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Pop Culture Happy Hour: LEGO Batman And Kids Who Cook On TV

Robin (Michael Cera), Alfred Pennyworth (Ralph Fiennes), Batman (Will Arnett), Batgirl (Rosario Dawson) in <em>The LEGO Batman Movie</em>.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Robin (Michael Cera), Alfred Pennyworth (Ralph Fiennes), Batman (Will Arnett), Batgirl (Rosario Dawson) in The LEGO Batman Movie.

It's always fun when somebody from the NPR podcast family sits in our fourth chair, and this week, we've got two of them.

First up, we're talking about The LEGO Batman Movie, and joining us is Sam Sanders, who's now hard at work on new podcast adventures after ably hosting the NPR Politics Podcast through the inauguration. We really dugThe LEGO Movie, and there might literally be nobody better equipped to talk about how The LEGO Batman Movie plays with the history of Batman than our own Glen Weldon, so it's a lively and interesting segment full of Batman facts from a bona fide Batman historian. Plus: Sam makes one of the most mind-blowing pop culture analogies I've heard in quite some time.

In our second segment, Kat Chow of NPR's Code Switch team joins us to talk about kids' cooking shows in honor of the return of MasterChef Junior. We talk about the high emotion, the surprisingly soft touch of one Gordon Ramsay, the delight of watching kids make cakes, and lots more.

As always, we close with what's making us happy this week — all five of us. Stephen is happy about an Oscar-nominated short film. Glen is happy about a Netflix show he's already watched twice. (!) Sam is happy about a web series that touches on couple matters. Kat is happy about an artist's work that inspired her to do some drawing. And I am happy about a gorgeous piece about books, hiking, and blackness.

Find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter: the show, me, Stephen, Glen, Sam, Kat, producer Jessica, and producer emeritus and pal for life Mike.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.

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