Mission To Zyxx - A BIG DITTY

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Hey everybody, Alden Ford here, along with Shane. Hey. And Seth. Hello. This week we are hard at work on 510, which we're very excited about, and it's going to be a crazy, epic monstrosity of an episode. Because of that, we decided to take a little bit more time to sew it up nice and get all that Shane magic in.

bit more time to sew it up nice and get all that Shane magic in. I will say 510 is the product of six recording sessions and counting. We can't wait for you to hear it. So 510 will be coming out in two weeks. Yep. But we didn't want to leave you hanging for that long without anything in the feed. We thought we'd do something this week that people have been asking us to do since we started doing the show. Two things, actually. One is that we are going to release a completely uncut 507, which is, of course, a little ditty about Jack and Cheyenne, starring Chris Grace and Eric Gerson. I love that that sounds like it's your pet name for it, not the episode title. It's a little ditty about Jack and Cheyenne.

It's the literal title of this episode. And after that, the second thing we're going to do is dive deep, for lack of a better phrase, into kind of the process as improvisers and producers, editors, sound designers of how we make the show and some of the decisions and creative processes that we use to bring a show from start to finish. I personally am very excited about this. This is something that like fans have been asking for. And just to be clear for everyone out there, what you're going to be hearing is a tracking session. This is going to be like what we do in the room. And in fact, we almost released a tracking session right before 501 came out

and it was aborted at the last minute because I think the cast is scared. tracking session right before 501 came out and it was aborted at the last minute because i think the cast is scared and i've been wanting to do it for a long time because i think it's great theory fans have said like will you release a recordings a raw recording and i've said i don't think you want that like you know the reason we edit them so much is that we leave in the really good stuff. We leave the good stuff and we take out the bad stuff. But this one, I remember texting you guys while I was editing it saying, if we ever release a raw recording, I think it should be this one.

Partly just because it was so bonkers. Yeah. And it ended up just because of the technical hurdles of having live accompaniment, it ended up kind of by necessity being a little more linear than some of our other sessions where we were allowed to get kind of mired down in conversations about canon and how we were going to move the greater plot forward and stuff like that. Which is not to say that those tracking sessions might not be interesting for some people to hear, but we felt like this recording session is a nice

mix between something that stands on its own as something that you can still listen to and enjoy without editing, while also really illuminating how much the sound design does to turn a really fun recording session into a killer episode. Yeah. So without further ado, let's jump in and enjoy, if you dare, this unedited tracking session for 507. Oh, and we'll pop back in with some present day ads. And stick around afterwards for some more bts convo from us i am rolling jeremy bent recording uh chris uh do you have any um uh scene setting uh do you have any scene setting?

Do you have a preference of sort of what the environment is that we're in? No, I'm just picturing the same thing as the Darmok, which is like a desert. Just like a weird rocky planet. What did that character look like? Or what do you want your character to look like? He had like ridges on his head. Classic Trek. We can build it as we...

I don't know. I'm very easy. I can roll with whatever. Thank you. Alright. Okay. Somewhat of a strange environment here. My mission to find and

reach out to... Chris, did you have a name for the this like race of people or no but can he be cheyenne uh son of jack yes absolutely already great okay my mission is to reach out to this planet's emissary Cheyenne son of Jack okay well should be easy enough just gotta find them um okay wow

gosh these bodies sweat so much this is the worst there's a man over there. There's a man over there. Oh, excuse me. Hello, yes. Well, I'm not a man. It's sort of not worth getting into. Are you Cheyenne, son of Jack?

The chameleon skin of a man inside a machine. Or a machine inside a man. Yes, that's sort of accurate. I am C-53. Where's that music coming from? We greet you to this third rock from the center of the universe. I greet you back. Should I be? Is it better if I sing?

The crying of a bird! Yes. An insect on a leaf. The setting of the three suns in harmony. We greet you. And I, in return, greet you.

I am C-53. The setting of the three suns. Okay. An insect on a leaf. We greet you. The setting of the sun. Okay. Wow. I can understand what you're singing to me, Okay Wow

I can understand what you're singing to me But I feel like I'm Missing something about these songs Let me try one more time I am C53 I've been sent here By the coup to Oh my name is Cheyenne

Cheyenne Son of Jack my name is Cheyenne fantastic Son of Jack step back boy you're gonna have a good time in this little town of mine the Wells Fargo trucks are coming that's that's awesome can I hold for just a second Allie? Allie was here and she dropped. Is she still here? Allie. She may have heard the music and was like, I'm fucking out of here. I'm texting her. I'm letting her know what's happening.

That was so great, Chris. Oh, man. This is going to be great. I'm wondering, as great as Wells Fargo Wagon is, I think we should pick it up with something just off of that. We don't have earthisms. Yeah, Knowles Bargo or something like that. Oh, sure, sure, sure.

