Inspired Comedian's Character-Based Humor Show About Bigfoot

Squatch Smashers is about the adventures of a fictional Bigfoot / Paranormal researcher operating out of a failing mall in Western Pennsylvania.

My Name is Darren Esler and I am the Creator, Writer, and Voice of "host" Zeke Delfour and as many other voices as needed. I have a background as a stand up comedian, a writer for Second City Los Angeles, was part of a professional touring Improv company for 5 years, and co-hosted a "trivia show" on Columbus Ohio public radio. My Co-Host is Named George Pete Caleodis (Voice of Vlad the Werewolf, other voices). He is a Musician, Comedian, and Actor (film, commercial, television, stage).

Our listeners are anyone who likes to laugh.

 I've always done weird audio fake radio things ever since I was around 4 and my parents let me play with a reel to reel recorder for some reason. I'm pretty sure I shredded some tapes.

Audiobooks got too expensive to listen to at the clip I was going and I discovered podcasts. The Podcast "Hello from the Magic Tavern" really inspired me. Those guys reminded me of my old improv days and I wanted to do a good character-based humor show with actors I knew and I want to get a lot of the talent that exists in Columbus Ohio to be heard outside of the city.

I have been a classic "all ideas, no follow-through" person mostly because I can't stand to release something that isn't PERFECT which most things never will be so I end up stopping and not finishing what I started. With this, I made a "test episode" and decided that I was going to just get something done. The new "episode 1" I made is very very imperfect and it bothers me to no end (so much that I am probably going to re-record sections of it) but I got it out there and then started episode 2 and then 3 and now I'm on episode 4.

I am very lucky to have very talented and hilarious friends who are eager to help. I wasn't going to have a co-host but I liked George's character so much that I created a convoluted series of events to "trap" that character on the show as the co-host. I think it plays much better than just me rambling on and on.

Right now - Nothing financial. Just a sense that I'm actually creating and writing and getting something done. I'm enjoying that very much. I was "away" from creativity for most of my son's life (17 years) and I missed it. It's also a bit of an escape from some things going on in my life right now.

I hope to gain financially from this show. I would love nothing more than to do this full time. It's a one in a million shot to get above the noise of so many podcasts and get noticed/listened to enough to get REAL sponsors (we have fake sponsors on each show) but I think the way we've been improving in a very short time that if we keep producing good shows, the rest will follow.

I record guests with Skype / MP3 Skype recorder, edit with Dark Audacity. I have a Blue Yeti microphone and some gaming headsets my son uses. Nothing fancy at all.

Right now, it's been my friends and family as guests. Luckily they are talented improv/regular actors. I want to have a "core group" of characters of my friends and then let bring in some of their friends for parts etc.

My schedule right now is: Write 1st draft Sunday/Monday - think about and make changes Wednesday - Friday, record and edit and release on Saturdays. My dead set goal is to release no later than Monday.

We just submitted and got onto iTunes. I read that you want to have at least three episodes before you do that so I did. We have a Twitter account that George is helping with. I have been posting on Reddit and trying word of mouth right now.

I haven't been able to get Google Analytics working correctly and the hosting company said they were looking into it but I don't know much beyond how many downloads I have right now.

We are about to put some "clips" out on Soundcast that we can use as advertisement "teasers" which I think will be helpful.

I AM a new podcaster! I have found that r/podcasting on Reddit has a lot of helpful people. I listened to a podcast from launchapod that had a lot of good advice.

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