Hello! I'm Darren Foulds, a podcaster, retro‑computer enthusiast and drummer from Canada. I'm not made up of pixels, but I enjoy pushing them.Back in 2004, I was living in Ottawa and heard of this new thing called Podcasting. I've always been fascinated by radio, and I used to make my own "radio broadcasts" as a kid with my tape recorder. Then I was a host on a local volunteer radio station in the early 2000s. So, the idea of recording a show and releasing it on the internet was a very enticing idea to me and I gave it a shot. I had thought all the recordings were lost to time (and my old ISP/webhost) but I found them more than 20 years later and here they are. I actually hope you don't find them and listen to them.
Would you believe in 2026, I was watching the BBC archive YouTube channel (as I often do) and there was an episode on podcasting from 2004. That's pretty believable, but what's crazy is MY PODCAST can be heard on it at 2:05!
| Episode | Title / Link | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Oct 22, 2024 | Trailer |
| 1 | Oct 25, 2024 | Pumpkin Week |
| 2 | Oct 26, 2024 | Brewster's Pumpkin Commmentary |
| 3 | Oct 27, 2024 | Travis' Pumpkin Poem (Haiku) |
| 4 | Oct 28, 2004 | Pumpkin Round Table |
| 5 | Oct 29, 2004 | Email Day |
| 6 | Nov 1, 2004 | Taking Out The Trash Week |
| 7 | Nov 2, 2004 | Travis Takes Out The Trash |
| 8 | Nov 3, 2004 | Brewster's Trash Opinion Piece |
| 9 | Nov 4, 2004 | How A Garbage Truck Works |
| 10 | Nov 5, 2004 | Travis' Appology |
| 11 | Nov 9, 2004 | Brewster Talks Safety |
| 12 | Nov 10, 2004 | Elmer the Safety Goat |
As I listen to these podcast episodes again for the first time in more than 20 years, a few things strike me.
First, I thought I only did a week's work of them, so just five episodes. Having twelve is a bonus, and I can see that I was starting to work out the show a little bit over the weeks. It seems to be a one–joke thing where most of the funny comes from the patter around the joke. But that's okay. My idea of a podcast back in 2004 was that you just needed a couple minutes for your show and your listeners would have a few queued up and listen for a half hour or so, kind of like a morning show. Your episode would comprise only a part of their commute or something.
Second, the three main characters are Muppet rip-offs. Of course they are. I'm a big Muppet fan, so why wouldn't I use those characters as models. Now, I can start to see their own original personalities growing in these dozen episodes, but Lewis=Kermit, Travis=Beauregard (probably) and Brewster=Sam Eagle. Who knew who Elmer the Safety Goat was based off? Maybe I just needed a Safety Goat.
Finaly, it seems to me that in addition to Muppets, I've taken inspiration from The Unfriendly Giant radio show by Tom Powers from the late 80s. The length, pacing and even how the chicken (I mean penguin) starts to become the object of torture each episode surely comes from my love of the Chicken, Giraffe and the Giant.
Too bad I didn't continue with this little two-minute sketch podcast. I was starting to get into it, and maybe it could have turned into something. I presume that not knowing if anyone was listening was the main factor of me deciding to call it quits. Sort of like shouting into the void, I suppose. But I'm glad I've found the mp3s and can listen to them again and use them to prove, I was there at the beginning.
