OPENING
Welcome to Episode 35 of The STEM Sessions Podcast, published on October 20, 2025. This is the podcast that says it’s OK to do your own research on STEM topics even if you don’t have any fancy credentials. I am your host, Cody Colborn.
INTRODUCTION
With a week and change to go until Halloween, I figured I should publish an episode at least tangentially related to the holiday
- So this episode is the recording of a presentation I have at the Long Beach Comic Con in late August about the history of the mad scientist trope in pop culture
Getting to this presentation was quite the adventure
- Originally prepared the material for the Wild Wild West Con held in Tucson back in March
- This is a steampunk convention whose theme for the year was Halloween
- Already knowing the mad scientist debuted in the early 19th Century, I figured the topic was perfect
- Pitched the idea and it was accepted
I put over a hundred hours into the project
- Researching the material, writing the script, crafting an interactive presentation customized for the steampunk audience, and making giveaways
- I was very proud of the final product
Presentation time was noon on Sunday
- Planned to fly to Arizona Saturday evening
- An hour before leaving for the airport, I visited con’s Facebook page to see if their were any updates to the schedule
- Much to my shock, I found out the convention had been cancelled a few hours prior due to a norovirus outbreak
- Even more, the venue – a casino and resort – kicked out everyone involved with the convention
- Vendors were given just a couple of hours to complete tear down their booths and pack up
- Attendees staying on-site were given the same deadline and had their room reservations cancelled and refunded
Had I not decided to open up Facebook, I would have shown up Sunday morning and have been very very confused
A few months later, the Long Beach Comic Con announced they were accepting panel proposals
- Not wanting my hard work to go to waste, I pitched my presentation and they accepted
- Of course, I now had to retool the look of the presentation and some of the material from a specifically steampunk vibe to a more generic comic book vibe
- But I think it was well received by the couple of dozen people who attended
This is The STEM Sessions Podcast Episode 35 – Mad Scientists: Harbingers of Doom or Cultural Icons?
MAIN BODY
Body Goes Here
OUTRO AND CREDITS
Thank you for listening to this episode of The STEM Sessions Podcast – a podcast researched, written, and produced by Cody Colborn.
This episode’s music is titled “Neolith” and was composed by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons and can be found at incompetech.com
The shownotes and transcript can be found at thestemsessions.com, which is also the best place to provide feedback, corrections, and value for value support.
Remember, doing your own critical research will always be to your benefit, and any pundit or scientist that tells you “just trust me, bro” or scolds you for fact checking and questioning isn’t offering true education.
So until the next one, keeping learning.