How to delete podcasts from iTunes & smart playlists?

Okay, I'm using iTunes 12 on an iMac...

Basically just deleted all of my podcasts, moved to trash, deleted from trash.

Wanted to see which tracks in my music were low bitrate, so created smart playlist.

Smart playlist pulled up all the deleted podcasts and threw them in there too.

I can work around the playlist issue by changing media type to music, although that's not the point. All of these podcasts are still on my computer and playable in iTunes.

How can I delete them once and for all? Where are they?!

Thanks.