Photo: Amazon Music/Wondery
The rapidity of Smartless’s rise is, frankly, shocking. The celebrity podcast hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett only debuted in the summer of 2020, alongside a glut of other pandemic-era celebrity offerings, but by the end of last year it was the 23rd-most-listened-to podcast as measured by Edison Research, the most reliable independent source on such matters. Last June, when the show was barely a year old, it signed an exclusive multiyear licensing deal with Amazon Music said to be valued at as…