When a podcast is in its infancy, its concept and the episodes themselves do not always fully mesh. For Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan, the hosts of new podcast Hoax!, the initial idea is grand: “This is not just another scam and scandal podcast!” the opening goes. “These are stories of pranks and grifts throughout history so big and bold, they make us question why we believe.”
While Hoax! does tell the stories of pranks and grifts throughout history, the scale (so far, at least) is decidedly smaller than their opening spiel suggests.
There’s the story of the two girls who convinced Arthur Conan Doyle that they had photographed fairies. The tale of the little boy who was said to be trapped in a balloon flying over Colorado, enrapturing TV audiences much to the delight of his fame-hungry father. And that of the eighteenth-century teen who managed to convince — well, some people — that he’d discovered a cache of written materials belonging to William Shakespeare. Though the grifters in question achieved impressive stunts, they haven’t exactly been criminal masterminds.
That these hoaxes are taking place on a small, often ramshackle scale is what makes them seem both charming and relatable. But even after just three episodes, there are already consistent themes that connect the hoaxes. For example, there’s been a real focus on the relationships between parents and children; in the Shakespeare and the fairies episodes, children have invented artefacts in the hope of impressing their parents, and in the ‘Balloon Boy’ instalment, a father (allegedly) used his son in an effort to get the fame he’d been chasing.
As Schwartz and Logan take turns telling each other the stories (in the style popularized by the golden era of You’re Wrong About, on which Schwartz has guested several times), they tease out those personal details, sympathizing with the kids who just wanted the acknowledgement of the adults, and laughing affectionately at the hoax attempts that didn’t go so well (the forged Shakespeare poetry sure is something). The humanness of it all, the gullibility and the thirst for attention, is why these accounts are so engaging.
Dana Schwartz is a force in the podcasting field, with her Noble Blood – a show about the misadventures of historical royals – in its sixth successful year. Schwartz presents Noble Blood on her own, and is excellent as a researcher, storyteller, and narrator. Comedy writer Lizzie Logan, her co-host and “real life human friend,” is new to the game, and the discrepancy between the two experience levels can sometimes make for a grating listen. Because we know that Schwartz can do this solo, Logan’s more frivolous interjections (for example, that the girls who invented the fairies liked to play by the stream in the 1910s because, “there’s no TikTok”) feel particularly inane. The tone of Hoax! is light, but the tales are interesting; too often, her comedic tangents interrupt rather than complement the flow of the narrative.
Nevertheless, it’s easy enough to put these frustrations down to teething troubles. Not every podcast hits the ground running, and there’s enough in these first episodes of Hoax! to suggest that Schwartz and Logan will work out a way to shape their dynamic to more reliably add to the best parts of the show, instead of detracting from them. In terms of actual substance, Logan proves as deft as Schwartz in her recounting of the ‘Balloon Boy’ saga. Hearing about the tangled web of the family’s motivations, of which there’s still not been a final adjudication sixteen years later, is really fascinating.
That the podcast will be covering hoaxes both contemporary and centuries old is another factor that makes it such an intriguing prospect. Although it’s lacking a bit of polish, and the hosting dynamic needs work, Hoax! is certainly full of potential. As is true of the scams Schwartz and Logan cover, only time will tell how successful their endeavour will be.
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Chloe Walker is a writer based in the UK. You can find her work at Culturefly, the BFI, Paste, and her Letterboxd