Monster Crush

We all love to play with toys but can you love a toy that plays with you? What about a toy that has intense, possibly malicious, paranormal energy attached to it? If you said yes, then do I have the date for you! This episode LD entertains two of the most notorious haunted dolls around with Robert the Doll and the infamous Annabelle! With these spirit-laden dolls, it’s important to remember the key rules for any romantic endeavor: safety first, consent is crucial, and make sure to clean your toys when you’re done. Featuring: What was your favorite childhood Christmas gift - the gift of unmatched socks - Shoutout to LD’s sister for predicting this episode - LD’s personal experience with haunted dolls - Haunted Dolls can be a bummer - Letta Me Out! The Doll - don’t scapegoat your dolls - letters to Robert - we aren’t superstitious but we are a little stitious - salute your Captain Crunch - Annabelle isn’t as scary as you think - Raggedy Anne is into choking - zoning laws are scarier than demons - our version of Haunted Doll Watch - has this whole episode been about sex toys? - AND MORE! CW: mention of child death in relation to haunted dolls (16:00-19:00, 42:00-42:30), vehicular accident/death (50:00-51:00) We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

It’s a special Thanksgiving episode for LD and Derek and they are thankful for so much. We are thankful to you, our wonderful audience (like all 7 of you), we are thankful for the opportunity to make a podcast as friends, and we are thankful for all of the smoochable monsters! So this episode, we prepare a Thanksgiving feast, and the main course? Why, it’s our monstrous singletons! So strap in and strap on for The Bird Beasts of Var as our protein with a side of The Veggieman of West Virginia. These flavorful cryptids are hopefully not too much of a mouthful… Featuring: What we are thankful for - funeral potatoes - Spooky News: Superstitions may make you super sad, a new paranormal book rec, haunted Disney, congressional UAP update(!) - looking for monsters in Shagtown - a sucking hug - sometimes it’s just birds - tits, tats, and all that’s - And more! CW: mentions of food throughout, brief mention of funerals (2:00-3:45), mental health/depression (9:10-13:15), Sk**w*lkers (13:55-14:50), thorns/needles/vampirism (35:15-39:00) We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Given recent events, we here at Monster Crush have decided to stop all this monkey business. So join us as we go ape-shit for our singletons this week! Insert additional monkey pun here. So strap in and strap on for some cryptids who might involve reaching a loving hand back down the evolutionary branch so chimpler times (that’s the last one, I swear). This date we bring you the Stellar’s Sea Ape and the Monkey Man of Delhi! Featuring: Monster Crush is here to distract but never to ignore - Ranking the hottest Donkey Kong characters - Sean Astin’s connection to Donkey Kong is revealed - Spooky News: Happy Godzilla Day, more US congress alien talks, and outer space gets wet - A really Stellar group of animals - Otter tubes - Mundane monsters vs. bonkers monsters - Beyond Belief lives up to its name - Rooftop sleeping - India’s Weapon X Program - And more! CW: Allusion to current events/2024 US election (1:45-4:00 & 1:02:00-1:04:00), attempted harm to animals (38:00-38:30), mentions of physical assault (47:15-48:45), also The Monkey Man of Delhi can be interpreted as implied abuse to animals/animal testing We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Episode 90 has arrived and just in time for Halloween! So join us as we dive a stake deep into the heart of one of the most iconic monsters of all time, a terror who has dug his fangs deep into the neck of pop culture, the vampire of all vampires - COUNT DRACULA! So strap in and strap on for an exploration into the fictional and real world history of the most famous bloodsucker around! Featuring: What is a Dracula? - Vampires around the world - Bram Stoker’s love triangle - Dracula Recap - Van Helsing’s eyebrows - The many actors of Dracula - The hodgepodge of Dracula - Impale me, daddy - Vlad learns the importance of public relations - Count Wampyr - The OG lesbian Dracula - Bloody Tears - THE WEATHERMAKER - And More! CW: Discussions of blood, blood-draining, vampirism, defiling a corpse (staking and beheading thereof), and undead throughout, kidnapping/murder/bathing in blood (40:00 - 42:00), genocide/horrors of war/impaling (46:00 - 1:10:00), animal cruelty/death (1:00:00 - 1:01:00) We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

