I recently checked out 5 or 6 episodes of The Bunt after seeing it get so much love on here. I thought it was just okay. I'll definitely keep listening but it doesn't flow very well. The questions feel pre-written which makes the interviews disjointed. I get the appeal, the hosts have great personalities but sometimes at the expense of crowding out their guest.
Crob et al are vanilla but that's not a bad thing for an interview show. Guests on the 9 Club often speak uninterrupted at length which is a hard thing to pull off as a host. Treating them with kid gloves and getting them to feel comfortable is a big factor in making that happen. Big personalities are given the space to do their own thing (Marc Johnson and Dill's episodes are good examples) and if someone wants to talk shit it's not like they get stopped. I prefer that to someone being prodded into firing off a controversial hot take for a soundbite.
I do think the 9 Club has suffered a bit from not having guests in studio, but going back to older eps reminds me of why the formula worked.
Crob and the boys have had some success with their format and I've enjoyed some episodes immensely. Andy Howell and Ian Michna are two that stand out for me. But their format gets old and you can tell they just shy away from anything controversial, which is fine, but it gets boring. Also, some of their guests have literally nothing interesting to say and their kid-gloves and zero research approach does very little to get a guest to open up. It's also really annoying to hear Crob talk about how he barely skates. Like, we get it, you're a lazy pro that doesn't actually love to skate but you ended up with it as your job, so you do it. That being said, I have been enjoying his recent stoke on curb skating. Hope it continues.
Some of the bunt questions are pre-written and that's a good thing. It means they did research and have pointed questions to make for an interesting interview. They do a shorter format than the 9 club, so it make sense to have pre-written questions so that interview time is used effectively. They also let them go off if the guest wants to. I also like that the Bunt doesn't seem to pander to the industry nearly as much. The nine club is often just one insulated cali skater talking to another insulated cali skater, and they both have no idea what the rest of the world is like, even if they travelled a bunch.
Topic: Wtf is up with the nine club (Read 364810 times)