Prologue Projects produces award-winning podcasts across a range of categories, including history, politics, sports, culture, and memoir. Our portfolio includes long-form audio documentaries as well as conversation-based shows. Our team also has a track record of creating inventive television adaptations of our work in audio.

Backfired: ATTENTION DEFICIT

Podcast • PP-15 • 2024

ADHD may be the defining diagnosis of our time. In the second installment of Backfired, co-hosts Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes look at the unintended consequences of the ADHD industry, and trace the surprising path that brought us here.

Backfired: THE VAPING WARS

Podcast • PP-14 • 2024

When two Stanford graduate students set out to create a cigarette that wouldn’t kill them, they didn’t foresee what lay in store. Did their invention provide the answer to one of the world’s most pressing public health problems—smoking—or did it introduce a whole new generation to nicotine, spreading an intractable addiction? Hosts Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes unravel the polarizing story of Juul Labs and dive into the illegal vape market that sprouted up in its wake.

Frontline: The Astros Edge

TV • 2023

FRONTLINE examines the Houston Astros cheating scandal and what it says about baseball today. With reporter Ben Reiter, the documentary traces the making of one of the best teams and worst scandals in modern Major League Baseball history, the limited accountability and how the Astros’ approach to baseball changed the sport.

THINK TWICE: MICHAEL JACKSON

Podcast • PP-13 • 2023

More than a decade since Michael Jackson’s death, his legacy remains complicated and unresolved. Think Twice: Michael Jackson is an exploration of the King of Pop’s life and impact – and an investigation into why his global influence continues to endure, despite the disturbing allegations against him. In this ten-part series, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Jay Smooth bring you a new perspective on the Michael Jackson story, based on dozens of original interviews with people who watched it unfold from up close.

Think Twice: Michael Jackson is a co-production of Prologue Projects, Audible Originals, Amazon Music, and Jigsaw Productions.

Fiasco: Vigilante

Podcast • PP-12 • 2023

In 1984, as a New York City subway train made its way downtown, a white man named Bernhard Goetz shot four unarmed Black teenagers he believed were going to rob him. The shooting and its aftermath came to embody the widespread fear of crime that reigned supreme around the country during the 1980s.

FIASCO: The AIDS Crisis

Podcast • PP-11 • 2022

The new season of Fiasco goes deep on the AIDS epidemic in America, with a special focus on the early years of the crisis, when a diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence. The eight-part series looks at the mystery and missteps around identifying and treating a new, contagious disease, and what it took to get the public - and the government - to care.

FIASCO: Benghazi

Podcast • PP-10 • 2021

How a city in Libya became the namesake for a scandal that changed the course of American politics.

FIASCO Television show

TV • 2021

Spanning continents and time zones, FIASCO, based on the hit podcast, dives into one of the least understood of all political scandals and reveals the true scope of Iran Contra with groundbreaking interviews, rare archival footage and cinematic style.ten twists and turns of the past while shedding light on the present.

celebrity book club with steven & lily

Podcast • PP-09 • 2021

Join comedians Steven Phillips-Horst (@gossipbabies) & Lily Marotta (@lilyblueyez) as they rifle through the diaries of starlets, restaurateurs, entertainers, and politicians, finding fertile ground for searing cultural insights, juicy gossip, and personal stories from their own long friendship. Martinis not included.

365 Stories I Want to Tell You Before We Both Die

Podcast • PP-08 • 2021

A daily short-form podcast featuring intimate, funny, and sometimes sad stories from the life of filmmaker Caveh Zahedi. New episodes every day of 2021.

5-4

Podcast • PP-07 • 2020

5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It's a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court's most important landmark cases, and an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Listen each week as hosts Peter, Michael, and Rhiannon dismantle the Justices’ legal reasoning on hot-button issues like affirmative action, gun rights, and campaign finance, and use dark humor to reveal the high court's biases.

FIASCO: The Battle For Boston

Podcast • PP-06 • 2020

Fiasco's third season, The Battle for Boston, tells the story of the movement to desegregate Boston's public schools - and all the backlash that followed.

THE EDGE: HOUSTON ASTROS

Podcast • PP-05 • 2020

Host Ben Reiter, author of the bestselling book Astroball, investigates the cheating scandal that tarnished the Houston Astros’ World Series 2017 win. Through original interviews with key figures in the scandal, Reiter gets to the bottom of what happened, who’s to blame, and why the scandal enraged the sports world more than any other in recent memory.

Whirlwind

Podcast • PP-04 • 2020

The United States won the cold war against the Russians through political warfare. But in the 21st century, Russia is winning the battle. Over ten episodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning and NYT best-selling author Tim Weiner provides a penetrating look at the decisions, mistakes, and mischief that led us to this point.

Slow Burn television show

TV • 2020

In this Epix adaptation of the award-winning podcast, Slow Burn’s Leon Neyfakh excavates the strange subplots and forgotten characters of Watergate—and finds surprising parallels to the present.

FIASCO: Iran-Contra

Podcast • PP-03 • 2020

In Fiasco season 2, host Leon Neyfakh dives into Iran-Contra: a story about a secret war, a secret deal, and a scandal that threatened to destroy Ronald Reagan's presidency - until it didn't.

The Trevor Noah Podcast

Podcast • PP-02 • 2019

Trevor Noah and David Kibuuka explore unfamiliar angles, embrace differing viewpoints, and celebrate the contradictions that make living in this modern world bewildering and exciting.

FIASCO: Bush v. Gore

Podcast • PP-01 • 2019

Host Leon Neyfakh transports listeners into the day-to-day reality of our country's most pivotal historical events, bringing to life the forgotten twists and turns of the past while shedding light on the present. Season 1: Bush v. Gore recounts what happened during the contested election between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and the extraordinary legal battle that unfolded in Florida over the next 36 days.