Sleeping with Celebrities
by John Moe
Getting to sleep can be difficult sometimes. Now you can achieve that urgently needed rest by taking advantage of our most precious natural resource: celebrities. Each week on the slyly humorous and reassuring Sleeping with Celebrities, host John Moe talks with a different guest from the world of entertainment about something they know a lot about. The conversation is guaranteed to be just interesting enough to draw your attention away from your own swirling anxieties but never interesting enough to keep you awake. No startling revelations, no dramatic screaming confrontations, but plenty of low-key dialogue, intricately laced deadpan comedy, and a ticket to dreamland.
Episodes
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Aisha Harris’s Celebrity Birth and Death Years Will Make You Feel Grounded and Sleep-Ready
Look, this world can be spinny and chaotic and upsetting, enough to cost you some valuable sleep time. Aisha Harris from NPR’s Pop Culture Hour has a way of making sense of the world and it’s her habit of memorizing the birth and death years of famous pop culture figures of the last hundred years...
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Kate Flannery, Meredith from The Office, Rolls Her Dresses Up Like Luncheon Meat
Meredith is just a character that Kate Flannery played on The Office for many years. In real life, she’s completely stable, sober, and responsible. And quite charming. (Meredith was also charming but in a “will she accidentally injure herself or others?” kind of way.) In her post-Office life (not...
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Fascinating and Funny Media Superstar Kurt Andersen Talks Glucose Management
Kurt Andersen has a lot of wonderful stories to tell, like when he worked at Spy Magazine and sent Donald Trump a check for thriteen cents to see if he would cash it (of course he did). And he tells some of those stories, sure, but pretty soon we get into detailed information about how he manages...
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Jill Moe and John Moe Discuss Crop Art, Fantasy Football, and How To Be Rude at Dinner
When people have been married as long as Minnesota crop art icon Jill Moe and Sleeping with Celebrities host John Moe have been, they understand and accept that a loving couple need not share all interests. A topic that fascinates one spouse may completely bore and put to sleep spouse number two....
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All the Background Doohickeys at NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts with Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson is one of the co-hosts of NPR’s delightful Pop Culture Happy Hour, along with former Sleeping with Celebrities guests Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon and future guest Aisha Harris. Aside from being a culturally smarty, he’s one of the founders of the Tiny Desk Concerts, which has...
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Susan Orlean on How to Win Over Pets and Influence Zebras
In talking about Susan Orlean, many people give her well-deserved credit as being the author of acclaimed best-sellers like The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin, and The Library Book. They don’t mention perhaps her most impressive accomplishment of all: she knows how to get animals to like her. All…
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Musician Hamilton Leithauser on Learning Chess (Hard) and Building Chess Boards (Also Hard)
The life of a touring musician can involve a considerable amount of down time. There’s travel, checking into the hotel, sound check, the show, and some schmoozing, but that leaves many hours in the day for maddeningly difficult hobbies. Hamilton Leithauser of the Walkmen and an acclaimed solo...
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Jimmy Pardo Has Just An Absurd Amount Of Knowledge About The Band Chicago
Like, so much. As in, he knows the name of Peter Cetera’s brother. He remembers most of the set list from a concert BY Chicago IN Chicago in 1981. Jimmy, of course, is the host of Never Not Funny, an absolutely essential comedy podcast now celebrating its 20th anniversary, which is about 19…
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Wil Wheaton Tells You All About The Prisoner. You Have Become His The Prisoner Prisoner.
Wil Wheaton knows a thing or twelve about deeply loving a television series. He is part of the Star Trek universe after all, as Wesley Crusher, first appearing on Start Trek: The Next Generation, reappearing in various Trek iterations ever since, and that’s a show that has its passionate fans.…
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Tom Bergeron - Yes, THAT Tom Bergeron - Makes Angry Birds Surprisingly Soothing
We all know Tom Bergeron from various television games and competitions he has hosted over many decades. He was at the helm for Hollywood Squares, emceed Dancing With the Stars, and showed us a great many of America’s Funniest Home Videos (which, oh yes, absolutely was a competition). And he’s...
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Get Ready for the NFL Season with Retired Punter Chris Kluwe, Who Played the Sleepiest of Positions
The National Football League, with all its attendant huddles and wide receiving and roughings of the passer, is about to begin a new season. And although the touchdowns will make the highlight reels, we here at the show are big fans of the little moments when things don’t work out so well. We…
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Michael Ian Black on Cunning Two-Letter Scrabble Plays (RERUN)
This episode originally ran July 19, 2023 *** The actor, writer, comedian, and bon vivant Michael Ian Black is an enthusiast of the word game Scrabble and, in particular, the very short two-letter words that can make all the difference in a competitive game. Sure, lots of players want to use long...
