The Summer of Night Vale Presents, Part 4

Hey, y'all, it is Jeffrey Kraner speaking to you from the year 2025.

And did you know that Welcome to Night Vale is back out on tour?

We are.

We're going to be up in the northeast in the Boston, New York City area, going all the way over to the upper Midwest in Minnesota.

That's in July.

You kind of draw a line through there and you'll kind of see the towns we'll be hitting.

We'll also be doing Philly down to Florida in September.

And we'll be going from Austin all the way up through the middle of the country into Toronto, Canada in October.

And then we'll be doing the west coast plus the southwest plus Colorado in January of 2026.

You can find all of the show dates at welcome to nightvale.com/slash live.

Listen, this brand new live show is so much fun.

It is called Murder Night in Blood Forest, and it stars Cecil Baldwin, of course, Symphony Sanders, me, and live original music by Disparition, and who knows what other special guests may come along for the ride.

These tours are always so much fun, and they are for you, the diehard fan, and you, the Night Vale new kid alike.

So, feel comfortable bringing your family, your partner, your co-workers, your cat, whatever.

They don't gotta know what a night veil is to like the show.

Tickets to all of these live shows are on sale now at welcometonightvelle.com/slash live.

Don't let time slip away and miss us when we are in your town because otherwise we will all be sad.

Get your tickets to our live US plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightveld.com/slash live.

And hey, see you soon.

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Howdy, Jeffrey Kraner here.

Welcome to the fourth and final week of the Summer of Night Vale Presents, a celebration and sampling of the shows across our network.

A quick word of warning, this collection contains some explicit language.

Or maybe you didn't need to be warned.

Maybe you're excited by that.

Either way, strong words coming right at you.

So before we do anything else, I want to share with you a sneak peek of two of Nightvale Presents' brand new fiction shows.

These podcasts are unlike anything else on our network, and, well, I'll just let the creators explain their shows themselves.

Ever since I got to Cleveland, I've been having this strange recurring dream.

And it always starts the same.

I'm in the water, hanging suspended, and it's deep water.

And it's dark, I can't see anything.

The water is the same temperature as my body.

It feels pleasant.

My hair is just gently swaying.

And then I feel a little bit of cold on my legs.

And at first I think it feels sort of nice.

And then a little bit more cold.

And then slowly I realize

that something huge is moving underneath me.

I start to freak out and I start to try to get away.

But I can't get anywhere.

The water isn't moving and I feel the coldness coming up, more and more coldness.

Like the thing is getting closer and closer.

So I start to thrash and I open my mouth to scream, but but the icy water rushes in.

It hits the back of my throat and zooms down into my stomach.

I feel it fill me up.

And then it zigzags its way through my intestines like a cold knife.

And just before it gets to the back of my asshole, I wake up.

And my dick is always hard.

Is it time to talk?

Hi, everybody.

Hi.

Is anybody up listening?

You're all in your underwear.

Dane, here, let's start.

Let's start again.

Ready?

One, two, three, go.

Um, tell me what Dream Boy is about.

Is it about a boy?

It's not.

Not about a boy.

I need you to take this cake.

To who?

You don't know him yet.

It's got drag queens.

There's also some creepy little nocturnal girl scouts.

Good morning.

Good.

Wait, though, it's just after midnight.

Technically, morning.

There's a murderous zebra.

Zoe.

Zoe.

The zebra.

I was a songwriter first, and then

I talk a lot in between songs, so people were like, hey, maybe you're doing theater.

And then the theater people were like, it's great.

It's definitely theater.

We don't want to look at you.

Try a podcast.

I went to college for a few years for like classical composition.

And I tried to write that kind of serious classical music, very atonal classical music.

And I just wasn't any good at it.

And I think at the end, I got fed up.

I sort of rebelled from that and went all the way in the other direction and kind of was like, you know, fuck it.

Can you say fuck on the internet?

You can say fuck.

That's where all the fucks live.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I said, fuck it.

I'm going to, um, I'm going to like gravitate towards what makes me feel feelings.

And what I'm just like any other person, what makes me feel feelings is when, you know, when that spaceship takes off NET, when they fly over that moon, I have feelings.

I don't know about you.

So I started studying screenplay formulas.

And I just, I was interested in that structure because it was such a pill that people were used to swallowing.

That like I figured if I could put other content into that pill, people would swallow it.

Like

murderous zebras and gay sex in Cleveland.

Dream Boy.

Dream Boy.

I make a hell of a Posca Rigatoni, and I'm a good kisser.

Listen to my podcast.

Hello.

Welcome to Adventures in New America, where each week we bring you new tales from the tragic American after.

Coming to you in stereo

well for me adventures in new america is exciting because it has a biracial black guy and a black female in

a futuristic stop what who are you who am i i'm stephen winter I'm the co-creator of Adventures in New America.

And I was excited about it.

I'm still excited about it.

What excites me about it

is that it's a futuristic Douglas Adams kind of story with black people in it.

What will entice people?

What will entice people?

What's enticing about it is

you rarely see a comedy.

Well, you're starting to see comedy.

Well,

oh my God, I'm so stunned.

Come on.

Bring in the black nerds who are with the patriarchy.

If you are a black nerd and interested in the patriarchy,

or a black female nerd who wants to smash the patriarchy, then this is the show for you, because that's all that the show is about, really.

The show is Adventures in New America.

My name is Tristan.

I'm partially responsible.

One of the longest-running cultural products in American history is a show called Gunsmoke.

It was on television, it was on radio before that.

It set around a town called Dodge City, and every week, a new character would come to Dodge City, or a group of characters, and based on the decisions that they made, their lives would change,

sometimes in the way that they would be dead, but

they would change.

It's like the city had these rude mechanicals that would help by resolving what was a um a change moment for for these characters.

But they would not change themselves.

New America is similar to Dodge City in that respect, because it doesn't change.

And some of the rude mechanicals of that world don't change.

But our protagonists, uh I.

A., who is uh a man with cancer, and Simon, who is a sociopathic sneak thief, they enter the mill of New America and after 12 episodes they end up in a dramatically different place from where they started.

But the show itself I think works as something to listen to when you're computer gaming or doing your taxes and then it works on a secondary level when you listen to all the episodes as a whole

in the way that a pattern is established.

So if you're if you're interested in that kind of second messaging, this might be an interesting kind of rubric for you.

The show also has another aspect about it: we all have to survive, but we all have the notion in the back of our heads: if we could just keep surviving for a little while longer, we might actually thrive at some point.

We might actually be able to afford some cheese with our bread.

And that's what the story is.

It's about two cats who try to go really get some big cheese.

I gotta warn them.

Tell them you're real.

You're sitting on your ass is is like watching Superman hot fly.

Maybe I should be like them and throw away my money.

You won't listen to me?

Listen to my big noise.

This is a stitch-up!

I'm so excited for you to hear these podcasts.

I think you're gonna really like them.

I mean, I like them.

And as a solipsist, I rest assured that you like them equally.

Stay tuned to the Night Vale Presents feed, newsletter, and social media for more information about both Adventures in New America and Dream Boy, as well as our entire fall season.

Okay.

So a few months ago, we told you about a very special co-presentation of the Orbiting Human Circus of the Air with WNYC.

If you've never listened to the Orbiting Human Circus, it's a surreal and funny audio drama about a lonely janitor at the Eiffel Tower who longs to be part of the most popular radio show in the world.

You're not going to find anything like it.

Go listen to it.

For those who have listened, our co-presentation also features brand new behind-the-scenes commentary on the making of the podcast.

Here's a sample of that.

This is episode five of season one with commentary from Julian Coster and John Cameron Mitchell.

A co-presentation of WNYC Studios and Nightfall Presents.

You are listening to the orbiting human circus of the air.

This public service announcement was paid for by the joint governments of the world.

If children are present, turn your radio off at the sound of the tone.

Mommy, Daddy, is the great recitating platypus really exist?

Confirming your children's belief in the existence of the great recitating platypus of the North will keep them healthy.

New international studies show that children who believe in the great recitating platypus of the North have a greater recovery rate from all childhood illnesses than children who don't.

Furthermore, the belief that if brave, the platypus will visit while you sleep, recite his many poems, and cause you to wake up healthy has shown clinically to reduce occurrences of illness later in life.

Parents, the day of discovery will come.

They, like we, will learn the great racite-hating platypus of the north does not exist.

But do not hasten the moment.

Allow them to believe.

Give your children the chance to grow healthy and strong.

Welcome to episode five of the special edition of the Orbiting Human Circus of the Air, with commentary following each episode and a director's cut of the season finale.

Broadcasting from the top of the Eiffel Tower, the orbiting human circus of the air.

Behind the red velvet curtains on the wooden stage, beyond two performing donkeys being fed carrots by their trainer, to the left of several elderly women readying themselves on stilts.

Directly across from ten chefs preparing omelets on Bunsen burners, clutching his mop, and looking innocent out in the open where anybody could tackle and remove him is Julian, janitor at the Eiffel Tower.

Shouldn't you be hiding?

No, I'm allowed.

There's gonna be a hypnotist on the show tonight.

My great-grandfather was a stage hypnotist.

Really?

I never heard you say that before.

Not three times every day.

You know how much I lifted last weekend?

A six pack.

Hide!

It's Jacques and Pierre.

They'll kick you out.

Hey, kid, how's it going?

Hey, what's up?

When's the hypnotist go on?

20 minutes.

Catch it in.

He didn't yell at you.

I better go get cleaned up.

