50 Fun Facts About Serial (Podcast)

Which journalist, once a Baltimore Sun reporter, hosts Serial and narrates its story week by week?

Sarah Koenig told listeners in the first episode that the story was still unfolding and she did not know how it would end. She spent over a year reporting the case.

Serial began as a spinoff of which weekly public radio show, where its host had been a producer?

This American Life aired Serial's first episode on its own broadcast in October 2014, then left the rest of the season to run online week by week.

Which comedy show spoofed Serial in 2014 by investigating Kris Kringle for leaving gifts in homes?

Saturday Night Live cast Cecily Strong as the podcast's host for the sketch, which aired during the show's fortieth season.

Which comedian plays Cinda Canning, a parody of Serial's host, in Only Murders in the Building?

Tina Fey's Cinda Canning hosts All Is Not OK in Oklahoma, the fictional hit that the show's three amateur sleuths all listen to.

Which sponsor of Serial's launch became a meme after a girl in its ad mispronounced the brand name?

Mailchimp bought the web address of the mangled name and pointed it at its own site once the joke took off.

Which newspaper company bought Serial Productions, the studio behind the hit podcast, in July 2020?

The New York Times paid a reported $25 million, and the podcast's two co-creators became employees of the paper.

As Serial recounts, how did Adnan Syed's first trial end once jurors overheard a sidebar dispute?

A mistrial followed because the quarrel was between the judge and Syed's own lawyer; the retrial ran six weeks and ended with a guilty verdict.

Which network aired The Case Against Adnan Syed, a 2019 follow-up series to Serial's first season?

HBO's four-part series was directed by Amy Berg, and it revealed that Syed had turned down a plea deal in 2018 that would have shortened his sentence.

In Serial's seventh episode, law students from which group review the case against Adnan Syed?

The Innocence Project team began by presuming Syed innocent, and its director told the host the evidence against him looked thin.

In the case Serial examined, prosecutors said Hae Min Lee was killed in which store's parking lot?

Best Buy sits about a mile from the school, so Serial's reporters drove the route to test whether the state's 21-minute timeline could work.

Which broadcasting honor did Serial win in April 2015 for its long-form nonfiction storytelling?

A Peabody Award had been created in 1940 as radio's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, long before anyone could download a show.

Serial ranked number one on which platform's podcast chart even before its first episode came out?

iTunes also logged Serial as the fastest podcast ever to reach five million downloads in its store.

Serial's second season followed which soldier, held for five years and later charged with desertion?

Bowe Bergdahl walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009, and the season drew on some 25 hours of his recorded phone conversations with a filmmaker.

Serial's fourth season, built on over 100 interviews, tells the history of which US detention camp?

Guantanamo Bay's story is told by people who lived it, including guards, interrogators, chaplains, translators and former prisoners.

Serial's third season spent a year inside the ordinary criminal courts of which Ohio city?

Cleveland was picked because the team wanted the least exceptional, most middle-of-the-road place it could find to watch everyday justice at work.

In the case Serial's first season examined, where in Baltimore was Hae Min Lee's body found?

Leakin Park gives the third episode its title; a man on his lunch break found her there the month after she went missing.

In Serial's first season, Hae Min Lee worked alongside her new boyfriend at which eyewear chain?

LensCrafters employed them both, and the pair had been a couple for just 13 days when she disappeared.

Serial's first episode, The Alibi, turns on a classmate who said she saw Adnan Syed where?

She placed him in the library at the exact time prosecutors said the killing happened, yet his trial lawyer never contacted her.

In Serial's episode The Breakup, why did Adnan Syed and Hae Min Lee keep their romance secret?

Their parents disapproved, so the pair hid a romance that began with a junior prom date, until his parents turned up at the homecoming dance.

In Serial's tenth episode, prosecutors at Adnan Syed's bail hearing said he might flee where?

Pakistan came up as prosecutors claimed his community would help him escape, part of what the episode weighs as anti-Muslim sentiment in the case.

Which lawyer, disbarred the year after the verdict, defended Adnan Syed at the trial in Serial?

Cristina Gutierrez had been the first Latina counsel of record in a US Supreme Court case; she agreed to be disbarred in 2001 as multiple sclerosis took hold.

Which family friend of Adnan Syed took his case to Serial's host and later wrote Adnan's Story?

Rabia Chaudry is an attorney whose younger brother was Syed's closest friend, and she went on to co-host a podcast of her own about the State's case.

In Serial's fourth episode, what first steers detectives toward Adnan Syed after the body is found?

An anonymous call on February 12 urged investigators to focus on Syed, three days after a passer-by found the body. He was arrested on February 28.

In Serial's fourth episode, detectives said which evidence backed up Jay's shifting story?

Cell phone records were said to corroborate him even though details of his story changed in significant ways across four police interviews.

In Serial's sixth episode, which physical evidence against Adnan Syed could not be dated?

A palm print on a map could have been left at any time, and Serial described the physical evidence against Syed as scant.

