Kooky Spooky Countdown: Elise Parisian (Unspookable) interviews Adam Gidwitz (Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest)
UnspookableShow Notes
If you've been following the Kooky Spooky Countdown, it has all been leading up to this: Elise Parisian, the host of Unspookable, sits down with Adam Gidwitz, the creator and host of Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest and New York Times best-selling author, to talk about scary stories themselves. Why do we tell them? What purpose do they serve? And what has Adam learned in all his years of studying and retelling Grimms’ Fairy Tales? All with a little help from our SCARE-rator, Jonathan Cormur, the host of Dorktales Storytime. It’s a conversation you don’t want to miss.
The Kooky Spooky Countdown
Three award-winning, family-favorite children’s podcasts - Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest (Pinna), Unspookable (Soundsington Media), and Dorktales Storytime - have teamed up this October for the Kooky Spooky Countdown, a seasonal, screen-free listening event for families and classrooms everywhere. Participants are challenged to listen to 13 “spooky-ish” podcast episodes to earn rewards, including exclusive congratulatory videos from all three podcast hosts.
The challenge celebrates October’s festivities with safe thrills, playful storytelling, and engaging experiences. It launches on October 2nd and runs until October 31, 2025. Families and classrooms can download the challenge materials at https://jonincharacter.com/kooky-spooky-countdown/.
How It Works
The countdown challenges participants to listen to 13 curated playfully spooky episodes across all three podcasts, mark their progress on a printable tracker, and celebrate their accomplishments with an official certificate, award cards, exclusive host video messages, and a special crossover finale episode featuring Unspookable’s Elise Parisian interview with New York Times bestselling author Adam Gidwitz.
Why It Matters
The Kooky Spooky Countdown Challenge brings the best in family-friendly podcasts together for a seasonal, audio-only experience. It also highlights the educational benefits of podcasts: improving listening skills, strengthening social-emotional growth, and inspiring curiosity about cultural heritage and folklore.
About the Podcasts
Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest (Pinna)
It's Grimm fairy tales like you've never heard before! On every episode of Pinna Original Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest, bestselling author Adam Gidwitz retells a classic fairy tale to a group of inquisitive kids, who anticipate plot twists, crack jokes, and share their own perspectives on these very Grimm stories.
Unspookable (Soundsington Media)
Unspookable is a family-friendly podcast that explores the history, brain science, and real-world influences behind spooky stories, myths, and urban legends. Host Elise Parisian takes the scare out of spooky stories by digging into the real history behind them, the cool facts, and why people keep telling them.
Dorktales Storytime
Be the hero of your own story with Dorktales Storytime, a podcast for kids and their pop culture loving grownups. Hosts Jonathan Cormur and Mr. Reginald T. Hedgehog share reimagined fairytales and fables with SEL themes, stories of hidden heroes, and wildly imaginative folklore.
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More from Unspookable
Horses can be majestic animals. Just look at their mythic cousins, the unicorn and the Pegasus. But did you ever wonder what it would look like if a horse were, instead of magical, mischievous? Or even murderous? I’m Elise Parisian, and we’ll be talking about the water horse—and the character from Scottish folklore called the Kelpie—on this episode of Unspookable.
Have you ever had a black cat cross your path? Did you worry that it might bring you bad luck? And why have these furry felines been associated with witches, magic, and the supernatural for centuries? We'll be exploring the history, superstitions, and surprising science behind black cats on this episode of Unspookable.
In honor of spooky season, we’re keeping things extra creepy with the waking nightmare phenomenon called Sleep Paralysis. What is sleep paralysis? Are the creatures people see, like the Man in the Hat, real? Or just a trick of the imagination? We’ll do our best to find out on this episode of Unspookable.
Have you ever heard of Changelings? Are they real? Where do they come from? And why is it so scary to think someone we know is not actually someone we know? We’ll be pondering all that and more on this episode of Unspookable.
Spooky season is almost here and with it comes an all new season of Unspookable beginning on Tuesday, September 29th.