Mr.

Cameron said I could use his dressing room.

He, what?

He couldn't have.

Yeah, he's been so nice to me since I found the cricket.

I gotta go get my good clothing.

It's like a holiday.

Broadcasting from the top of the Eiffel Tower, reorbiting the human surface of of the air.

We start things off, ladies and gentlemen, tonight with something special.

Yes, at this exact moment each night from the Eiffel Tower, one can hear church bells ring out from all Paris.

It begins slowly and spreads and spreads, a sound our show normally drowns out.

But not tonight, ladies and gentlemen.

We have placed a microphone on the very top of the tower in order to give you this evening's musical act.

Meanwhile, in our host, John Cameron's dressing room, defying all reasonable explanation, we find our janitor changing into what once must have been his Sunday clothes.

A rumpled suit, no less, of surprising quality.

Hey,

look what I have in my bag.

It's a feature presentation.

The janitor pulls out an old reel of tape.

But why do you have the tape with the feature presentation on it?

Who cares?

Look, the giant tape machine's out in the hall, like right outside the door.

If I pull it in here, I can put the tape on and we can listen to it.

I don't think you should do that.

Oh no.

He's opening the door.

He's pulling the tape machine inside.

But you're supposed to be mopping the outer lattice work.

You're so afraid to do anything.

And the jamiter presses play on the large tape machine, and a remarkable story begins to play.

Really, it's quite incredible.

But we're not going to let you hear it, though I'm sure you will hear it eventually, but not now, because at this very moment, there are some sounds out in the hall.

Jacques-Pierre.

Yeah.

Where's this tape machine, huh?

We left it right here.

You left it right here, but it's not here now.

We're looking right now.

Did you look stage left?

I'm going behind stage left right now.

It's chief stagehand Letitia with stagehands Jacques and Pierre.

Inside the dressing room, the door is thrown open.

What's she doing with the tape machine?

Why have you pulled the giant tape machine in this room?

Oh, bon Dieu, you have played the feature presentation.

You have played the secret reel.

Letitia, why are you taking your belt off?

Whoa!

I am going to beat him!

Letitia, you can't do that.

That's against the law.

Okay, but this time I'm going to make him remember.

I thought it would.

No, you do not think you do not care.

Okay, quiet.

Jacques, take my belt for me so I'm not tempted to use it.

Okay.

Julien, this is the end for you.

After the show, I tell Jean-Cameron what you have done.

No longer will you clean out the cage of the animal.

No longer will you keep our souls in your janitor closet.

That's where they came from.

And I don't care how long you have been living here.

You cannot use a station shower.

It's my only place I can show you.

I cannot wait for Jean-Cameron.

I will throw you out myself.

Uh, Letitia, the hypnotist is on in 15 seconds.

Mr.

Cameron said I can watch the hypnotist.

He did say, remember?

It's 10 seconds, Letitia.

Yeah, okay, because we have 10 seconds, but you just wait till after the show.

All right, everybody, places.

And so, narrowly escaping for now, the janitor gingerly approaches the side of the stage to watch.

And now, as part of our continuing demonstration series, scientific advancement, ladies and gentlemen, Professor Heimlich Epifel and our first brave volunteer.

Thank you.

Professor, this individual standing here on stage before us is in a hypnotic trance.

That is correct.

And they have no idea they're on stage?

No idea whatsoever.

They believe they are someplace else in the home in the car listening to a radio program so they're listening yes but they have no idea that they are the subject and you can prove this yeah to test the trance we present this french nobleman

i challenge you to a duel

without a reaction with their honor at stake and everything extraordinary

try whispering in the subject's ear testing One, two, three.

Testing.

Hello?

Without a reaction.

That's amazing.

Yeah, that's nothing.

We have brought the subject's actual third-grade teacher down.

Defroked the titer.

Placed the naked teacher on a unicycle.

Unt arranged to have this teacher ride circles around our subject, whistling the saber dance, and ride up this ramp into gigantic valves of chocolate custard!

Another modern radio miracle, ladies and gentlemen.

Once now, I will deepen the trance of this subject waiting over here.

100

99.

We will return to this extraordinary demonstration in a moment, but first I would like to bring back to the stage someone who is a very special part of our world here.

To prove there's a time and place for everything,

I give you Julian, janitor at the Eiffel Tower.

Julian, come on out.

Come out?

That's right.

Come on.

You can do it.

Sorry, I didn't know it.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, you know, each night, when the show ends and the audience files out the door, we often hear the distant sound of the janitor singing as he mops the halls.

You do?

It's something we've all found strangely comforting at one time or another.

And we thought it might be a nice surprise to share this comfort with all of you.

Really?

You want me to sing?

That's right.

Now?

I do.

I'm kind of nervous.

Go right ahead, Julian.

What would you like to sing?

Do you know where Evening's Dream goes?

Ladies and gentlemen, where Evening's Dream Goes, sung by Julian Janitor at the Eiffel Tower.

Darkness, darkness

always

comes

around.

Surrounding everything.

At first nervous, the janitor begins to find his voice.

He sings on as he grows more and more confident.

And before he knows it,

the audience rises to its feet as one, showering the janitor with bouquets until he stands buried up to his waist in white flowers.

Milky white flowers.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

We can now bring you out of your trance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ten.

Nine.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Four.

Three.

Thank you.

Two.

One.

The janitor awakes from a hypnotic trance to find himself dressed only in Lederhosen and wading in a kidney pool filled with Bavarian cream.

I'm a wet.

It's horrible.

A big hand for our subject, Julian the Janitor.

Tell us, what were you imagining?

You seemed to be yelping like a seal and making strange durations.

I thought I was singing.

The subject has pierced the children's pool and run off!

He has gotten Bavarian cream all over my shoes.

Well, no matter.

We'll continue with this subject here.

The janitor runs off the stage.

You will picture for me your greatest fantasy.

What you've thrown in the forest.

Off through the wings, backstage, and into the stage hands shower, slamming the door behind him.

I hate him.

He's banging his bare fist against the tile.

He's going to break his hand.

Stop it!

Please, please stop.

Please stop.

You were singing, weren't you?

Yeah, in my head.

I like hearing you sing.

My singing is stupid.

What song were you singing?

Doesn't matter.

Come on, tell me.

It was a song my great-grandfather used to sing to me to put me to sleep when I was a little boy.

Can I hear it?

Come on.

I want you right now.

Please.

It goes

darkness, darkness, always

comes.

That was nice.

Sing more.

Around surrounding everyone.

Darkness, darkness

always comes.

Right, your grandfather used to wave his hand around like this when

he would sing it like a drunk orchestra conductor.

Around

surrounding everyone.

Darkness,

The memory seems to comfort the janitor and doing an impression of his great-grandfather, he takes up conducting, closes his eyes, and throws himself into the song completely.

Meanwhile, outside...

Unt deeper and deeper.

That's right.

And so much deeper.

But it's a terrible sound.

A loud knocking sound echoes throughout the city.

What are you doing?

We are on the air.

Turn off that shower now.

Host John Cameron comes running up.

My God, what's happening over here?

The journey during he will be the death of the show.

He is in there singing.

I've knocked, but he can't hear.

Well, go in and stop him.

No, but I can't go in there.

He's naked.

It would be sexual harassment.

You have to...

Me?

I have suit on.

Oh, ce quite far.

Always with your suit.

There is face to keep dry.

But the janitor, eyes closed and fully entranced by his song, fails to notice John rush in.

John presses his back against the door to stay dry, and trying desperately to keep the show G-rated, looking any place but down, settles his gaze on the janitor's oddly waving arm, and following the sweeping, conducting motion back and forth, strangely, forgets what it is he's doing.

There is something in the strange, irregular sweeping of the arm that seems to lead him to the comfortable conclusion that there's no occupation in the world more engrossing and important than carefully watching the odd, irregular motions of the janitor's sweeping arm.

An activity so pleasing, he soon forgets that anything exists except the janitor's arm.

And settling into a pleasant stupor, all the stress of the past several months slips away until he feels he never

wants to move again

wrong the janitor stops his frenzied conducting opens his eyes and finds our host john cameron standing in the shower closet with him mr cameron but mr cameron does not respond he stands there perfectly still and frozen like a statue oh my god wake up what's wrong with him?

Oh my god.

It was my great-grandfather's song.

And I was conducting like he did.

And my great-grandfather was a stage hypnotist.

John's in a trance.

What?

He's hypnotized.

And I don't know how to wake him up.

Oh, no.

John, wake up.

Five, four, three,

two, one.

And you're awake.

Oh god, Mr.

Cameron, please wake up.

The janitor shakes host John Cameron like a wax statue.

Still nothing.

Panicked, he pushes the door of the shower closet open.

I gotta find the hypnotist.

Julio!

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, how am I gonna do?

Jeanne?

What have you done to him?

And deeper and deeper and deeper and

what is this interruption?

Now we must start all over again!

Deeper!

Unt deeper!

Mr.

Hypnotist!

You may call me professor!

Mr.

Professor, I accidentally hypnotized Mr.

Cameron backstage, and now I can't wake him up.

He's frozen!

You hypnotized him!

You fascinated him!

Fascinating!

Calm down, young man.

This will make for an interesting demonstration.

Bring him out!

And so, a gravely concerned Letitia Sautier carries our frozen host, stiff as a statue, out to the center of the stage.

Fascinating!

A state of complete catalepsy!

By what means did you hypnotize him?

I sang him a song that my great-grandfather used to sing sing to me when he wanted me to go to sleep.

