If you grew up in Ireland in the 80s or 90s, chances are you spent many an afternoon trying to draw an owl, a dinosaur or a shark along with the wonderful Don Conroy.

For decades, Don was a much-loved fixture of Irish children's television, bringing a little calm to the madness of Dempsey's Den and The Den, alongside Ian Dempsey, Zig and Zag and Dustin the Turkey.

In this episode, Don and I take a trip down memory lane to those brilliant days of Irish TV, including the slagging he got from the puppets and the extraordinary affection people still have for him.

But Don has lived a fascinating life beyond the drawing board. He tells me about acting alongside Gabriel Byrne and Frank Kelly, the day he ended up having tea and biscuits with Laurence Olivier, and a terrifying encounter in Africa involving an enormous owl and two men with rifles.

We also revisit the time I persuaded him to play Denis O'Brien in a sketch, and chat about his new book, The Artist Within, which encourages us all to rediscover our creativity, slow down and take a closer look at the world around us.

COMEDY - Ryan Tubridy might be embarking on a new career in politics - Donald Trump, George Lee, and Bertie Ahern have some advice!

The Mario Rosenstock Podcast is produced by Patrick Haughey, AudioBrand

Ever wondered why the bookies always seem to come out on top? Or whether those tempting accumulators, bet builders and big-race specials are quite as attractive as they look?

Economist and UCD Professor Karl Whelan joins me on this episode to lift the lid on the economics of sports betting. His new book, Fine Margins: How Economics Explains Sports Betting, explores the mathematics behind the odds, the strategies bookmakers use to protect their profits, and why some of the most popular types of bets offer surprisingly poor value for punters.

There's also a brilliant story involving my great friend, the late Tony Fenton, Paddy Power and a €16,000 win on a Roy Keane Gift Grub sketch reaching Christmas number one. And we'll revisit that classic Roy Keane musical moment from the archives.

Karl previously worked as an economist at the US Federal Reserve, so we also chat about Donald Trump, the state of the American economy and the possibility that the enormous sums being invested in artificial intelligence could be fuelling another financial bubble.

Tour alert: My brand new live stage show ‘Boom’ has just gone on sale Nationwide- Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford. Tickets at Ticketmaster & venue box office. See you there !

Is AI is going to take your job, destroy civilisation or just make you feel completely inadequate?

My chat with Mark Little in this episode might help shed some light on the answers to these questions.

Mark is a former RTÉ foreign correspondent and news presenter, the founder of the very successful company Storyful, and somebody who's been at the forefront of the digital revolution for a long time.

He’s just written a fascinating new book called The Last Good Day on the Internet, about how technology has changed our lives, what we've lost along the way, and why the future might not be quite as bleak as we're sometimes led to believe.

We talk about whether AI could turn against us, why the people building it can sometimes seem a little bit mad themselves, and why the things that make us human might actually become more valuable in the years ahead.

COMEDY link – So it seems anyone who is anyone has a book to promote at the moment – and the intrepid team at RTE's Prime Time is worried...

Produced by Patrick Haughey, AudioBrand