The ForceCast

"The Force-Cast is for fans of all types - from the casual film watcher to the die-hard conventioneer."

- The official iTunes listing for the Force-Cast

The Weekly Force-Cast is the official podcast of TheForce.net and Rebelscum.com. Season One began on April 6, 2005, and the current season began on September 1, 2006. Regular episodes, which run anywhere from fifty minutes to two hours long, are released every Friday. The Force-Cast features the latest news, interviews, events and opinions from the Star Wars fan community. The show is hosted by Jason Swank and Peter Nadel (though Nadel is currently on hiatus), with occasional guest spots from collecting guru Dan Curto, Jimmy Mac a.k.a. "The Man", Rebelscum's Jovial Jay Shepard, and Former Fan Club President Dustin Roberts.

Erik
Originally, the Force-Cast was done by Erik Blythe, but he had to stop production of the episodes due to external conflicts. After a contest done by TheForce.Net's Dustin Roberts, Jason and Pete were selected to continue the show. As Jason explains it, "TheForce.Net was looking for a host to re-launch the podcast, so I quickly shot him an e-mail." Jason, who had been on the air at a radio station as its promotions manager, received a reply from Dustin. He and Pete made the audition tape, which Jason calls "really bad". After hearing the tape, Dustin gave the two Star Wars fans the go-ahead, and the Force-Cast struck back.

Jason and Pete
After a few months of doing the show, as Jason and Pete got more comfortable with their new roles, the Force-Cast hosts started getting emails from Jimmy Mac, a Chicago-based sound wizard whom Jason described as a "cocky radio guy". "“At first I thought he was just busting our chops. Turns out the guy just really wanted to help." “I liked what I was hearing and I thought Jason and Pete had fabulous chemistry,” Jimmy said. Soon, the three podcasters were joined by collecting majordomo Dan Curto and the self-styled Human Holocron Jay Shepard.

As revealed in the audition tape, the two co-hosts originally called each other by nicknames, with Jason as "Jedi Swank" and Pete as "Master Nadel."

On Wednesday, July 2, 2008, the Force-Cast switched from USTREAM to Stickam, as part of the hosts' overall goal of getting their live feeds hosted on TheForce.Net itself. Additionally, Jason and Pete added a live blog -- courtesy of CovertItLive -- where they posted links to stories discussed during the taping, so live listeners could see what they were talking about.

On Wednesday, July 9, 2008, fans who entered the Stickam live stream were greeted by a picture of a Lando Mighty Mugg holding a sign that said, "Maybe your clowns got a webcam." The statement referenced Billy Dee's famous Clown comment from an early Quote of the Week. With this statement, Jason and Pete unveiled their newest endeavor: live streaming video to accompany the show audio. July 9 also marked the week that Force-Cast Fan Club President Eric took over the Force-Cast live blog.

On Friday, July 25, 2008, The Force-Cast's entry into the Atom Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge won two awards at the Comic-Con ceremony. A creation of the Jawas Kay and Mark, with editing and written by Jimmy Mac and voice work by Jason Swank, the video won the award for Best Animated Feature and the Audience Choice Award.

On Wednesday, September 3, 2008, Pete Nadel announced that he would be leaving the show due to his upcoming wedding. Nadel cautioned that the departure was only temporarily, and that he would be back at some point. Nadel taped his last show with Swank on Wednesday, September 24, 2008. On one of the longest shows to date, he thanked the fans, his fellow crew members, and everyone at TheForce.Net and Rebelscum for their support.

Jason and Jimmy
Jimmy Mac has since stepped up to unofficially take the role of the co-host.

Segments
The main sections of the show consist of:


 * Intro: Jason and Pete open the show, and sometimes correct themselves as pointed out by listeners.
 * Birthdays: The Force-Cast wishes Star Wars celebrities and Force-Cast fans a happy birthday.
 * Billy Dee Quote of the Week: Introduced by the man himself, The Force-Cast plays a humorous clip of actor Billy Dee Williams in one of his various roles from multimedia history.
 * Headlines: A run through of the events of the past week that related to Star Wars.
 * Collecting: the Force-Cast gang, which sometimes includes collector Dan Curto, goes over collecting and merchandise announcements.
 * The Outrageously Unthinkable Story of the Week: Inspired by Sio Bibble's quote, "It's outrageous! It's unthinkable!" and accompanied by a musical introduction of its own, this section features a story that is deemed too hilarious or unfathomable to put in the general news section.
 * Listener calls/mail: The Force-Cast listens to your voicemails and read emails from listeners, and respond to them.
 * Live call-ins: occurring throughout each episode, and only when the Force-Cast is recording via Stickam (previously Ustream).

