On this week's show, we start with endings — because we're ironic that way. Various shows have ended this spring, and we thought it was a good time to talk about how you wrap up a TV show, a book series, or whatever needs closure. The "visceral need for narrative closure"? We're on it. Whether it "satisfies you upon reflection"? We're on that, too.

Now, when you talk finales, you invariably give away how shows ended, so be advised that we talk about — or at least mention in passing — the finales of the following things: Six Feet Under, Star Trek: The Next Generation, MASH, Calvin And Hobbes (bonus information: I teared up quietly and secretly when Stephen described the last panel!), Barney Miller, Who's The Boss?, Growing Pains, Little House On The Prairie, Friends, Seinfeld (look, it's Stephen's interview with Larry David!), Newhart, St. Elsewhere, The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, ER, Benson (which Stephen remembered accurately) and — inevitably — Lost. (Which I wrote about when it happened.) We also talk about Tales Of The City, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Superman. Many things! And Turandot! And Kristen Wiig!

And yes, Community and Dan Harmon come up in this discussion, but only briefly.

After that, it's on to summertime, and the fact that this is the time of year when we take road trips. We talk about what to listen to, how to entertain yourself, why you "don't punch the driver"), and how to keep from falling asleep at the wheel. Recommended music includes Biohazard (kind of), Andrew WK's I Get Wet, Japandroid's Celebration Rock (not yet out), and Mahler's Second Symphony. Oh, and episodes of Loveline. You'll learn along the way what happens when Trey has the gall to suggest the most radical activity of all.

Of course, we close with what's making us happy this week, because that's what we do. (And if you haven't looked at the photo of the pottery I made on vacation that everyone made fun of me about last week, LOOK UPON IT.) Glen recommends a comedy podcast (are you shocked?) called My Brother, My Brother And Me. Trey is happy about "a 300-year-old play that is a gigantic hit in at least three cities." And Stephen once again serves up the First Listens at NPR Music. As for me, I violate the Zaxxon rule, and if you don't know what that is, it refers to the time Stephen was really happy about his new Zaxxon machine. I'm sorry! Rules are made to be broken. You can, though, make your own corn dog mini-muffins.

Naturally, you can find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me,Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike.

And by all means, sign up to get Pop Culture Happy Hour sent directly to you every Friday.

On this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, I am back from vacation and back at the table, and boy, was I glad to be there.

We talk about the winners and losers of the last TV season and do one final check-in on the shows we picked in our TV fantasy segment last fall, which you will recall took place while I was hobbling around with a boot on my sprained ankle. (Remember my injury? IT WAS GLORIOUS.)

My pick was A Gifted Man, which is canceled. Glen's pick was Terra Nova, which is canceled. Trey's pick was Pan Am, which is canceled. Stephen's pick was Revenge. But Tanya Ballard Brown's picks were Once Upon A Time and Grimm and Scandal, and they're all coming back, so Tanya wins! And not Stephen, no matter what he tells you.

If you take an interest in our discussion of just how many shows have been canceled since the start of the fall season, perhaps you'll be interested in seeing the actual Post-It notes from which I read this impressive list.

Of course, we've got plenty of hopes for the upcoming season, and if you can't figure out what Stephen and I are talking about when we get on the topic of touch-screen hair dryers (WHAT?), here's some help.

We also talk about the portrayals of the old and the young in a segment I am playfully calling "Sunrise, Sunset." (Mostly to make my mother cry.) We kick it off with a discussion of Betty White's Off Their Rockers (which apparently is coming back ... sigh), which reminds us that whether you do or you don't carry with you the idea of Betty White as the greatest person game shows ever knew, you should enjoy this compilation.

Believe it or not, Glen manages to tie zombies and vampires to how we feel about aging. Please understand we are talking about the fear of zombification as a metaphor, not actual zombification. Whee!

We also chat about kids and portrayals thereof, calling back to this horror show you might recall, as well as better portrayals in decent films and shows, including a very harrowing, very early performance from Tina Majorino.

