Supporting characters from Windy City Heat, including "John Quincy Adams", "Yurgi", "Sol Steinbergowitz-Greenbaum" and "Burt Ward," have made a return for the podcast, and the show has featured guest appearances by celebrity fans such as Jimmy Kimmel, Andy Dick, Dominic Monaghan, Jeff Richards, former "Penthouse" Pet of the Month Linda Johnson and prominent Los Angeles businessman Neil "The Mattress King" Leeds. The show was initially published by ACE Broadcasting Network, but since September 2011 it has been independently published by Don Barris' "Simply Don the Podcast Network". Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013, The Big 3 Live is a monthly live video podcast produced and distributed by Video Podcast Network (VPN), part of the YouTube Original Channel Initiative. It uses many of the elements of The Big 3 Podcast, but also includes video clips of past Big 3 moments, such as segments from Simply Don the Public Access Program and appearances at The Comedy Store. VPN also made it part of their "ANiMASHUPS" series, where they take audio clips from VPN shows and animate them into short cartoons.