You might know Eddie Pepitone from standup stages around the country, as “The Heckling New Yorker” on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, as an actor on Reno 911! or Bob’s Burgers, from his brand new comedy special The Collapse, or from his podcast Apocalypse Soon. Or if you’re a close follower of people who get worked up about purchasing binoculars and then never really use the binoculars, you might know him from that because that’s also who Eddie is. He fills us in on his constant search for just the right shopping decision that will solve his problems and set his world in order but he just can’t seem to find it. True contentment lies within, of course, you Sleepyheads know that, but let’s not tell Eddie. Using a much softer voice and calmer demeanor than he’s traditionally known for, you’ll drowsily follow along on Eddie’s shopping quest and ultimately doze off while he’s still comparing features and prices. Maybe he’ll buy a canvas chair.

Allison Raskin has a pretty diverse array of interests. She’s a former Buzzfeed video creator, co-host of the podcast Just Between Us, and the author of numerous best-selling books, including Please Send Help, Overthinking About You, and the new Save the Date. How does she unwind from this busy life? By being obsessed with Inspector Gamache, the Quebecois crime solver found in novels by Louise Penny and on television, played by Alfred Molina. Join us for a meandering conversation about Gamache’s brilliance, maple taffy, and the Quebec lunchtime experience of the “trio”, where you get a half sandwich, a cup of soup, AND a small salad. You don’t have to choose in Quebec. You can have it all. Drift off to sleep with that happy contented thought in your head.

Look, it’s okay. You’ll be able to sleep just fine. Sure, witches can be scary but keep two things in mind: witches are pretend so they can’t hurt you and some list-making analytical thinking is a great way to doze off to some shuteye that is guaranteed toad, broomstick, and cackle-free. SwC returning guest Lindy West teams up with Meagan Hatcher-Mays to do the honors. The two of them host the podcast Text Me Back Podcast. Find out if the witches at the beginning of Macbeth outrank Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing in Practical Magic. Do Erivo and Grande defeat Strega Nona? You’ll have to tune in and find out, obviously. As one famous melting witch once said, what a world, what a world.

Can you improvise a musical? Sure, you can. But isn’t it hard to do? Absolutely. That’s why hardly anyone does it. I mean, who wants to do hard things? Well, Jessica McKenna and Zach Reino do. They’re the hosts and creators of Off Book, a podcast where they improvise a whole new musical with each episode. They’ve also appeared on shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Goldbergs, and Comedy Bang! Bang! (forgive our use of exclamation points, Sleepyheads). Jessica and Zach travel a lot and they sure do love tiki bars. You know with the pineapples and the garish decor and all that. They join John Moe to talk about the forgotten (and perhaps made up) oyster musical Oyster Ranch, the role of the “Edward Albee” in a theater, and all the things, like airplanes, that should be made tiki.

Fans of the long-running animated comedy Archer already know Amber Nash as Pam Poovey, the former H.R. director at ISIS. She has superhuman strength and a dolphin hand puppet. Pam does, not Amber. Amber has human strength and we don’t know about the puppets. Amber is the host of the brand new Rephrasing: An Archer Rewatch Podcast here on Maximum Fun. She’s also a devotee of the Vermont Country Store Catalog, a compendium of folksy and sometimes odd items that shows up as a kind of print portal to a rustic and slow-paced Vermont that exists only in the mail-order-verse. Tour around this soothing place with Amber, help her shop for one-of-a-kind gift ideas for the eccentric and rustic folks on your holiday list, and hear all about store founder Vrest Orton. He was pals with H.P. Lovecraft and his name was really Vrest. You’ll fall asleep in the Vermont portal but wake up safe and rested in your own bed.

Steve Agee is a beloved actor, writer, comedian, and all-around funny person, seen most recently as John Economos in the John Cena DC Comics series Peacemaker on HBO. You may have caught his work in films like The Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 2. You didn’t see him in Meatballs, the 1979 Bill Murray summer camp comedy, because Steve was just a wee boy back then. Steve has seen Meatballs, though. Oh has he ever. He loves the film, loves summer camp in general, although in his middle-age he has realized what a terrible employee Bill Murray’s character really is in the film. Insubordinate rule breaker who should be fired, when you stop and think about it. Steve also talks about what it’s like to have a job like his where a day of labor might mean having to kill a gorilla with a chainsaw. Not a real gorilla, Sleepyheads, it’s just pretend. And we won’t play that scene for you. We want you to sleep. Steve has a very soothing voice, by the way. So that will help. He even listens to the show! But he probably won’t listen to this episode because that would feel weird.