My name is Cheyenne, son of Jack. You better step back. I said to everyone in the town, fels wargo truck is a coming and i know he is up to something hi ali hey ali that was great oh my god i'm so sorry uh i'm here this This is sounding great. We miss you. Yes. We were just imagining what it would feel like to drop in in the middle of that. See how I so skillfully picked a different name.

Incredible, beautiful, enjoyable. So just to catch you up really quick, we're going to double back and get the intro. Yes, great. But the pitch as it stands now is that the intro will be that we get a call from Nermit that we have to go rescue C-53. And none of us knew he was even gone. But it turns out that he's been going on missions without us because he's the lead envoy. Wow. And he's down on this planet with Chris's character who speaks only in song. Better him than me.

Yeah. It will be the rest of us eventually, I think. Jeremy, I think I'm going to try to be more enigmatic so you can make more assumptions about what I'm saying as opposed to me. I feel it's less interesting if I'm just singing dialogue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that makes good sense.

I mean, all the shit about the bird on the leaf and shit. I love it. Yeah. That, I think, that stuff is amazing. Again, Allie, we miss you. It's really nice to be here with other people. So next time. Yeah.

Yeah, tell me what shrimp entrees did you order? It was just shrimp. It was just shrimp. Just a pile of shrimp. Just a big old bag of shrimp. Raw. Okay. Also, hi, Eric.

Hi, Chris. Hi, Allie. How are you? I both being here and doing this thanks for having us yeah this is great we'll go back into that scene let's roll and rock

it's interesting I can understand the words you're saying but the meaning is being lost. Cheyenne, son of Jack, I am C-53. I'm a lead envoy from the coup. We're trying to reach out to your civilization, but they... Why can't we understand you? What happened to the 54th

Sea? Why do there have to only be 53 seas? This rock has got water everywhere. We've got oceans and rivers and lakes but only 53

seas. Seas. 53 seas. Did you write a song about my name? Or is that what you call me on this

planet? A song is as good as a handshake where I come from. A song is as good as a handshake where I come from. A little island off the 52nd parallel on this rock of mine. We write a song as a

handshake. We don't shake hands. You write a song as a handshake. We also don't have hands You couldn't shake it even if you wanted to Cause you don't have hands I think I understand on some level

I feel like that's a real one Yeah, that's good, that's really funny That's really funny. Ah! Ah! That's really funny. That's so silly. Hey, it's us again. We're back.

Hey, it's us in the present day, not in the recording session. I know it's confusing when there's no sound design. As you know, Mission to Zix is entirely unscripted. But one of the very few things we do script on the show is our advertisements. But this week, since we're behind the scenes, we're not going to script anything. And we're going to do regular out-of-character ad reads. Shane, now's your shot, man. You get an ad read this week. Congratulations. Well, it's not the ad reads that I've been looking forward to. Oh, okay.

It was revenge on YouTube. Oh, no. What? Why? For the whole Green Chef. Yes. Listen, Shane. A, Green Chef is not a sponsor this week so we're we're legally not allowed to mention oh sorry sorry that's false that's actually not true but i will say uh company

that um cause so that almost ended the show if we're being honest uh uh sorry we are not ever giving you those sweet green chef codes but you know what they say if you teach a if you give a man a easy to prepare with low waste low prep meal plan you feed him for a day but if you give a man extremely high quality xlr cables. Oh, wow. He can integrate that into his job as an audio engineer and make the money to feed himself for a lifetime. Wait, do we have a brand new sponsor? We do.

We have a brand new sponsor that I am excited about. IO Audio Technologies that sent me a few XLR cables, also known as microphone cables. Yeah. Yeah. And we've recorded a few episodes with these new cables. I'm using one right now. And I'm not going to lie, the recording session right before that, there was some audio crackling. I mean, that's actually true. It. And it's gone too soon. It's gone. Yeah. There's also this other element to having a nice XLR cable that I didn't discover until IO Audio Technologies sent me these great cables is that it's just nice to have like a thing that you use a lot. That's just like a little bit better than everything else. Do you know

what I mean? Like you get that feeling of like, ooh, this cable is not getting that like kink, you know, and not in it. It's got, it's, this one is like braided, but it's a kind of braid that feels like an extra good braided one too, on top of already being a high quality cable. And when they sent me these cables,

they wrote me a letter. They said, I'm sad that mission zix is ending this season but i know that whatever you guys do next is going to be just as incredible which means that they are real fans so that's so nice if you are thinking about buying an xlr cable please go to ioaudiotech.com and buy some good cables. It will make you feel better. What a nice thing for a company that makes audio equipment who likes the show to sponsor the show. That's so great. Right. And I think that they have some more ads coming up. So there are some Zix characters about to be using these XLR cables.