Naturally, we close with What's Making Us Happy This Week. Glen enjoyed a little dancing, which he liked a lot better than the Washington Post did. Trey enjoyed this, while Stephen is all about this. And I warmly appreciated my vacation activities and my vacation reading list, including this and this, and I threw in this just because you totally need to read it because it's great.

PCHH Bullet Points:

• The William Goldman quote "nobody knows anything" is from his highly entertaining book about Hollywood, Adventures In The Screen Trade. Goldman wrote The Princess Bride, as well as the screenplays for films including Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and All The President's Men.
• Warren Littlefield's book Top Of The Rock is oodles of fun, and it discusses then-NBC executive Preston Beckman, now at Fox, and you should absolutely follow Preston Beckman on Twitter.
• Did Patrick Wilson really tweet that he was happy his show was over? Apparently so.
• Two great pieces on hate-watching Smash, from Tara Ariano at Slate and Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker. And Tara's piece on Betty White's Off Their Rockers at Grantland is mentioned on the show, too.
• Did you get confused when Trey referred to Betty White's "dusty muffin speech"? We can help.

So come and find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike.

Our intrepid host, Linda Holmes, is wrapping up her self-imposed isolation in the mountains of North Carolina, so the rest of the Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was forced to soldier on without her for one harrowing episode. And, given that we just did a No Boys Allowed episode two weeks ago, we figured we'd fill the room with dudes — you know, men's men.

So Glen Weldon, Trey Graham and I — already a veritable murderer's row of pure testosterone — invited in our colleague Matt Thompson (no relation to the other one in the room), who works in some sort of editorial-product-development-synergy-management capacity here at NPR, but who also wrote his senior thesis on Joss Whedon. So, you know, our kind of people, and just the agreeable sort to bring in for a discussion of Whedon's octillion-dollar super-blockbuster The Avengers. We're very proud of ourselves for offering a handful of insights beyond, "When that thing happened, I really liked that thing, which happened."

We then move from The Avengers to the idea of the A-list — not The A-List, tempting though that might have been — and the idea of superstardom in an age of media Balkanization. It may be easier than ever to hop on the D-list, but is there a modern-day equivalent of a Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor? What makes an A-list celebrity, anyway?

Then, as always, it's on to what's making us happy, which — for those who wish we'd actually provide links when we say we're going to — include this and this from Matt, this and this from Trey, this from Glen, and this from me. As always, we invite everyone to join our happy community of nice folks on Facebook, and to follow me, Trey, Glen, special guest Matt, and esteemed producer Mike on Twitter.

With The Avengers just opening in your local jillionplex, it seems like the right time to look ahead to summer movies and see what's on our radar, both good and bad. Dark Shadows, Safety Not Guaranteed, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World ... well, you'll hear them all.

And because we want to expand our demographic reach (okay, it's actually also because we really like him and he's smart and will own us all one day), we invited much younger Digital Arts intern Joel Arnold — a/k/a "Intern Joel" — to share with us a few thoughts about the summer movie he's most excited about. As you'll hear, this led to a marvelous back and forth with Glen and made us all smarter.

As always, we close with What's Making Us Happy This Week, in which you will learn, among other things, that I will be on vacation next week, so you will be in the hands of whatever team of weirdos winds up behind the microphones in my absence. Good luck!

You can find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: — me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike, along with Intern Joel, Tell us what movies you are and are not looking forward to this summer, and let us know how hot it will have to get before you see some of these turkeys.

This week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, the old gang is back together to tackle a new comedy, just like the guest panel did last week: Last week, it was Girls; this week, it's the less fussed over Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. We'll talk about how we responded to her performance, the writing (from the guys behind the great In The Loop), and the depiction of politics.

