Witness… The Long and Winding You Know What

I guess it’s only appropriate that an episode titled “The Open Road” had the longest path to actually being made.

I started writing the script in May of 2021. That puts it right between the writing of Season 3’s “The Family Falls Apart” and “The Imagination Plague.” In fact, “Road” was supposed to be the fifth episode of S3 in place of “Plague.” Why the switch? Honestly, I think it’s because I didn’t want two car-related stories in one season, the other one in this case being S3’s two-parter, “The Driving Test.” Ironically, it ended up alongside an automobile-ish episode anyway (“The Moonroof” was originally planned to be a Season 5 episode but I was too excited about it), but thematically speaking, I guess it makes sense? Happy accidents? Poor planning? Is it really important*?

*no

In any case, “Road” got bumped to S4, where it was intended to be the third episode released. While I was writing it, I began coaching an improv team by the name of Boom You’re Dead, and it became increasingly clear that the members of the team— Alex, Carmen and Ian— were the folks I was picturing and hearing. Shay, with their monotone delivery of almost Tina Belcher-like proportions, clearly had to be my friend JP Polin, with whom I was briefly on an improv team pre-Covid called Donut. (JPol, as they are affectionately called, has gone as Tina for Halloween at least one time and it was, of course, perfect).

Donut cast, circa May 2019.

Clockwise from left: Joshua (past WIYW performer/current poster artist), Emily, JPol (they’re very tall), me, Sarah (future WIYW performer), Frances (past performer), another Sarah (past performer).

When it came time to schedule the recording, this is where the problems began to arise. Scheduling has always been the biggest hurdle to clear, especially now that we’re able to record in person, but the combination of work, vacations, circus training (seriously) and, of course, much needed personal time to retain one’s sanity in the wake of spending a year inside and not to mention all the other horrifying shit that’s been going on— it all added up to unaligned calendars and the utmost difficulty in nailing down a time to all get together at Dylan’s to read some scripts into microphones. Add onto that my unexpected trip to Chicago for the iO Summer Intensive, and the delays became rather indefinite.

Once I returned from Chicago, I set forth to nail down recording times for the four episodes that still needed to be recorded, with “Road” being at the top of the list. But once again, scheduling for the episode unfortunately proved difficult. While recordings for “Singularity,” “Moonroof” and the sixth S4 episode (the title of which shall remain secret until next week because: reasons) were finalized and completed, “Road” kept getting pushed back. And me, being a stubborn wittle baby, didn’t want to release Season 4 until all the episodes were in the can; the vision of six consecutive weeks full of new content was too etched into my brain to see anything else, like the fact that three episodes were DONE and just waiting to be consumed by human (or animal) ears.

Eventually, I came to my senses, and decided to break Season 4 into two parts, thus not delaying things by a year after they were first recorded; rather, they were delayed by nearly a year, so, small wins, take ‘em when you can 🤷‍♂️.

Scheduling the “Road” recording continued to be challenging, however, with Carmen and Ian being busy as beavers, so I sadly had to bite the bullet and recast their roles with more available performers. It was obviously nothing personal; as I’ve probably stated many times before, life just gets in the way of silly podcast projects.

Lucas Simon and Johnny Taylor stepped in for the roles of Sam and Jude, respectively, and a recording was finally, FINALLY scheduled for mid-August 2024. This means that “The Open Road” now holds the record for shortest turn around between recording and release. Which episode held the record previously? Hell if I know; this is literally occurring to me as I’m writing this and I’ll be damned if I’m going to go through my back calendars to research the other episodes. Anyways, the recording was on, with Alex, Lucas and Johnny on the mics in person, and JPol recording remotely.

Johnny (Jude) and Alex (Nicole).

Lucas (Sam) and JPol (Shay) on the laptop.

Going back to that shortest turnaround record thing, since the premiere date for S4 Part 2 was set in late July, before the “Road” recording was set to happen, this meant that once that recording did happen, it was CRUNCH TIME. I purposefully gave myself plenty of time so that crunch time wouldn’t feel like crunch time, and thankfully, as the majority of the episode takes place inside an air conditioned car, there weren’t a lot of sound effects needed during the editing process. It was really just the climax of the episode, with the semi-truck chase, that required the most work; I think I cranked that out in about three hours? Not sure if that’s impressive or sloppy, but I think it sounds good.

So, after over three years, “The Open Road” is finally out in the world. I guess the lesson here is: have patience. Obstacles are going to arise. There’s no need to rush, but we also don’t have to demand perfection from ourselves all the time and just learn to roll with the punches. Eventually, it will all work out.

If there’s a second lesson, it’s probably: don’t piss off cows. They’re tricky bastards.

The face of evil.

—Andy