BY JORDAN WASSERBERGER ’27
Hello Indy reader! For those of you who have listened to the Excelsior podcast, it’s nice to see you again—in writing this time—and please enjoy this deep dive into your favorite podcast. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, now’s your chance to rectify that.
Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way. Excelsior, published by The Harvard Independent, is a pop-culture podcast focused primarily on movies, TV shows, video games, and the like. We create an enjoyable balance of comedy and deep, thoughtful analysis of your favorite content. At its core, Excelsior is a group of lifelong friends who want to share our insanity with the world. We cover everything from major blockbusters like Oppenheimer and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to news and events within entertainment, including the writer’s strike and the Rotten Tomatoes controversy. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Amazon Music.
Excelsior, named as an homage to Stan Lee’s iconic catchphrase, began as a comic book/superhero movie magazine that I took over during my sophomore year of high school. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to make something that could bring people together while we were stuck at home. Thus, the podcast was born. Our core friend group started recording every few weeks, and the first season was rough. We had no funding or equipment, and we used our phone mics to record six feet apart, sitting across the room to comply with social distancing guidelines. Production quality has skyrocketed since then. With unique cover arts for every episode, a suite of different audio and video tools that make each episode both fun and professional, and years of experience under our belts, Excelsior has evolved in so many amazing ways, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
Three years, four seasons, and nearly 70 episodes later, I am so happy to still be doing this. With the studio now scattered across the country, all at different colleges, the podcast’s core mission of keeping us together and welcoming the world into our bedlam is more alive than ever. Let’s say that over winter break and J-term, you wanted to look back and get “caught up” so to speak on the Excelsior Cinematic Universe. Where should you start?
Excelsior is not structured like most podcasts. I host each episode, joined by a rotation of some of my closest friends (more on them below). Although each episode is self-contained (each episode is about a different topic), we have numerous running bits that we reference constantly. At the end of this article is a list of some of our best and favorite episodes. All of these can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music, and I have marked which can be found on YouTube with an asterisk.
Alright. I think it’s time to meet the studio! First: Jordan Wasserberger ’27, host extraordinaire.
Jordan Wasserberger: Host Extraordinaire
Howdy everyone! Excelsior has been my baby over the last few years, and I’m glad to see it’s found a home here at Harvard— I’m so excited that I was able to bring it to the Indy, and I can’t wait to see where this partnership takes us. It’s also been great to see the reaction from an entirely new community of listeners. I cannot express the joy I feel when a dedicated listener approaches me in Cabot or Berg to say how much they hated my opinion on something. Please do reach out with any comments, questions, or concerns about our podcast— we appreciate each and every one of you.
A little bit of background about me. I’m a freshman living in Weld, studying economics. My biggest passion is the video game industry—I can talk for hours about all things gaming and have had to cut 3 monologues from Excelsior because they weren’t relevant at all—I was just bursting with excitement. As the only one of the group who’s that passionate about video games, I’m looking for new ways to bring it to the podcast. Stay tuned for some exciting interviews and other special episodes in the future.
In the studio, I tend to have the more extreme opinions (see my “double thumbs down stinkeroo” Five Nights at Freddy’s review). I am also terrible at remembering said extreme opinions. One of our longest-running gags is my complete inability to recall what score I gave a previous project, even one we reviewed just a few days before. I can’t explain it.
Rather than just hearing from me, I thought it might be fun to let the other studio members comment. Enjoy.
Patrick Stinebaugh, University of Southern California ’26: Jordan is the greatest example in history of someone not letting a lack of talent hold them back. I marvel at watching him attempt to do the bare minimum. It’s so… effortful for him.
Logan Dracos, Duke ’26: Jordan has somehow attached himself to the two most absolutely mediocre franchises of all time, and swears by them again and again. It makes one wonder if he’s even qualified to host a podcast on such topics… I’d rather listen to pots falling on a ten-hour loop than have to listen to another rant about Destiny or The Walking Dead.
Ethan Waggoner, University of Chicago ’26: It truly amazes me how a man of so many words can say nothing at all. I have never witnessed someone be so consistently incorrect with such fire. To not have the slightest clue what you’re talking about and exhibit such passion and love is what makes Jordan truly one of a kind.