Our second topic is the not-so-new Drew Goddard/Joss Whedon film Cabin In The Woods. The great thing about this film is that we all had a lot to say about it. The problem is that you can't really say anything about it without spoiling, at the very least, the underlying premise, which otherwise reveals itself to you as you watch the film. We did refrain from giving away more than we felt like we had to (like the ending), but the truth of the matter is that, having given those of you who were most eager a couple of weeks to see it with absolutely no chance we'd spoil you, we didn't see a good way around it without avoiding a talk we really wanted to have. So we did go ahead and have a fairly spoilery discussion about it. There's lots of warning that it's time to skip ahead if you like — you'll want to jump to about the 31:10 mark in the show, where we head into the final segment, What's Making Us Happy This Week.

In that segment, we'll get into a movie that surprised me by being less silly than I was afraid it would be (and one that had a depressingly not-so-diverse audience at the screening I attended), as well as Stephen's most beloved football weekend (after any one where the Packers win), and lots more.

Follow us all on Twitter — me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike — or find us on Facebook and hang out with the other PCHH listeners, who always make us happy.

For a few months now, we've been talking about putting together a special episode where I could sit down with Parul Sehgal, Barrie Hardymon, and Tanya Ballard Brown for what some of the men on the usual panel were referring to as "Gorgeous Ladies Of Pop Culture Happy Hour." It was, believe it or not, a complete coincidence that we finally pulled it together during the week that HBO premiered Lena Dunham's much-discussed Girls. We hesitated to talk about it, for fear it would seem like we were banishing "girl topics" to the "girl show," but the truth is — this is probably what we'd have been talking about anyway, so we did. We talked about the gender stuff, the race stuff, the privilege stuff, and lots of other stuff, so please enjoy that.

After that, we asked a simple question: What Are You Reading? This led to, among other things, Parul's explanation of her resolution to read a lot of books that people may believe erroneously she has already read, along with a spirited exchange between Parul and Barrie that provides persuasive evidence that they really need a spin-off books podcast.

Of course, no episode is complete without What's Making Us Happy This Week, and we all pitched in, from baseball in the sunshine to birthdays to Sunday night television.

Find us on Facebook or on Twitter — the other panelists this week are linked above, or you can follow me or our esteemed producer, Mike Katzif, who bravely represented dudekind during the taping.

On this week's show, we use yet another seasonal marker — tax season! — to talk about pop culture and money, in which we chat about everything from Trading Places to Bayou Billionaires. We also take advantage of a Facebook suggestion from one of our listeners to locate the pop culture that seems to have been created in an underground laboratory to appeal just to us.

And then, we talk about what's making us happy this week, and I won't lie: this week's thing making me happy made me just about as happy as anything ever has. So deal with THAT.

Follow us all on Twitter — me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike — or find us on Facebook and hang out with the other PCHH listeners, who always make us happy.

On this week's podcast, we decided to ruminate about teen sex comedies — in part because of spring break season, and perhaps in part because we're all surrounded by discussions of American Reunion. We chat about the ebb and flow of teen comedy in general, the ways in which Superbad was and was not influential, and the relationship between teen comedies, sex comedies, and teen sex comedies. This also leads us down a strange path about what kinds of vaguely dirty movies we did and did not have access to as kids. (If you watched Midnight Cowboy at a surprisingly early age, there is something in this discussion for you!)

Our second topic is seasonal: Easter candy is all around us, whether you celebrate Easter or not. We allowed ourselves to be sucked into a surprisingly spirited (REALLY) debate about peeps, eggs of several kinds, the proper makings of an Easter basket, and more.

And finally, we chat about what's making us happy this week. Glen is into a deconstruction of a song that's on his mind, Trey has been to the theater again, I am pondering my relationship with an eminent TV writer, and Stephen still goes to concerts, but he just cannot stop reading books.

Follow us all on Twitter — me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike — or find us on Facebook and hang out with the other PCHH listeners, who share with each other wonderful things both about and not about the show.

On this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're finally all back together again, with Trey back from his brief illness. As you might imagine from our past discussions, we did take some time this week to talk about The Hunger Games, because we've all read it, we all know it, and we know you know we know ... well, you know. We talk about the pacing, the acting, the faithfulness to the book, and lots more.

