Filed by KOSU News in Art & Life.
July 22, 2011

On this week’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, we kick things off by talking about poseurs — people who pretend to know more than they do, pretend to have read things they haven’t read, and pretend to be interested in things they don’t care about. In other words: all of us, at one point or another. Jumping off from a recent Frank Bruni column about Harry Potter, we admit to some of the moments in our lives when we may ourselves have been reticent to admit that we don’t exactly know — or care — what other people are talking about.

We then borrow a topic from America’s Got Talent: obscure abilities and the place we wish they had in the world. From a very special sort of circus to the reason the world really needs Madame (the dummy, that is), we’ve got many surprisingly strong opinions about the abilities that really need to come back. (Here’s the link to a Mr. Show sketch we discussed on the show. Warning: Very, very Not Safe For Work.)

Along the way, you will also encounter a quiz about TV episode titles that causes Stephen to despair that the titles that weren’t invented by television were invented by your quizmaster. (That would be me.)

All this plus what’s making us happy this week, including a bacon salute that everyone should appreciate and a guide to revolting snacks.

As always, find us on Twitter: me, Trey, Stephen, Glen, and Mike. Or, of course, find us on Facebook — a community so friendly that one of our lovely readers was kind enough to tell us this week it’s the internet version of Cheers. Aw. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]