A song?

Please sing it for me.

No?

Yes, immediately!

Well, it just goes:

Darkness, darkness

always comes.

Nonsense!

This song could do no such thing!

I was waving my arm around like this:

Darkness, darkness always

comes.

The lamps that lit the night bells rung.

Some

for

angels

falling from the sky.

Simple

angels

falling

from the sky.

Just show

the way

back home where even

goes.

The whole time I was just waving my arms back and forth, and that was all I did.

Professor, do you...

Professor?

Oh no!

Letitia!

The prof-

Letitia?

Oh my god!

Oh

The entire audience too is frozen in a hypnotic trance.

I hypnotized everybody.

We're Castro.

We're not hypnotized.

Okay, please play the goodbye music.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Broadcasting from the top of the Eiffel Tower

sister

saying, I'm so, so sorry.

I

the Everybody Human Circus of the Air wishes you a good night.

The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air is a co-presentation of WNYC Studios and Night Vale Presents.

Welcome to this special commentary for season one of the Orbiting Human Circus.

If you are a new listener, we strongly recommend that you listen to the complete narrative season first and then return to these commentaries.

We begin with a conversation with Drew Callender, who also plays the narrator, recalling portraying the president of the Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation in a scene from episode 7.

I remember, like, you know, doing this, doing this thing, and you know,

so I'm doing this, like,

this

and John Cameron Mitchell is like just like looking at me

from

you know

first of all we're like you know inches away from each other

where were you

because we are at the the space in um

in Sunset Park

yeah

um

so anyway

and he and you know, he's supposed to be, you know, it was sort of like talking over each other.

But I just,

I kept like, you know, breaking from his, like, the little smirk that was on his face, you know, because he was like, because I'm saying something so absurd, you know, that we're going to get a polar bearer.

Yeah, and he's just like, you know, he's, he's got this smile on his face, like, you know, I'm talking to, I'm working for this person but he's an idiot you know so

he can't really

say anything to me but he's just got this oh

yeah

and I think it really comes across the thing that I love so much about John Cameron is when he's trying so hard to control himself and you can just feel him like when the president of the Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation is talking to him about the polar bear.

Yes.

I just love, I, through, through your voice, I'm able to just see every muscle twitch on John Cameron's face.

You don't usually act that big

in life, and somehow you've forced me

to bring out the largest.

Because it's in you and it wants to come out.

I guess it is.

I mean, I did grow up with The Goon Show.

Yeah.

Which maybe you want to tell people what that is.

The Goon Show was a BBC show.

It's wonderful.

It was like a precursor to Monty Python.

You know, it had, it was surreal.

Yeah.

It was,

and Peter Sellers was the most famous person.

It was Harry Seacombe.

There was Spike

Mulligan, I think.

Spike Mulligan Mulligan.

Yeah, and they did crazy,

really.

crazy characters and things would move very quickly and you would jump from thing to thing in a very surreal way like monty python but crazier and there'd be catchphrases and there'd be but it moved very quickly and in some ways a fire sign theater which was yeah they were definitely influenced i think by the goon show

yeah the the goon show let's see some of my favorite you know things like you know a man would walk into a room and a woman would turn and go reginald you're back and he'd go why yes i brought it with me You know, that's more like that one.

Where's Mrs.

Gunn?

Oh, she went off rather suddenly.

You swam for seven miles.

The last two were agony.

They were over land.

Yes.

British accents read that.

Short gags like that that would just zoom by.

Didn't often wait for the laugh, which is the British way, is just to keep moving.

Yeah, that wasn't really another one.

It's like, are you Admiral Wellesy?

No, but I'm often mistaken.

For Admiral Wellesy?

No, but I'm often mistaken.

Something like that.

Yeah, love it.

Yeah, we'll be here all night, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, that's one thing we share in common is a delight in the old arts of comedy, whether they be Borst Belt or British or

anything that works, but usually

large.

Yeah, we know we do end up doing shtick together.

I don't know why.

Like when we get together, it ends up.

You're Jewish.

I want to be Jewish.

Maybe that's part of it.

It leads to shtick.

Being gay is part of it.

There's interestingly, they talk about different cultures, kinds of humor, you know, say African American humor,

Jewish American humor, gay American humor, British humor.

They come from the culture and from the economics, too.

You know, Jewish was...

running from the Holocaust, new life, change your name sometimes, a little bit.

It was about passing.

There's often jokes about

Jewish being a separate culture that could be attacked at any moment.

But also there was a little bit of self-loathing because it was like an intensity of oppression, just like in gay culture.

But there was also the jokes about surfaces.

So like Mel Brooks, you know, of course, is the apotheosis of Borchbelt humor.

You took it to the masses.

But you know, a simple

joke of his,

he actually went to the Brooks Club in London, which is a fancy aristocratic club.

And it was sort of funny.

Mel Brooks going to meet Lord Brooks.

And Mel Brooks was like, Lord Brooks, what was your name before Brooks?

You know, what was your name before Brooks was the joke?

And Lord Brooks didn't understand.

But that's the Jewish thing.

Everybody in the 40s and 50s changed their name to be less Jewish so they could get a job.

And then gay humor is also a little bit about passing too.

It's about hiding

surfaces, overdoing things, underdoing things, passing,

but also belonging to a secret society, a secret group,

you know, that you could have to hide in in plain sight.

African American, obviously, you couldn't hide, so the humor was much more about, you know, being under the thumb of an oppressor, you know, of a white person.

And the the Jewish gay one was more about trickster.

How do you get you know, how do do you get around it?

How do you hide it?

How do you work it?

So it was interesting how humor, I love the origins of different kinds of humor.

Jokes are passed on, certainly, or adapted.

The first joke in Hedwig was Beatrice Lily joke, which is, oh, thank you for your applause.

I do love a warm hand on my entrance.

Which

I got by someone named Julian Clary, who was kind of a misbegotten child of Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde.

And then, of course, we still have, you know, we have jokes.

We have these jokes that we tell each other.

You know, somebody tells you a joke.

And I mean, it's always such a great moment

at a gathering and, you know, or when people are together, when someone tells a joke, it's like that person becomes a performer.

And then you can take it and tell it to someone else and give somebody else that pleasure.

And it's been done for you so many times, you know, over the course of a lifetime.

And it will be done.

And you can do it so many times.

And those jokes pass around and we all make them our own, you know, we change them

every time we touch them.

The Orbiting Human Circus is written, created, and co-directed by Julian Coster.

It was co-directed by and developed with Ellie Heyman and produced by Christy Gressman.

with musical composition and arrangement by Thomas Hughes and songs by the music tapes.

And editing by Grant Stewart, sound design by Eric Slider, with recording engineer Vincent Cashion and associate producer Robbie Cucciaro.

Episode 4 featured Julian Coster, Drew Callender, John Cameron Mitchell, Walter Lowry, Susannah Flood, Dan Solomon, Ron Berman, Gavin Roca, Vin Roca, and Dennis Coster.

For full credits and to learn more about the Orbiting Human Circus, come visit us at orbitinghumancircus.com and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

And now I will deepen the trance of this subject veggie over here:

100

99

98

97

96 95 94 93 92 94

Season 2 of the Orbiting Human Circus, which will be co-produced by WNYC, is coming in 2019.

You can listen to all of season one, including the behind-the-scenes commentary and a brand new director's cut of the finale, wherever it is you listen to podcasts.

Next up, Good Morning Night Vale.

This is the official Welcome to Night Vale recap show hosted by cast members Meg Bashwiner, Symphony Sanders, and Hal Lublin.

Each week, our hosts have been doing a deep dive into one episode of Welcome to Night Vale, starting with the very first episode from 2012.

It's weird listening to a show about a show that I make, but holy crap, these three are really charming and addictive.

I wish there were already a hundred episodes.

Good Morning Night Vale features behind-the-scenes stories, fan theories, and interviews.

Here's a clip from episode four: Good Morning PTA Meeting, featuring an interview with me, Jeffrey Kraner, your dad.

The sun has grown so very, very old.

How long?

Cold.

Fading.

Death?

How long?

Good morning, Night Vale.

Hey, everyone.

It's us again.

My name is Meg Bashwinner.

And I'm Symphony Sanders.

I'm Hal Lublin.

And this is the podcast where we listen to old recordings of the hit popular, weird, bizarre, strange podcast.

Welcome to Night Vale.

And we chat about it.

Today we are talking about episode number four, PTA meeting.

The episode description is, Last night's PTA meeting accidentally opens a rift in space-time, and Nightvale faces the consequences.

Plus, changes about the Night Vale Daily Journal, controversy at Radon Canyon, and our annual high school football preview.

And do we have our work cut out for us?

And I'm going to do the thing where I remind us to tell the audience who we are for welcome to Night Vale just to keep our listeners engaged in.

who we are.

So my name is Meg.

I play Deb, Ascenti, and Patch of Hayes on the show.

I also am the MC of the Touring Live Show, and I am the tour director of Night Vale Presents, and I have lots of opinions about where to eat in Nightvale.

Hi, I'm Symphony Sanders, and I play Tamika Flynn, your local library-killing teenage militia leader.

My favorite charter.

I'm Hal Lovelin, and I play Steve Carlsberg, your brother outside the law.

All right, so

as a ragtag group of Nightvale performers, talking about episode four PTA meeting.

So we have lots of interesting things that happen in this episode.

I feel like we're introduced to a lot of characters.

We get a lot of characters that have a lot of meaning in the future of the show are kind of just like thrown into the mix here.