That's what I have to say. Thank you for supporting the show, IO Audio Tech. Yeah. But wait, what's that URL again? It is the letter I, the letter O, audiotech.com slash... Seth, if you can't spell audio tech... C-Y-X-X. You don't belong in audio tech, I think.

All right, nice knowing you guys. And with that, let's dive back into this recording sesh, right where we left off. I don't know why he doesn't have hands. I don't know why he doesn't have hands. He probably does. That they don't have handshakes. Oh, wait.

I found my hands. If you don't have hands, who's playing the piano? That's the secret. It's coming. It's coming. Great. Fuck it up. You should actually investigate that at some point, Jeremy.

Okay, I will. Yeah. You guys want to do another one of those? Yes, Eric? Is this even remotely what you envisioned? Yes. Eric, this is so great. Better than perfect.

Should we do another one of these with you two? Or should we try to start folding in the crew? Just because I feel like we're in a good zone, yeah, maybe we push forward with Chris and I. Yeah, do as many as you want. I feel pretty in the zone with Jeremy, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get it.

Nice. Uh-huh. Yeah. All right. So your people use song to communicate. Everything becomes a song. Every word that we would have in our language is a song in yours. I wrote a song about you.

Now you do too. Cheyenne, son of Jack. C-53, coming back to this planet after never been in... After never... Fucked up. No, no, no. Try it again. Yeah, here we go.

C-53, coming back to this planet after never having been here before. Is that what you mean when you say everything's a song? A song is a handshake. I wrote a song about you. Now you do that as well. Yes, of course. Cheyenne, son of Jack. Yes, of course, Cheyenne, son of Jack.

He's like a child. He writes songs like a child. Well, I just don't know that I've done a lot of it before. Like a child. A little starling flying through my sky sleep I'm actually I'm a droid I don't really sleep

but all of a sudden I'm so drowsy we both sleep All of a sudden, I'm so drowsy. We both sleep as I cradle you. Shan, son of Jack. I can't stay awake. The cat is in the silver spoon.

And the cradle is the moon. Good luck putting this together. You think this is the hardest episode we've ever read? No way, man. Editing itself. It's beautiful. Yeah, we had a guest who played twins once. That was tough. Yeah. Dave Bluff Band played twins.

That was... This is great. I think the thing that is missing from this is what C needs to do. I think if we have a high stakes thing you're trying to get then the obfuscation of the song like it gives you more reason to try to communicate with him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was trying to think of something and I totally blanked. No, no, no. I mean this is you're juggling eight different knives at once. Could it be a natural resource on this planet? It's a popular one. Oh, forget that then. Artificial resource on this planet?

See, I have a mind that's just so fast. This guy's like a super-mach. The thing I thought about for my character was maybe there's a note that he can't hear that he used to be able to hear that he wants to be able to so maybe it's something

related to that i don't know that's just my internal motivation that's funny i love that i don't know if there's something like about harmony like you need to find like the perfect harmony or something oh that's great they're like i like that that's fun yeah i mean what what if chris's civilization has been destroyed and like harmony is the, like that's the thing he can't get anymore because he's the only voice. Right. Or maybe that's the way to like regenerate his society is with harmony. Yeah, reproduce.

Like he just needs, if there's a harmony, he can reproduce and rebuild his society. Oh, that's great. So every time there's a harmony, there's another one that pops up. Yeah, so there's like a twin of Chris, and then we have a bunch of Chris's, and how fun is that? It would be fun to populate the world with more singers. That could get away from us, maybe. I don't think.

I can't see how that would. Yeah, I think we're fine. But I think it could also be if as soon as we have one cord, it could be we see something reappear. It doesn't need to be a person. It could be. Like grass or tree. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Or like a building. And then one really weird looking person. Yeah. It was a little flat. Yeah, so that's good. I also think maybe if we add that C-53 knows he's not, like he can't contact the crew or the coup or whatever,

maybe there's a little bit, that raises the stakes for him to be like, I need help getting out of here. I can just add some lines to that thing at the top where I'm sort of roaming around, you know? Yeah. Right, where it's like, oh, okay. Coo wants to know why everyone on this planet

mysteriously disappeared. But I'm, oh, wow, I can't even, can't contact Bargy or anybody. There's some kind of interference now that I'm on the surface of this planet. Looks like it's up to me. No pressure.

You know, just something like that. Yeah, I think that's good. Yeah, cool. So should we do one more after he wakes up from his little nap? Sure. Um, and I think if, uh, maybe this one ends with some sort of harmony and we, and a flower grows or something.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm going to bring you some food. Oh, sure. Yeah. Oh, wow. Uh, still not used to bring you some food. Oh, sure, yeah. Wow. Still not used to sleeping. Very weird.

