day to day reality.
It is the shared experiences of the two that results in the most diverse material, however. These interactions draw heavily on philosophy, theology, psychology, pop culture using events from their childhoods as well as everyday lives as illustrations of same.