We get Diane Creighton, we get her son Josh, the high school football coach, Nazar al-Mujahid.

We also get the football player whose name I'm blanking on right now.

Michael Sandero.

Michael Sandero.

So yeah, they were teeing up for a lot of Night Vale Future in this, in this, just episode number four.

So our episode starts out with Cecil announcing that there was a really noisy, glowing portal that

happened at the PTA meeting and some pteranodons came out.

But we later find out they are not pteranodons.

They're pterodactyls, which is spelled with a P.

Did you know that?

So is pteranodon.

I I did.

Is it really?

I didn't know that.

I did no research.

I was reading along in my Welcome to Nightville script book, Volume 1, Mostly Void, Partially Stars.

Oh, I don't...

Oh, I do have that.

If you don't have that, Symphony, I will send it to you.

That's a box of many.

As I was about to say, I don't have that.

I literally looked up at my bookcase and it is directly in front of me.

Who can't read?

It's me.

Are we allowed to curse on this podcast?

I would say that there's a couple of them that you shouldn't say just in life, and those are the ones that you shouldn't say on the show.

Like the F-word?

No, I think the F-word's probably okay.

If you say that in life, okay, good.

Meg, you just blew my fucking mind because it didn't even occur to me.

I mean, I've been listening to these and I plan on continuing to listen, but I'm like,

why not go look at the script?

Oh, yeah.

I didn't think about it.

I have two books sitting in the other room with all the words in it, just in case I like need like to remember something.

Oh, I'm disgusted with myself.

We're smarter than this, Hal.

I actually

was in the same boat myself until I was reading emails from fans and one of them was like, I went through my script book and I was like, the script book.

So

there's a fan to thank for that.

And I could look through our Gmail account and find out your name and give you a really touching shout out right now, but I'm not going to do that.

So you know who you are.

Touching shout out.

Thank you for directing us to the script books.

Seriously.

Fan, you know who you are.

Yeah, I'm going to do a sales pitch for the script books right now because why not?

Yeah, so there's two really nice script books that are out.

They're in paperback.

They're available through Harper Perennial.

There's mostly Void, Parsi Stars, and The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe, which are episodes.

They're volume one and volume two.

I don't know how many episodes it contains, but it's a lot of them.

And it's my first published writing work since I was in the Jewish Exponent back in 1994 in Philadelphia.

It's very exciting.

Which is reason enough to own those books.

You really,

and that, and that newspaper from 94, if you can find it.

The literary stylings of Hal Lublin.

Speaking of newspapers, the Nightville Daily Journal.

That was a really good segue.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you.

That I just wrecked.

Thank you.

Let me waste that segue by talking about it.

Yeah, so

our journal, right?

Like

they have the platinum premium ads

and i why can't i read my notes all writers oh and all the writers were laid off yes and they have the write your own news story section which got like struck me as very huffington post i was like oh they're just just throwing a little shade at our friends at the huffington post just write your own news story which is i mean hey

isn't is that what reductress does as well they have people submit or no yeah there's a lot of newspapers that well they're online now there's no such thing as a newspaper where they do submissions.

So you can write your own news.

Newspaper?

What is newspaper?

There's so much in this episode about journalism and how money influences journalism and how it's leading to the failing of the press.

But Leanne Hart just presses right on.

We touched on this a little bit last week about how there are certain parts of this re-listen that make me cringe because they're so relevant.

And this is the one as like, oh, the rise of the citizen journalist and that idea that where we get our news now in the world is just from whoever, whatever aunt posts something first might be where we get it.

Or the idea of like confirmation bias and all the terrible things that come with just sort of the wild west of online media the way it exists right now.

And seeing that just reminds me as I listen to the show, and especially in this episode i'm like this is a this would be a terrible place to live you are in constant fear and under constant threat you don't know where any of the information is coming from or whether it's accurate

and that you're under a watchful eye yes yes and you're constantly being watched so modern day america yeah

yeah it's just shining a mirror at us I talked about the show Bosch near an Amazon fire, and now I get Bosch ads whenever I go on Facebook.

I'm not even kidding.

It's scary.

I've never watched it.

I've looked at, yeah, because it's always that, because that is the commercials that's always forced on you

on Amazon because they're like, please watch this show.

After I got married on Facebook, I started to

get married in real life, but also on Facebook where you change your relationship status to married.

I started getting a lot of ads for baby stuff.

And then I was researching a short play that I was writing about locations of abortion clinics, and I stopped getting ads for for baby stuff.

So the best way to get rid of, if you're getting a lot of baby stuff ads, just start googling where your nearest abortion clinic is.

Also maybe try googling grad school and they will go away trying to get rid of those baby ads.

Pro tip, life hack.

Well, and that's just, I mean, that's just a furtherance of the societal, like, no one's ever satisfied.

Like once you're dating someone, they're like, when are you getting married?

And when you're married, they're like, when are you having a baby?

No one's ever like, well, you've done all these things.

When are you going to die?

Exactly.

And we start getting ads for coffins.

Right.

Estate lawyers, you know?

Yeah.

I'm seeing ads for that Al Pacino Cavorkian movie that was on HBO a few years ago.

I bet, and this is me hypothesizing over here, that elderly people on Facebook probably get ads to prepay their funerals because that's a thing that people do now.

So there's definitely funeral homes that are like advertising to the elderly on Facebook, being like, prepay that funeral, save your children that burden you know

i have seen the ones oh i've seen the ones about like funeral insurance does that mean they think i'm gonna die i'm not saying i think you're gonna die uh well i am gonna die but not today i think we all are i don't yeah i don't think today you're gonna outlive us all not me i'm gonna live forever i'm sorry that was terrible i almost said let's let's hope i'm like

no i don't hope that for you i hope that you die in the middle of everyone what surrounded

surrounded by many knives.

Right?

It's like, I don't want you to outlive us all because that'd be sad for you.

But, you know, you got to just, I hope that you die somewhere in the middle of all your friends.

Well, let's just say, let's just say I can run pretty fast.

So if there's ever a bear attack, you can count on me to try and live.

I just have to outrun you people.

I'll fool the bear.

I'll say that tree's having its period.

And then when the bear looks at the tree, I'll be gone.

I'll be gone.

I know how you work.

You're not going to get me.

You're not going to get me.

Sheer trickery.

So

some other poignant issues that Night Vale might, this episode might bring up is the election for the council seats that are up and how a certain member of your family is going to get kidnapped

and taken to the caves, you know.

And

I don't know.

I mean, it's, that sounds pretty like mobby, you know, but seeing as though our president is a mobster.

Looking at

how elections work in Night Vale, I was like, is that even preferable to how our elections work?

You know, just looking for a new system.

Yeah.

Again, out of the box thinking.

We were talking about it in the last episode.

I'm willing to try something new.

Yeah, because apparently what we got isn't working.

We're not yielding great results.

You know, again, I keep listening to this through the ears of Steve.

It's hard not to filter things through the character I've been playing on this show for

five years.

And

like,

with this episode, I was like, boy, Steve feels a really great responsibility to his family and to do good in the world.

If he is the one who really understands what's going on, if that's true, and all of this is happening, like that is a huge burden to bear.

Like, you're in a town where they are going to beat up someone in your family to make sure everybody votes the the right way, which is like a fun joke and play on elections and

they're just being kidnapped

beat up.

Well, somebody's getting worked over.

I bet you they're getting worked over a little bit.

A little light work is being done.

But that

if you don't vote correctly, you'll never see them again.

So who knows what that could possibly mean?

Exactly.

I just, this, it's a really like,

it's such a dark, it's so funny how the humor comes from the darkest timeline of any possible part of living in a town how the elections work why in the last episode why big rico's pizza is the only pizza place in town the woman who uh the distribution center where it burned like it burned down and it was totally an accident please call me insurance person please call Yeah, that's yeah, Leanne Hart.

Yeah.

Good old Leanne.

She'll do anything for for her paper, you know?

Yeah.

So yeah, we get the football preview, the fall football preview, which is a first shot.

I don't know if it's a first shot.

It's

one of the first digs at Desert Bluffs.

Right.

And about how above, against all, we have to beat Desert Bluffs because they're the worst.

Yes.

Yeah.

And is this also the first time that you, do you think that

they said that it was the Night Vale Scorpion, so we got like a

mascot?

Yeah.

I don't think we've mentioned them before.

You know how people are with their sports.

Their sports balls.

Yes.

So super excited to talk to Jeffrey about this when we get him on the phone.

Oh, yes.

Because he is our local resident person who knows about sports ball.

He knows about it.

Joseph always says, if you can't tell who's writing it, if it's about sports, it's definitely Jeffrey that's writing it.

When we're both on the road in the same city, we'll find time to sit and talk about sports with one another because

in that context, we're the only ones, we're the only two who care.

So, like, we'll just go have our conversation in private.

We don't have to.

Well, when you get Erin McKeown on the road,

she'll talk about baseball.

Yeah, so she's your third, your third, yeah, but there's not a lot of

sports enthusiasm among the Night Vale touring cast, unfortunately.

I mean, yeah, I like sports just fine, uh, but like, I don't know all the stats, you know?

I don't know all the stuff and most of the plays.

I don't know what's going on.

I just know that guy ran with that thing over there, and that's good, you know?

I like horse racing.

Well, you are of equestrian nobility.

Thank you.

Can we talk about what just happened in San Diego backstage?

What happened, Hal Loveland?

We went down a rabbit hole of a couple of us.

I think it was like me.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about those.