Very uncomfortable to suddenly regain consciousness. Oh, right. Right. Cheyenne, son of Jack. It's not very musical. Cheyenne, son of Jack. It's not very musical. Cheyenne, son of Jack, thank you for guarding me as I slept. The smell of a bison recently slaughtered.

Oh, that's very bloody. Thank you, Cheyenne, for this midday feast. I thank you for it, though I need it in the least. I thank you for it. I thank you for it. I thank you for it. Euphoria. Oh my God, the flowers are growing back all around us.

What is happening here? Cheyenne, I must ask you, where does this music come from? I'm opening up my shirt. Like Quatto? The music is... Sorry. The music comes from you. You are the music.

The music man. That's what they could call you. If they wanted to give you a name other than Cheyenne. A song from my heart. Literally a song from my heart. A sentient face

instead of a heart that plays its own music. A song from his heart. A song from my heart. A song from his heart. My heart. My home. My home. Trees and why a little path leading who knows where.

Well, Cheyenne, we simply must continue. I feel like this is probably the part where we arrive and we're like, the fuck is going on here? That's really funny. I love that. Nothing is funnier than musical improv. It is the funniest improv there is. Can I just pick up a line?

I feel like when I was in a frame, I would have had the range, but... Hey, everybody, it's time for one more ad, right? Let's do another one. Yeah. This episode, as with many episodes this season, is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. We've done a lot of ad reads for BetterHelp, and I think actually, not only is it great that they have entrusted us with a bunch of ad reads and helped the show get made and stay afloat, but also I think for a lot of us, the last couple years have been ridiculously stressful. And I think that more and more people are deciding how important therapy is and BetterHelp is an easy, accessible, affordable way to get somebody to talk to, a sounding board

for what you're going through, a chance to unload, if you will. I've been thinking about trying it out with our Zix software code, but do you know, this is true, it out really with our zix software code but do you know this is true a funny thing that i think about a lot for myself is like how do i set up my microphone situation do you know what i mean because it's gonna be like you wanted to sound too good right like microphone out of frame but still sound good because i do want that wow factor of like i mean i think the answer is clearly to have it out of frame until you're saying something really important and then you bring it in and then you talk really quietly. Well,

it's funny you bring that up, uh, Seth, because, uh, not only does better help offer, uh, you know,

voice chat, uh, text chat, but they also have video chat. So you can, you could play your power move by bringing your high quality microphone into frame that any quality therapist will see right through and it's more affordable than in-person therapy so you uh seth should see if it's for you or anyone listening to this really um but is there

a deal uh yeah yeah sure mission to zix listeners 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash Zix. But how soon can I get it? You can have your first session in under 48 hours at b-e-t-t-e-r-h-e-l-p dot com slash Zix. And truly, we're really grateful to BetterHelp for sponsoring so much of this season. Yeah, I love that BetterHelp is a sponsor because I think that this is a very big picture behind the scenes thing, but like we try to have the show be positive and sweet at its core. And it's nice to have a sponsor that is helping people feel better. So, um, yeah, it's nice to have them be a part of our show this season. Oh, just on a story note, I note, I also appreciate BetterHelp because

it, like, writing BetterHelp ads for characters is such an opportunity to have them be... Self-aware? Yeah, to have them be just talking about their emotions in a way that is not so organic in a normal scene. So, it's fun. One of my proudest ads this season is hark being like i think i'm to blame for all that was great yeah i love doing that one i think i've brought this on myself yeah he's just self-destructive i love that oh yeah yeah uh that all of the lava pits he's been almost sinking into is like the product of like self-sabotage. It's like subconscious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's funny. Betterhelp.com slash Zix. Well, uh, without further ado, let's get back into this recording sesh. That's funny. Uh,

could we also get a pickup of like, uh, Chris, are you imagining that Eric is inside your chest playing a piano yes uh great can we get can we get that uh can eric also am i speaking yeah yeah yeah oh yeah i can't sing so we can't harmonize with each other or something yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's also something that maybe ask me at some point yeah oh yeah maybe that like justice constitutes like masturbation so specifying yeah no i just

i just met jeremy jeremy describe or c53 describing what it looks like that there's like a i'm imagining yeah like um like krang or something right like should i have a crying voice hello hello oh because you described it as a face but it's but it's music it's it's piano noise so like is there oh i just imagine it's a little guy like yeah like it's a head with fingers I'm playing the piano. He's like, ugh. Hey, what's wrong? He's completely disgusting. What if your body is actually a keyboard? So you're just like playing. I'm playing the piano.

