We’re friends, okay? We’ve known each other forever, okay? But you, dear listener, don’t really know us. Join us as we interview each other and ask the hard questions (Part 2!), such as: what would your Purge mask look like? Astrology or aliens? What’s your go-to album when you’re down? What’s your superpower? Come, find out what makes a Meerkat tick. Come, be our friend.

Hey! Come derry dols! Lord of the Rings, the fantasy epic that birthed a genre and a thousand black light posters, has confused many a reader. Just as the story gets momentum, BAM! The narrative is stopped for three chapters with an interlude about a silly, singing, enigma who is immune to the evil of The One Ring but does nothing about it. What are we to make of this man with boots of yellow? Is he a god? Is he nature? Is he just there to party? Join us as we explore one of the oddest - and merriest - characters in fiction: Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadil(lo).

The end is nigh, brought to you by Godzilla. Or Ragnarok. Or Calliou? There are 32 apocalypses jonesing to end it all for us, but there can be only one (because, of course). Join the Meerkats as we pit these Apocalypses against one another, March Madness-style, to see which catastrophe will be our undoing. What will be our destroyer? A super-volcano? Our housecats? Vigo the Carpathian? This is science, people: you can take it to the bank.

This week we chat with Australian ex-pat Christopher Burns, the musical force behind tawny.frogmouth and composer of the Planet of the Meerkats’ amazing theme. Christopher shares about his musical and artistic process, his thoughts on Australian lollies, raccoon baseball-interference, and barely comprehensible Aussie surfer slang - some of it through song! (Seriously, you have to hear these songs.) Have you ever wondered why Australia has named so many things after Batman? What’s the deal with Vegemite? Find out this and more as we explore the Southern Hemisphere of the Planet of the Meerkats.

Remember when you could buy a squirt gun that looked like a Kalashnikov? When parents would set their kids free and expect them to take care of their sh*t until dinner time? When 8 year-olds were free to watch hyperviolent dramatic meditations on the Vietnam war and then play with the corresponding heavily-armed action figure? From GI Joes to Slinkys, from baseball cards to invisible dogs, toys play an outsized role in our society. They’ve gone from being kids’ playthings to collectibles, and are now as much for adults as they are for kids. Go fishing with Spider-Man, stage a Playmobil robbery, and join the Meerkats as they reminisce about good toys, bad toys, dangerous toys, and more.

After living through a modern plague for more than a year now we’ve all become armchair COVID experts — thus, the Meerkats are gonna play their hands at prognostication, pondering what future plagues might look like and considering what big lessons we’ll learn from our pandemic response. We’ll also talk about cicadas, the biblical plagues, and of course, rabies and scabies. Join us for episode two of season two, as Neil drops a top 5 music references to plagues and pathogens list and we break

Light up your best aromatherapy candles, open that fancy $8 bottle of pink wine, and break out your freak-nastiest nightie that you’ve been saving for a special occasion — it’s the Planet of the Meerkats season two premiere and we’re getting steamy. In a post-COVID world, what does intimacy look like? Are we on the precipice of a new sexual revolution? Be it holosex with VR celebrities or interdimensional alien trysts, the future of sex is going to look very different. Joining us this week is Dave’s wife, Bronwyn, who’ll help us sift through the best and worst Star Trek episodes about sex on the Holodeck.

Can the past change? From the Berenstain Bears to Darth Vader, the so-called Mandela Effect has caught the imagination of the internet. Nelson Mandela, the eponymous statesman who died in 2013, is remembered by many to have died in prison in the 1980’s. We could dismiss this as a misremembered morsel of history, if not for the thousands who misremember it in the same way. Are things actually changing, leaving residual mental impressions in some people? Or is this just the way false memories manifest in a networked world? Join us for the season finale of Planet of the Meekrats as we explore the phenomenon, discuss emerging theories of the multiverse, and ask the question: what is real?

If humanity were married to our nuclear arsenal we would have just celebrated our diamond 75th wedding anniversary. How have we responded? Much like in a real marriage: terror, insanity, grief and, eventually, indifference. Also, some pretty great songs and movies! Join the Meerkats as we party like it’s 1999, walk the dinosaur, and duck and cover our way through a “nucular” war-themed Zen Koan.

Dracula. Dragula. Blacula. Scott Bakula? Its been a long time, getting from there to here, but here we are, talking about vampires. Not just vampires, but his undead highness, Dracula himself. From a unholy monster, to a silly kids movie character, to a veritable god of repressed and, later, overt sexuality, Dracula has endured as a horror icon for over a century. Slip out of your coffin, slap on a cape, and slop on some SPF 1000 sunscreen so you can join us as we shine a spotlight on Big Poppa D.