Seasonal/Discontinued Segments

 * Fantasy Football Update: Jason and Pete review the current standings and notable moments from the Force-Cast's own Fantasy Football League, created by Mick Celli. (Currently out of season)
 * Pete's Pick of the Pix: When the show became sponsored by Official Pix, Pete would select an awkward-looking or humorous photograph available for purchase on the site, often making up a humorous back story for the picture or placing the image in a different context. The segment ended its weekly installment when Pete left the show.

Running gags
Throughout the course of their show, The Force-Cast has created and ran with several gags, many of them perpetuated by fans of the show in the chat room.


 * Shirtless Palpatine: Jason maintains that this is not a "desire," but simply an casual, offhanded comment.
 * Blackhole Stormtrooper: Sparked by the hosts' great dislike for the action figure cop-out that was the Blackhole Stormtrooper, this gag has been further explored in a video Force-Cast for the September 28 episode.
 * "It's outrageous! It's unthinkable!": Although the joke now has its own show segment, it started out with Jason and Pete congratulating Sio Bibble actor Oliver Ford Davies on his birthday, and soon transformed into a exclamation thrown out whenever something shocked a Force-Cast fan.
 * Grizzled: When Cliegg Lars actor Jack Thompson celebrated his birthday, the Force-Cast mentioned it on the air. As they usually do when announcing a celebrity birthday, they also play a clip from that actor's involvement in the movies.  Thompson's clip happened to feature Cliegg in a very "Grizzled" state, according to Jason and Pete.  A joke on the show is that "Just when you thought you couldn't get more grizzled than Owen, you've got Cliegg!"
 * Bromance: On their first episode back after a week-long hiatus, Jason and Pete discussed their email correspondence and how one of them had written to the other, "I haven't seen you in two weeks!" This was in reference to the fact that they usually do not meet up except to do the Force-Cast.  The in-joke was generated when Pete mentioned the Bromance episode of Scrubs and Jason laughed.
 * The George Lucas/Peter Mayhew/Sean Connery impressions: Though many a chat participant has been fooled during the live recording into thinking that Lucas himself is on the show, it is in fact Jason doing an impression.
 * "I want my nickel!": Spawned from the unmatchable Jimmy Mac's interview with Admiral Conan Antonio Motti actor Richard LeParmentier; the actor complained about not getting paid for his famous line regarding the Death Star being the "ultimate power in the universe," and eventually the complaint evolved into a famous Force-Cast gripe.
 * "What's a Mod?!": When Jimmy Mac heard about The Force-Cast Unleashed, he emailed the Force-Cast crew as well as the mod team to ask what a mod was. His question was answered, but Jason didn't let it end there.  He imitated Jimmy's voice asking the question on the next live show.  On one of the shows following that, they played a recording of Jimmy imitating Jason imitating Jimmy asking the question.  The imitation received overwhelming positive feedback.
 * Ziro the Hutt: Jimmy Mac's well-done impression of the character has creeped out many people, even Star Wars: The Clone Wars director Dave Filoni.
 * Kitster: Followers of the Force-Cast like to put this extremely minor character in grand, epic situations.
 * Coruscant Nights: Jason continually pokes fun at Coruscant Nights because the title sounds like old 1940's film noir crime dramas.

Opening music
The Force-Cast's opening music is considered by fans to be as distinctive as the Star Wars theme music itself. The music has evolved over time, eventually adding more clips from the film and utilizing the voice of Jimmy Mac.

Live tapings
The Force-Cast records most of their shows live through Stickam. Fans can listen by going to http://www.stickam.com/forcecast during the taping of the show on Wednesday nights at 8:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. The hosts also take live calls, either through Skype or from their phone number. There is also a moderated chat room where listeners can discuss topics being presented at that moment on the show.

Listener interaction
At the end of every regular Friday episode, The Force-Cast crew plays voicemails and reads emails from Star Wars fans. Their voicemail number is (330) 754-0532, their Skype username is forcecast, and their email address is podcast@theforce.net. Fans who want to call into the show live can use Skype.

Micro-casts
The Force-Cast frequently releases Micro-Casts spanning a plethora of topics.


