Shrimply Unbelievable: Podcast About List’s Shrimp-Off!

We all have a friend who says outrageous things: “I could have made that shot” about a miss in a basketball game or “I can make better art than that” about an abstract painting in a museum. (In the case of Mark Wahlberg, “I could have stopped 9/11.”) But what if you had the chance to see if your outrageous friend really could?

“I said I could eat ten pounds of shrimp,” recounts Patrick Doran, one of the hosts of Podcast About List. A bold claim. The New York-based podcaster and his co-hosts Cameron Fetter and Caleb Pitts spent an episode of their podcast establishing the guidelines of seeing if Doran could: an hour and a half time limit, sauces allowed and, of course, throwing up counts as a DQ. Doran did not undertake the challenge alone, splitting the ten pounds evenly with Joe Gleason, another comedian. Their challenge went live on Feb. 4th, 2026.

Slapstick masculinity has a long tradition in American comedy, beginning with the Three Stooges and crescendoing most notably with Jackass. Typically, comedians treat each other as antagonists in this form (think Moe poking Curly in the eyes), but as Doran and Gleason prepared, they found themselves more as brothers than as rivals.

“This challenge was pitched as us going against each other, [but] the closer we get to it, the more it feels like it’s me and Patrick against the world,” Gleason says. “We both want the same thing,” adds Doran.

For Doran, this challenge is a natural evolution of a lifelong love. Growing up in Londonderry, New Hampshire, the comedian often went to local grocery store Hannaford with his mother. At the end of the shopping trip was a snack. “They would have a little wedge of shrimp, like snack size. It was only like six dollars, and I would get that instead of getting a bag of chips and soda,” Doran remembers.

Gleason’s decision to join was natural, as well. Aside from collaborating with the podcasters on his YouTube game show Joebox and his sketch comedy project Home Planet, Gleason has long held an interest in eating challenges, boasting recent participation in a hot dog eating challenge and getting advice from eleven-year Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest Women’s Champion Miki Sudo via Cameo.

Gleason was excited to have such star power giving him advice: “I was a kid who watched the hot dog eating contest for a long time, so to even have someone like that in my corner at all is a motivating factor in itself.” Sudo counseled Gleason on limiting his fluid intake and gave him advice about his three-pound practice round.

While Doran and Gleason came together in the process, Doran found himself growing distant from his co-hosts. “I would describe Caleb and Cameron as snakes,” says Doran, “and we are the pelicans,” referring to two animals with prodigious abilities to swallow. While crafting the rules, his cohosts were initially dismissive of his ability to eat shrimp, despite a phone call from his mother attesting to his being banned from eating shrimp at family gatherings as a child. 

“I’ve basically been trying to keep [my co-hosts] out of my day to day as much as possible, so that when the day comes there’s a rage and a anger inside of me, [from] just thinking about all their other negative thoughts and opinions about whether or not I could do this, and I’m going to use that to fuel me into eating the five pounds of shrimp,” Doran said authoritatively.

Will the two pull it off? Will it destroy a lifelong love of seafood for Doran or perhaps kickstart a competitive eating career for Gleason? Will their comradeship survive the hour of shrimp? Find out on the Feb. 4 episode of Podcast About List, and follow Doran at @lunch_enjoyer on Instagram and Gleason at @j0etv.

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