Basket Traffic: History versus Hollywood

Craig Chubb and Shawn Clements
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Need a break from the intensity of life? Need a laugh? Join our podcast. Basket Traffic is where film, television, and history collide—with a sense of humor. Hosted by Craig Chubb, Shawn Clements, and Susie Chubb, the show dives into movies, pop culture, and the stories behind them, connecting past and present in a way that’s insightful, conversational, and never too serious. Whether it’s breaking down the Oscars, unpacking historical context, or just calling out the absurdities of it all, Basket Traffic is your go-to for smart takes and entertaining tangents. Have a listen and press "follow" if you enjoy it. We appreciate your support.

  1. Apollo 13 and Artemis II: Space Toilets, AI Actors, And Moon Fever

    APR 26

    Apollo 13 and Artemis II: Space Toilets, AI Actors, And Moon Fever

    “Send us mail” A crewed return to deep space suddenly feels real again and it hits at the exact moment we’re starved for something hopeful. We start with Artemis II and that surge of shared excitement you only get when a big mission is on the line. Then we zoom out to the space race logic behind it all: Sputnik’s shock, NASA’s creation, the Mercury and Gemini stepping-stones, and Apollo proving what happens when a country decides science and engineering actually matter.  From there, we rewatch Apollo 13 and get into why it still punches above its weight as a “true story” movie. The tension holds because the details are the drama: the oxygen tank damage, power loss, the lunar module lifeboat, carbon dioxide buildup, and the legendary duct tape solution. We also nerd out on the craft, including Tom Hanks’ accuracy obsession, Ron Howard’s choices, and how they filmed weightlessness on the KC-135 so it would feel lived-in instead of staged.  Then we take a hard left into the future of entertainment: an authorized generative AI Val Kilmer performance in a new film. If AI can bring back actors or de-age them convincingly, what happens to working performers, awards, and the meaning of a “real” performance?  If you like space history, NASA missions, Apollo 13, Artemis II, and big tech questions that don’t have easy answers, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave us a review. What part of this new era excites you most? Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    58 min
  2. Project Hail Mary: Hollywood We Have Lift Off 🚀

    MAR 29

    Project Hail Mary: Hollywood We Have Lift Off 🚀

    “Send us mail” Welcome back to the show where we combine film, history and comedy.  Join Craig, Shawn, and Susie as they journey through the cinematic universe, from the vibrating D-Box seats of Project Hail Mary to the controversial moments of the recent Oscars. Discover why audiences are flocking to theaters for original stories and practical effects, and how a puppet alien is capturing hearts. Chapter Summary: 00:00 D-Box and Project Hail Mary Intro 04:30 Oscars Review: Low Ratings and Politics 08:32 Oscars: In Memoriam and Best Picture 12:50 Project Hail Mary: Initial Reactions 17:30 Project Hail Mary: Cast and Directors 21:58 Project Hail Mary: Plot and Themes 29:40 Project Hail Mary: Space, Comedy, and Critique 33:09 Project Hail Mary: Alien Design and Target Audience 36:12 Cinema’s Comeback and Future Releases Featured Quotes: “Boy, does the world need a movie like this right now?” – Shawn “This movie is going to be huge.” – Shawn Behind the Story: The hosts take us behind the scenes of their movie-going experience, sharing anecdotes about D-Box chairs, late-night showings, and even overly-fragranced fellow moviegoers. They contrast their personal cinema experiences with broader industry trends, such as the Oscars’ declining viewership and the resurgence of original, non-CGI films. A key discussion point revolves around Project Hail Mary’s release timing and its potential to stand out amidst summer blockbusters, especially given its focus on practical effects and a heartfelt narrative. Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    43 min
  3. The Untouchables: What Was Found in Al Capone’s “Vault”?

    MAR 1

    The Untouchables: What Was Found in Al Capone’s “Vault”?