 * Jimmy Mac's A Galaxy of Music, featuring music made by Star Wars fans
 * In The Cantina - Interviews with members of the Star Wars community
 * Convention coverage direct from Star Wars Celebrations, San Diego Comic-Cons, etc.
 * Jovial Jay Sheppard's What's New In the EU?, dedicated to bringing listeners up to speed with the merchandising and events of the Expanded Universe
 * Ed Dolista's Indy-Cast , detailing the news surrounding the Indiana Jones franchise as the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull draws closer
 * the clone wars round table talk about the TV show The Clone Wars

Force-Cast TV
Though not produced by Jason and Pete, the weekly video episodes available on the Youtube Channel are officially "licensed" parodies of, and supplements to, each regular audio show. Produced by Force-Cast video icons Kay and Mark, each video segment includes special video content on top of audio from the latest episode of the show, with the Force-Cast crew making appearances as still images whose features are manipulated in sync with their dialog. Each video also ends with the Force-Cast's disclaimer being read by Jason, but with different video content accompanying it each time.

RebelScum forums
The official forums of Rebelscum.com have a section for the Force-Cast, where listeners post threads about topics from the show, general Star Wars news, and all things related to the podcast. Fans of the show also post in-jokes from previous episodes, questions for the hosts, messages for fellow listeners, and any input they have for the show. In the past, there have been several trivia contests, some of them with prizes and some of them just for fun. A list of ongoing topics follows:
 * Fresh threads for each newly released FCTV
 * A thread with information about the Fantasy Baseball League
 * A thread for DarthFagan and JediShua's Lazy Book Club. The club listens to Star Wars audiobooks and discusses them in dedicated threads.  The club is currently "reading" Karen Traviss's Bloodlines.
 * How much do you remember by heart? - forum-goers must post movie lines sequentially from memory. The game is currently on Return of the Jedi, with a new thread entitled Return of the Memory.
 * The Official Clone Wars Thread - A thread for general discussion of The Clone Wars.
 * Shazbazzar's Bazaar of Trivia, a Jeopardy-like game.
 * You know you're a true Force-Cast fan when...
 * The Where Have You Seen Star Wars Today? thread, where fans post about Star Wars references in their daily lives.
 * Jorbex's Indy Photo Trivia, which fills multiple new pages on some days due to the sheer number of answer posts made by "contestants".
 * In preparation for the as-yet-unannounced Celebration V, an Unofficial Force-Cast Listeners' CV Thread was started.
 * Four-Word Story: A big hit on the Force-Cast forums has been a thread called the Four-Word Story. Started on October 22, 2007, by Chris Pence, the idea is for each post to add on to the story using only four words.  Several plot twists and scene transitions have occurred seemingly out of nowhere, but the story always maintains a sense of cohesion.

CafePress store
Around the time of Celebration IV, the Force-Cast introduced an online store where fans could buy t-shirts, mugs, aprons, mousepads, clocks, hats, stickers, magnets, and calendars printed with the Force-Cast logo. Fans sporting the logo at Celebration IV were rewarded with exclusive Force-Cast swag.

Gaming Mod
In late November 2007, Force-Cast fan Daniel Mutchler decided to undertake a mountainous endeavor. He wanted to create a Battlefront II mod for the Force-Cast. He began working with mod tools he found online, and soon he had a strong foundation upon which to build the mod. He enlisted the help of fellow Force-Cast fans Calvin and Eric and also help from Gametoast users. Daniel worked tirelessly to develop the map, design and produce the characters, and publish it for all Force-Casters to enjoy.

To help him create accurate representations of important Force-Cast personalities, Daniel also received assistance from Kay and Mark, of FCTV fame. But before he even thought about releasing the mod, Daniel knew he should get his target audience hyped up. For that, he needed a trailer. In this matter, Daniel turned to Calvin and Eric. They began working on the mod’s trailer in late December, receiving clips from Daniel as he tested the mod in various stages of completion.

On December 27, 2007, Calvin posted a thread on the Rebelscum forums announcing the existence of the game, which is being produced by Outrageous Entertainment. The thread ended with the line, "May the 21st be with you in 2008," a possible hint at the mod's release date. May 21, 2008, is a significant date because it marks the twenty-eight anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.

On December 28, 2007, Daniel released the first demo of his mod, then called Yellow Harvest. The release was for game developers and Force-Cast crew only, but Force-Cast fans were promised an upcoming sneak peek at the mod via the Rebelscum forums. In addition, Daniel, Eric, and Calvin set up a website for the gaming mod, where the trio currently posts progress updates, screenshots, sneak peeks, various other announcements, and a developer-only Production Diary which they intend to make public after the mod's release.

