“What in the World?” Podcast Debuts with Pizza Catastrophes and Snowball Warfare

CLEVELAND — A new era of strange and entertaining journalism has launched on Cleveland 13 News as the network welcomed its latest programming partnership with 'What in the World w/ Paul Seaburn', a quirky podcast hosted by Paul Seaburn and Karen Moss Hale. The show made its debut on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, promising a weekly dose of bizarre headlines, unbelievable true stories, and offbeat humor under the tagline “Real News, Sometimes Strange, Always Funny.”

“This segment podcast is designed purely for your entertainment; smart, quirky, delightfully offbeat,” said co-host and producer Karen Moss Hale during the premiere episode. She described the show as a refreshing break from mainstream news, aligning with Cleveland 13's mission to deliver engaging and community-focused content.

The episode opened with global culinary curiosities, including Pizza Hut Japan’s controversial “Handy Melt” a one-handed pizza stuffed with cheese and Kit Kats. Despite backlash, the sugary monstrosity returned this year with a strawberry upgrade, infuriating pizza purists worldwide. “You walk down the street with something like that in New York City, they'll run you out of town,” Seaburn quipped during the segment.

Meanwhile, in the UK, thousands of French fries washed ashore in Sussex after a cargo mishap, raising questions from locals and jokes from the show’s hosts. “Three feet of fries? That’s a chipometer,” Seaburn said.

The show also highlighted McDonald's Japan’s oddly named “Mushroom Mountain and Bamboo Chute Village McFlurry,” which, despite its alarming title, is made from mushroom-shaped chocolate cookies rather than actual produce. Additional food oddities included pierogi ice cream from Cleveland and a Valentine’s Day “Spam Variety Gift Set” from Costco.

“We’ve got Spam teriyaki, Korean BBQ, jalapeño 15 flavors in all,” Seaburn said, noting the set even includes a Spam slicer. “Treat someone special, or weird, this Valentine’s Day.”

Beyond food, the show spotlighted Finland’s Juha Andersson, a finger wrestler who lifted 336 pounds using just one middle finger, and a roadrunner in Arizona that mimicked Looney Tunes by leaping into a ranger’s truck to escape a coyote.

The history segment took a comedic turn with a 650-year-old door in Estonia, jokingly linked to medieval knock-knock jokes. “The first actual knock-knock joke wasn’t until 1934,” Seaburn explained. “But Shakespeare said ‘knock knock’ in Macbeth — so blame him.”

Capping off the hour, co-host John DiNalo introduced the show’s “What in the World of Sports” segment featuring Yuki Gassen, Japan’s official competitive snowball fighting tournament, now in its 36th year. “There are over 20,000 teams in Japan, and 10 other countries have joined the league,” DiNalo reported.

Wrapping up the episode, the trio played “Bluff the Co-Host,” a game challenging participants to guess whether absurd-sounding headlines were real or fake. One true story featured Massachusetts residents using unicycles to shovel snow, while a bluff involved a weather-forecasting mouse named Mikey.

“This collaboration between Cleveland 13 and What in the World w/ Paul Seaburn is going to be a very fruitful relationship,” Seaburn said. “We hope you have as much fun watching as we have putting it together.”

When asked about the new series, Cleveland 13 President Matt Greminger praised its willingness to push boundaries. "We’re here to give passionate creators a place to shine, and if this show proves anything, it’s that weird can be wonderful," Greminger said. "We can’t wait to see what wacky, unexpected coverage comes out of this series." He noted that while the show embraces the bizarre, it remains rooted in fact-based journalism.

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