Space Monkey Mafia Productions
138 episodes listed below
Game talk with bits, fatigue, and memory.
The Stage Select centers on Julian Titus and Justin Hamm talking through video games with the patience of people who have played, watched, argued about, and misremembered a lot. Its best moments turn casual complaints, odd skits, Patreon experiments, and movie tangents into real criticism without sanding off the mess.
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The Stage Select is a video game variety show that behaves less like a polished review desk and more like a recurring conversation among people with too many shared references to keep the topic contained. Video games are the anchor. The show also wanders into movies, comics, sketches, Patreon side projects, production fatigue, and whatever strange bit has become part of its own internal lore. Julian Titus and Justin Hamm give it a relaxed but opinionated rhythm. One moment can be a technical complaint about a rough game, and the next can become a broader thought about fairness, difficulty, player curiosity, or why a design choice feels bad in the hands. The criticism is casual, but the thinking is not lazy. A solo episode can push back on the easy purity contest between indie games and triple-A games, treating both as creative work shaped by budgets, trends, copycats, and real people trying to make something good. That kind of point arrives through rambling rather than formal essay structure. It works because the show is comfortable thinking aloud. The feed also has a variety-show streak, with The Bits explaining season-long skits, Cinemorons opening a side door into movie talk, and Suffer Select turning punishing or awkward games into shared endurance comedy. The skits can get absurd. Private detectives, backstage chaos, fake shows, Not E3 fragments, and strange character callbacks all sit beside ordinary talk about playing games and needing a break. The show is not afraid to sound tired, late, improvised, or annoyed. That honesty gives the lighter material a human edge. Movie conversations, like the unlocked episode on UHF, show how well the format handles comedy bits, actor reactions, slapstick, and the pleasure of watching someone else get drawn into a film. Older media comes up with the texture of memory, not trivia display. Transformers comics, old cartoons, industry habits, and recurring jokes all become part of the same mental shelf. The Stage Select is at its best when it refuses to reduce taste into neat categories. It is warm, messy, opinionated, and built for listeners who enjoy hearing a point develop in real time.
Made for: For listeners who like video game criticism with banter, digression, recurring in-jokes, and room for movies or comics when the conversation pulls that way. It especially fits people who prefer spoken, messy analysis over tidy review formats.
What sets it apart: The show treats variety-show chaos and serious media criticism as the same project. Its sketches, solo episodes, movie side series, and game arguments all feed a larger sense of two voices building a shared comic universe while still caring about the art.
Welcome to The Stage Select: a video game variety show hosted by Julian Titus and Justin Hamm! We guarantee that we'll talk about video games. Beyond that, you never know what (or who!) to expect each week.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
The Stage Select connects film criticism, franchise history and comic performance with unusually close attention to how scenes and adaptations are built.
The Stage Select treats screen culture as part of a wider comic universe shaped by games, sketches and long-running franchises. Julian and Justin can move from the mechanics of a difficult game to the history surrounding Transformers, comparing the comic's secrecy and darker…
This is where your game criticism keeps getting interrupted by imaginary backstage catastrophes.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose solo talk that pushes back on indie-versus-AAA moral posturing.
Julian Titus spends this solo episode talking through the awkwardness of hosting alone and, in the process, making a plainspoken case against treating indie work as morally cleaner than AAA development. He is funny without forcing it.
A behind-the-scenes look at the skits, bits, and character work that helped season two feel alive.
This Stage Select episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at the skits and bits that ran through the show, with Julian walking through the thinking behind them and loosening the fourth wall just enough to say more about the characters.
A tired opener rolls into a blunt Suffer Select about a game that burns through health, patience, and momentum.
The episode starts with a tired, low-effort setup and then shifts into a Suffer Select originally made for Dennis Robertson and shared with listeners.
A loose episode that settles into a smart, darker take on Transformers history.
Julian's special episode begins as an easygoing catch-up, then settles into a strong case for why the Transformers comic feels darker than the cartoon.
A loose, funny UHF discussion built around easy chemistry and memorable bits.
This unlocked UHF conversation works because it does not try to overdo the movie. It stays close to the jokes, the odd turns, and the way the discussion keeps returning to Stanley Spadowski, Uncle Nutty's Clubhouse, and the cameraman's priceless reactions.
Workplace learning with the human layer left in.
Blunt comfort for messy relationships.
The hosts apologize for technical issues and lack of preparation before discussing video games.
Julian Titus is back alone.
Julian opens by admitting he is rusty after being away from a microphone for more than two weeks.
Julian says there is no regular episode this week because he is tired, a little sick, and not really up for it.
Julian opens by saying he does not remember how to do this.
Julian opens by explaining there is no regular episode this week.