It’s SPOOKY MONTH and so Monster Crush continues it’s Halloween tradition of bringing you three monsters who represent some of the most iconic seasonal creatures. This year, in our Halloween Threesome, we bring you a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf: The Kyōkotsu, The Vampire Beast/Beast of Bladenboro, and The Werewolf of Werewolf Springs respectively. So strap in and strap on for some crazy bones, a thirsty cat, and the most werewolf to ever werewolf! Featuring: What is the most iconic Halloween monster? - Monster cereals - Spooky News: We sell out, get a free new vehicle or $100,000, Mormon Wives of Tiktok, TWO LOCH NESS MONSTERS - Crazy Bones - Stop tossing your bones down wells - Large cats the size of small bears - LD gets predictably hot for a werewolf - Trains just chock full of werewolves - Wolfmen NOT Sasquatches - It’s ok to have simple pleasures CW: Improper disposal/desecration of dead bodies (21:15-26:15), pet/domesticated animal death (26:30-36:45 and 44:15-44:30), violent murder (43:15-44:45), gun violence (45:00-45:45) We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

We said we would do it and, against all better judgment, we’re finally doing it.. It’s the SLEEP PARALYSIS EPISODE! So strap in and strap on for a journey into nightmares as LD braves her own subconscious for this week’s singletons. So, presented in this episode are LD’s very own sleep paralysis demons! Including: The Bowler-Hat-Man, The Hag (aka Foot Goblin), and The Changeling! Will Derek find love in these manifestations of his co-hosts' fears? Listen to find out! Featuring: Vote Derek for president of the US - The best part of waking up? Consensual oral - Spooky News: 15 years of Paranormal Activity (the movie), more Conjuring House drama, the next UFO hearing is soon! - Hats make you big - The true story of Nightmare on Elm Street - Hags have a thing for feet - Cuck the Black Hat Man - And more! CW: This entire episode is about sleep paralysis - data shows that episodes of sleep paralysis can be triggered by discussions of the phenomena - if you have experienced sleep paralysis in the past, this might be an episode you want to skip… but do what you want, I’m not your dad.Also: brief mentions of/references to modern politics, mental health issues, spider monsters and other nightmarish imagery throughout       We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

It’s an age-old question: Head or No Head? Well despite your feelings on the matter, the singletons this week are fervently in the “No Head” category. But that doesn’t mean they are not worthy of love! So join us on this date with good ol’ boy cryptid, The Grafton Monster, and the ‘mythological’ race of headless humanoids, the Blemmyes! Maybe they’ll prove that you can show love even without (a) head.  Featuring: LD is “Pro-Head” - Whistlin’ cryptids - Teenage monster-hunting parties - Random missing polar bears - “Eye-Boobers” - Giant werewolves carrying the ghost of Baby Jesus - Women with beards - headless people in every corner of the map CW: Death by old age (22:30-22:55), implied harm to animals (24:00-25:00), Birth defects (41:00-41:35) We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Welcome TRUE BELIEVERS to this episode of Monster Crush. With all the news these days coming from Marvel Comics we thought we’d jump on that bandwagon and ride some superheroic coattails (cape-tails?). So this week enjoy some familiar Marvel names that were originally attributed to some less than familiar monsters. These Silver Age singletons were pulled straight from the pages of Marvel Comics thanks in major part to the book The A - Z of Marvel Monsters! EXCELSIOR! Featuring: The original Groot, The original Hulk (Xemnu), and Thorr! Featuring: What superhero would make the best cryptid? - Spooky News! Including: Bigfoot sanctuaries, don’t roundhouse kick ghost performers, Cali UFO flap, and Ghost Hunter assassinations?! - LD’s Randy Quaid encounter (tease) - Groot language elective credits - first step to ruling the world: get a TV show - space travel in the Marvel Universe is really bad - the confidence of a small town electrician - don’t throw dynamite into a volcano - AND MORE! CW: Implied superhero death and implied torture (5:50 - 6:20), legal issues involving assault (10:00 - 15:46), news about people experiencing paranoia (20:30 - 24:30), Silver Age comic book monsters with a focus on domination/comic violence/mind control/implied genocide (throughout) We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

