Witness… The Other Half

We have arrived. Another three weeks of strange tales just for your ears. And if nothing else, I think I deserve a pat on the back for staying true to my promise to get Season 4 Part 2 out before the end of the year. There were nearly nine months in between, but hey, we can’t all be like the original Matrix sequels with a nearly six-month separation, and this is certainly better than the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels being released eleven months apart. And don’t get me started on whenever Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse is going to be released, though the way the animators have reportedly been treated in order to make some kind of stringent deadline is very upsetting, so, maybe the less said about it the better.

But this brings to mind something somewhat related to this episode, “The Moonroof”: plans. I’m sure most of us are familiar with the Yiddish proverb, “Man plans and God laughs.” There is definitely some truth to that, although the inclusion of God can personally be a bit irksome for this atheist. This season as a whole has been very difficult to put together, plan-wise, something about which I’ve already spoken and will continue to regale you with this and the final two episodes’ accompanying blogs. Whether it came to casting snafus or rescheduling recording sessions or misunderstandings about how the recordings will take place, the journey for Season 4 has been an arduous one. I don’t say this to place blame anywhere or on anyone; it’s just a fact of life: nothing’s going to go the way you want it to. I, regrettably, take the lesson of “keep your expectations low” from this, so I hope you, dear reader, go the more optimistic route.

But can you blame me for engaging in pessimism or cynicism? I mean, if you were take just the story I tell in the intro to “Moonroof” as evidence, then it’s no wonder I carry a good does skepticism alongside the idea of plans. While we’re at it, let’s just acknowledge the elephant in the room: my vague recounting of said story about me and my ex-bestie. For starters, I never expected anything to come between us; I vividly recall saying that he would be in my life forever. That, unfortunately, was not the case. I really do wish I could tell you more details about what happened, because leaving things out feels like I’m not being objective, which I honestly am trying to be, even with all the lingering frustration. As I state in the intro, however, it isn’t just my story, and therefore it would be unfair to make the unabridged version public. I can reveal a couple of things that I didn’t say in the episode, though. One: I do carry some regret for my choices that led to the friend break-up, and two: I wouldn’t change anything were I do miraculously get a do-over, primarily because my life is better post-friend-break-up. It was hard to realize how unhappy I truly was, and now that I am no longer in contact with this person and have surrounded myself with much, much better people, both in general and for my well-being… I mean, I’m still unhappy— that’ll forever be a constant— but my friends aren’t responsible for that feeling and rarely are.

So needless to say, this is a very personal episode for me. Speaking of which, maybe we should talk about the fucking episode already? You’re not here to read a transcription of one my therapy appointments, after all.

On the topic of plans (and forgive me if I’ve mentioned this in an earlier blog; I’m too lazy to go back and reread them), I had a half-assed intention to parallel the episodes of S4 with the episodes of S1. “The Map Makers” featured three characters just as “The Homecoming Queen” did; “The Evil Twin” carried themes of legality and illegality, just as “The Wrong Button” did. But all those scheduling hiccups I alluded to earlier caused me to rethink the original episode order, which resulted in “The Second Singularity” coming third rather than aligning, in a sense, with the sci-fi story in, “The Eurydice Rescue.”

“The Moonroof,” however, does line up with “The King of Sheep,” in that both deal with classic supernatural creatures, the latter with zombies, and the former with basically everything else, or at least everything famously featured in classic Universal horror movies. Call this my foray into the Dark Universe that never got off the ground, not for lack of trying on Universal’s part— hey! Another plan that didn’t come to fruition. See? They’re everywhere!

I can’t recall where the idea of a group of people trapped in a limo with a werewolf came from. I did once have a short film idea about a vampire on a bus, something inspired by the Radiohead song “We Suck Young Blood.” I do, however, remember trying to figure out what the limo was for. At first, I thought it might be prom, as that was one of the few times I’ve personally ever been in a limo, so I could insert some truth into it. But I didn’t want to retread too much on some of the themes I tackled in “Homecoming Queen,” namely, the whole high-school-dance-blown-way-out-of-proportion aspect. So I settled on a bachelorette party instead.

