Patreon Preview: Behind the Scenes (September 2023)

and I don't just write Welcome to Nightville, we also write books that are not about Nightville, and here are some of them.

Alice Isn't Dead, a lesbian road trip horror love story for fans of Stephen King.

The Halloween Moon, my book for kids of any age about a Halloween where things really start to get weird for everyone.

The First 10 Years, a memoir from me and my wife about our relationship told year by year without consulting each other about our differences in memory.

And from Jeffrey, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, an apocalyptic novel that takes place in the same universe as the Within the Wires podcast.

No matter what you're looking for, we've written a book just for you.

Find them where you find books.

Okay, bye.

If you're dying for the next batch of Wednesday Season 2 to drop on Netflix, then I'll let you in on a secret.

The Wednesday Season 2 official wocast is already here.

Dive deeper into the mysteries of Wednesday with the Ultimate Companion Video Podcast.

Join the frightfully funny Caitlin Riley, along with her producer, Thing, as she sits down with the cast and crew.

Together, they'll unravel each shocking twist, dissect the dynamics lurking beneath, unearth Adam's family lore, and answer all of your lingering questions.

Guests include Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Hunter Doohan, Steve Buscemi, Fred Armison, Catherine Zeta Jones, the Joanna Lumley, also show creators Al Goh and Miles Miller, and of course, Wednesday herself, Jenna Ortega, plus many, many more.

With eight delightfully dark episodes to devour, you'll be drawn into the haunting halls of Nevermore Academy deeper than ever before.

But beware, you know where curiosity often leads.

The Wednesday Season 2 official Wocast is available in audio and video on todoom.com or wherever it is you get your podcasts.

Hey, Jeffrey Kraner here.

I wanted to present to you an excerpt from our most recent bonus episode that we have over at our Patreon.

We do these bonus bonus episodes four times a year for Weird Scout level and above.

Two of them are behind the scenes episodes like this one is, wherein we answer questions from our Patreon members about Welcome to Night Vale.

And then the other two bonus episodes every year are fully fictional Welcome to Night Vale bonus episodes.

We do a lot of other really cool stuff over on our Patreon like director's notes for each and every episode, twice monthly essays by me and Joseph.

They may be about writing, they may be about the show, about our lives, things like that.

And we also do monthly hangouts on Zoom, me and Joseph, with our Patreon members.

So it's a lot of fun.

So if you've thought about joining our Patreon for Welcome to Night Vale, it really is the heart and soul.

It's

what we need to keep the show afloat.

So it's really important, really helpful, and we love our Patreon members so very, very much.

So give this excerpt a listen.

See if this is your sort of thing.

You want to be part of these bonus episodes in the future.

We're over at patreon.com slash welcome to nightvale.

That's patreon.com slash welcome to nightvale.

Check out all the cool levels and benefits.

We hope you enjoy.

And hey,

thanks.

Jess says Koschek was in the show for almost a decade before we found out his backstory.

Was that always part of his lore or was it something you came up with later along the way?

No, we didn't.

We didn't when we introduced the cat in like 2012, we didn't have a long meeting where we're like, okay, let's figure out what human being this cat used to be before.

That's something that Jeffrey just brought.

I don't even remember if we had a conversation beforehand.

We might have, he might, you might have come to me with, like, hey, I'm thinking of doing something with Koshak.

I don't remember.

But I discovered that backstory when I edited that episode, kind of going through the script.

That was how I learned that story.

And I think

the two parts were written separately and sent to me separately.

So I had the exact same cliffhanger as you.

I didn't see the second half of the story until Jeffrey wrote it.

Yeah, that was kind of during a part where I was really interested in having other characters do whole episodes.

It just seemed kind of fun.

And that was one, I think the only thing I had told you that I was doing was playing with a backstory of Kaushuk being something more than just Kaushuk.

That may have been the extent of how I explained it.

Ollie asks, what is your favorite rule you've come up with for the Night Vale universe?

Not necessarily a law of the town itself, but world-building rules.

That's a really good question.

You know, the overarching rule when we first started writing the show together, after Joseph had written the pilot, we got together and we're like, yeah, let's do this.

And we started talking about what we were writing and how to do it.

And Joseph said it was just most important and said we could do anything with the show that we want.

It was just really important that we followed strict continuity, you know, meaning characters' age.

And if we say something happens, then this other thing has to happen.

I mean, that's such a broad rule, but it's such an important one.

And I love it because it separates what we do from something like The Simpsons, right?

Like where Bart is always in fourth grade.

You know, Maggie is always a baby.

You know, every episode, the timeline resets.

And I love stuff like that.

I grew up loving The Simpsons.

But yeah, being able to

have people age in a certain way is in a real world sort of way is.

Really beautiful.

Like it just, it makes writing it really rewarding when I get to think about how much Tamika Flynn has aged since we started the show.

It's just, it's really fun to think about.

Yeah, I think one model for what we're doing here is the comic series Love and Rockets.

Specifically, the side, Love and Rockets has two artists who write two stories.

And so the side written by Jaime Hernandez is about these two women who, when they were introduced in the 80s, were like teenage punks in suburban Southern California.

But they've aged in real time

with the comic strip and not comic strip, it's their comics as in like

they come out in issues.

And so at this point, they are like well into their middle age.

They're working jobs.

They like they've had life and disappointments.

Their bodies are different.

You know, they've grown and aged.

And it's really affecting reading Love and Rockets the way that you can really feel the time start to weigh on them.

It feels very real and very interesting to watch these characters age the same way we do.

And so I think that's something I really wanted to try was

I want the years to start to weigh on these people and then for them to change in that gradual way we all do.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-liter jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.

And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director.

You might know me from the League Veep or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We love movies and we come at them from different perspectives.

Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't.

He's too old.

Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dune 2 is overrated.

It is.

Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you missed them.

We're talking Parasite the Home Alone, from Greece to the Dark Knight.

We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks.

We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look.

And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, like Kanja and Hess.

So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Hi, we're Meg Bashwiner.

And Joseph Fink.

Of Welcome to Night Vale.

And on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the golden age of television.

To do that, we're watching the IMDb viewer-rated best and worst episodes of classic TV shows.

The episode of Star Trek, where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost, the episode of The X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat, and also the really good episodes, too.

What can we learn from the best and worst of great television?

Like, for example, is it really a bad episode, or do people just hate women?

The best worst, available wherever you get your podcasts.