Mobituaries with Mo Rocca
5.0/5
Critic Rating
Critic Reviews
Score: 4.8
Kevin Chang Barnum • PodcastReview.org • Jan 28, 2020
" Rocca’s flair for showmanship keeps the show entertaining. Mobituaries can be a light affair, often approaching its dead subjects with humor. Rocca, a former Daily Show correspondent, is perhaps at his best when making quips about his “classy” appearance on VH1’s I Love the 80’s or how fertility rates cannot support all the television that now exists. Another of the podcast’s strengths is how relevant to current events the episodes often feel. Even with its educational subject matter, the show frequently opts for entertainment over enlightenment. Despite these shortcomings, the show succeeds partly through personality and partly through heart. By reminding us of our history, Rocca seeks to reconfigure our understanding of what is possible, to revitalize discarded bits of the past and give them the Broadway glamour they deserve."
Score: 5
Eliana Dockterman • Time • Nov 30, 2019
"...surprisingly fun podcast about death."
Score: 5
Michael Schulman • New Yorker • Nov 12, 2019
"Rocca isn’t as ideological as that—he’s driven by the desire to absorb great facts and pass them on. The quirks of history delight and vex him. He seems genuinely aggrieved that Audrey Hepburn died on the same day as Bill Clinton’s Inauguration and didn’t get her proper due. Same goes for Farrah Fawcett, who died on the same day as Michael Jackson."
Score: 5
Tyler Coates • Esquire • Nov 7, 2019
"Sometimes the most exciting podcast episodes are not borne from the news cycle or some grisly true crime, but from the idiosyncratic obsession of a podcast host's brain. Thank goodness, then, for Mo Rocca. Mobituaries, as a whole, focuses on the people with whom Rocca has always been fascinated—and offers an unconventional examination of their legacies in our greater popular culture."
