Brown Bag (with staple) by Jeffrey Beall, available under a Creative Commons License

Last week’s podcast highlights included a fake contract negotiation, a punk-band drummer turned comedian, high school seniors sweating out the college admissions process, and a man who’s been confined to the grounds of an embassy for the last three years. It’s a grab bag of random podcast goodness in the Week in Review.

Hollywood Handbook:  Hosts Shawn Clements and Hayes Davenport celebrated the 100th episode of their Earwolf network podcast, Hollywood Handbook, with a new round of contract negotiations with Comedy Bang! Bang! host and Earwolf founder, Scott Aukerman. Actor and former Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi joined in for a typical absurdly hilarious show from Clements and Davenport. Somehow, by the end of the show and the negotiation, guest Mandvi wound up with a new trailer and a percentage of the profits from the show (such as they are), while the guys barely escaped with the right to continue to record their show.

WTF:  Fred Armisen joined Marc Maron on Thursday’s WTF. Maron sounded pleasantly surprised he was able to get Armisen to open up on the podcast, which was evident especially in the latter half of the interview when Armisen spoke about his past relationships and his tendency to sabotage them. Armisen also talked about his long career path that started in art school, wound through punk bands, and eventually landed him on Saturday Night Live. Armisen is soft spoken and humble, but honest about his personal shortcomings. It was a classic WTF episode, and one worth a listen for even casual fans of the quirky, likable Armisen.

Getting In: Just in time for the start of a new school year, the Panoply podcast network announced the launch of Getting In at the inaugural IAB Podcast Upfront Showcase. The show, which released its first episode the day of the announcement, promises to be a year-long podcast about the college admissions process hosted by former dean of freshmen at Stanford, Julie Lythcott-Haims. The first episode of Getting In introduced several New York-area high school seniors the show will be following throughout the year as the students go through the college admissions process, and included insight and advice from experts in the college admissions field. The show will release new episodes weekly and promises to be a helpful guide for students around the country who are beginning the often angst-ridden process of applying to college.

The Leonard Lopate Show: Julian Assange joined The Leonard Lopate Show last week from his confines in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Having clearly agreed not to discuss the sexual assault allegations against Assange, Lopate talked with Assange about the impact of WikiLeaks, whether the media has missed the larger picture presented by the leaked documents, and why, for the most part, academic publications have shied away from exploring the documents. Also, Assange seemed to take the side of former Secretary of State and current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in her email controversy. It’s an endorsement the Clinton campaign likely will not be publicizing any time soon.