Am I like a parasite or something? Yeah. Kill me. Kill me, please. Kill me. Yeah, yeah. Can we describe that, Jerry? I mean, I think if he's playing himself, like playing a little keyboard on his body or something, that's yeah yeah can we describe that Jerry I mean I think if he's playing himself on like playing a little

keyboard on his body or something that's yeah yeah do you want me to do this in song or can see no I think it can sort of be to himself like dear Rod oh my Rod got another entity fused to his chest who also

has a keyboard fused to him. This got very... Jeremy, could you say it looks like a piano tie? Yeah. He's got another entity fused to his chest, and he's playing what looks like a piano key necktie? You got it. Okay.

Glad you're on board. You don't sing? No, I don't sing. I just play my piano key tie and the music comes out of it. I'm fused. That I can see. That's great.

That's great that's great um uh can you guys hear nessie barking at all no no but she's getting a little barky okay well later but that's okay great uh is there anything in there you guys wanted to pick up or or uh do again or should we move on Robbie Robert Doggy Jr. um I totally fine if you don't want to do this is it should we get a retake of Jeremy's

first song when he's at when Cheyenne asks him to sing about him because the game of that was kind of end up being that C53 just didn't really sing and he called him a child which works but i wonder if we want a version if there's a little more meat to that song yeah sure uh eric do you remember that song not even remotely i think it could be it could be new it could be a new song yeah it could be new okay great if we want to just maybe

take it from the the chris's line line about demanding that he sing about him. Yeah, we don't need to pick that up again, but we could just start from him. Sure, yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at a man. He's got no hands. He's looking at me like he wants me to sing him a song

so I'm singing him a song I hope it won't be too long before this man says not a bad job on that song

I was trying to sing the worst song I could think of Not a bad job on that song. I was trying to sing the worst song I could think of. That's really funny. That was great. That's great. Thank you. That's really funny. Cool.

That feels good to me. That terrible song feels good to me. I guess we should maybe start folding in the crew. Yeah. Winston's just snarfing down. He's like, you got shrimp back here? So I do think I do think it's going to be such a shame

not to have Nermit on this mission. We need to figure out a way to get you down there. I think it'll be funnier if he's never allowed to say. It's like so brutal. Yeah. He could call in and be like, you guys need never allowed to sing. It's like so brutal. Yeah. He could call it and be like, you guys need me. You need me.

Nermit, the secret was harmony. We had to do harmonies, though, down there. What's that mean? Nermit is also like, he has an alter ego, Bermit Nundeley, who's a singer, but he's bad. So he would want to do this so badly, but it is funny if he's denied it. I don't know. Sorry. I just feel like the most comedic decision is for him

not to not be able to he can't go but maybe it could be that he calls in so he can feel the pain in real time or the third act is that we're like yeah the mission's over and you're like but I'm still ready it's like we're kind of

we're sort of done we're kind of sung out we don't want to do it anymore we never want to sing ever anymore. Maybe we call on the communicator. We never want to sing ever again. It's like, what's going on down there? And we sing something. Like, you guys are singing? Hold on.

Hold on. Are we right there? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like, he can be tortured. The most pain inflicted is what we want. Yeah. Sure.

So. Great. So, yeah. Let's do the act one. Hey, sure. So, great. So, yeah, let's do the act one. Hey, Dar? Captain Dar, Papa? Yeah, what is it? I'm not the captain anymore, but I'll respond.

Oh, right, right. You're not. Yeah, because Mr. Robot Man is now lead envoy. But I still call you captain. Is that all right? Yeah, now it's sort of an honorific. Salt in an open wound, but fine. Yeah, I mean, I just kind of wish things were kind of back.

I mean, I guess everything's fine and we're sort of going on missions, but I miss Zix. Am I crazy? Yeah, AJ, we all miss Zix, but I think we've sort of established we're lifetimes away from the Zix squadron. I think we just got to make the best of what we've got, you know? I'm having a great time. Oh, Bargy.

What? Yeah. Turns out I'm the only ship here who can talk. So people are very interested in talking to me. I have seven interviewers lined up outside. Oh, what? Interviewers? Yeah.

I'm doing a round table discussion right now. Lined up outside. Yeah, the outside. They're in their non-sentient ships. Oh, yeah, I can see them out the side of the window. Speaking to me in the loudspeakers, asking me very personal questions. Very interested.

Lots of lights going off for photography. You guys are in the photos. I didn't tell you. But your image will be used. Okay, that's fine i guess i mean i i basically don't have an identity in this new galaxy so yeah i thought that would be fun too yeah i thought that would be fun to have blank slates and just be like yeah we can do whatever you know like yeah i thought it would be great to have blank slates you know know, being in this new world and to be like, I'll do whatever.