We are back with another Second Chance At Love for some of our monstrous singletons who didn’t make the cut in previous episodes! Winning out this week is the Alabama Metalman, an alien/cryptid/potential superhero who more or less ruined the life of a local police chief. Even cryptids are living that ACAB life it seems. So strap on and strap in for a shiny short king with some serious hops and lots of talk about corn! Featuring: A stable of monsters frothing at the mouth(s) - Alabama twang - Police Chief of F***ville - The dangers of corn - shiny short king in a cornfield - Smallville meets Futurama - Don’t listen to your wife when it comes to aliens - A man lives out a sad country song - Best advice for photographing the supernatural - Is hoaxing worth it? No. CW: Brief mention of spiders and creepy crawlies (6:45 - 7:45), mentions of police throughout, brief mention of automobile accidents (16:30 - 17:00), a person having a real rough time in life - job loss, loss of credibility, divorce, home loss, bullying, gangstalking, etc. (basically the entire second half of the episode)   We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

It’s the age old question we must ask all of our romantic partners.. Would you still love me if I was a Wyrm? That is to say a massive, writing beast that haunts the waterways and dark places of the world. To explore this question we bring you two particularly wyrmy (or wormy depending on your definition) singletons today in the first of what is to become a Monster Crush mini series. So please strap in and strap on for the Lagarfljót worm of Iceland and Sinkhole Sam of Kansas, USA!Featuring: Would you still love me if I was a worm? - the genesis of a meme - Heidi Kulm’s Halloween costumes - Spooky News: graveyard mysteries, flying shapeshifters, and ghost marriages - Wyrm or Worm? - Lake monsters are like Fergie (i.e. HUMPS) - Amphibious lake monsters - Catholics are so DRAMATIC - Microscopic nightmare beasts - AND MORE! CW: Implied body horror (i.e. turning into a worm) - opener, child death from disease/disturbing of a grave (10:30 - 13:45), death from automobile accident (18:00 - 22:30), brief mention of parasites (i.e. heartworms) (22:35 - 22:40), some allusions to current events at the end of the episode  We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Does size matter? Is bigger always better? These are the tough questions we tackle here at Monster Crush. With that in mind we explore two ends of the size spectrum with the diminutive forest spirit of the Congo, The Eloko, and the sizable but probably-internet-bs mountain monster, the Bergkonge. While these two vary greatly in size they share surprisingly a lot in common. Most importantly, they want you in their mouths! Featuring: Does size actually matter? - A new game: Bigger Or Smaller! - Charizard is a short king - what’s 50 feet between friends - three new genders: violent, feral, cannibalistic - when the moral to the story doesn’t match up - classical music bops - sexy scorpion/lizards - made up monsters are valid - we pay tribute to the cast of The Mummy - Derek’s metric conversion woes - AND MORE CW: brief mention of tragic event (Titanic), brief discussion of allergies (grass allergies), mentions of cannibalistic monsters throughout, magical mind control, folkloric racism towards Romani peoples - allusion to kidnapping and possible SA, and discussion of being devoured We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