    “Send us mail” Welcome back to the show where we combine film, history and comedy.  Today we’re cracking open one of the most mythologized chapters in American history: the era of Prohibition, when the country outlawed alcohol and accidentally created an underground economy that made criminals into celebrities and lawmen into legends. The 1920s were supposed to be about moral reform. Instead, they became a golden age for bootleggers, rum runners, and crime syndicates. Speakeasies flourished behind unmarked doors, whiskey barrels rolled through back alleys, and cities like Chicago became battlegrounds for control of liquor, money, and power. No figure looms larger over this period than Al Capone—a man who turned beer into a business empire and violence into a management tool. Hollywood cemented this era into our collective imagination with The Untouchables, a film that framed Prohibition as a moral showdown between order and chaos. Kevin Costner stars as Eliot Ness, the clean-cut lawman determined to bring Capone down, while Robert De Niro delivers an unforgettable performance as Capone himself—charismatic, brutal, and larger than life. It’s a story of heroes and villains, sharply drawn, where the lines between good and evil feel clear and consequential. But America’s obsession with Prohibition-era crime didn’t end with classic films. Decades later, that fascination resurfaced in a very different way—live television. In 1986, millions tuned in as Geraldo Rivera hosted a highly promoted, live syndicated broadcast promising to reveal Al Capone’s secret vault. The buildup was enormous. The result? An empty room. No treasure. No secrets. Just dust, a few bottles, and one of the most infamous anticlimaxes in TV history. Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    53 min
  4. The Lusitania Disaster: A Story of Incompetence and Cover Up?

    FEB 3

    The Lusitania Disaster: A Story of Incompetence and Cover Up?

    “Send us mail” Welcome back to the show where we combine film, history and comedy.  On the morning of May 7, 1915, the RMS Lusitania sliced through the cold waters off the coast of Ireland, just hours from its destination. She was a marvel of modern engineering—a symbol of speed, luxury, and the confidence of the early 20th century. But beneath the surface of the Atlantic, war was already waiting. When a German U-boat fired a single torpedo into the liner’s side, the world changed in just eighteen minutes. Nearly 1,200 passengers and crew were killed, including 128 Americans. But this was more than a maritime disaster. It was a collision of civilian life and industrialized warfare, of neutrality and global conflict. Was the Lusitania an innocent passenger ship—or a legitimate military target? What cargo was she really carrying? And how did this single event reshape public perception, propaganda, and the course of World War I? Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    1h 2m
  5. 2025: A Year-End Pop Culture Riff

    JAN 5

    2025: A Year-End Pop Culture Riff

    “Send us mail” A Christmas intro turns pitch black fast, and then somehow we end up planning a trip to a $1 billion Dracula theme park in Romania. That’s the vibe: a year-end hang with side quests, sharp opinions, and the kind of pop culture talk that accidentally becomes a mirror for how 2025 actually felt. We get into our holiday watching habits and settle one of the loudest seasonal arguments with a simple rule: if the story still works without Christmas, it’s not a Christmas movie. From there we jump into our 2025 film recommendations, focusing on director-driven movies and foreign films you might have missed because they aren’t dominating every screen. We talk cinematography, slow-burn dramas, horror that surprises you, and why you sometimes have to hunt for the good stuff at smaller theaters or dig through streaming. The recap widens into the biggest 2025 moments we can’t stop thinking about: awards debates, the cultural takeover of weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, global headlines that blur together, and the nonstop AI arms race. We also take a beat to remember the people we lost, then go deep on one name that deserves a full standing ovation: Rob Reiner, and a filmography that somehow jumps from Spinal Tap to Stand By Me to The Princess Bride to A Few Good Men without missing. We finish with our 2025 TV picks, a little New Year’s resolution skepticism, and a countdown to midnight. If you like movie talk, streaming recommendations, and a no-filter year-in-review, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review telling us your top film and show of 2025. Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    44 min
  6. Sergeant Alvin York: The Trend Of Killing Off Our Heroes?

    12/16/2025

    Sergeant Alvin York: The Trend Of Killing Off Our Heroes?