Is she talking to me or to the interviewer? She's just saying what you just said. Oh, wow. I just missed Zix. I don't know. I mean, the missions here are fine, but everything's a little too clean and everything's a little too nice. Do you know what I mean?

Well, you know, AJ, I think sometimes. I get what you're saying, AJ. Thank you, Captain. Sorry, Envoy Dor. Can you move the crew away from the window for these photos, please? Do you want us to hide? This shoot is about how the spaceship is alive, and if we see these ugly people in the window...

Yeah, I can just bounce them to another direction. Whoa, whoa, whoa! I was like... But, Bargy, not I was like, ah. But Bargy, not me. Surely not me. They said the ugly. Thank you. You're still by the window.

Beep boop beep. Beep boop beep. Wait, wait. Where's Beep boop beep. Where's Robot Man? Yeah, see. Are you gonna get that? Robot Man! Robot Man! AJ, C, are you going to get that? Robot Man! Robot Man! AJ, relax, relax. Robot Man!

AJ, he doesn't need... He's around here somewhere. He'll answer the call. Yeah, where is he, though? Normally, when we do these missions, he's... Robot Man! AJ, how does your helmet speaker even get that loud? How is that possible?

Sometimes when I have to do crowd control, I'm on its own crowd control setting now. Okay. Normally it's like, you know, obey us. Right. Surrender your will to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or no one gets hurt. Is someone going to get that?

Yeah. It's going to go to voicemail if no one gets that. I feel, it's like. Yeah, he's got the whole thing where he says Nermits title. And honestly, if I answer it, it just feels like I'm trying to reclaim something that I don't even know that I liked in the first place.

Is it just the buttons? Is that all I have? Robot Matt! Can we hear Bargy's voicemail message? Beep. Hello? Hi, yes, this is Bargy's voicemail to Bargerian J. Hollow, Starship of the Stars.

I'm currently lost in space, so I cannot answer your phone call. Jack, if this is you, don't be a coward. You know what you did. Chris's character's named Jack. We should have a different name for son of Jack. Oh, wow. Son of Jack. Delone, if this is you, don't be a coward.

Do something, okay? All right. Bajie out. Oh, wow. Hey, everyone. It's Nermit. Haven't... I guess someone's always picked up.

Rubber man! I didn't know. You know, Bajie, can you actually pick up the call? I guess call me back if you get this or... Hello? If you don't mind, I have to do my job now because I am a sentient spaceship.

Oh, I don't need applause. Thank you. I know. I know. I am. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I'm going back to my job.

Check one. Hello. They love me so much. Oh, hey, Mermin. Oh, hey. Nermin. Oh, hey. Thank you, Bargy. Hi.

What's happening? Hey, sorry, we didn't pick up the, we thought C-53 was gonna pick it up, so. Oh, no, he's not there. Oh, is he back with you? No, he's, well, that's kind of the thing, is he's on a mission. What?

Wait, we're not on a mission. What? We're waiting for a mission. Right, I'll give you a mission. What? Wait, we're not on a mission. What? We're waiting for a mission. Right. I'll give you a mission momentarily, and that mission is related to the solo mission that C-53 went on. What?

What solo mission? Wait. What are you talking about? Hold on. What? No, Dar, stop. You're squeezing my arm hard. It's just so much change, you know?

I just, I don't understand. Yeah. Where is C-53, Nermit? Well, you're going to find out because your mission is going to be to rescue him. But he, as lead envoy, he sometimes- Nermit! Yes.

Nermit, we're a crew, we're a team. What is going on? If C-53 is in danger, it's probably because we weren't with him. He might still be on the ship. Run! AJ! I can't,

my ears cannot handle any more of that. How long has this been going on? This particular mission, let's see, he left. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Solo missions. How many of these solo missions has c53 gone

he just left yeah why did he just walk away he left the phone get back on the screen get back on screen and quit being a coward. Okay. So he has gone on six of these. They've all gone well. Six? Yes, he's gone on six solo missions. We haven't even gone on six team missions. Oh, I figured we were kind of... Is that too many?

No, no, no. Honestly, it should be more. Yeah. That's way too many. We've only been here for a couple weeks. Well, he go, I mean, you guys are, when you guys are chilling out or whatever, he's lead envoy. Lead envoy.

Lead envoy. Chilling out? Do you mean like when we're asleep? Yeah. Chilling. Yeah, I mean, we need our downtime. I mean, you can't just always be. N just always norm it yes c53 is in trouble what is where did he go we need to save him okay well you're upset you guys are so you're so obsessed

or something with him when he does these missions or he has any muscle or oh that's a good question does he get weapons does he get weapons no't. No, these are diplomatic missions. Oh, these are based. That's like not a mission then. If there's not guns, it's not a mission. What? Nermit. Yes.

