Where Do I Start?

Bewilderbeasts isn't something you have to listen to in order to enjoy. Pick the title of your preference and go for it! However, the earliest episodes, as is the case with most audio entertainment, might sound different as Melissa was figuring out how to do sound editing and not feel like she was sitting alone in a dark closet by herself - which is harder than one would think. 

She has since found a way to plug in a light so she's not in the dark, and she doesn't care her upstairs neighbors can hear her cackling away in a closet talking about exploding whales, horseshoe crab blood, or aquaphobic Labrador retrievers hunting for whale poop (for SCIENCE!). 

But, if you want a few to try first, here are the recommendations to get your feet wet: 

#1: These Bees Are The Bomb

Decades after Croatia was torn apart by war in the 1990s, thousands of deaths annually are still attributed to unexploded landmines from that war. Dogs are heavy, need a handler, and are quite expensive to train - but bees are light, are fast learners, and don't need a human on the other end of a leash guiding the way! So how does one train a bee to find land mines, and is it effective? Abso-freaking-lutely it's effective, and a great example of how associative learning, a skill Melissa uses in dog training, can work on literally any animal - including kid siblings. This was the first recording so the sound might be a bit different from in later episodes, and Melissa couldn't even say her own name right, but it was the animal who started it all. The logo will make much more sense after listening to this episode. Additional subjects include why painting eyes on cow butts work against predators and what is Melissaphilia? It's a family-friendly show, so it might not be what you think!

#13: Sergeant Stubby

Sergeant Stubby is the only dog promoted to the rank of sergeant in combat, but this episode also dives deep into the importance of mental health and the responsibility of the free press when it comes to creating wartime mascots, like Stubby. This episode also covers a cat who hilariously ruined a manuscript for researchers to find 600 years later, and one man discovers a beheaded rattlesnake can bite hours after death.

#6: The Exploding Whale Fail:

Packed with schadenfreude, this is the 50-year-old story of the time a highway department was tasked with getting rid of a beached whale carcass and everything that could have gone wrong, did. And, it's on film! Melissa dives in on this whale of a tale and all the off-ramps that were missed, culminating in a whale-splosion. The other two stories include a cat who solved a murder and a family's beloved tortoise that despite not getting very far was gone for way too long. 

#8: The Profane Presidential Parrot

Melissa frequently uses a sound effect that originated in this episode - a bleeping out sound effect with a squawking parrot. Word is that President Jackson, America's problematic 7th president, got his wife, Rachel, a pet bird. When Rachel died weeks before Jackson's inauguration, Jackson did what all of us Millennials did when we got our first Furbies - we taught them to swear. By all accounts, Jackson thought this was hilarious, but not everyone felt this way. Most notably, the reverend who was presiding over President Jackson's funeral, who had to pause the service in order to have Poll escorted out of the service because the bird wouldn't stop dropping F-bombs like a pirate. The sound effect to cover the swearing parrot's vocalizations is often used through other episodes in order to keep this family-friendly. This episode was an all bird special, so you'll also meet the 5 birds who were separated from an English zoo for teaching the other 200 birds to curse, and Australian birds who have learned to use fire to hunt prey to the dismay of firefighters. Yikes!

#42: What the Pluck? 

In season two, we try a different format, one longer story to keep the show under 30 minutes. Plus, the audio is way better by this point. In this episode, comedy reigns as a truck of chickens heading to a slaughterhouse turns over on a California Highway, leading to their escape, and decades of "Hollywood Highway Hens" sightings along the 101.