Into Your Head

Neal O Carroll

When dry-witted Irish sage, acquired taste underachieving amateur humourist, socially awkward practically unheard-of legally blind cat obsessive and husband Neal O'Carroll ingests a litre of generic energy drinks, a transformation occurs. There emerges a taurine-tongued purveyor of madcap monologues, fantastical tales, comical tirades, nonsensical yet impressively argued opinions, ludicrious lectures, copious Two Cats walk into a Bar stories and lately, an enthusiastic cheerleader for a bespoke new pronunciation of the word dog. Every segment is begun with no idea how the first sentence will end, never mind what the subject, if any, will be. Partly inspired by classic radio comedy Just a Minute, Into Your Head is a one-of-a-kind stream of conciousness comedy podcast by Neal from Ireland, and a creative method honed over 18 years and 800 episodes. Writing in the third party for some reason, O'Carroll insists the first five hundred episodes are apalling drivel. It is only in later years that the drivel has matured into whatever you want to call this. Starting in the early 2000s, his ludicrous process was used to write hundreds of rambling nonsense humour columns under the brands Newsburp* and later Neal's Belch. These included the "Two cats walk into a bar" stories which would become a mainstay of the podcast. Next came a dialogue-heavy yet completely unplanned webcomic Matchstick Cats and, in 2006, the first cringeworthy attempts at a podcast. Then came eighteen years of podcasting, unless you don't count the seven year interlude between 2016 and 2023. Which I suppose is reasonable. Anyway, good morning. *No connection to fellow Irish comedy podcast Newsburp, which later acquired that domain. read less
ComedyComedy

Episodes

803: Christmas on a Popsicle Stick
26-12-2023
803: Christmas on a Popsicle Stick
In a Christmas special culminating in the heartwarming story of a foulmouthed fake Santa who holds up bars, Neal discusses face cloth enthusiasts, introducing your child to A Clockwork Orange (1972), conversations with a working dog, a guide to shooting yourself in the foot, dogs in soap operas, how parenting ends, a deleted undersea mountain climber story, watching Highlander (1986) for the Queen songs, a barman’s secret life, a barman’s alternative work ethic, inventing a trailor system for homeless pets, what the term Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick means to a cat, the nights of Christmas Day, a dog who relates to post-Gabriel Byrne episodes of In Treatment (HBO / Sky Atlantic), people who have multiple shoes, one fell swoop, managing a five mile leash, drawing artificial trees on heads of stout, consulting the bar security cat aging expert from last week, reimaging Slimer, an overtrained dog, panting versus laughing and more. CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS: The barman incorrectly refers to a Baileys and coffee as an “Irish Coffee”, when it is of course something far superior. About Into Your Head: IntoYourHead.ie/About Message the show: IntoYourHead.ie/Contact Neal’s webcomics: MatchstickCats.com License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International – It is mandatory to reproduce this attribution for each episode: “Neal O’Carroll via IntoYourHead.ie & Newsburp.ie Many episodes findable forever on Archive dot org.”
801: Air Investigator First, Elephant Second
11-12-2023
801: Air Investigator First, Elephant Second
Neal discusses sit-com bunk bed envy, takey-offey parachutes versus landy parachutes, a dignified way to kill off libraries, eternal peanuts, where cabaret fits in the grand scheme of things, a curtailed feed remnant advisory for returning listeners, fooling yourself with documentaries, Everest without a Walkman, measuring hell-broken-loose levels, steamboats and whitewashing, long distance stewing, casting then uncasting the dead parents on Diff’rent Strokes, the right elephant for the job, rebooting Air Crash Investigation, legalities of shooting messengers who happen to be elephants, elephants versus character actors, actor David Kelly RIP, a revised history of storytelling and firelighting, falling by design, penny drop moment for a trainee air crash investigator, statistical probabilities of different species entering a bar, bunk kitchens, failing to remember the word bittorrent, inauthentic endings on travel shows and podcasts, drawing a stairs on volume two of Colliers Junior Classics and more, before assigning the listener an important comprehension exercise as homework.  About Into Your Head: IntoYourHead.ie/About Message the show: IntoYourHead.ie/Contact Neal’s webcomic: MatchstickCats.com License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International – It is mandatory to reproduce this attribution for each episode: “Neal O’Carroll via IntoYourHead.ie – Many episodes findable forever on Archive.org.”