Ep. 126 - Mario Lopez Is on Every Station and Somehow Still Boring - 12/30/2025

Peaches and Viktor Wilt kick this episode off doing what they do best: immediately overthinking something no sane person should overthink — what song KBEAR should play at exactly midnight to kick off 2026. This somehow spirals into discussions about Teletubbies music being in the station library, surprise-attacking listeners at midnight, and whether or not chaos is actually the most responsible programming decision.

From there, Peaches admits he may have accidentally triggered half the building by requesting a simple “Happy New Year” graphic… which snowballs into a full-blown internal radio saga involving a rejected flying potato, conflicting definitions of what “rocking” means, and the realization that radio people might be the most dramatic people alive over the smallest things imaginable. Viktor, of course, sides with the flying potato — because it rules.

The show then pivots hard into modern internet insanity, as Peaches breaks down a viral anti-AI crusader who’s compiling a public “Loser Bands That Used AI” list — featuring acts like Ice Nine Kills, Electric Callboy, Bad Omens, Linkin Park, and basically anyone with millions of listeners and common sense. What follows is a brutally honest, occasionally unhinged discussion about AI, Gen Z outrage cycles, Spotify economics, parasocial behavior, and why yelling at bands on Twitter with 300 followers might not be the activism people think it is.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Viktor casually explains how streaming payouts actually work (and why your favorite band isn’t getting your money), Peaches reads unhinged replies straight from Twitter, and both of them agree that AI isn’t going anywhere — no matter how loud people scream into the void.

The back half of the episode turns into a radio-nerd fever dream: romanticizing how exhausting radio actually is, coding country songs while half-asleep, the misery of work travel, touring musicians being forced to create nonstop content, and why spending hours making something online usually results in three likes if you’re lucky.

Finally, the guys absolutely torch syndicated radio by deep-diving into On With Mario Lopez, discovering he’s somehow on half the stations in America, delivers four-hour shows that become 18-minute podcasts, and still manages a painfully average rating. The contrast between real, messy, unscripted radio and polished, soulless syndication becomes painfully obvious — and hilarious.

By the end, Peaches and Viktor are exhausted, opinionated, slightly bitter, and fully self-aware… which somehow makes this one of the most honest, funny, and oddly relatable episodes of Noon Hour of Madness and Mayhem yet.