Until this week, I thought that podcasting was strictly for audio.  I didn’t even really know how to find podcasts. I mean, I knew you could search for them on itunes, but I figured there had to be another, more complicated way of finding them online. Surprise surprise, all I had to do to find them was Google “subject” + podcast and I was given a variety of options. Once I chose a website, I clicked on the podcast I wanted to listen to, and where did I end up… back in itunes.

I searched for podcasts on npr, and found different categories of podcasts to choose from. I chose “radio pictures” thinking it might be about photography, and found a podcast about the voices of SpongeBob! I bet you never knew who the voice of SpongeBob actually is – the real man. There’s probably not a kid in the nation who wouldn’t recognize SpongeBob’s laugh, but anyone of them could probably walk into Tom Kenny and not know who he was. His natural speaking voice isn’t recognizable from any of the voices he does on the show: SpongeBob, Gary, Mr. SquarePants, French Narrator, Patchy the Pirate, and other miscellaneous characters. One man is able to be more than six different characters on a tv show, because the medium only reveals his voice, not his image. Instead his image is replaced by the cartoon images of Bikini Bottom.

This podcast uses both video and audio, so it has the feel of a humorous but informative “short.” By using both image and audio, it differs from what I thought podcasts to be, because I am participating by not only listening but also seeing. This specific podcast is interesting to think about, because with any general audio podcast, you are left to form an image in your imagination, of what the people might look like, or the subject they are talking about. However, because this podcast is using one medium to converse about another visual medium which is universally known, I hear the voice of SpongeBob and if I look away from the screen, I visualize SpongeBob’s distinct television image. It also offers me a new visual image to link to SpongBob’s voice – the man of the voice himself. The interviews are cut with snippets of the actors reading in the cartoon voices, and then also mixed with snippets of the show itself. It’s a podcast describing the medium of voice and animation, which creates the medium of a television show….all of these media have been transformed into podcast form.

People should definitely check out these podcasts in npr’s “radio pictures.” There are some other really informative casts about photographers and musicians, and its cool to be able to see the art, while listening to it being discussed.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-radio-pictures-podcast/id290787437