Where is C-53? Okay, C-53. Chris, did you have a planet name? Oh, no. Just pick something. What is the one in? Should we play off the Star Trek one? Is that a planet?

What is the name of that planet? Could actually the name of this planet just be the NBC ringtone? Like, bing, bing, bing. I think that tips it. Why don't you call it Miranda? Miranda? Love it. I think we might have had a planet Miranda.

Did you have one called Lin-Manuel Miranda? Well, if you wanted to do NBC, I think it's G- a planet Miranda. Did you have one called Lin-Manuel Miranda? If you wanted to do NBC, I think it's G-A-C or the notes, so it could be Planet Gak. Bing, bing, bing. G-A-C? I thought it was G-A-C. Planet G-A-C. Are there other...

The planet in the episode is El Adrel. Maybe G-E-C. What does you mean? What is it, Shane? GEC. El Adrel? Oh, right, because it's the GE Corporation.

G-E-C. Wow, really? Was it always? No, it wasn't always opened by GE. Sorry, it could be any series of chords, honestly. I think GEC3, because Chris said that it's the third planet in the system. Yeah, yeah. Cool. So C-53 was sent on a solo mission to GEC3.

No, it's C-53. Now you know that? You just literally yelled robot man, don't do it. GEC3, that barely sounds like a planet what's I mean is there is there a civilization there well it's funny you should ask there was so the only one there now is Cheyenne son of Jack who

C53 was sent to make contact with to make contact with to figure out why why everyone else is missing I mean Plek you're asking all the wrong questions. I want to know what makes C-53 better than all of us.

Dar, no, no, Dar, we're a team. He has a cube with sentience. Is it because he sweats now? Is that, because I don't sweat. If anything, it's a deficit. Nermit, Nermit. I just want to recap. Sure.

I don't sweat. That, if anything, is a deficit. Nermit. Yes. I just want to recap. Sure. You sent C-53. Yes. On his own.

Yeah. To a planet. G-E-C-3. Where the only thing we know about it is that people have disappeared from it. Right. Because you think he's better than us. Well, sure. That's sort of beside the point.

Yeah. That's. Right. And now you're surprised that he's gone and you want us to go help find him. I knew he was gone. I'm calling to tell you he's gone. Maybe you should just find another C-53

to go on a solo mission to save him. There are none others we would have. Dar. We're not even your first choice for saving him. Yeah, you had a hypothetical are you said to send another team to save c53 i did i see now you're asking the right questions plec okay a couple there were some them that were maybe gonna go and they weren't available but you guys are currently the number one choice okay all right we're number one let's do this if you guys are okay if you all

are so obsessed with togetherness and being together as a crew with C-53, well, great. Your mission is to rescue him. Makes sense to me. I don't like this. I don't like this, Nermit. We're going to go save him, but it's because we're his best friends and we're the best crew, not because it's our mission.

Hey, here's a question. When we get down there, should we like call for him or something no i think we could just look with our eyes first we don't see how that goes anything nah no we certainly don't need to scream anything all right all right send us the coordinates and then i want you to go sit in the corner of that big old office building and have a think about being better. How you treated us today. Yeah, yeah. Okay, here are the coordinates,

and I'm gonna sit in exactly the center of this giant office. Okay. No corners for this lurd. Okay. This feels like a good setup also for the fact that we don't invite Nermit to sing. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's so like season one N't invite the remit to sing. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so like season one. Yeah. I'm trying to like, yeah. I like it though. Um, okay.

Great. Um, I think that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Um,

surgical. Thanks guys for indulging us on that. Yeah. It's all good. All right. So, guys, for indulging us on that. Thank you. It's all good. All right, so now do we arrive on the scene? Sure. This is GEC3? I mean, there's nothing on this planet.

Yeah. Do you want me to shout? No. Okay. Can we just wait and see what happens? Fine. I mean, who knows? AJ, for all we just wait? Just wait and see what happens. Fine. I mean, who knows? For all we know, C-53 might be in trouble.

We might not want to give our position away. Huh. So this is where he goes to be alone. I don't think so. Dar, I think C-53 might be in real trouble. We need to help him. Do you guys hear that? It's kind of like a lilting kind of delicate melody.

Yeah. I think we do. A little kind of... Is it coming from that little oasis over there? I don't know. In my training, we would call this a vamp. But I'm not sure. What training?

What training would you... Well, in tactical footwork and... Yeah, when I was in Clint's sink, we would call this a vamp. Yeah, when you were... I served a tour of duty with Clint's sink. Oh, okay, yeah. I think that's just a regular tour. I think you toured with them.

