Pop Culture Happy Hour, Redux: 'This Is Us' And 'Speechless'

We're scattered to the winds this week, so we thought we'd dig one of our favorite episodes from last year out of the vault — the one in which we took a first look at two then-new broadcast television shows that continue to impress: This is Us on NBC, and Speechless on ABC.

This episode gave us a chance to hear from two different but equally incandescent hosts of All Things Considered: Ari Shapiro joined us to talk This is Us's weird, weepy (for Ari, at least) appeal, and Audie Cornish weighed in on the funny, smartly written and extremely well-cast Speechless.

We concluded, as always, with What Is Making Us Happy. Stephen loved a spooky Miyazaki anime. I loved an interview with a certain ... not-un-snippy men's fashion designer so much that I perform a dramatic reading of an excerpt. (Bonus: Listen for the shade Cornish throws in the direction of my radio-friendly personal style.) Audie loved two very different podcast episodes. Linda dug the American version of a the coziest, homiest, crumbliest reality television show around.

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