How To Make A How To Podcast
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2026
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mike Pesca has built a long career as a news analyst and podcaster, but taking over the How To! franchise presents a very different challenge: learning the ropes of the advice show genre. He knows how to dissect complex political events, but the leap to solving eccentric listener dilemmas while maximizing entertainment value feels new. On this episode: How To!'s Mike Pesca turns the microphone on himself and brings on Ian Chillag and Mike Danforth, the veteran co-hosts of NPR's How to Do Everything and producers for Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Ian and Mike offer Mike guidance on bypassing straightforward answers to find weirdly perpendicular solutions, the importance of providing "nutritious" conversational facts—and why you should never, under any circumstances, climb inside a refrigerator with Jesse Eisenberg.
Executive Producer Corey Wara
Edited by Geoff Craig
Booking by Lya Yanne
Do you have a burning question or a problem you need help with? Email us at howto@mikepesca.com and we will consider your topic for the show.
For full Pesca content and updates, check out our website at https://www.mikepesca.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And so it was just like the crew of the Starship Enterprise and aliens just yelling encouragement. |
| 0:05.8 | It may not apply to you, but at least in this case, Kevin Bacon was able to overcome motion sickness by staring at the back of Tom Hanks's head. |
| 0:16.0 | Hello and welcome to how to. I am Mike Peska. And, you know know one of the questions that i have this didn't necessarily |
| 0:22.5 | come from a listener because there are a few how to shows out there but not so many that random people |
| 0:28.6 | have been coming in over the transom saying how do i host one but i have to admit i have been wondering |
| 0:34.0 | how to best host a how to show and luckily experts are standing by. |
| 0:40.6 | Hey Mike it's Charles Duhigg. Thank you so much for having me on. I cannot wait to talk about this. I have all this advice that's been building up for years. Oh, oh, yes. I think I said something that alerted the Do Hig bat signal. A little embarrassing. |
| 0:55.8 | A little bit of the Rodney Dangerfield tug on the collar. It wasn't you. You're not the host I'm |
| 1:00.5 | thinking about. I got Ian Chilog and Mike Danforth. They host a show called How to Do Everything. |
| 1:08.3 | I thank you. I thank you for your present. |
| 1:11.5 | Yeah. |
| 1:11.7 | No, that's totally cool. |
| 1:13.2 | I didn't even, I didn't even want to come by. |
| 1:15.2 | I was, I just, I just was in front of, yeah. |
| 1:17.9 | How to downplay an awkward situation. |
| 1:20.3 | Ah. |
| 1:21.1 | Well, thank you, Charles. |
| 1:22.2 | Okay. |
| 1:22.5 | See you later. |
| 1:26.9 | How to Do Everything was an NPR show hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chilog from 2013 to 2016. |
| 1:34.8 | But it is not just a here-to-for how-to show based in the hereafter. |
| 1:40.5 | It has been resurrected. |
... |
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