Yeah, you were there and

my wife, Jennifer, and I think Mal was there as well.

And Meg was looking up, like, she, it wasn't even like looking for.

She was just like, this is how this is the horse that Hal is.

Here's the, like, everybody was a horse.

And it was right.

But it wasn't even like she had to look it up.

She already knew.

It was like she had them like bookmarked or something.

She was like, this is you.

This is you.

They were.

I think Jennifer's was the best one.

Jennifer's like, it was like the spirit of your wife, how, like just on a horse in a screen.

I think John's was the best.

John's was pretty good too.

Disparition's Dispersion's horse pick was pretty spot on.

This looked just like his hair.

Wait, can we start a segment on the show called Meg's Horse Picks where you share like Disparition is the

Carolina cottontail who exhibits these qualities disparition was a Belgian wormblood first of all that's right

I knew you'd have the right name yeah

with a with a kind of a swoopy swoopy mane swoopy side bang mane because John has a glorious side bang yeah yes yes he does good old disparish I don't know we were talking about sports that's how I was like how did we get here to this how How did I ask myself that question a lot?

How did we get here?

Horses are sports.

Horses are sports.

That's the sport that I most into.

Mostly just the Triple Crown.

It's like in the spring, early

spring.

You could watch some horses on TV.

I went to the Belmont Stakes when I was a kid.

My uncle took me.

What about the Derby?

I've never been to the Derby.

That's on my bucket list.

We'll see if that ends up happening.

I want to wear a hat.

I want to drink a mint julep.

I want to yell at a horse and then maybe get to pet it if it wins.

I think you could do all of those things individually in a day, but like never all at once, except for at the derby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like you could probably yell at a horse and have a mint julep, but

right.

Well, if you yell at it, you have to pet it first.

I don't think you can yell at it, then pet it.

It's for sure going to bite you.

I'm more yelling for it than at it.

Oh, cheering for it.

I see.

It needs to be do.

I can't just like go drive by a field of horses and start screaming at them.

I need to be rooting them on.

You can do it.

Eat that grass.

Believe in yourselves.

So I thought it was really funny

in regards to the portal that let the pteranodons, oh no, the pterodactyls out.

When people looked in it, they were playing handball or something.

They aged like just the part that they looked in.

So their head and shoulders aged thousands of years.

So their body was still normal but like their head was thousands of years old so would it be like dust or was it still like you know like liquid squishy or was it like a shrunken head you know what i mean like a fossil yeah yeah i think it's like like indiana jones in the last crusade or like beetle juice well that's a shrunken head

that's what i think of that's my head canon yeah sure

that's funny head canon never wrong head canon about shrunken heads heads.

Thank you and good night.

Is this episode the introduction of throat spiders?

Is this the first time anybody's had a case of throat spiders?

I love throat spiders as an illness.

Yeah.

Having them.

Another thing I'm excited to talk to Jeffrey about.

Jeffrey, known lover of spiders, just a huge fan of spiders, not afraid of them at all.

He's not afraid to look at them or see them or renew them.

That's another thing he and I have in common is our love of spiders.

Just want to cuddle up to them and want to, we love that feeling of like, there could be a spider on my back right now.

Best, that's the best.

Maybe even two.

No, so great.

I'm so happy about it.

I'm generally not afraid of spiders, but if I see a spider in my home, I cannot go to sleep unless it's dead.

And that is when I turn it to a murderer.

And I know people are going to be out there saying, Symphony, they eat the bad bugs.

I don't care.

You're invading my home.

And all interlopers, you know the business.

I love spiders.

I actually love spiders.

I am down with spiders.

I appreciate them.

I don't kill them when they're in my home.

Sometimes they are compassionately relocated to the outdoors, but I'm not a killer of spiders.

Most other bugs that are in my house get murdered, though.

My house...

has many a bug.

We're out in the country.

We're the only thing for miles out here.

So have we have black flies a lot we get ladybugs which feed on the carcass of the black flies we get moths and uh wasps and all sorts of fun things we've had inside your house though yeah oh yeah i'm making a disgusting face i have a bug zooka I would like us to be sponsored by Bugzooka.

I'm sorry, what is a Bugzooka?

It's like a, okay, so a Bugzooka is a

device that

you kind of, it's like a gun that you kind

point at a bug and press a button, and it sucks the bug into the gun.

And it's long,

so you can reach up into the corners and then it sucks the bug into a little container where it can be relocated to the outdoors, or you can

like

fill it, it just sucks it into like a chain sucks it into a tube.

Yeah, it's a bug vacuum, but it doesn't have batteries or anything.

It works on sucking, okay?

Because Zooka indicates blowing up,

not sucking in.

Am I wrong?

I mean, am I wrong?

No,

it's yeah, but I think it's a branding issue for them.

But when they sponsor us, we can help them resolve that

branding issue.

Yeah, but the way you're describing it sounds nice.

Yeah, and I was going to say, I think it means that your DMs are blowing up with all the people going, great job sucking all those bugs out of the room.

Joseph's kind of in charge of hunting the bugs.

I call him my hunter.

Amongst other things.

So,

do you guys believe in auras?

Like, do you feel like, what do you think your aura looks like?

Because they talk about.

How you live in Los Angeles.

Who do you think?

I don't know.

I don't know how into that I am.

I feel like when I do the moments when I am into it, it feels like I'm not being like I'm just sort of like trying to go along.

I don't know to what extent I'm on board with that, but I also don't want to i who really knows i don't want to rain on anybody's parade i guess

you're so sensitive that's so nice because like

you're like get out of here with your fakery like oh your aura's so golden get out of here what am i the yeah freaking avatar the last airbender whatever

yeah you don't see it you don't see

but you know with that being said who knows who am i I?

Who knows?

Why?

You believe in it, right?

I believe in the possibility of anything, of the quantum possibilities of anything.

So, yeah, maybe there are auras, but like, I don't know.

Is it the same thing as like when you get really close, when like somebody's really close to you and behind you and you can like feel them?

Or is that just like body heat?

I would say that when someone stands close to you and you can feel them, that's just your

body using its sensory information.

like you're using the sound and touch and smell to you're using your senses right oh

it's hard to pinpoint down because you're not using just one single one of them you're using all of a lot of them at once so it feels like it's magic but actually it's just your brain i'm using my synesthesia yes you're using your synesthesia so meg what do you think about auras i'm gonna go with what hal said Okay.

Yeah,

I'm not a woo person, but if you're a woo person, I want you to feel supported by me.

Well, because they talk about these unusual auras of things

in your home or just around, I guess.

It's a really beautiful piece of writing, that part of remembering sticking out.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's pretty neat.

So we are all generally pretty questionable about auras.

However, what do we think about dinosaurs, true or false?

True.

No flat earthers?

Do you want to ask what I think about science?

I think that's what you're really asking.

What do I think about science?

I'm for it.

You're for it?

Plus.

Check plus.

Yeah.

I'm all about that prehistory.

Cool.

So

none of us believe that dinosaur bones are just put in the earth to trick us?

Well, now that you mention it.

I wanted it to be quiet then.

I want it quiet for a second.

Let that sink in.

Sorry, like,

no.

I feel like people, I feel like there are people, and not everybody, who would be flat earthers or they're like, I think we don't know.

And my answer is like, you don't know.

There are a lot of people who have known for a very long time.

They know you don't have to know, I guess.

You don't want to know.

Why do you refuse to know?

Why not just know?

And then there's

the concept of the dinosaur bones being hidden in the earth to trick us.

I'm like, it's not about you, friend.

Like, you got to be some serious, selfish, like, object permanence, confused kind of person to think that it is

just about you and tricking you.

But that's why I find like conspiracy theories and like people who think those things so fun because you're like, wow, you are suspending your disbelief so far, like so far to a crazy extent where like the logical and not even like the easiest explanation for something you know they're like nah no no no no way it's like okay so so someone just really just like dug down in the earth put those bones there put all that same earth right on top of it just to trick you Gerald G.

Bumpkin.

Yeah, because it's all about you, Gerald G.

Bumpkin.

It's all about tricking you.

As soon as they were done burying those dinosaur buzz, they're like, and now we wait

yeah it's the longest longest con the longest con it's the 70 million year old con now i just want to yell star trek style con

that's appropriate whoa star trek jokes no there's no crossover between nightfell fans and star trek absolutely not possible no wonder what i'm talking about venn diagrams look like headlights two separate

um

oh meg i thought of you when

there was the part about Carlos was like

running by and Josie said he smelled like lavender chewing gum.

I thought about me too.

Meg loves lavender chewing gum.

She likes eating old potpourri, apparently.

It's mostly the lavender mints, the violets.

They're

disgusting.

My grandma always had them, and they were always in her purse, and she'd always give one to me or my sister.

My mom had them too.

Well, then, so yeah, I kind of have like a nostalgia for them.

I also like the flavor of them.

Also, they are very strong.

I think they're like meant for like 1950s husbands who'd come home from work after having one too many at the bar and like have to pretend to be a different person before they came home to their wife and they'd pop one of those in

because they are strong.

It would have to cover up every smell, right?

It's such a strong.

And the one time I've tried it, I swear to God, it tasted like I was eating

old flowers or my grandma's house.

Yeah.

Well, Symphony, you know that I like to taste things that are horrible and then make you taste them.

Really nasty.

Yeah.

You love nasty candy and nasty taste.

I love

nasty candy.

We were in Stockholm.

We got all this Swedish candy, which is like, that tastes like ammonia.