    “Send us mail” Welcome back to the show where we combine film, history and comedy.  Heroes used to earn their victories. They faced fear, made sacrifices, and returned changed. But somewhere along the way, the journey itself began to disappear. Today, corporate money shapes what stories get told, while algorithms decide which ones survive. Franchises are engineered for global markets, risk is minimized, and characters are sanded down until no one stands too tall. At the same time, postmodern writing has reworked the very idea of heroism—blurring good and evil, questioning moral certainty, and turning once-mythic figures into vessels for commentary rather than transformation. In this episode, Craig, Susie and Shawn explore how corporate interests and postmodern storytelling have reshaped the hero’s journey—and ask a simple question: when meaning, courage, and growth are stripped away, what’s left of the hero? Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    46 min
  7. Alien Earth: Why Is Disney Messing With The Franchise?

    11/19/2025

    Alien Earth: Why Is Disney Messing With The Franchise?

    “Send us mail” Alien Earth is the kind of show that makes two longtime fans watch the same scenes and walk away with completely different verdicts. One of us loves how the series lingers and how it expands the Alien universe with corporate politics, new creatures, and big swings around engineered life. The other sees a franchise getting sanded down into something safer, with plot logic that collapses and characters that never earn our care.  We get into spoilers fast: Boy Cavalier’s role as a billionaire savant, the “Lost Boys” hybrids that put child consciousness into adult synthetic bodies, and the uneasy shift from claustrophobic sci-fi horror to daylight action. We also talk craft. The production design hits hard with callbacks to classic Alien aesthetics, but we question whether a TV structure encourages cliffhangers, missing resolutions, and convenient survival that undercuts dread.  Then we go deeper than reviews. We connect Alien Earth’s mega-corporation world to real anxieties about power and democracy, and we unpack why the ship name “Maginot” is a perfect symbol for the franchise: humans build walls, disaster goes around them. We even laugh at how Alien has become an academic playground for debates about feminism, capitalism, labor, and theology.  If you care about the Alien franchise, the xenomorph, Weyland-Yutani style corporate horror, or the future of sci-fi horror under Disney, this conversation will hit a nerve. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’ll argue back, and leave a review with your take: did Alien Earth evolve the franchise or tame it? Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    55 min
  8. The Brutal Story of Vlad Dracula The Impaler!

    10/27/2025

    The Brutal Story of Vlad Dracula The Impaler!

    “Send us mail” Welcome back to the show where we combine film, history and comedy.  Show Summary: Halloween gets weird fast when you start with a tiny Snickers and end with Vlad the Impaler. We’re back on Basket Traffic talking about the stuff we actually return to every October: candy debates, scary movies, and the stories that make the season feel like a portal to childhood, even when we pretend we’re too old for it. We follow the history of Dracula from Bram Stoker’s novel to the explosion of vampire folklore and pop culture, including how the character changes across theater and film and why the “fangs” we picture today weren’t always part of the look. We also get into the infamous Nosferatu lawsuit, the Coppola Dracula movie as a surprisingly accurate adaptation, and the endless list of actors who have played the world’s most durable monster. Then we go full dark history with Vlad III of Wallachia, the real-life ruler often linked to Dracula: hostage politics inside the Ottoman Empire, a short violent reign, and the terror strategy that earned him the name Vlad the Impaler. From there, we pull back into why horror works at all, swapping trauma titles like Salem’s Lot and The Exorcist, remembering how landlines made When a Stranger Calls hit harder, and arguing about Tim Burton as the unofficial patron saint of Halloween vibes. We close with pure nostalgia: trick-or-treating without supervision, bonfires, and the reckless era of firecrackers and Roman candle wars. If you like Halloween history, Dracula lore, vampire movies, and honest nostalgia with dark humor, hit subscribe, share the show with a fellow horror fan, and leave us a review telling us what movie you rewatch every October. Help support us: Press the follow button for more fascinating historical deep dives and cultural explorations! Our many thanks.

    51 min
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About

Need a break from the intensity of life? Need a laugh? Join our podcast. Basket Traffic is where film, television, and history collide—with a sense of humor. Hosted by Craig Chubb, Shawn Clements, and Susie Chubb, the show dives into movies, pop culture, and the stories behind them, connecting past and present in a way that’s insightful, conversational, and never too serious. Whether it’s breaking down the Oscars, unpacking historical context, or just calling out the absurdities of it all, Basket Traffic is your go-to for smart takes and entertaining tangents. Have a listen and press "follow" if you enjoy it. We appreciate your support.

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