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The Daily Show’s Zhubin Parang Feels Less Miserable Watching Les Misérables
Zhubin Parang, who has been with The Daily Show since the first time around with Jon Stewart, fully recognizes that among the many characters in the musical Les Misérables, only Javert really has an actual character arc. Only he goes somewhere over the course of the story. The rest kind of hold...
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What’s the Deal with How Much Francisco Ramos Likes Seinfeld? The Show, I Mean.
The title of hilarious comedian Francisco Ramos’s new standup special, Still Learning, is not about his constant absorption of new information about episodes of the classic sitcom Seinfeld but it could apply. The special’s title refers to learning about marriage. Francisco is now divorced. But…
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Lauren Weedman, From Hacks, Loves Rocks, May Be Sisyphus
As the slightly unhinged, or maybe more than slightly, mayor of Las Vegas, Jo Pezzimenti on HBO’s Hacks, Lauren Weedman leaves a hilarious and unforgettable impression, so much so that she’s a nominee for Best Supporting Actress at the upcoming Emmy Awards. Audiences might also know her as...
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Exploring the Washington Wizards, the NBA’s Most Ambien Team, with Jamel Johnson
Jamel Johnson is a DC native and has been following the Wizards his whole life. He’s seen the rise and fall of Gilbert Arenas, the arrival and departure of John Wall, and everything from Gheorge Muresan to Muggsy Bogues, all without an NBA title in Jamel’s lifetime. Mid-Range is both the title of...
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Jesse Thorn Has More Thoughts On Menswear Formality Levels Than You Do, Probably
Maximum Fun, the network upon which you hear our program, was founded by one Jesse Thorn, who continues to host an improbable number of podcasts on the network. Three, in fact: Bullseye (an interview program with cultural figures, also on NPR), Jordan, Jesse, Go! (where he horses around with…
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Know Your Extraterrestrials with Elliott Kalan
The universe is full of all sorts of alien creatures, we just know it. Problem is, they’re far away and, like us, possibly too stupid to invent really cool spaceships in order to visit. That’s why the book Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials was written and illustrated, earning a devoted…
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Ryan Miller of the Band Guster Enjoys the Ordered Verticality of Lists
You are reading something that was written in paragraph format, with complete sentences, grammar, nouns, and verbs. That’s not how Ryan Miller of the beloved band Guster likes it. Ryan enjoys lists. Likes reading them, creating them, and relying on the whole idea of ordered verticality. He tells…
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NPR’s Glen Weldon Talks The Silmarillion and That Ought To Put You To Sleep
You have to be a slight J.R.R. Tolkien nerd to watch the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film series. They’re long, there’s three of them, and it helps to know your hobbits from your elves. You have to be even more of a fan to read the dense, lengthy Tolkien books. But then there’s Glen Weldon,...
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Sondre Lerche Takes On A-ha and Soothingly Reads Fjord Names
When you’re a Norwegian musician, you get used to hearing a lot of the band A-ha, the biggest ever to come out of the Nordic country shaped like an arm from the elbow down. And that’s fine with Sondre Lerche, the most popular Norwegian solo musicians of all time. Sondre adored A-ha by rarely gets...
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Is This Heaven? No, It’s Iowa and NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben Talking Field of Dreams
We have to imagine that the life of an NPR White House Correspondent does not consistently feel relaxed, homey, sentimental, and warm. But you know what does? Field of Dreams, the 1989 Kevin Costner movie about an Iowa farmer with a field overrun by baseball ghosts. Danielle Kurtzleben, a White...
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Let’s Go to Trader Joe’s with Dan Mintz. That Will Be Nice.
Dan Mintz is an actor, comedian, and writer with a new standup special, Well-Rounded Entertainer, premiering soon on YouTube. Dan is best known as Tina Belcher on the beloved animated TV comedy Bob’s Burgers, which has been on the air for 16 seasons. Where can you get burgers besides Bob’s?…
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Dulcé Sloan Knows Every Trope, Archetype, and Inevitable Plot Point of K-Dramas
Dulcé Sloan has been in your American television many times, appearing as correspondent and guest host of The Daily Show, doing stand up on Conan, and voice acting on The Great North. But she doesn’t have much time to watch her own shows because she’s too busy getting chin deep in Korean dramas,...
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Comedian Anjelah Johnson-Reyes Used to Garden and Remembers It Fondly and At Some Length
You may have seen the very funny Anjelah Johnson-Reyes in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ugly Betty, Superstore, or even on the sidelines as an Oakland Raiders cheerleader. Perhaps you’ve seen her comedy specials, including the brand new Ugly Baby, which is about her experiences becoming a mom and, fear...