Big thank you to all of them for those heartfelt messages. So kind. Moving on!
Patrick Stinebaugh: Movie Guy™
As the above suggests, Patrick is the movie guy to end all movie guys. As part of the USC screenwriter program, Patrick is one of the top 30 screenwriters in the country. Patrick brings a level of deep, analytical thinking to Excelsior that no one else can match, often drawing on elements of a particular project that the rest of us couldn’t notice. His monologues are second to none, and once you really get him going, you’ll more likely than not learn something completely new.
Although Patrick may one day win an Oscar for best original screenplay, he also unapologetically loves The Maze Runner: The Death Cure. Not the book, the movie. This movie, which many consider to be a complete failure, and has a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes. Alas, no one is perfect. Patrick and I rarely see completely eye to eye on any one of our takes, and so I take to heart those special moments where we are united (like in our newest episode).
Logan Dracos: CEO of Sex Appeal
A computer science major at Duke, Logan is the balancing force of the group. He is often the one to reel us in when we delve down any number of rabbit holes and is the epitome of thoughtful analysis combined with gut-wrenching comedy. Usually a more reserved voice (until he isn’t), Logan has delivered some Oscar-worthy performances on Excelsior, and shines in many of the featured episodes below.
He has the most agreed-upon good takes of any of us (yes, I tallied), which is a pretty amazing accomplishment. Logan is the only member of the studio who has missed a joke so badly that I felt it necessary to include it in the description of the episode. Enough roasting Logan though, because nothing will top the fact that for nearly a quarter of the episodes he’s a part of, I forgot to mention him in both the description and the posted clip on Instagram. Sorry buddy, that’s on me.
Ethan Waggoner: The Megaphone of Insanity
Ethan Eddie Waggs Waggoner (you will hear me call him all four of those names in any given episode) has been my best friend since Day One of high school. I have never met another human being with Ethan’s capacity for formulating and stating abhorrent opinions with the confidence of Lebron James dunking on a bunch of toddlers. Ethan’s most notable contributions include, but are not limited to:
- “Because Star Wars Episode IX is bad, I should never watch a single piece of past or future Star Wars content ever again.”
- “I will not watch The Walking Dead, purely out of spite for Jordan.”
- “Movies need more simplistic side characters,” (he said in reference to Gamorra in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3).
As the years have gone on Ethan has only solidified these opinions. We bring up these takes consistently, and whenever he’s there he adamantly insists that he’s right, regardless of what we say in response.
I introduced Ethan, quite intentionally, as “the megaphone of insanity.” I’ve covered the insanity part well enough, but I don’t think you all quite understand just how loud this individual is. When I edit each Excelsior episode, I have to take special care to normalize and modulate Ethan’s audio, because it is normally multiple decibel levels higher than the rest of ours. Not because his mic is weird, or because of how he’s recording, it’s just all him.
Excelsior Episodes to Watch
- Episode 33: Season 2 Finale
Unequivocally the best Excelsior episode of all time, the Season 2 Finale was initially recorded as the last Excelsior episode ever. For nearly four hours on the last day of high school, we sat and ranked nearly every single animated film ever made. The emotions of leaving high school and saying goodbye to each other and the podcast resulted in nothing short of a spectacle. Yes, this episode is a bit chaotic, and ends in a physical altercation between all the members of the studio, but nothing captures our friend group quite like this extravaganza. Enjoy it.
- Episode 41: 2022 Holiday Special*
The 2022 Holiday Special is our second try at ranking the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we actually made a pretty great, if imperfect list. Episodes like this are always fun for us—the MCU played such a massive role in all of our childhoods, and we rarely get to have conversations about it as a whole, in such an all-encompassing way. If you’re a Marvel fan at all, I promise you will have a good time with this one.
- Episode 59: The Creator: A Box Office DISASTER*
The first episode published by the Independent, our review of The Creator is probably our best review ever. It’s the perfect blend of comedy and analysis, with some truly hysterical moments. I’m putting this here as both a plug for us but also the movie itself. We need more independent science fiction films, so please, go watch the movie, and then listen to the episode. Both are great.
Jordan Wasserberger ’27 (jwasserberger@college.harvard.edu) would like nothing more than to have someone yell at him in Harvard Yard about any number of his ridiculous takes on Excelsior.