We grant you that listening to actual D.C. hardcore music will probably not put you into the best state for sleep. The dulcet tones of Roman Mars, however, discussing said scene? Yeah, that ought to do it. Roman is the creator and host of the beloved and hugely popular podcast 99% Invisible and a public radio veteran so, yes, his voice is as smooth as butter spread on top of more butter. He shares with us the deep caring and mutual love within hardcore, the camaraderie that lies beneath the music and he conveys that will likely punch your ticket on the Dreamland Express. Also, Roman reveals which popular Taylor Swift song is secretly a punk song.

Host John Moe leads off this episode by extolling the virtues of foster dog caretaking and he enumerates the many dogs his family as tended to in the last year: Cowboy, Bug, Beans, Ducky, Pork Chop, Radar, and Car Wash. All these dogs were, and all dogs are, eccentric. Then we welcome cartoonist Nathan Pyle, the man who brings you those Strange Planet cartoons where aliens attempt to understand the eccentric ways of human beings. We are a fascinating and bizarre species as Nathan illustrates in his hilarious works. Nathan tells us all about his favorite YouTube habit, the key to his happy algorithm: long blocks of old commercials. He just adores them, finds them relaxing, distracting, and altogether peaceful. Hear about a young Shaquille O’Neal, the Easy Bake Oven, and the Got Milk? campaign as you drift away to sleep.

J. Kenji López-Alt knows more about food than you or I put together. He has won James Beard Awards, contributed to New York Times Cooking and Serious Eats, and his books include The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques, and a children’s book titled Every Night is Pizza Night. But he’s no snobby foody. He pays careful attention to how to stack ingredients in the humble hardshell taco so that you maximize flavor and minimize structural collapse. He also has thoughts on the burger (don’t think toppings, think bottomings). This is an episode that will fill you up, not with tacos and burgers, shouldn’t eat those in bed anyway, but with wisdom and practical advice on how to make your next meal architecturally correct and tasty too. For olives, he likes the sliced up ones. Yep, straight from the can.

Actor and comedian Baron Vaughn is familiar to audiences for his work on Grace & Frankie, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and The New Negroes with friend of the show Open Mike Eagle. He’s familiar to his family for watching a whole lot of those multi-episode, sepia photograph-intensive, history rich documentaries by Ken Burns on subjects like baseball, the Civil War, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Doritos, although we made that last one up. Baron tells us all about his favorite Burns works and why he actually hasn’t made his way all the way through most of them because, yeah you guessed it, he dozes off after a while. You’ll doze off as Baron shares his Burnsian adoration as well as his passionate interest in the history of comedy.

You have definitely seen actor, writer, and director Ravi V. Patel on a screen before. He’s one of those guys that seems to be in everything. Perhaps most recently as a team mentor on the new season of LEGO Masters Jr. or maybe co-starring on Animal Control with Joel McHale or acting in Ghosts or being put through some grueling paces on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. All the while, he has a family with young children. It’s a very busy life for Ravi and he’s able to accomplish all this, in part due to an extremely detailed nutrition and fitness routine, which he will tell you all about. He’ll even tell you what type of book to read at bedtime (if you’re not listening to the show) and how many grams of protein to get each day (it rhymes with schmirty). You’ll be asleep before you know it, even as Ravi goes off to film some new television show.

When you have two guests on one show, you’re going to get a variety of topics, especially when they have such diverse interests as tennis great Patrick McEnroe and Broadway icon Melissa Errico. The two, married 26 years, take us on a very friendly and relaxing jaunt through a very old-timey English castle (that somehow has a sauna and Pilates room), various off-the-beaten-path tourist spots in Italy, plus Frankfurt, Copenhagen, and Capri, home of those pants. And we get in plenty of discussion of tennis, which you can enjoy without keeping score (in that weird tennis way), running, or grunting. You can just lie down and let the anecdotes wash over you. Patrick tells us that his older brother, John McEnroe, has recorded a sleep story for a major sleep aid app, but that will cost you money and our show won’t. Also, while Patrick will definitely send you to sleep, we have a hard time believing the same about John, having seen him get really super mad at line judges.