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Rebecca Sugar: Creator of Steven Universe, Knower of Earthen Building Techniques
In the Venn diagram of “heart” and “animation”, the overlap is Rebecca Sugar. Her series, Steven Universe, was more than just the adventures of an unusual boy’s search for identity in a spectacularly imaginative spiritual/paranormal world, it was mind-expanding and profoundly human and humane...
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Live From SF Sketchfest with John DiMaggio, Moshe Kasher, and Meredith Edgar
A live in-person performance of Sleeping with Celebrities? At a real theater, the Bayfront Theater, with lights and guests and an audience? At 5pm in the afternoon? Believe it because it happened. We ventured to the home of Rice-a-Roni, San Francisco to join comedy geniuses from all over at the…
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A Lot of Work Goes Into Eliza Coupe’s Spiritual Practice, But Not If You’re Just Listening To It For Sleep Reasons
Eliza Coupe is an actor who has appeared regularly on shows like Scrubs, where she was Dr. Denise “Jo” Mahoney, and Happy Endings, where she starred as Jane Kerkovich-Williams. She’s also a person who lives much of the time in Joshua Tree, California, dedicating herself to a rather elaborate,...
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MaxFunDrive 2026 BoCo Preview: Soundscapes - Runyon Canyon Hiking Trail
It’s MaxFunDrive 2026! Listen to the full Bonus Content episode (as well as all of the BoCo in Max Fun history) by going to www.MaximumFun.org/joinsleeping. It’s our one-stop portal to become a member and support Sleeping with Celebrities. **************************************************…
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Bonus Mini-Sode: Bigfoot Guys, Aliens Guys, and That’s the Two Types of Guys w/ Drea Clark
Drea Clark, one of the hosts of the popular and important Maximum Film! podcast has a theory: all middle-aged Guys think about the Roman Empire but from there, the Guys separate into Bigfoot Guys and Alien Guys. Sure, there are anomalies but you can mostly separate guys into those groups. Our…
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Sleeping with the U.S. Constitution featuring SO MANY STARS
Pretty big celebrity this week: the document that forms the spine of the United States. The one that members of the military pledge loyalty to instead of the President. The words that serves as a manual for law, justice, and government itself, meant to outlast any administration or trend. And we...
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MaxFunDrive 2026 BoCo Preview: Ambient Soundscape by Daniel William Gonzalez - Vanishing Point
It’s MaxFunDrive 2026! Listen to the full Bonus Content episode (as well as all of the BoCo in Max Fun history) by going to www.MaximumFun.org/joinsleeping. It’s our one-stop portal to become a member and support Sleeping with Celebrities. **************************************************…
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Bonus Mini-Sode: Walking Friendly Dogs on a Nice Day, Part 2
Doesn’t that sound pleasant? Join host John Moe as he strolls his Saint Paul neighborhood with his dogs. There’s Sally, a black lab mix and senior resident dog, Maisy, an all-over mutt and resident dog who doesn’t like putting on harnesses but does like walks, and Weenie, a foster pug puppy who...
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MaxFunDrive 2026 BoCo Preview: Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, Kim Jong Un, Pretty Much. And Blaine Capatch
It's MaxFunDrive 2026! Listen to the full Bonus Content episode (as well as all of the BoCo in Max Fun history) by going to www.MaximumFun.org/joinsleeping. It's our one-stop portal to become a member and support Sleeping with Celebrities. ************************************************** It…
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Rob Huebel and His Sure-Fire Completely Doomed Business Ideas
Rob Huebel, a friendly and hilarious person, has appeared in movies and tv shows like The Other Guys, The League, and The Sex Lives of College Girls, plus numerous things that don’t have “The” in the title. His new comedy horror film is Grind and he stars in the upcoming There's a Batman Film...
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Bonus Mini-Sode: Walking Friendly Dogs on a Nice Day, Part 1
Doesn’t that sound pleasant? Join host John Moe as he strolls his Saint Paul neighborhood with his dogs. There’s Sally, a black lab mix and senior resident dog, Maisy, an all-over mutt and resident dog who doesn’t like putting on harnesses but does like walks, and Weenie, a foster pug puppy who...
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Casters on Casters: John Moe and Brenda Snell
It's MaxFunDrive. And here, for the first time, we give you an exclusive look (well, listen) at the craft of podcasting: presenting Casters on Casters. In this episode, John Moe (Sleeping with Celebrities & Depresh Mode with John Moe) talks about his double life, as a person who speaks in a…
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Hrishikesh Hirway: Song Exploder / Paper Explorer
Out of all the podcasts in the world, and there are dozens, Song Exploder is one of the best and totally unique. Hrishikesh Hirway, well, more deconstructs rather than explodes songs and is joined by the musicians who created the song in the first place. And the guests! How about Madonna! U2!...