In Serial, a 3:32 pm call from Adnan Syed's phone reached which friend, whom Jay did not know?

Nisha lived in Silver Spring, and the call mattered because Syed said Jay had his phone at that hour.

In Serial's third episode, a background check on Mr. S, who found the body, revealed what habit?

Streaking episodes were only part of why detectives found him odd; they also doubted his account of how he came across the body.

Which Serial producer rode with the host in Route Talk to test-drive the prosecution's timeline?

Dana Chivvis and the host found the 21-minute dash from school just barely possible; she later co-hosted Serial's fourth season.

In Serial's ninth episode, Jay's account has Adnan Syed standing by a phone booth wearing what?

Red gloves appear in Jay's telling, but a former classmate insisted that no pay phones ever stood outside that store.

In Serial's eighth episode, how does a professional detective rate the police investigation?

Better than average was his view, and he added that Jay had handed the police the case on a platter.

Deirdre Enright, who reviews the case in Serial's seventh episode, is based at which law school?

The University of Virginia link came from Syed himself, who told the host about a similar case in that state; she rang one of its defense lawyers for insight.

In the case Serial covers, star witness Jay Wilds pleaded guilty to which charge and avoided prison?

Accessory to murder brought him a five-year suspended sentence after he told police he had helped bury the body.

After the six-week second trial retold in Serial, Adnan Syed received which sentence in 2000?

Life plus 30 years covered convictions for first-degree murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and robbery. He had been arrested at 17.

In Serial's finale, What We Know, where does the host land on Adnan Syed's guilt?

She would vote to acquit, the host says, judging the case as a juror must, though she admits she still nurses doubts about what happened.

Which man, Hae Min Lee's boyfriend when she vanished, finally speaks to Serial's host in the finale?

Don spoke to her only after the podcast had begun airing, as did a former co-worker of the State's star witness.

In Serial's eleventh episode, Rumors, the host consults which kind of expert on young killers?

A psychologist named Charles Ewing, who had interviewed many young murderers, helps her weigh whether Syed shows real empathy.

Hae Min Lee, whose 1999 death Serial investigates, played field hockey and which other sport?

Lacrosse and field hockey were her sports at a Baltimore County high school, where she was enrolled in the magnet program.

Which producer co-created Serial with its host and went with her to visit Jay in the eighth episode?

Julie Snyder is Serial's executive producer; when the two of them turned up to see Jay, he declined to be interviewed.

Which public radio host launched Serial in 2014 by airing its first episode on his own weekly show?

Ira Glass pitched Serial as the audio answer to a binge-worthy TV drama: a true story that unfolds week after week, with no pictures.

Which Canadian musician, frontman of Islands and The Unicorns, composed the theme music for Serial?

Nick Thorburn put out the soundtrack two weeks into the first season: 15 short instrumental tracks, later listed in his discography as Music from SERIAL.

Which Chicago public radio station initially funded the salaried staff positions on Serial?

WBEZ paid the salaries while a sponsor backed the launch, and one producer admitted nobody had yet worked out a business model for podcasting.

Serial's second season drew on 25 hours of phone interviews taped by which Oscar-winning writer?

Mark Boal, who wrote The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, had taped the calls for a film project, then became Serial's partner for the season.

Midway through season two, Serial slowed to allow deeper reporting, releasing episodes how often?

Every other week became the rhythm from January 2016, a change that led some listeners to think the series was losing momentum.

Which 2017 podcast from Serial's makers, set in Woodstock, Alabama, put out every chapter at once?

S-Town was downloaded a record 10 million times in four days. It began with a horologist's email asking reporters to look into a rumored killing in his hometown.

Which 2020 Serial Productions podcast, hosted by Chana Joffe-Walt, covers a Brooklyn public school?

Nice White Parents argues that well-meaning progressive families can end up hindering the integration of public schools.

Serial's host voiced a ringtone parodying her own show's intro on which animated Netflix comedy?

BoJack Horseman gave her the cameo in its second-season episode Out to Sea, a gag slot a fellow public radio host had filled a season earlier.

Which 2017 Netflix mockumentary parodies crime series such as Serial and Making a Murderer?

American Vandal follows a student's investigation of a costly high school prank, and its characters even remark on the resemblance to Serial.

Hunt the Truth, a Serial-style audio series voiced by Keegan-Michael Key, promoted which video game?

Halo 5: Guardians used the in-universe podcast to dig into the Master Chief's past, and its makers even researched which microphones NPR uses.

Which podcast, launched in 2015 by three attorneys, re-examined the Adnan Syed case after Serial?

Undisclosed began in April 2015 as a deep dive into the State's case against Syed, then turned to other wrongful-conviction claims in later seasons.

During Serial's first season, fans discussed each episode on a dedicated forum on which website?

Reddit hosted the Serial subreddit, and critics warned that the show's live format invited sleuthing that exposed names and addresses of people in the case.