Literary Gladiators Season 4

This summer, we filmed the fourth season of Literary Gladiators, which will contain 38 episodes that are currently on file and six more episodes that we plan to film in December and include in the rotation. This may mean a possible 44 episodes will be released from The Phantom Tollbooth, that was released on September 3rd and go all the way until June 18th, which will be the season finale and a celebration of Kelsea Rowan's birthday. Speaking of Kelsea, she will be the assistant producer going into the fourth season of the show and we hope to have her on board for as long as she wishes to hold this position. Since bringing her along to assume a greater role with the show, we are including not just our traditional, discussion driven episodes, but also extras that include a bunch of participants in a more casual atmosphere or an individual participant conducting a discussion, review, book haul, wrap-up, TBR, book tag, or anything that pertains to the theme of the channel. So far, this is really boosting interest in the channel.

As I write this post, on the afternoon (eastern time) of September 9th, we have 153 subscribers, over 5,600 views, and over 260 likes with just four dislikes. We have not reached the heights that many other remarkable Booktubers have (and they are remarkable... not just with their videos, but also as people), but we have our eyes on reaching that goal! This fourth season is going to be filled with anything and everything you can imagine and I felt that it really came out very well. Most importantly, we have a great batch of people sitting in on the panel that seemed to have a great time partaking in our discussions. I hope to have them back for a fifth season, which I believe will be set to film in Summer 2016 if everything goes right... but let's get back to season four before we stray away too far.

Returning to the show this season include:

Josh Caporale (me)- from all three seasons and as a regular, also as producer and editor
Charlie Gulizia- from all three seasons and as a regular, also as music coordinator
Laney Burke- from seasons 2 & 3 as moderator (and will also be in an episode)
Lily Vittari- from all three seasons as a semi-regular (about half of the episodes)
Nicole Pirrella-Iacoves- from season one as a guest
Larry Romano- from season 2 as a recurring guest
Dan Marseglia- from season 2 & 3 as a guest and fill-in moderator
Jackie Wainwright- from season 2 as a guest
Bree Little- from season 2 as a guest
Kelsea Rowan- from season 3 as a recurring guest and as assistant producer
Ari S. Gans- from season 3 as a guest and composer of the outro number, "Scratched"
Ms. Cynthia Cooke- from season 3 as a guest

PLUS

Dr. David Bordelon- from season 2 as a special guest

New participants on the show include:

Zach Lawless- fill-in moderator
Kim Broomall- guest
Morgen Condon- recurring guest
Kaitlyn Cook- guest
Kaila Rotsma- recurring guest
John Weeast- recurring guest

PLUS

Joanne the Librarian- special guest
Dr. Frank Wetta- special guest

To specify, a "special guest" is one that participates in one episode, a guest participates in 2-4, a recurring guest participates in 5-18 episodes, while regulars appear in almost every episode. In Lily's case, she was slated to appear as a regular, but due to personal circumstances, appears in 17 episodes that have been taped. Bree will be at this December taping as well.

This is our episode plan as we speak:

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (released)
"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost
"The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell
Banned Books Week
"Imagine" by John Lennon (Lyrical Analysis)
"A Late Encounter with the Enemy" by Flanney O'Connor
"Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath
Halloween: Works That Spark a Fearful Reaction, Part 2
The Fault in our Stars by John Green
How to Define Literature
"Long Live the Weeds" by Theodore Roethke
Thanksgiving: Works That Spark an Appetite
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
"In the Waiting Room" by Elizabeth Bishop
Christmas: Works That Bring About Holiday Sentiment (to be filmed)
New Years: Works of Enlightenment
"Borges & I" by Jorge Luis Borges
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
"Thank You, Ma'am" by Langston Hughes
The Work of Maya Angelou
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka
The Work of Dr. Seuss
"The Starry Night" by Anne Sexton (to be filmed)
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (to be filmed)
Easter: Works of the Living Dead
"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
"The Emperor of Ice Cream" by Wallace Stevens
The Work of James Joyce
"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
"Little Red Riding Hood" by The Grimm Brothers
"The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (to be filmed)
"Before the Cask of Wine" by Li Po (to be filmed)
"A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto" by Czeslaw Milosz (to be filmed)
Beats Literature
The Poetry of e.e. cummings

This looks like an eventful lineup and I can assure you that these were a blast to film! Hopefully you enjoy watching them as much as we enjoyed filming them. Most episodes will be up on Fridays and extras will be up on Tuesdays, but there may be changes to the schedule, whether it be a week where we do not upload a new episode or we release an extra video on any particular week. All the best and keep reading!