Episode 300: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fun

LISTEN TO THE PLUGGED IN SHOW, EPISODE 300

Back in the ancient days of 2019—before COVID, Tiger King and Taylor Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce—Plugged In launched a little podcast that we called (perhaps a bit uncreatively) The Plugged In Show.

While we began our run with a brief introductory episode on Nov. 21, Episode No. 1 was released Nov. 25, just before Thanksgiving. Our topics? Disney princesses and teen tech use. And we never felt the need to address either topic ever again.

(Just kidding.)

In any case, 299 episodes later, The Plugged In Show is coming to an end.

We don’t want this episode to be just one long goodbye. We want to leave you with some strong thoughts on how, going forward, you can help your family navigate the worlds of technology and entertainment. But admittedly, we will be waxing a little nostalgic, too.

In fact, we’re bringing in a very special guest: Bob Smithouser, host of the original Plugged In podcast and current co-host of the Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast. He, Adam Holz and I sit down to talk about the joys (and sometime travails) we’ve experienced on the job—and to tell you just what it’s like hosting The Plugged In Show.

Of course, we want to assure you that while The Plugged In Show is leaving the building, Plugged In is still very much here—and especially on YouTube. We’ll be discussing and arguing about movies (often in a more timely manner than our podcast schedule allowed). We’re conducting all sorts of interviews. We’ll continue to give parents pragmatic advice on how to navigate culture and technology. Oh, and we’ll still have plenty of fun, too.

Obviously, we’d love for you to hang out on our YouTube page for a bit and see what strikes your fancy. Give us some feedback: What you like, what you don’t and what you’d like to see in the future.

Let us know (and it seems like I’ve written this before) on Instagram, Facebook and, oh yeah, YouTube. Leave us a voicemail one last time on The Plugged In Show homepage. You can even still write us an email at team@thepluggedinshow.com for a little while longer, but our main mailbox can be found at letters@pluggedin.com. And as always, feel free to post your thoughts below.

One more note: Over the last several weeks, you’ve flooded all of our channels with thank-you notes and well-wishes. We all appreciate your kind words and thoughtful thoughts.

So let us return the favor: Thank you for hanging out with us. Whether you’ve been listening for one episode or 299 of them, we’ve loved having you along for this crazy journey. And we hope that you’ll be with us for many, many years to come.