The world's worst, researched and argued with glee
Worst Foot Forward turns failure into a friendly contest: Barry McStay, Ben and a guest each bring a researched nominee for the world's worst plot, ending or piece of merchandise. The history is real and often astonishing, and the jokes pile on top of it with gleeful bad taste.
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Worst Foot Forward is a comedy history podcast built around one question: what is the world's worst example of a given thing? Barry McStay, Ben and a guest each arrive with a candidate. Subjects range from merchandise to plots to endings. The nominations are researched rather than improvised, and that research is the real payoff, because the stories are strange enough to survive the jokes piled on top of them. Returning guest Bec Hill joins an episode on merchandise that follows the Happy Meal from a small bundle of burger, fries and sundae to a boxed meal with a toy, introduced in Kansas in 1977 and rolled out nationally two years later. Guest Paul Duncan McGarrity joins an episode on plots, where a scheme against Japan proves so convoluted that it gets compared to a game of Civilization. Openings can be theatrical. The plot episode begins with a narrated sketch of conspirators gathering at midnight in an old rubber chicken factory, lit by a flickering brazier, until the neighbours ask them to keep the cackling down. Digressions are part of the texture. Ep 312: Barry and Ben - World's Worst Ending swerves into the footballer Duncan Ferguson and a burglary attempt that went very badly for the burglars. Side editions bend the premise. The Best of the Worst goes back over earlier worst topics for their finest examples, delivered with mock-festive cheer. Ep 308b: Best of the Worst of the Best 25 includes a standoff in Syria where a leader named Sinan answers a demand for tribute by signalling his followers to leap from the castle wall. The Third Foot trades terrible for interesting, as in its edition on the Count of St. Germain, who moved from Louis XV's court to the Dutch Republic and whom Casanova described as a celebrated and learned imposter. A best-of-2024 compilation gathers favourite moments, such as the Earl of Barrymore accepting a foot race against a butcher named Mr Bullock. The butcher asked for a 35-yard head start and the right to choose the course, then picked a route through Black Lion Lane in Brighton, described as one of the narrowest streets in Britain. The co-hosts introduce each other with elaborate mock titles, one of them a puffin-covered co-host, and the banter rarely pauses for long. The humour turns crude at times, with sexual jokes and dark gags sitting right beside the history. Guests matter here: Bec Hill is described as having appeared in the show's second-ever episode and in a live show from the Backyard Comedy Club. In the ending episode, the pair call the recording the show's last, closing a project begun almost nine years earlier. What remains is a large back catalogue of human misfires, told with obvious affection.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys history played for laughs and would rather hear about a butcher's rigged foot race or a hopelessly overcomplicated plot than a tidy success story.
What sets it apart: Every topic becomes a three-way nomination contest, so a single theme yields several researched stories instead of one narrative. Side editions flip the premise toward the best of the worst or the merely interesting.
An encyclopaedia of heroic failureJoin Ben Van der Velde, Barry McStay and their guests as they brandish their wooden spoons of destiny and celebrate the losers, heroic failures and spectacular mis-steps that pockmark human endeavour. If you ever want to feel better about your progress in life, take a listen and enjoy a lovely schadenfreude bubble bath. Music by Max Perryment (www.maxperryment.co.uk)Donate to us via Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward
A seven-headed cabinet curiosity and a pizza saver patent are exactly your kind of detour.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose, affectionate finale turns unfinished art, Duncan Ferguson, and almost nine years of podcast history into a warmly unruly goodbye.
Worst Foot Forward ends its almost nine-year run by letting the finale become one last unruly conversation. Barry McStay and his co-host look back on a project that moved from Muppets memorabilia and podcast festivals to four live shows, returning guests, and the familiar rhythm…
A funny, oddball history of Happy Meals, collectible toys, and merchandise afterlives.
Worst Foot Forward treats Happy Meal merchandise as a small, strange history of novelty turning into keepsake. With returning guest Beck Hill, the episode moves from the Menu Ronald to Bob Bernstein's McDonald's idea, then on to the Star Trek promotion, where the packaging…
A loose, funny 2024 highlights episode, from a narrow-lane foot race to a Shark Attack 3 Megalodon quiz.
Worst Foot Forward gathers favourite moments from episodes recorded in 2024, with Barry and Ben returning to guest-led stories, facts, jokes, and stray bits of trivia from the year.
A deranged plan to destroy Japan gets the black-comedy treatment it seems to invite.
This single-episode review follows a geopolitical fantasy as it spirals into a history of escalation, from an imagined assault on Japan to a path to victory that starts sounding like a video-game glitch.
