Beef With Bridget Todd Returns For Season Three, Beginning with Houdini Vs The Spiritualists

A war is an all-out assault on a real or perceived enemy. Wars are so traumatic that a written and signed treaty is necessary to end hostilities. What’s a beef? No, not the substance that is allegedly between the buns in fast food. The use of the word “beef” as a noun meaning complaint was first recorded in the 1880s. However, we use it nowadays to describe a significant issue with someone.

Now, there’s a podcast about business rivalries called Beef. It began in February 2023 and is launching its third season this week.

What makes podcasting so distinct from other media is its elasticity. Too often, TV copycats success, radio is trapped in either formulaic sports talk, political hate speech, or music. However, podcasting can take a successful concept, such as business rivalries, and the Wondery podcast Business Wars, and explore it in greater depth and from different angles.

Beef is billed as, “A podcast that serves up the juiciest rivalries you’ve never heard of.” Beef is an original-scripted non-fiction storytelling podcast where “Business Wars meets pop culture.”

On the show, award-winning host Bridget Todd tells the stories of legends in their fields and how they tried to stomp out theircompetition, only to find that their enemies become the driving forcebehind their success, ultimately changing the world as we know it.

How good is Beef? I know you want to know: Where’s The Beef? (Gen Z, please refer to the mid-80s Wendy’s commercial)

Beef is a 100 percent USDA grade A podcast. The concept of connecting business rivalries with pop culture has birthed some of the best episodes in seasons one and two.

My favorite is still the Playboy versus Penthouse episode. The show delves into the essence of Playboy’s Hugh Hefner and Penthouse’s Bob Guccione. The show excels as a hybrid — one part narrative by host Bridget Todd and one part interviews by Todd.

In the show, one guest makes the revelation, “Bob Guccione really loved women, while Hugh Hefner hated them.”

The show zigzags through cultural shifts until sworn enemies Hefner and Guccione join forces to battle censorship and attacks on the First Amendment.

Every good show needs a host to spotlight the content and the treatment. Beef is fortunate to have Bridget Todd.

Her critically acclaimed podcast, There Are No Girls on the Internet,explores how marginalized people show up online in response to thelack of inclusion in conversations around the internet. The hit podcast earned “Best Technology Podcast” at the iHeart Radio Podcast Awards and a Shorty Award for “Best Podcast Miniseries.”

As Director of Communications for the national gender-justice advocacy organization UltraViolet, Bridget regularly meets with leadership from platforms like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok to advocate for and develop policy recommendations that make digital experiences safer and more inclusive.

Todd’s writing has been featured in the Atlantic, Newsweek, the Nation, and The Daily Show. Bridget Todd is a frequently cited expert, trainer, and speaker on combating disinformation and extremism online, advocating for social media platform accountability, creating safer digital experiences for women and other marginalized individuals, and celebrating and amplifying the contributions of marginalized people to tech and the internet.

Season three comprises 12 episodes, plus bonus content, and explores a brand-new series of thought-provoking feuds that shaped history, set off cultural shifts, and changed the world.

Broadcast Schedule:

June 25 Harry Houdini vs. The Spiritualists Part 1

July 9 Harry Houdini vs. The Spiritualists Part 2

July 23 Werner Herzog vs. Klaus Kinski

August 6 Denmark vs. Sweden

August 20 Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain

September 3 Benjamin Disraeli vs. William Gladstone

September 17 The Sweet & Low Wars

October 1 LA vs. The Farmers

October 15 Pope Boniface VIII vs. King Philip the Fair of France

October 29 NASA vs. The Jet Engine Lab

November 12 The Castellammarese War

November 19 Genghis Khan vs. The World

Commented Todd, “What I love about telling these stories is that it lets us be totally unflinching. We take a long, hard look at, in some cases, some of the most important people in history, and drink in everything, warts and all. It reminds you that while that kind of naked, dirt-under-your-fingernails humanity may not be pretty, it’s who we are in the end. We might not want to acknowledge all the jealousy, envy, unwillingness to compromise, and eagerness to take things personally in us as much as all the good stuff. But it’s all part of us, and sometimes it helps change the world.”

Todd is perfect as the host on the podcast, in which balance is all-important. Beef requires both the grittiness of an investigative business reporter, and the ability to extract humor, irony, sarcasm from the show. Bridget Todd can do both with style, wit, and pan-seared, dry-rubbed mockery. As Todd unfolds these rivalries, you get the sense that these “beefs” are a large serving of pettiness with a side of vanity and brutishness for dessert.

Check out Beef. The podcast is another example of how blending genres (business + pop culture) can offer listeners a banquet of business cautionary tales and a pop culture brew of humor, wit, and wisdom.