People are seeing something in the warmer parts of the ocean. Unlike any other sea serpent, this singleton is segmented, lined with flippers, and will give you whatever head you want it to. It’s the Con Rit, a potentially creepy crawly cryptid that lurks in the waters of Vietnam and, if all of the slightly connected sightings can be believed, lots of other places too! But with so many options for hand/flipper-holding, will LD find love? Featuring: How many legs is too many legs, A NEW GAME: Celebrity Cryptids, background kitten howling, flippers is legs, “lengthed”, if it stinks then throw it back, definition of a ‘Globster’, pick your own kind of head, love a fella with sheet metal siding, Montauk Monster mentions, hairy nostrils, you have to speculate and extrapolate to love monsters, and it’s ok to say no     CW: SPIDERS AND INSECTS throughout, brief mention of alcohol (18:50 - 19:00), mentions of animal remains from the ocean throughout, mentions of colonization, brief alluding to animal experimentation We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Happy Daddy’s Day! To celebrate all those monster lovers who appreciate some good daddy energy, we bring you the Greek Mythological Father of All Monsters: TYPHON! This hundred-headed, serpentine titan is ancient, virile, and looking for love… and also the devastation of the Olympians. But maybe LD can soothe his volcanic spirit and show a little modern TLC to this Ancient Greek BBEG. Featuring: What makes a “Daddy”, a lot of Mommy Monsters, Grendel’s Mom Has Got It Going On, Happy All-Fathers Day to Loki, Spooky News: The UK is running out of ghosts, Stormy Daniels can speak with the dead, Mothman’s butt becomes a bank - just so many heads and so many snakes, having babies out of spite, when I grow up I want to be a “mythographer”, all the monster kids, gods in disguise, a lot of monster dads end up under mountains, and more! CW: Discussions of real-world religions, brief mention of recent politics and presidential candidate legal troubles, mythological cannibalism and mutilation We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Monster Crush returns with a Heavy Hitter episode! It’s time for Derek to admit that he was wrong as we entertain the surprisingly complex world of the Jackalope and it’s many horned relatives! So get ready for things to get horny and harey (as in the animal, it’s not a typo) as we discuss the ancient history of lepines with nice racks, the rogue taxidermy that continued the legend, and the real virus that may have inspired it all. Once accepted by science, later resigned to be a hoax, we bring you the Jackalope (or Antelabbit), Almiraj, Lepus Cornutus, Rasselbock, Skvader, and Wolpertinger! Featuring: What is your second favorite animal, Cat noises, Derek’s many boxes, Jackalopes are tenors, mail-order taxidermy school, the fun kind of hoax, everyone loves Wall Drugs, legalize the Jackalope, horned hares all the way down, the Jackalope was not the first horny hare, unicorn bunnies, flying bunnies, horned flying bunnies, and more!  CW: Taxidermy, Hunting for Sport, Viruses/Mentions of Herpes/Animal Body Horror (53:50 - 56:45) We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network (beacons.ai/swordandkey). Support our campaign for Trans Lifeline through any of our streams on twitch.tv/sword_and_key or on our socials. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

EPISODE 79: IS THAT A LIGHTSABER IN YOUR POCKETIT IS A TIME OF MONSTER SMOOCHING IN THE GALAXY…Ok, enough caps lock, this won’t scroll anyway. Happy Star Wars Day! In honor of one of the greatest epic space operas, we bring you our very first Monster Crush Star Wars episode! So feel free to get a little cocky, have a good feeling about this, and feel the love flowing through you as we search for love in less than 12 parsecs. Featuring a monster from each of the main Star Wars trilogies: the Acklay, the Rancor, and the Rathtar. May the Force be with you! Featuring: Our journey with Star Wars (and possibly Christ), Star Wars - Star Trek - StFarscape, what is your lightsaber color, some inevitable hot takes, Star Wars edition of Smooch/Mate/Slay, the wildest alien species: birds, Derek gets on his soapbox about pitbulls (the dog, not Mr. Worldwide), the rancor handler is the best actor in the series, we don’t talk about the Trillian Massacre, "Hello There" CW: Brief mention of TERF fantasy writer, mention of fictional creature death, mentions of being eaten alive and monstrous carnivorous practices We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Hear that sound out there in the dark woods? Well pull up a log to the fire and we’ll tell you all about those things that lurk out there in the dark… and how cute they are! This episode we explore FEARSOME CRITTERS and don’t worry, there’s nothing to be scared of. I mean, so what if they probably all are made up tall tales, these Critters are lurking for love and you might just be the one to give it to them. So get ready for the jointless Hugag and the projectile-prone Agropelter! Strap in and strap on!Featuring: What is a Fearsome Critter?, consent is sexy and important (especially for critters),  storytime with Wily Jeff, “pantographic”, – Spooky News: vampire/ghost/pink marshmallows, space dinosaurs and glowing fungus, NASA vs. Nessie, – like a horse but wrong, BIG OLE KITTLESON, arms like a literal cannon, Sweet Caroline/Agropelter, are your legs named “tall tales” because I’m trying to spread them     CW: Brief Description of Rock Slides 16:20-17:15, True Crime (murder) 20:10-23:30, Implied dismemberment 50:45-51:45 We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

