In just six episodes, Starlee Kine’s Mystery Show established itself as one of the most beloved podcasts of all time. On the face of it, the mysteries had the smallest stakes imaginable. How tall is Jake Gyllenhaal? Who lost this belt buckle? What happened to that video store? Did that woman’s licence plate really mean that? None of it sounds all that profound, or even that interesting. Yet, the magic of Mystery Show was the way Kine could make the solving of such quotidian puzzles genuinely riveting.
A lot of this effect stemmed from Kine's narration, which was both funny and poetic. She’d lean into the tropes of the private eye genre, referring to the mystery-possessors as her "clients" and using her "investigators" to do things like watch through three seasons of Welcome Back Kotter to find out if an image on a lunch box was a reference to something that happened on screen. At one point, there was even a stake out.
While the genre tropes were utilized in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion, Kine’s relentless curiosity also led the series into some unexpectedly moving places. During an investigation into whether Britney Spears had actually read her friend’s book after she was photographed with it, an existential customer service conversation left both of Kine and the representative audibly affected.
The culmination of the belt buckle edition was another tear-jerker. Kine’s roving fascination with anyone she encountered, even if they had very little to do with the case at hand, made Mystery Show feel wonderfully expansive.
And that feeling continues after you finish listening. Of all the reasons to love Mystery Show, the fact that Kine’s interest in the people around her invariably resulted in fascinating stories had a way of making the world seem warmer and richer, full of all these intriguing little avenues just ripe for exploration, if only you’d find the right question.
Kine was eager to make more than six episodes, but Gimlet cancelled her show during pre-production on the second season. It’s been eleven years since the first and only season launched and Mystery Show is yet to reappear in any other form. Fittingly, the details of its cancellation, and why it’s not been revived anywhere in the last decade despite it’s continuing cult popularity, continue to be something of a mystery.
We might not ever stop hoping for its return, even after all these years. In the meantime, however, here are three podcasts that capture some of that Mystery Show spirit.
The Renner Files
This is another investigative comedy podcast that just lasted six episodes; though, in the case of The Renner Files, the limited run was intentional.
In this frequently hilarious series, Caroline Goldfarb and Sarah Ramos explored the strange failed app promoted by actor Jeremy Renner, as well as his other peculiar career choices and the wider world of celebrity apps.
Whereas Mystery Show’s narration was modelled after film noir, Goldfarb and Ramos styled theirs in the true crime vein, the mismatch between the non-existent stakes and their faux-serious investigation yielding very funny results. While it didn’t have the emotional depth of Mystery Show, the joke density was higher, and the narrative still surprisingly compelling.
Strangers on a Bench
It’s a simple premise: each episode, Tom Rosenthal goes up to a stranger on a bench, and asks if he can interview them for fifteen or twenty minutes about their lives (though instalments typically run somewhere between forty minutes and an hour). Thanks to his perceptive probing, the resultant conversations span from the frivolous to the serious; we come away from each one feeling like we know the person in question, though they remain anonymous.
Like Kine, Rosenthal is an excellent interviewer powered by genuine, gentle curiosity. And just like Mystery Show, the best episodes of Strangers on the Bench have the power to make the world seem like a warmer, more connected place.
Decoder Ring
The questions Kine tackled on Mystery Show were mostly specific and personal. On Decoder Ring, the cultural mysteries Willa Paskin solves are still off the beaten track, but generally have a wider historical scope.
Perhaps topics like the history of Tupperware, the uniformity of coffee shops, or why modern statues rarely resemble the person they’re memorializing might not seem like the bases for a particularly remarkable podcast episode, yet as with Kine on Mystery Show, Paskin’s ability to find intrigue within unexpected places results in a show that’s as enlightening as it is engaging. You never know what she’ll cover next, but you do know it’ll be worth listening.