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Martha Kelly Has More Thoughts Than You Might Have Realized About Alvin & the Chipmunks
You might know Martha Kelly from her role Emmy-nominated role as the drug lord Laurie on the HBO series Euphoria or for her part as Martha, the deadpan hilarious Costco insurance agent and best friend of Zach Galifianakis’s character in Baskets. You don’t know her from her part in the Alvin & the...
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Sam Sanders Puts Together Audio Shows and Makes Peace with the Beasts. Metaphorically.
If you listen to audio programming, and of course you do, you already know Sam Sanders’ voice from show’s like NPR’s It’s Been a Minute, The NPR Politics Podcast, and The Sam Sanders Show on KCRW, for which he was a natural choice to host, given his name. Sam has a great voice and he works...
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Holding Your Horses, Your Actual Horses, Not a Metaphor, with Jennifer Hale
Jennifer Hale is voice actor royalty, having vocally appeared as Jean Grey in X-Men ‘97, Cinderella in Disney’s House of Mouse and Ralph Breaks the Internet, Captain "FemShep" Shepard in the Mass Effect games, and Black Cat in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. So, look, you’re in good hands with...
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Damian Young from The Comeback Knows More About Neckerchiefs Than You Do
Being a professional actor, even a very successful one like Damian Young, comes with a fair amount of time left to your own devices. One could use that time to learn Finnish, master close-up street magic, or you could be like Damian and become extremely well dressed. You may have seen him as Lisa...
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Inglourious Basterd Paul Rust Made Collages as a Kid and Just Never Stopped
We’ve never had occasion to use the phrase “titular basterd” on our show before but here it is, possible and even necessary in writing about Paul Rust and the film Inglourious Basterds. We’re not misspelling “basterd” or “inglourious”, mind you, that was director Quentin Tarantino’s artistic...
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Stephnie Weir Struggled Making Special Napkins to Give to Billy Crystal
You may have seen Stephnie (not a typo, she spells it that way) Weir as a cast member on Mad TV or in appearances on Modern Family, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Lady Dynamite. But if you live near Stephnie or happen to be a close friend or colleague, you may also know her from the handmade holiday...
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Jordan Morris on Godzilla Taxonomy and Canonical Use of “Skreeonk.”
Jordan Morris is known to Maximum Fun fans as the funny and engaging co-host of Jordan, Jesse, Go! and Free With Ads. He also makes comics, such as the new Predator: Bloodshed series. It’s all about the Predator, monster sci-fi icon, and his efforts to purchase and install a new shed to put all…
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Simeon Lipman from Antiques Roadshow Tells You At Great Length About Baseball Cards
We’re hundreds of episodes into Sleeping with Celebrities but we’re just now getting a PBS voice on? I know. We’re so sorry. But this will make up for it. The brilliant, engaging, and funny Simeon Lipman from Antiques Roadshow knows more about baseball cards and, actually, punk rock memorabilia...
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Vella Lovell Slowly and Carefully Introduces a New Cat to an Old Cat
The hilarious actor Vella Lovell is a put-upon director of an animal control precinct in the sitcom Animal Control, a role that involves much more animal contact than one would expect for an office job. Turns out Vella, who also played the neighbor Heather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, has a natural...
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Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hütz Walks You Through the Downstroke Part of Playing Guitar
It is foolish to try to describe the music of the Gogol Bordello and its charismatic frontman Eugene Hütz so we’ll just list the genres Wikipedia uses: Punk rock, folk punk, Latin rock, polka, folk rock, dub, Romani, and Gypsy punk. Wikipedia also uses the adjective “theatrical” and we won’t…
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A Discussion of Bigfoot with Todd Stashwick That Gets a Bit Too Exciting But Then Calms Down
Actor Todd Stashwick’s IMDb page is miles long, with appearances in Laws & Orders OG and SVU, Angel, Buffy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Riches, Phineas and Ferb, and Star Trek: Picard and the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe Disney+ series VisionQuest. He’s also a Bigfoot enthusiast. Not a…
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Jordan Carlos Lives in New York City and Drives an Actual Car
There are many transportation options in New York. It’s not all subways and taxi cabs that cut in front of you and make you yell about how you’re walking here like in that movie. There are also regular old cars, like the one comedian and writer Jordan Carlos has for getting around that city. He...
About this show
Getting to sleep can be difficult sometimes. Now you can achieve that urgently needed rest by taking advantage of our most precious natural resource: celebrities. Each week on the slyly humorous and reassuring Sleeping with Celebrities, host John Moe talks with a different guest from the world of entertainment about something they know a lot about. The conversation is guaranteed to be just interesting enough to draw your attention away from your own swirling anxieties but never interesting enough to keep you awake. No startling revelations, no dramatic screaming confrontations, but plenty of low-key dialogue, intricately laced deadpan comedy, and a ticket to dreamland.
Hosted by
John Moe
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