A court-hopping adventurer leaves enough odd traces to keep immortality just barely in play.
The Third Foot treats the Count de Saint-Germain as both a historical curiosity and a useful test case for legend-making. He moves through Louis XV's court, edges into peace efforts between France and Britain during the Seven Years' War, and carries the famous claim that he was…
A stranger calls. Chris Gethard listens. Anything can surface.
The hosts celebrate interesting historical failures, with a focus on an immortal figure, in a comedic and conversational style.
The hosts introduce a returning guest and discuss the upcoming end of the podcast, blending humor with reflections on failure.
Ben and Barry introduce their Halloween special episode about the moon, blending humor with a celebration of failures.
A comedic Halloween episode where hosts joke about witches, air fryers, and trick-or-treating while celebrating failures.
["Worst Foot Forward ends with Barry McStay and Ben recording the final episode in Barry's flat and framing it as the world's worst ending.", "Barry traces 'swan song' through Pliny the Elder, then the conversation jumps to TV finales like The Sopranos, Roseanne, and Saint Elsewhere.", "Barry and Ben also cover the France-Mexico pastry dispute, the 100-hour Football War, the 38-minute Anglo-Zanzibar War, and Darwin Awards examples like Gary Hoy and Krzysztof Aznicki.", "The close turns to unfinished works such as The Canterbury Tales and Kubla Khan, then to Oscar Meth's The Beginning Was The End and its brain-eating-ape de-evolution theory."]
Beck Hill returns to Worst Foot Forward as Ben Vandervelde and Barry McStay chase examples from a 1983 McDonald's toothbrush Happy Meal to U2's 'Acton Baby Condom' and a Guinness-record condom collection.
["Worst Foot Forward's \"Ep 310: World's Worst Best of 2024 Episode\" strings together Barry McStay and Ben van der Linde's favourite 2024 moments, opening with a Christmas thank-you and a request for listener photos from farms, mountains, submarines, and volcano edges.", "The highlights jump from Charles Dickens's raven Grip, which inspired Edgar Allan Poe, to Dwight Eisenhower trying to remove Augusta National's troublesome tree after repeated tee-shot collisions.", "Later clips cover St Samson of Dole ordering a fire-spitting serpent to die, the Earl of Barrymore's bizarre betting habits in Brighton, and Shark Attack 3 Megalodon becoming notorious through John Barrowman's improvised line.", "The episode plays as a scrapbook of historical trivia, comic escalation, and year-end gratitude, with Barry and Ben closing by asking for reviews, recommendations, and festive listening photos."]
Barry McStay and Ben Vanderbilt frame Worst Foot Forward's World's Worst Plot around the gap between a conspiracy theory and an actual plan.
Worst Foot Forward's 'The Third Foot' focuses on Count Saint-Germain, the 18th-century figure linked to immortality claims, court gossip, and invented biographies.
Worst Foot Forward’s “Best of the Worst of the Best 25” revisits episodes 121–125, covering hosts, assassins, bankers, apologies, and chat-up lines with Barry McStay.
Worst Foot Forward hosts Ben Vandervelde and Barry McStay ask materials scientist Dr.
Worst Foot Forward’s Halloween episode has Barry and Ben compare Jewish, Indonesian, and Germanic supernatural folklore before revealing that the Damashluken story came from ChatGPT.
Worst Foot Forward’s “The Third Foot: The Moon” examines lunar terminology, mythology, Apollo missions, and plans to detonate a nuclear weapon on the moon.
Worst Foot Forward hosts Barry McStay and Ben Vandevelde ask returning folklorist John Henry Thole to identify the world's worst dragon.
Worst Foot Forward hosts Barry McStay and Ben interview comedian Meredith Hackman about pizza history, unusual toppings, delivery patterns, and pizza-related crime.
Worst Foot Forward revisits its funeral episode with Pete Donaldson, covering wrong bodies, exploding corpses, unusual mourning customs, and funerals designed as public spectacle.
Worst Foot Forward hosts Barry McStay and Ben Vandervelde ask biologist and science communicator Simon Watt to nominate the world's worst species.
Barry McStay and Ben Vandervelde examine apprenticeships, job interviews, psychological screening, and vice-presidential vetting in The Third Foot: Job Interviews.
Barry McStay and Ben Best Vander Velde revisit episodes 116 to 120, replacing the worst prince, scientific fraud, mascot, allergy, and D&D class with their preferred best examples.
Ben and Barry announce a live show and discuss the world's worst beer, blending humor with tales of failure.