History
The podcast was launched on April 17, 2008, with Clark as the solo host. Bryant made his debut a month later on May 13, 2008. Bryant became the permanent cohost on July 15, 2008. The podcast, which was named by Clark, began as an attempt to re-purpose some of the written content on HowStuffWorks.com. Clark had never listened to a podcast before he recorded his first episode in 2008. Jesse Thorn has held the name up as a model of how a podcast should be named saying "it's like daring the listener not to listen to it."
The podcast has steadily grown in popularity since its introduction and has made appearances at events including South by Southwest and Comic-Con. On October 26, 2017, Stuff You Should Know released their 1000th episode. Several episodes have been recorded during live events, including two during their World Tour of Canada in September and October 2014. While in Canada they also participated in the Northwest Podcast Festival, at SXSW in 2011 and 2012, and New York Comic Con in 2012 where they recorded their discussion entitled "Time Travel: Science Fact or Science Fiction?"
During the 4th of July weekend in 2011, there was a Stuff You Should Know About America marathon on Sirius XM radio. It featured previous episodes, as well as a live segment with Wyatt Cenac and Hallie Haglund of The Daily Show as well as Joe Randazzo, Joe Garden and Jill Morris of The Onion. Their 420th episode was on medical marijuana, although this was reportedly a coincidence.
In 2011, the podcast added "Bonus Videos" to the podcast feed. These consist of humorous 60 second videos where Clark and Bryant converse about subjects they covered on previous podcasts while doing a variety of random activities (playing checkers, getting fitted for a suit, going to a doctor, driving through a car wash). As they speak, the scene changes repeatedly to something completely different, though their conversation continues uninterrupted as though nothing had happened. These clips have also aired during commercial slots on Science and appear on their YouTube channel.
There is one unaired episode on animal detectives that they hope will never be published. They have repeated a topic three times. They revisited the topic of Murphy's Law in 2011 after first doing it in 2008. As one of their first episodes, it was under 6 minutes in length. They also accidentally repeated a podcast on customs. The first time was in 2010 and the second was in 2016. In July 2018, they released an episode on recycling as an update on their first one, recorded over a decade ago.
On November 7, 2018, Josh Clark created a podcast called The End Of The World with Josh Clark, a 10-episode series that discusses what dangers lie in humanity's future. , their office and studio was in the Ponce City Market in Atlanta. and their studio is slightly larger than a broom closet and features "kooky" items listeners have sent in, including wedding invitations and photoshopped movie posters with Clark and Bryant's faces on them. The office has a large mural depicting the formation of an idea, a research library, and giant question mark-shaped conference table.
The podcast, which was the second on HowStuffWorks, has been described as the "heart and soul of the operation," with the "well researched" episodes cover a variety of topics from the fields of "science, history, urban legends, and pop culture, with the occasional conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure." Clark and Bryant have a conversation about the given topic such that, by the end, listeners have a "basic working knowledge of that subject." Clark has said they are on a "never ending quest to explain absolutely everything there is on planet earth and beyond."
Their "biggest hits" include episodes on Spam, hangovers, tipping in restaurants, cheese, Barbie, and pinball. The topics that get the greatest response from listeners include death and grieving, and episodes that received "less enthusiastic feedback" include shows on homelessness/addiction, Tourette's Syndrome, and transgender issues. Episodes are normally around 45 minutes in length, although for more in-depth topics the show occasionally runs long as an hour or more. Initial episodes were much shorter in duration, often less than 10 minutes.
One of the reasons the hosts believe the show has been so successful is that they are "definitely not experts" in the myriad subjects they explore, but are instead "just guys who enjoy research and [are] very curious." Their formula "is part self-deprecating humour, part infectious wonder and part self-discipline to go their separate ways and do all their own research and reflection before they get to the studio." They often try to surprise one another with their research, and do not have a script or a time limit before they sit down to record. Likewise, they do not rehearse beforehand.
Most episodes end with listener mail, although there is an occasional segment known as "Administrative Details." Listener mail debuted on November 25, 2008, in the episode named "How Albert Einstein's Brain Worked". On that episode, they called it "Correction Time." The first time it was known as "Listener Mail" was on January 8, 2009, an episode that was inspired by a listener's email.