In the March of Madness is back with PART TWO - THE WESTERN CONFERENCE (not that the cardinal direction has any meaning here). We are back with even more eldritch horrors to drive you to the very brink of madness... in a sexy way? Get ready the final rounds of our Salty 17-single-elimination-smiooch bracket featuring more tentacles and mouths than you can literally imagine. So strap in and strap on because we're going even deeper on this one. Featuring: Eastern Conference recap, Daggy Dagon, Lovecraft is still trash, Spooky News!, Mothman’s new ink, 10 feet on ground/30 feet in air, THE WESTERN CONFERENCE, Late Night with Conan The Barbarian, Don’t mess with snakes, The King in Yellow is a Man of Mystery, Instant mummy, Twilight “toys”, “Six-legged polar bear with a narwhal horn”, even cosmic horrors gossip, The toughest decision LD has ever had to make     CW: Tentacles (general Lovecraftian theme), implied non-consent (general Lovecraftian theme), madness/mental illness as a general “eldritch” concept, real world tragedy (i.e. Bridge Collapse) at 17:00-17:33, Mention of suicide/gun violence 19:45-21:26, Mentions of ill/infirm loved ones 20:00-21:00, Implied harm to animals 27:30-28:00, living mummification/paralysis 43:00-45:00 We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

In the spirit of March Madness we give you a showdown between some of the most madness-inducing monsters ever imagined. Get ready for In The March of Madness, a 17-monster single-elimination bracket featuring some of the most notable eldritch horrors of Lovecraftian fiction. We get really deep with these old ones as we narrow down who is the most smoochable cosmic horror. Featuring: Lovecraft is a piece of **** but his monsters are neat, the worst name for a cat, THE EASTERN CONFERENCE, big fish vs. flaccid volcano, galaxy-sized mass of swirling tentacles vs. flappy slug that controls dolphins, plus some major upsets and so much more! CW: the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and otherwise ultra-conservatism of H.P. Lovecraft, discussions of "madness" outside of mental health definitions, mention of SA, occultism We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

WaHOOO Happy Mario Day! Or rather Happy March 10 (MAR10)! To celebrate we pulled inspiration from everyone’s favorite plumber/shell-stomper to present two monsters from the real-world. So make sure you have extra lives and get ready for The Tanuki and the Kayeri!. The Tanuki is a yokai from Japanese folklore and mythology which presents as a shapeshifting racoon dog with a massive set of… attributes. Meanwhile the Kayeri are giant mushroom monsters Cuiba people of Colombia and Venezuela. Will LD find love with these monsters? Listen to find out!  Featuring: Our first Mario games, who we main in Mario Kart and what that says about us, some Mario facts and history, we are not a video game podcast, the most useful balls in monsterdom, prankster yokai, playground songs about monster scrotums, super strong fungi, mushrooms will take your daughters and your cows, and what if the balls are… too big? CW: A LOT of genital talk in this one, mentions of trickery/deception/gaslighting, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of damage to internal organs/death We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.

Take the jump with us into a whole new series of dates! For this Leap Year Derek presents LD with two monsters who use jumping as their primary means of motion. So hop on in, strap on, and strap in for the Pérák, the Spring Man of Prague, and the Jiangshi, the hopping vampires of China. Also, get ready for some Spooky News that also weirdly features a jumping monster and just so much more.  Featuring: Jumping as the best method of movement, happy Leap Year to all the “Bisextiles”, Leap Year traditions, Leap Year Monsters that will break your heart, Spooky News!, Japanese chode snakes will boost the economy, The Spring Man is the Czech Captain America, Hopping for Qi, unkillable monsters with way too many weaknesses, recognizing red flags, and MORE. CW: Mentions of attacks, mentions of sexual assault, discussions of WWII, discussions of war, discussions of death/corpses We are proud to be a part of the Sword & Key Network. Our music is by the handsome and talented Nick Lambert. Find him on Instagram @lambertropolis. All other music and sounds are licensed through Epidemic Sounds.