On January 2, 2008, the team released the trailer for the first demo of the mod. The trio also announced that the name Yellow Harvest was a working codename for the mod, which is now being called The Force-Cast Unleashed. Shortly before the trailer went live, TheForce.Net posted an item on its homepage discussing the mod and linking to its official homepage. Traffic since then has gone up considerably.

On February 21, 2008, Daniel uploaded the first public demo of the mod to a Filefront server. After being plugged on TheForce.Net, traffic to the site--and downloads of the public demo--shot up.

Gaming League
When forum-goer Falleen_Fan_No_1 posted a thread about getting a gaming party together, several Force-Casters responded with enthusiasm. After determining an initial platform (PC) and a handful of games, Falleen_Fan and fellow Force-Caster Eric created the Force-Cast Gaming League. The pair set up a website for the league, where they would post screenshots, league member profiles, updates on upcoming matches, and other relevant information.

Host costuming
On the October 12 episode, Jason and Pete announced that they would try to put together a costume for the as-yet-unannounced Celebration 5. Jason had said that, being short in stature, he had always wanted to be Yoda for Halloween. In addition, because Pete was tall enough to be Luke, the pair decided to attempt a "Luke in training on Dagobah" setup, with Jason on Pete's back. The idea was met with much interest and enthusiasm from the fans, and one fan named Joel Cramer put together an artistic rendition of the costume. The sketch was in reference to Jason's statement on the episode saying, "I have conceptual sketches."

ThotMarket property
The Force-Cast is now represented by a stock property on a website called ThotMarket. On this website, users can buy and sell fake stock in properties that are created to represent blogs, websites, services, movie franchises, and commercial entities. As of August 29, 2007, at 9:32 PM EST, the stock value for the Force-Cast was at a shocking high of $136.53. This was the result of Jason and Pete mentioning the website on their August 24 episode. Unfortunately, the share price dropped abruptly, leaving it at $0.40 as of September 4, 2007, at 7:53 PM EST.

Contests
The Force-Cast frequently receives Star Wars goodies from groups and individuals affiliated with Star Wars merchandise or media. Some of these items are made into prizes for Force-Cast contests. Some notable contests follow:


 * Pledge of Allegiance: Upon receiving two signed copies of Timothy Zahn's book Allegiance, Jason and Pete created the Pledge of Allegiance contest. Listeners were invited to pledge their allegiance to the Force-Cast in a voicemail; the two best pledges would receive first place and those people would get the signed copies of Allegiance. After extending the deadline for submissions by an extra week, Jason and Pete finally picked two winners from Maryland, Mike and Eric.
 * Legacy Revealed Contest (forums): When Jason and Pete got several promotional items from the History Channel for their upcoming documentary, The Legacy Revealed, they put together a contest to win the promo goods. T-Shirts, posters, and trading card packs were included, with listeners vying for the first response post to several trivia questions from the show hosts.
 * Number One Longing, Number Two Regret: This contest was run by RebelScum forum-goer and TheForce.Net staffer Mike Barrick. He had acquired four copies of Jeremy Bulloch's movie Number One Longing, Number Two Regret.  Barrick held a miniature trivia contest, wherein four forum users won the DVDs.  The first copy, which was unsigned, went to Eric, a Marylander who was also Mike Barrick's co-winner from the Force-Cast's Pledge of Allegiance contest.  The three signed copies went to Pedro Jorba, a listener from Mexico City; John Fagan, from Connecticut; and Nick, a student at Purdue University.
 * Battlefront: Renegade Squadron Giveaway: The first giveaway conducted in a live Talkshoe chat. After doing a Micro-Cast interview with two LucasArts developers, Jason and Pete got four copies of their new game, Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron.  Shortly thereafter, in the next live episode of the show, the duo announced that they would be giving away the four copies they had received.  Each of the next four episodes featured a quick section at the end, where Jason and Pete took the first live caller with the answer to the trivia question.
 * October 5: Joshua. The question was, "What were the names of the two LucasArts developers interviewed on a recent micro-cast?"
 * October 12: Eric. The question was, "In which movie did Billy Dee play football player Gale Sayers?"
 * October 19: Nate. The question was, "Name the Star Wars film in which Dan Madsen had a cameo role, and name his role."
 * October 26: Robbie. The question was, "What was Daniel Wallace's first officially licensed reference guide?"