And I was so excited about it.

I was walking down the street with a bag of candy and I was eating it.

And I was like, this tastes horrible.

Symphony, try this one.

And you'd take it and you'd bite it.

You'd be like, I'm spitting it out.

This is terrible.

And we just like kept, we kept we played that on repeat for five blocks while we were walking back to our hotel.

She's like, oh, try this one.

This one's, this one, this one really tastes like pea.

Try it.

I really felt like I was being slowly poisoned with this terrible candy.

Oh, you were.

For sure, you were.

For sure, you were.

No question.

They're also salty.

There's like a brand of candy in Sweden.

Like, you know, salt scuff.

I did not taste the salt at all.

All I tasted was that that disgusting ammonia taste.

And I already don't like black licorice, but when you add other earwax flavors on top of it, you're just going to make it worse, you know?

That's my heaven.

It really is.

Those horrible Swedish candies, they're my heaven.

No offense to Sweden.

No offense.

The rest of it is lovely.

Zero Sweden.

Maybe some offense.

Sweden, I love it.

I enjoy the fish paste.

Yeah, the fish paste, the fika.

Who doesn't love a fika?

Oh, the fika was so good.

What?

The fika is their tradition that they have there, where like around four o'clock in the afternoon, they have a coffee and a little snack, and it's called fika.

Oh, I like that.

I'm on board.

I was just like, I thought it was attached to the fish paste.

It's like every day, they go out and take fish guts into a bucket, stomp it like it's grapes they're trying to make wine with, and then just stick their heads in there and eat their way out.

Like a trough.

Yeah.

No.

That's so insensitive to the Swedish people.

You know it's too cold for that.

That's true.

That's what makes it so hard.

It's frozen.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's talk about the apartment etiquette bit.

So I just wrote down, just be, just be considerate.

Yes.

Yes.

There's lots of important things in there about living in an apartment building, living with another person, living as a citizen of the earth.

Yeah.

We're all each other's roommates, right?

Yes.

On this room, room called Earth.

Well, and as you guys both know, I have a awesome upstairs neighbor that I call Stompy.

So I'm very aware of apartment etiquette.

Yeah, it definitely feels like one of those things where the writers are something they're really frustrated with.

So we'll just put it in there and find like a twist on it.

And I would imagine, having never lived in an apartment in New York, that it is almost impossible to not hear what every neighbor's doing all the time.

Yes.

Joseph and I would say that our next door neighbors at our first apartment together had a hollering couch where it's the couch that they faced just directly at our wall so they could just sit down and holler at the wall.

And that's just what it sounded like from our apartment.

It sounded like there was just four people sitting on a couch screaming at our wall.

Joseph called, oh, they're on their hollering couch.

Like, were they, did it sound like

directionally, it was all coming from one single section of the home?

Well, the apartment was so, our apartments were so small that they probably had in their living room just a sofa and a TV and the TV was mounted on the wall, and they would talk, and it would sound like they were shouting at us.

This bit kind of has some weird things, and it talks about where it talks about oozing invisible membranes and

strange radiating light.

And then it's just like, put the trash in the trash cans, don't just put the trash in the hallway.

And then it says, put some clothes on before standing in front of your windows, which is considerate.

Not something that I have to do unfortunately, fortunately, anymore, because I live surrounded by no one.

Yeah, and you want the hawks to see you naked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Check it out, Hawks.

That's how I charge my aura.

I know we're getting close to talking about the weather, but before we get there, the

mysterious hooded figure that's been inside the studio all day and that interview was really fun.

I love that segment.

It's my best transition into the weather so far.

Yeah, with the statics and the static just keeps building and seasons just keep sounding further and further away.

Yeah, I love that.

And I, I don't remember this in the real, in real time when I was listening to it, but now, like, when I listen to it, at first, I was like, I was like, oh, shoot.

Like, I started checking my connection.

And then he said, don't check your connection.

And I was like, oh, good, it's not me.

Jeez.

But like, really, you don't get static like that, like in a, in a streaming thing, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Cause I'm like, that's like an old like TV thing, right?

Yeah.

Or like

tuning your radio station.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I just thought that was great.

And like I, it actually, the static and stuff, the louder it got, the scarier it made me like it.

I felt more scared, almost like it was because it was like somehow getting louder to like consume Cecil or something.

I was scared.

It's been enough time by now that I could say it reminds me of a quiet place, which is real creepy.

Creepy, creepy moment.

So let's get ready to talk to our guest this episode, Night Vale co-writer, wonderful human, Jeffrey Kraner.

But first, let's discuss the weather.

So this week's weather

was Closer by The Tiny, and I

loved it.

I love their voice and the song.

I don't know.

It just like made me feel like I wanted to like dance and be like really coquettish somehow.

Yeah, it was a really fun piece of music.

Like I liked it.

Really good piece of music.

Again, you know, we've talked about this and I'm sure that for the several years that we'll be doing this show, I will still be talking about it, is that it didn't really connect to anything for me.

It just felt like a break, which is, which I'm okay with.

And I liked it.

It was a good piece of music.

Yeah, it felt like a break, but I also had that thing again in this episode where it's we go from this buzz, buzz, buzz from the static into this like little light piano with strings and this tiny voiced person singing to us.

So it's yeah, that big shift in texture that brings us into the break, which I thought was cool.

And yeah, what a fun song.

That was our big, deep, in-depth discussion of the weather.

So

we liked that song.

The weather was

good.

We liked the weather.

It was a good day.

We go now to our discussion with Jeffrey Kranger.

Hey, Jeffrey, welcome.

Hi, Meg.

Hi, Hal.

How's Synth?

Hey.

Hi, hello, Daddy.

Hello.

So, yeah, first of all, Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining us.

Sure.

We've been having so much fun so far talking about the episodes that came out of your mind in 2012.

So what was going on in your world in 2012?

What was influencing your mind?

Let's, oh, when we were writing this one, it would have been probably sometime in the spring.

Yeah, Jillian and I just bought an apartment at the beginning of 2012 in New York City.

So we had just moved to Bay Ridge, and we were moving in in like March of 2012 of that year.

So

yeah, we were, I was reading through this script earlier.

I was like, oh, I have a comment about contractors in there and how terrible they are.

And that makes total sense because that's what I would have been coming just off of was dealing with contractors and the many months it takes to like just put up tile in a bathroom.

Yeah,

this is also just jumping ahead and also that feels like it might have influenced the episode Drawbridge a little bit.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

I think a lot of that is what I was going through at the time.

Definitely.

Just the inefficiencies of contracting.

But you really like your contractor in Brooklyn, right?

You have a new for him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's

Irish Jeremy Renner.

He's super handsome and he's really nice.

He looks Does he look like Jeremy Renner?

He looks exactly like Jeremy Renner and he has an Irish accent.

Like, I feel like maybe this is like Jeremy Renner has a movie about a contractor coming out soon, an Irish contractor.

Maybe he's just in character.

I don't know.

He's just been really method for the past few years.

Yeah, I don't know how method Jeremy Renner is, but yeah.

Also, while doing the Avengers movies.

That's right.

And he does really good work.

I was really, really impressed with his work.

He just is, I think, fairly popular, and it takes him a a long time to get to a job.

But once he does it, it's good.

I learned a lot doing this podcast.

Mostly, I'm learning that Jeremy Renner is not Irish.

That is the biggest revelation for me.

Not that I ever looked at him and tried to figure out.

It'd be kind of odd if my thing was, I just try to figure out where people are from.

What's your nationality, dude on the bus?

I honestly don't know what nationality Jeremy Renner is.

I'm assuming he's American,

but that's really weird.

I don't know why I would just assume that about people.

There's so many like British, I mean, just like British imports in American film that I just don't even realize aren't American.

Like the entire cast of Selma, basically.

Because they can do our accents better than we can do theirs.

Yeah.

Or like Hugh Laurie, unless they're on the program Nashville, where they cannot do the accents better.

I sometimes watch that show and I just scream.

They're trying to, their southern accents, and I'm just screaming, you're British.

You're British.

That's like that guy who was Bill in True Blood.

He's British, but his Southern accent is terrible.

Yeah, it's a bridge too far, I think, sometimes to ask our British actors to go Southern.

They can.

But you know who has.

The Tom Brady of Bad American Accents is Christopher Eccleston from The Leftovers.

Did y'all watch The Leftovers?

Yes.

No.

Is he the main?

He's the fundamentalist brother.

Oh,

and he, and listen, I say he's the Tom Brady of it, of bad accents, because he's so amazing.

Like, you just, it's hard not to think, wow, I'm watching something really stunning.

He has an accent that I've never heard.

It is so distinctly American, but I've never heard a human being with this accent before.

And I was just mesmerized every time he was on the screen.

It was so good.

I loved it so much.

Maybe he's going for something really specific, like a small town in Maine or something.

Sure, I hope so.

Very specifically regional.

Well, speaking of Tom Brady, and for those of you out there who are not aware, Tom Brady is a football player.

And speaking of football players, in this episode, we get our fall football preview.

And Jeffrey, I'm assuming you wrote that part because it's a sports thing.

Yes.

So

you often are the one who is the sports writer for Welcome to Nightville.

Talk about that.

Sure.

The town I grew up in in Mesquite, Texas, obviously like high school football was a really big deal.

And the football stadium there was huge.

It's like a 10 to 15,000 seat stadium for the Mesquite high schools to play in.

And

right at the end of one of the end zones is a giant tower.

I don't know specifically how tall it is, but it has to be...