When it came to casting, there were a couple of pairs I knew I wanted to be involved. I knew I wanted to have Mary Johnson and Justine Sizemore, two San Francisco improvisers who were also students of mine in the first two classes I taught at Endgames Improv upon our return from Covid lockdown, involved in a future episode, specifically in the same one as they have good chemistry, something that could be noted on their indie team, Industrial Kitchen (speaking of which, a number of members of that team will also be featured in some Season 5 episodes, so stay tuned), and “Moonroof” seemed like a good fit for them.

To tell the story of the other pair, I need to break a rule of mine. I don’t always like to divulge who I either originally envisioned in certain roles or who I originally cast but then had to recast after scheduling didn’t work out. I don’t want my performers to think they were “second choice” or whatever; it has nothing to do with that, but rather that this is just how the game is played. These people aren’t replacements; they are just the ones now playing the role.

So, now that that’s out of the way, I knew when conceiving the script that I wanted to have the roles of Rachel and Mavis be played by Alison Reynolds and Kendall Detweiller, respectively. Kendall played Sister Whistle in the S3 episode “The Noble Steed,” and I still try to have people who played small roles in one ep eventually play a larger one in another. I wanted Alison and Kendall as these two parts not just because they are best friends, but because they’re the kind of best friends that playfully bicker and argue, so I wanted to utilize that kind of chemistry in crafting the protagonist and antagonist of the story.

Alison and Kendall performing as their duo, Big Boyz, in early 2023.

Once again, though, plans change, and life takes precedent over silly podcast projects. During the window of time I was looking to record, Kendall was busy with work, and so it was not deemed possible to fit in some weekend time to record at producer Dylan Garcia’s place. My wonderful plans, foiled by capitalism! So, the search was on for the new Mavis. Thankfully, I didn’t have to search far, as improviser Caile Collins was there to take up the mantle, and did so by imbuing Mavis with not just the childlike immaturity the character displayed on the page, but also a pinch of sympathetic ethos often seen in the best villains.

The first recording session for “Moonroof” took place on December 3, 2023 (I told you things have been arduous!). Strangely enough, for an episode about someone who turns into a ravenous canine after being bit by one, this day was the day after I was bit by a dog while DoorDashing. This is an epic tale in and of itself, but the basic summary is that I was making a Safeway delivery of one single cucumber, was given the instructions to hand it to the customer, and was accosted by a Bouvier des Flandres who came running up to me and decided to say hello by sinking its teeth into my left hamstring. I was fine and everything was taken care of, but I had plenty of Advil on my person to deal with the pain.

The face of evil.

Anyways, this recording session featured Justine, Alison on Zoom (once again, like during the recording for “The Evil Twin,” wires were crossed regarding whether or not things would be done remotely or in person), and Siang Kong as Daphne. Siang, an Endgames improviser I knew mildly, attended the iO Summer Intensive the same time as me and we hung out then, even attending a Chicago Cubs game with the other SF improvisers we knew there.

That's Siang when I pan to the right alongside Geoff, another SF improviser.

The second session took place on January 27 of this year, with Mary in tow along with Amandari Karaca as Veena. Jonathan MacDonald, Blisters from “The Map Makers”, was already at Dylan’s to record some fake ad sketches to be featured in my other podcast, Weird Pals, so he sat in to read some of the missing performer’s lines. You have no idea how tempting it was to collect his renditions and include them in this episode somehow, perhaps as the coda, but Mary’s roar attempts were too good to pass up. In fact:

I mean, they were scary enough to make all the birds outside react.

The third and final session took place remotely with Caile. It’s always interesting when I write blood-curdling screams for characters, because I never stop to think, huh, they might scare their significant others in order to get the proper intensity that I’m looking for as a director. Luckily, Caile warned her husband before wearing out her vocal chords for the section where Veena reveals her vampirism in the most proactive way imaginable.

Forgive me for some self-indulgence (as if this whole podcast isn’t just that in a nutshell), but the more I’ve listened to “The Moonroof,” the more proud of it I’ve become and now consider it one of my favorite episodes. I think there are interesting layers and twists and emotions strewn throughout the ridiculousness of it all, and I think the performers all got the job done extremely well. So I guess the lesson here is: who gives a shit if something doesn’t go 100% according to plan? Sometimes, it ends up just as good as, if not even better than, what you first imagined.

WOOO!

—Andy