It's been a while since we played a round of Regrettable Television Pop Quiz, but we make up for it with a particularly punchy round, full of aberrant behavior and unfortunate injuries.

Of course, it wouldn't be PCHH without What's Making Us Happy This Week, and you'll get to hear from all of us, whether we're happy about casting or baking. (Really!)

Follow us all on Twitter — me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike — or find us on Facebook and hang out with the other PCHH listeners, who have lots of wonderful things to say about ... lots of wonderful things.

WELCOME BACK! Oh, wait. We're the ones who are back.

Anyway. We're back from South By Southwest, and although Trey had to sit out this week with a case of congestion/crud, our esteemed producer Mike Katzif was there to sit in with me, Stephen and Glen. We talk for a bit about the hustle and bustle of SXSW, including both music and film, from the bands Stephen and Mike saw while gently swaying side to side to the films I saw while stuffed into the balcony of the Paramount Theater. (Check out NPR Music's extensive coverage and video archive from the festival here.) (And if you're wondering what song made me immediately swear allegiance to Kishi Bashi, it's this one.)

And then, we take on a topic we've never really covered: credit sequences. What are they for? What makes a good one? I'd like to tell you that this becomes a highly academic discussion, but what actually happens is that we end up discussing the very common phenomenon of making up words to go with theme songs that don't include lyrics. If you think this has "Glen Weldon Sings The Hits!" written all over it, you are right. So I have no regrets.

And as always, we'll talk about what's making us happy this week, from my adventures in a new favorite theater to Mike's affection for DIY specials from comics and lots more.

As always, come and find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me, Stephen, Glen, Mike and Trey.

With Linda at the SXSW Interactive conference to talk tweets (and other such things), and with Thompson running around chickenlike getting ready to go down for the music part of the festival, we've decided to have a week or two off.

So please enjoy this, one of two PCHH classics that we've chosen from the archive — if you're new to the podcast, it's probably new to you! If not, please have a listen again anyway, and tell us how much we've improved/degenerated since we recorded this one.

Specifically, this was our first Barrie Special Episode — the one we made as a salute to our new-mom colleague Barrie Hardymon, with a whole raft of recommendations about the pop-culture essentials you'll want to stockpile if you're thinking of raising a little nerd. Enjoy!

And though we didn't do a podcast this week, we're still occasionally to be found on Facebook. And, of course, on the Twitter: Linda, Stephen, Glen, Mike and little ol' me.

First up this week, we check in on the Oscar telecast, with Trey and I still bleary-eyed from being up way too late covering it. Hear about a million montages saluting the movies! Listen to us consider the performance of Billy Crystal! Consider how sorry we feel for Colin Firth having to stand there and slavishly praise people in words that didn't seem entirely natural! Evaluate our choice for the night's biggest comedy hero! (Hint: It's Chris Rock!)

After that, we move on to a topic called Late To The Table — another opportunity for us to tell the origin stories of how we found things, in this case perhaps after everyone else already knew how good they were. Glen definitely has the most uproarious contribution, although it's not his real contribution (oh, you'll see). Trey has the classiest contribution, so naturally he is punished with sarcasm. (Sorry, Trey!)

And finally, as always, we will talk about what's making us happy this week. Saturday morning cartoons! The Austin 100! (Seriously, listen to Stephen explain this project, and you will understand why he's punchy at times.)

We also have an announcement about how we're going to tide you over while a bunch of us are in Austin over the next couple of weeks, so take note of that, too.

Leave us your thoughts, or find us on Facebook. Or, of course, follow us on Twitter: me, Stephen, Trey, Glen, and Mike.

On this week's show, we're coming up to the Oscars, so it seemed like a great time to sit down with the delightful Bob Mondello, film critic for All Things Considered.

We talk about The Artist — which we all agree is the likely Best Picture winner on Sunday night — and how its limitations of silence and black and white operate to perhaps make it stronger. We discuss how it might look different to those who see it on home video, and it's safe to say we all think you're better off seeing it in a theater.