It has to be almost 200 feet tall.

And it's kind of got like an A shape.

Oops, I've bumped my mic.

It has

like an A shape like Eiffel Tower style.

It's enormous.

And that is the tower for the community radio station of Mesquite, Texas.

It's so huge and so big.

And basically all that radio station broadcast was like easy listening hits of the 60s and 70s.

And then on Fridays, they ran high school football.

And then throughout those like 60s and 70s hits, they would have like high school students that were like radio students come on and they would give community calendars.

And that was basically it.

And there was a ton of high school football updates.

So it just seems like if you're going to have a community radio station, like sports is going to be a big part of it.

I know Nightvale is probably not in Texas, but

yeah, it feels like, I don't know, that was just a big part of me growing up that you can't really have a radio station without having sports news.

But it does seem like in Nightvale, when they do have a lot of school or town pride, because, you know, there's always that

adversarial sort of relationship with desert bluffs and

you know them winning the football game and stuff like that and so I mean it is a desert community could be somewhere near Texas who knows right who even knows yeah and also not me yeah and though if you look at the design for the nightvale logo that is it has a very west texas vibe with the water tower and the it looks like I think even Rob Wilson who designed the logo said that it was inspired by West Texas so he sent us when we did the first novel the Welcome to Night Vale novel novel for the cover design He sent over basically I forget the term he used but it was like a portfolio of like images that he used to as inspiration for the color palette and the graphic design of the logo and we got to see that and what was amazing is he has a photo in that of like a purpley sunset and like a phone tower and a water like a phone pole and a water tower and a little house and it's just the logo is what it is and it's like this photo and it's so amazing and it says rawls on the raw ls on the water tower which is the town in west texas and the panhandle that rob wilson grew up in uh so it was really amazing to kind of see that that yeah that the logo literally is west texas that's phenomenal So in this episode,

we do talk about the PTA meetings.

Have you ever been to a PTA meeting before?

I have.

I remember, yeah, like not as a parent, as like a student.

Obviously.

Yeah.

For your cat, Simone.

I just, sometimes just like as a spectator sport, I go to like the local high school here in town and I just go to their PTA meetings just to offer my two cents, what I think.

As a taxpayer.

Yeah, as a just as a fan, really.

Yeah.

You're paying, so those kids aren't dumb.

You should at least go see where your money goes, right?

Yeah.

I have a question for you, Jeffrey.

At this point, you're writing the fourth episode of the show.

And and

when you're creating these characters of this the sports world of nightvale and as the maybe the only other sports fan involved in the show I was saying before that you and I will if we're you know if we're both at a show on tour we'll find a place to sit and talk about sports for a couple of hours is like a release valve but at this at this point do you

how much thought are you giving to the overall sports world or is it just here's something I'm going to throw in I don't know whether it's going to come back or not I don't know if there's there's a grand design for the sports community of Nightvale.

Yeah, I just kind of, I think it just initially started as I want to put sports in here because I think it'd be fun.

But I definitely, once I started writing about the quarterback Michael Sandero, I felt like Joseph and I hadn't talked about it to this point yet because we hadn't even put an episode out when we were writing the first five or six of these.

Oh, okay.

But the one thing, the only thing we had really said was, is that we can do whatever we want with the show as long as there's strict continuity.

And we both took that to mean as, and like things have consequences and people age and life moves forward.

And even if like that life is weird and nonsensical at times.

So this idea that you could have like a junior quarterback.

My thought was it'll be fun next year because I'll get to go into a senior year and talk about that.

There's also a thing too where like you can tell if I wrote a sports thing or if Joseph wrote a sports thing because I always think very carefully, what month is this episode coming out?

And so we're like, okay, well, you can,

in the fall, you can, in the fall, you can have, you know, you can have episodes with football or whatever.

So not in the spring.

Yeah, not in the spring.

You can't have like a February, like, oh, there was a big football game last night.

You're like, no, fool, that's baseball.

That's basketball.

Yeah.

That's not entirely true, though, because these early episodes, I had no idea when they were coming out.

So I think this one came out in like the middle of the summer.

Well, it is our fall preview.

Oh, oh yeah oh that's true yeah

but yeah that was it i don't know it just seemed fun to be able to follow this football team like a normal football team even if their quarterback has like two heads yep

so other things about this episode there's the the introduction of throat spiders

wrote that yep yeah tell us about your relationship with spiders jeffrey oh i hate them no no no i take that back i like spiders spiders are cool we're cool i just don't want to see them

it's weird because i actually am less afraid of actual spiders than I am of photos of spiders.

Like if somebody sends me a photo of a spider, like I'll lose my mind.

Like I just, I'm so terrified of that.

Joseph wrote a tweet recently on the Night Vale account, I think, and it was, I can't remember the term now and I don't even want to Google it, but it's basically the term for like all that fang shit in the spider's face.

And I was like, what is that term?

And I started typing it into the Chrome search bar.

And then I immediately saw the definition pop down.

I was like, oh, thank you, Chrome, for just giving me the verbal definition.

I was like, oh, control Q slam laptop shut and I threw it out the window.

Yeah, better just to burn that.

Now you're just going to get ads for spiders for the next six months.

They're just going to filter through your face.

You may also like a tarantula on your face while you sleep.

Oh no, I left my Facebook open while we were doing this.

I saw that video of the spider that they trained to jump, like a hairy spider jumping

why why would you do that because at a certain point science has to be stopped just from going in certain directions i'm i'm just super pro-silence but that is come on you guys gotta be something just satanism yeah

yeah no yeah they shouldn't be allowed to do that like i feel like we should probably have some regulations on science Yeah, that's just like you shouldn't have fast zombies.

I truly believe that.

Can we train them to crush themselves under a shoe?

Can we do that?

Yeah, that's perfect.

Yeah, so throat spiders sounded like the single most horrifying thing ever.

Yeah, localized to the throat, too.

I feel like elbow spiders, not as scary.

Throat spiders, terrifying.

Yeah, because you can keep an eye on elbow spiders.

Like you know what they're doing, but throat spiders.

Also, just see the idea of like how hard it would be to date somebody if you had throat spiders.

Because I just imagine they just like come out of your mouth at any point in time and just go all over your face.

They run some errands up in your hair and then they go back.

I have no idea.

I always, I've always, that imagery to me always meant like a sack of like spider eggs was in your throat and it busted open and then all the spiders came out.

So just internally scream about that for a second.

Or scream out loud.

Whatever's your fancy.

Depends on where you're listening to this show.

Or it's like the guy who has like a pet tarantula and he's like, look at the trick I taught him.

And then they like put the tarantula in their mouth and close the mouth and they open the mouth and out comes the spider.

Wait.

Why, though?

I have a headache now.

Well, I'll tell you where I saw it because

I think I might own.

Well, I have this tape.

Let me gather around, children.

Back in the day, before the internet, there was tape trading where editors would take excised footage and build compilation tapes and then trade them back and forth.

So I came into possession through my friend Nathan of a collection of rejected America's Funniest Home video submissions.

And I'm pretty sure one of them is somebody like, look at me, swallow my pret tarantula.

Here comes $10,000.

Open up the vaults and just dump the cash in for me.

Somebody thought that was going to be like that Bob Sagett was going to narrate that.

That just sounds like you're going to like for sure at least get one of those films where somebody gets killed in it.

Oh, for sure.

You know, what are those called?

Snuff.

Snuff.

Unintentional snuff film.

If you swallow a tarantula, that is a snuff film.

Those things are filled with, they're venomous.

They're venomous creatures.

Are they poisonous?

Do they have poison?

Yes.

Because I know some.

Oh.

You can milk them.

Oh.

I wouldn't know.

I don't spend that much time.

I'm just like, oh, big fuck off spider.

no thank you i'll stay away from that that's literally what i spent most of australia doing avoiding giant spiders and you came back alive and sound did you see big spiders when you're in australia symphony i saw one when i was in a park i was like standing there it was written on paper it was oh my god legs crossed a bench

very much like that a la beetle juice where that like cockroach is like sitting like just like flicking its leg yeah it was just like that.

It was disgusting.

And I took a like close-up video of it.

It's somewhere in my

Instagram story, I'm sure.

Yes, it was horrifying.

And I ran away.

I was like, enough nature for me.

It's terrible.

So, yeah, Jeffrey, did you do a re-listen on this episode to prepare for the show?

Or did you...

This is so stupid.

No, I did a reread of the episode.

I don't know why I did the harder thing.

I think I do both.

So,

yeah,

one or the other.

When you were going back and taking a look at it, was there anything that popped out to you that really struck you as creating some sort of emotion for you?

I mean, Dr.

Trinidad, define your experience there.

Did anything happen to you while you read it?

I had this thing where,

and I can't remember if, do we know what episode Steve Carlsberg first appeared in?

It wasn't this one.

It's six.

Five or six?

It's in my notes.

Hang on.

It's six.

Oh, it is six.

It's after this one, though, right?

Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.

It's two, two after this one.

So

I had this thought recently, partially because we had a gag about this in the most recent touring live show, All Hail, which is the reference to Susan Willman,

who

basically, I feel like Cecil also hates Susan Willman.

And then Diane Creighton hates Susan Willman.

Like, Susan Willman seems like she totally sucks.

And what's funny is that, like,

Cecil hates Steve Carlsberg, but as we like learn over time, it's like a much more deep-seated personal, familial thing that he's having.

That Cecil himself is trying to grapple with his own personal issues, and he's just laying it all on Steve.

