Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2' And W. Kamau Bell

First up, let me mention this: one big piece of news out of this week's show is that we announced a live show at the Bell House in Brooklyn on June 6. Tickets will be on sale May 9, and we've been known to sell out pretty quickly sometimes, so be there at noon on Tuesday the 9th and grab your tickets!

We all got a big kick out of Guardians Of The Galaxy back in 2014, so we were eager to see what the follow-up might look like. Happily, we were joined for this discussion by our pal Petra Mayer from NPR Books, and we all talked about battle scenes, character beats, new faces, and what it means when a sequel is, and can be, little more than "if you liked that other thing, here's some more of it!"

Then, we bring you the conversation I recently had with W. Kamau Bell at our live show in Chicago. His book, The Awkward Thoughts Of W. Kamau Bell, is out now, as is the second season of his CNN show, United Shades Of America.

As always, we close the show with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is happy about playing Mario Kart, Glen is happy about a new book about David Letterman, Petra is happy about a new take on an old story, and I am happy about a Chris Gethard special on HBO that qualifies as both good television and something that's almost service journalism.

Find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: the show, me, Stephen, Glen, Petra, producer Jessica, and producer emeritus and pal for life Mike.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.