Bob enjoyed The Tree Of Life more than Stephen or I did, and our discussion of it includes a question I am both willing to ask and willing to admit sounds silly: "What's it about?" Fortunately, we all agree on how gorgeous it is and how stunning Jessica Chastain's performance is. And Bob gives quite a compelling explanation of why the most apparently baffling section of that movie is there.

Midnight In Paris also is a point of some contention, as both Bob and Stephen found more to like about it than I did when I was live-tweeting it earlier in the week from my couch. Bob quite reasonably coaxes us to be more generous to what he happily calls "this lovely little picture about going back in time," despite my tendency to jump off as soon as Owen Wilson starts complaining about his life as a Hollywood screenwriter. (Among other things, I do a very terrible Owen Wilson impression.)

We talk about performances as well: Meryl Streep, Jessica Chastain, and the entire big cast of The Help, among others. It's a full slate, is the thing, and that's before Bob starts giving you his recommendations for films that aren't nominated.

After that, we talk about what's making us happy this week, from Trey's fondness for a new site for movie fans (FYI: the "yikes" in the background is Mike Katzif) to an honor Stephen never knew he would enjoy to my fondness for a source of flour. (That's right: flour.)

As always, you can follow us on Twitter: me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike. (Bob is not a Twitter person.) Or, of course, you can come and talk to us on Facebook.

You should definitely check out the NPR Oscars coverage at this handy link. And finally, come back here on Sunday night for the liveblog of the Oscars that I'll be doing with two terrific writers: Marc Hirsh and Mark Blankenship. I hope to see you then.

On this week's show, we chat about the horror show that was last Sunday night's Grammy Awards. How do we feel about the romp of Adele and the Best New Artist triumph of not at all new artist Bon Iver? The old-timers parade? The difficult matter of how the event was affected by the death of Whitney Houston? It takes Glen all the way to the one-minute mark to make up a new word that we adore, so believe us when we tell you that there's plenty of lively talk. (Here's the liveblog Stephen and I did on Sunday night. Just try to keep up!)

After that, we take on the topic — about which we all feel strongly, and which was suggested by listener Samantha over at our Facebook page — that is the pop culture you appreciate at the end of a terrible day. (Bonus: Yet another story about me injuring myself and breaking things!) Stephen said last week that he was going to watch The Voice; let's see what happened! Trey likes opera — might that work? What about playing games? That seems like a promising idea. What about taking on something that you don't know well?

As always, we close out with what's making us happy this week, including the very well-mannered book I've been reading, the joys of Gloria Estefan, terrible trailers, and rediscovering old animation with the young and (very) animated.

Follow us all on Twitter — me, Trey, Stephen, Glen and Mike — or find us on Facebook and hang out with the other PCHH listeners, who — we're not lying — are pretty cool and nice people.

On this week's show, we deal as we must with last weekend's Super Bowl — the ads, the Madonna halftime show, and (briefly) the story of Chicken Bowl. I ask the fellas a few questions about Twitter, angry wives, confetti, gambling, and lots more. It's like the Regrettable Television Pop Quiz, only with football instead of television.

After that, we use the recent dust-up over Watchmen to talk about remakes and reboots and why certain characters are incredibly controversial to redo, while other characters can be reimagined over and over again without any particular fuss. I posit an age range during which you fall in love with things and never want them to be touched, I break the news to Stephen that they're remaking something he couldn't believe hadn't been remade already, and there are cow puns and cow metaphors. YOU GUYS. There are. And Stephen speaks the words, "I'm flattened by your genius." (Not mine, of course.)

We end, as always, with what's making us happy this week, featuring my breaking of a bad habit, Glen's discovery of a great bad movie, and an extremely welcome visit from one of the great guest voices that you have doubtless enjoyed in the past, featuring a book announcement that will make a lot of you very, very happy based on requests you've made to us before.

Leave us your comments on the Super Bowl, Madonna, reimagined characters, and whatever else strikes your fancy. Find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me, Stephen, Glen, Trey, Mike, and hey! Stephen's mother.