And then, so now we're sort of like, as you know, spoiler alert for people who are further along, but his relationship to Steve Carlsberg kind of changes and grows.

But I feel like Susan Willman is still in that state of like, oh my, I fucking hate her.

And it's all the way back in episode four in 2012.

And in 2018, Cecil is still like, get it together, Susan.

Now more of the hatred can focus on her.

It can get more intense.

That's right.

Thank God.

Well, she like fat shamed Diane's son.

She sounds like kind of a piece of shit.

Oh, man.

That made me hate her.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I am glad that there is that continuity.

Doing this realist and we have found a lot of things in just these first couple episodes that are in the show right now that are like

coming to a big head.

Just like little tiny pieces that have been scattered in the first couple episodes have played huge plot points now in the show.

And then, you know, for over the past six years of the show, things kind of sneak back up and you don't necessarily realize that they were there from the beginning.

I like that.

It seems very intentional, like we're super geniuses that had it planned all along.

That's my favorite thing.

Yeah, I mean, I figured when you guys wrote episode one and two and three and four, you were really like, well, this arc is 400 episodes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I made a big thing.

I'm like, Joseph, if I don't bring up Joel Eisenberg in episode four, it's going to delay the arc we have in episodes 98 through 115.

I'm going to have to redo the whole 500 episode outline that we drafted.

Wouldn't that be great?

For our first 25 years.

For the first 25 years of London Tonight, Bill.

Yeah.

Wouldn't that be great?

It's a lot of words.

It's a lot of words.

It's been a lot of words so far.

The last three words of episode 500 are end volume one.

Please let that be true.

Please let me get to episode 500.

That'd be amazing.

Right.

Keep drinking water, getting those vitamins.

Oh, water.

Oh, start drinking water.

Start drinking water.

Apparently, according to Joseph, went to the doctor today for his physical, and the doctor was like, you know, the biggest key to longevity is stress management.

And Joseph was like, oh, well.

So I guess that's our health tip is stress management.

Sure.

Great.

That sounds easy.

If you can find a way to have stress management that somehow doesn't also deter future longevity, it's like, oh, oh yeah, I managed to stress great.

I smoke a pack a day.

Or like, I managed to stress great.

I, you know,

you know, I do as much cocaine as I can get my hands on.

So

this is a hypothetical audience.

I don't do drugs.

I do.

I do hugs.

Wow.

Hugs, actually.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, that's, I guess that's the thing with stress management.

It's like, it's going to kill you if you don't, but you got to find a way to do it that doesn't also kill you.

And so you can write 500 episodes of Welcome to Nightfall.

Great.

I will need a lot of cocaine to do that.

Yeah.

You'll get it done in like two weeks.

Just one, one quick bender.

Perfect.

Yeah.

I'm sure the product will be great.

Yeah.

Nothing relieves stress more than having to constantly write to a deadline.

That's just, that is floating down a lazy river on an inner tube while you're getting a massage.

Oh, nothing brings on the amazing dreams,

like having several things on deadline at once.

You now have multiple shows.

Let's do that plug.

Let's do that plug.

Yeah.

No,

I'm working on, we're about a little over halfway done with season three, writing season three of Within the Wires, which is a show I co-write with Janina Mathewson.

And yeah, I'm excited.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

It's going to be, yeah, a total, each season we have a completely different narrator that tells stories that on some type of pre-recorded audio.

So season one was relaxation tapes that sort of tell the story of an escape from

a medical prison.

And season two was sort of a

mystery of a missing person told over the course of a decade from

museum audio guides.

So, yeah, so we're working on season three now, and it's fun.

Yay.

Yeah, it's definitely fun to listen to.

Awesome.

Yeah, I've enjoyed both seasons.

I'm glad people like it.

After listening to season one, it's like, ooh, what's next?

And then season two is just like a totally different situation, and that's really cool.

It is awesome.

It was also fun because we worked with like a super professional actor who lives in New Zealand, which was great because Rima Teweata, who's the actor, is awesome.

She's so good.

You should see Hunt for the Wilder People if you have not.

It's an

awesome thing.

But she is,

she's like uber professional.

And so it was really,

but we, you know, we live literally like 12 hours a time zone, 12 time zones away from each other.

So like communication was always strange.

And then she would record this stuff.

And it was very funny because like in season one, Janina co-wrote it and then recorded all of it.

So any like weird typos we had, and this is like at Night Vale too.

Like if we have weird typos, Cecil will, he'll just figure it out.

And if he can't, he'll just email and do something.

But Rima would read through this stuff and it was really amazing.

She would get to something where we'd be like missing an an or a the or something and she'd stumble over it and she'd just start laughing and she'd be like what the fuck is this supposed to mean

and it was amazing it's so great to listen to all of that people are like do you have bloopers i'm like no when you record by yourself you don't have bloopers and i'm like oh i just had a whole season full of them they were amazing

So yeah, so cool, cool, cool.

Is there anything that you would like to leave us with regarding this episode or regarding the early episodes of Welcome to Nightfell, Jeffrey?

One of the things that I remembered about this episode, this was pretty early on when we were starting to get an audience to this and a lot of people would start, they would get on Tumblr or Twitter and start like listening and then like live blogging it or live tweeting their listening.

And

anyway, somebody tweeted at me one evening and this is kind of, I just started Nightville and I love it.

And I was like, and I replied, awesome.

Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks so much.

And then she messaged back like later that day, like later in the evening on Twitter.

And she was like, I I love your show, but

pteranodons are not dinosaurs.

And I'm like, just keep listening to the episode.

She's like, but they're not dinosaurs.

And I'm like, just listen to the episode.

And then she never wrote me back.

I'm like, I hope you finished the episode.

No, that's where we lost her.

Spoiler alert.

We corrected it.

Anyways, that was all.

I just remembered that argument.

I was like, I love your show later.

Like, I'll never listen again.

Pteranodons are not dinosaurs.

That's so funny.

It was amazing.

I love fans.

They're the best.

Right.

It's like, how about listen to the whole thing before?

Oh, no, you just want to listen to the first like six sentences?

Great, cool.

Thanks, bro.

So that's the lesson as always is I love fans and I love Twitter.

That's, I mean, that's really why you started making Night Vale is that you could interact with fans and Twitter more.

Yeah.

Well, we started making Night Vale because it was fun, something fun to do.

I had no idea anybody would listen to it, honestly.

I really didn't.

But I'm glad that people showed up.

Well, I say that, and I don't really mean that like sarcastically.

Like, even that interaction with the Pteranodon person, like, I really love that.

It makes me really excited that somebody I don't know cares that much about something we wrote is really exciting.

Like, that's a crazy thing.

I've, Meg, you and I have done theater for fewer than 15 people in a room before.

And that's, uh, it's disheartening when you look out and you just see a bunch of blank faces and most of them are people that you know personally that you had all of your friends fill the house.

And then you look out and you're like, wow, this is really hard.

And then when you do a podcast, it's really amazing that suddenly you just get a bunch of people you don't know suddenly like, I care so much about this.

It's really fucking cool.

It is.

It is really cool.

It's really cool to have people have some buy-in into what we're working on.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining us on Good Morning Night Vale.

We really appreciate having you with us.

What a delight.

It was so nice to see you all again, and I hope to see you again very soon.

Likewise.

Yay.

Thanks, Dad.

Thank you to everybody who has been listening and sending us emails and calls.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you for joining.

I hope you're re-listening with us and joining us on this journey.

Next week is The Shape in Grove Park, and we will hear from more of you about your theories.

We'll answer some of your questions and we'll comment on some of your comments.

So we want to hear from you.

Get in touch with us.

For Symphony and Meg, I'm Hal Loveland saying Good Morning Nightvale.

Good morning Nightvale is a Night Vale Presents production.

It is hosted by Symphony Sanders, Hal Loveland, and Meg Bashwiner.

It is edited by Grant Stewart.

It is mixed by Vincent Cascion.

It is produced by Meg Bashwiner.

Theme music by Disparition.

Special thanks to our guest this week, Jeffrey Kraner.

Leave us a voicemail at 929-277-2050.

Or email us at info at goodmorningnightvale.com to share your theories and ask questions or to tell us which host you would want to be in a buddy cop story with.

For more information on this show, go to goodmorningnightvale.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Night Vale Chat.

Special thanks to Christy Gressman, Jeffrey Kraner, Joseph Bink, and Adam Cecil.

Today's adverb: literally.

As in, I literally have used the word literally so many times when I meant figuratively that the word has lost all meaning, and my life has lost all meaning, and meaning has lost all meaning.

There is nothing left for us here.

Run.

Thanks for tuning in to the Summer of Night Vale Presents.

We were so happy to share some of the amazing art that's happening on our network.

Check out nightvalepresents.com to learn more about all of our shows and to sign up for our newsletter where you can learn about our upcoming projects.

Welcome to Night Vale is back with regular episodes on August 1st.

I'll see you then.

I mean, I won't see you, it's figurative, but you.

No, I think you got it.

I'm sure I didn't need to explain.

I tend to overexplain things.

I'm not always sure people get what I'm trying to say.

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 Unschooled, 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 Unschooled wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Are you squeamish about horror movies, but kind of want to know what happens?

Or are you a horror lover who likes thoughtful conversation about your favorite genre?

Join me, Jeffrey Kraner, and my friend from Welcome to Nightvale, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly podcast, Random Number Generator, Horror Podcast Number 9, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order.

Find, here's the short version, Random Horror Nine, wherever you get your podcasts.

Boo.