As hosts of the Happy Wife Happy Life podcast, comedians/writers/actors Kendahl Landreth and Jordan Myrick help their listeners navigate everything related to relationships. Here on our show, in this episode, they bring that gift of harmony to society’s views of chihuahuas, especially their own rescue dog, Angel. As you drift off to sleep, you’ll hear about Angel’s peculiarities, why these dogs are not necessarily annoying but possibly misunderstood, and you’ll hear the surprising information that one of Paris Hilton’s chihuahuas was 23 dang years old when it finally passed away. 23. Can you believe that? Turns out, Paris was an excellent tiny dog caretaker. You’ll love spending your sleepytime with Kendahl, Jordan, and Angel who doesn’t bark at all during show. Not so yappy at all, you see.

The versatile Ana Marie Cox is a podcast host (Space the Nation, Past Due), a veteran journalist (MTV News, The New York Times Magazine), the founding editor of Wonkette, a writing instructor, and a political pundit and analyst, frequently featured on various cable news programs. But not to worry. Ana stays out of the political fray in this interview. I mean, nothing better to keep you stressed out and awake than the current political climate. Instead, Ana takes us on a tour of all the places she lived as a young person growing up in Texas, primarily around Austin and Fort Worth. Hear about the floor plans, the decor, and everything else you need to hear but not truly engage with as you drift off to sleep. Like all of our best episodes, it’s interesting enough to keep you distracted from your worries (like, you know, politics) but not so interesting that you lose sleep. Gotta have your sleep, Sleepyheads.

Here’s how we figure it: if you appear on our show (the most popular podcast in the world) (look that up) (don’t), you automatically become a celebrity. We have listeners all over this planet at least. That makes hardware store assistant manager Winter Burnett a celebrity. During our last Max Fun Drive, we set a stretch goal for new members and said if we hit that goal, one of you Sleepyheads could be the guest celebrity on the show. We hit it and received several excellent pitches. Winter’s concept: there are two laundromats in her town of Morris, IL (1.5 hours from Chicago, depending on traffic) so let’s look at the similarities and differences between Wash & Dry and Soaps. What kind of machines are there? What’s the TV situation? And which one has an adjoining hot dog place that also serves something called pizza puffs? You will be very, very mildly interested as you fall asleep, waking hours later feeling freshly laundered.

King of the multi-hyphenates Demi Adejuyigbe joins John to talk cameras, film, his favorite camera store, and... zzzzzz

You know Janet Varney from her starring roles in You’re the Worst and The Legend of Korra and from hosting two Maximum Fun podcasts, The JV Club and E Pluribus Motto, which she co-hosts with John Hodgman and which just launched its second season. But to the critters of the night, Janet is simply a friend, a liaison between themselves and all the diurnal humans. She talks about many nocturnal animals she encounters or nearly encounters around her Los Angeles home, including coyotes, possums, raccoons, and skunks, who, when they’re all out of stink spray, will pound their paws on the ground and make a “puh!” sound. It’s cute but not nearly as intimidating as the whole spray thing. Join Janet as she enumerates the various pals of the night and drift off to sleep knowing they’re out there.

Kathy Valentine is the bassist for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Go-Go’s. Emerging from the L.A. punk scene, ruling the charts, and still playing shows 47 years later, any member of the band must have a million thrilling stories about life as real live rock stars. But we’re a show that tries to put you to sleep so on our program Kathy talks about all the cats she has owned over the course of her life: Organic, Simon, Clorox, Protozoa, Greymalkin, Coconut, Elvis, Dart, Howard Hughes, Gingerman, Rocky, Dodge, Sylvie, and Mazzy. Learn the peculiarities of each kitty family member, their nuances and tendencies, as you drift off to sleep. Never mind your lips, your eyelids will be sealed. It’s like a vacation. We got the beat to your circadian rhythm. You’ll be head over heels in bed.

You may know Paget Brewster as FBI Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss on the television series Criminal Minds or as Joey’s girlfriend Kathy on multiple episodes of Friends. If you’re a particularly discerning entertainment consumer, you also know her from Andy Richter Controls the Universe or as Sadie Doyle on the podcast and stage series The Thrilling Adventure Hour. We’re not going to talk about any of that here, however, because we are going to spend a long time talking about bone broth. Paget walks us through the extensive days-long process of creating a broth that provides the foundation for many delicious meals. Listen to Paget’s soothing voice and drift off to sleep and maybe when you wake up you’ll have expert bone broth skills of your own.

Is this a feat that the beloved author, actor, and host of Maximum Fun’s Judge John Hodgman can actually pull off? Well, no, probably not. There are over 4,600 such islands and he’s only one mortal human. Come on. But will he make a pretty game attempt for a little while and invite you to join his efforts as you drift off to sleep? Oh yes. Oh absolutely yes. And together, we’ll learn about geodesic domes along the way and that will be neat.