This week, highlights from our annual creativity and comedy conference, MaxFunCon. Join us for some excerpts of illuminating talks:

• Thoughts on getting started in public media, the role of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and more from On the Media's Brooke Gladstone. Her book The Influencing Machine is out now.
• A conversation between John Hodgman and Lee Unkrich, director of the acclaimed film Toy Story 3, on making a final sequel to a beloved series. (You can also listen to our past interview with Lee on The Sound here.)

Plus, top-notch comedy from:

• Stop Podcasting Yourself's Graham Clark
• MaxFun favorite Maria Bamford
• UK comedy darling Josie Long
• Our pal Greg Behrendt
• And to close, some musings from veteran road comic Jerry O'Hearn.
  

• Sarah Silverman recalls a disturbing Thanksgiving memory with her dad.
  
  
• Director Lee Unkrich's newest film, Toy Story 3, is a dark horse for the Oscar win for Best Picture, as The Atlantic discusses -- but we've still got faith.
  
  
• Kevin Kline has a great turn as an eccentric writer in The Extra Man, which is just now out on DVD. He talked to us about the film at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
  
  
• Performance artist Ze Frank in his TED talk from earlier this year on virtual connections between people, entitled "Ze Frank's Web Playroom".
  

Lee Unkrich is the director of Toy Story 3. He's worked at Pixar for more than 15 years, and co-directed Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc. and Toy Story 2. Before he worked at Pixar, he was an editor in non-animated film = his credits include a TV movie called "Separated By Murder" and the erotic TV thriller Silk Stalkings.

Lee talked with us about being a non-animator in an animation company, and what his traditional film-making skills mean in a Pixar context. He also talks about introducing themes of mortality into kids' movie, and the pressure of making a Pixar film.

Six or eight months ago, I visited director Lee Unkrich at Pixar Studios in Emeryville, California. Lee is a Sound of Young America listener, and he was kind enough to invite me out for a tour while I was in the Bay Area visiting family.

The topics of conversation included how great Kristen Schaal is and the crazy offices at Pixar. You see, when they moved into their facility, they let the artists buy sheds at Home Depot and assemble them in the open-floor-plan office. You know the kind of backyard shed that looks like a tiny house? Pixar is full of those. The bigwigs' offices are even crazier, and Lee's is full of taxidermied animals.

I thought I would score some cool points by asking if he'd been to the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. Well, said Lee, My wife said I could only have one taxidermied animal in the house, so I chose a monkey. Then I had the founder of the MJT help me build a diorama for it.

Pictured, above.