Yeah, we called it a tour of duty. Are you both just going to talk over the vamp or what? Well, that's what you do. You talk over a vamp. Yeah. You sort of lay out what's going on. Yeah, exactly. It's like there's the oasis. You should follow it. Two pebbles

in the sun. What's that? Two pebbles in the water. The rings echoing out to the edge of the pond by the two pebbles bonded forever. And life, it blooms all around them.

all around them Those two pebbles surrounded by green by life A lush verdant wave of life C53 Oh

Can we have that song end with you guys hitting a harmony note and one more thing? And with that life again. Yeah. Yeah. A lush verdant wave of life. Can we do one more run at that? A lush verdant wave of life. Whoa.

C53. When you hit that last note, a palm tree just popped out of the ground. Also, it was just artistry. It was just very... Yeah. It brought us of the ground. Also, it was just artistry. It was just very, it brought us into the song. I mean, I've never seen C-53 sing like that before. Why are you hiding that from us? Why are you hiding that from us?

It really hurts when you squeeze it that hard. Strangers at the barricade. Strangers at the barricade. Oh no. Strangers at the barricade. Who are they? Who are they? Cheyenne.

What? Be not afraid of these strangers at the barricade. These are my friends. And they have come to help you and I. Listen, the alien doesn't have hands, so I feel like I could take him. No, it's not that. We don't need to. It's not.

I don't think it's that. C-53, is everything okay? What happened here? Yes. Envoy Dexeter, this is Cheyenne, son of Jack. But maybe I should put it a little differently. What? Why would you just explain it?

What? Tell us. Two pebbles soaking up the sun. Two pebbles laughing, having fun. Have you ever seen him do this before? What? They only want more. But now there aren't two pebbles.

Because here are four more. Was this rehearsed? Yeah, it feels right. Six pebbles in the sun. And there'll be many more pebbles before we're done. Wow. And this pebble looks like this pebble used to be

in charge but is no longer in charge. He nailed you, Dar. I think it's just a song. And this pebble is thinking of days gone by when he used to sing with

other guys. Hey, that's me, I think. Are you guys going to do one about me as a pebble? There's also another pebble. Oh, come on. That looks like any old pebble. Oh, what? Sort of a generic looking pebble.

Oh, yeah. They're really nailing you. Oh yeah, they really nailed you. Oh yeah. And the fourth one would have to be Barjian. Barjian is the fourth one, yeah. And a giant pebble way up in the sky. What? Barjian, I'm patching you in.

Are you hearing this? What is this sound? I don't like it. No, Barjian, it's music. It's music. C-53 has discovered a society that communicates solely through song.

And honestly, really well choreographed dance. Again, did you guys rehearse this? Did you all rehearse this before? Yeah. Dar, I think it's something about the planet itself. It just, I don't know, it feels right on this planet's something about the planet itself it just I don't know it feels right on this planet uh oh and where's the music coming from oh okay everyone get it out all right it's fused it's fused right. It's fused. It's fused.

I'm fused. It's got keyboards fused on it. It's like a double fuse. It's two fused. And it looks like a cheesy necktie. It looks like a necktie. Hey. Hey. Come on.

Don't kick a fused thing while it's fused. Don't kick a fused thing while it's fused. That's right my mama said to me when I was born. Don't kick a fused thing. Are we going to ignore that it was fused? I am Cheyenne, son of Jack. Sorry to interject. Is Eric Jack?

Is that too much? Sure. That's very weird. Maybe not. Maybe we can reveal that later. No, that's fine. Yeah. So maybe now the next thing is that in order to grow the planet,

we need to participate, right? Right, right. The harmony is the way. This is a great chance for a story song where we tell the history of the planet and let Chris and Eric kind of figure out the history of this planet. And if they are the two species that got fused

or that's just normal. I think we should do that. Yeah, I see that. I said before I don't sing, but can that be edited out if that negates? No, no. It's absolutely. I think if the key to growing the society back is harmony, you can talk, but you just don't.

You're like, no, I'm not interested or something like that. It had to be someone to come in and sing with him to start everything back up again. Yeah. Or it could be like, I don't anymore. Yeah, not after what happened. After the incident. Save it for the improv,

am I right, guys? Okay, great. C-53, this is amazing. How did you... I guess... It's certainly an extremely unique planet. I did you... I guess... It's certainly an extremely unique planet. I don't think I've ever encountered anything quite like it.

What happened here? Did you find out what happened to all of the rest of the people on the planet? I wish I could say that I did. Why is he doing this? But I think the past of this planet is still hid. It did? And only Cheyenne has the key to relate the history to you and me.

Well, if you want to hear the story about GEC, listen to a story told by me. I'm going to tell you a little bit of rap and how rap works on this planet. Yeah. Here's the history. Oh, he turned his hat backwards. You heard it. Never be a mystery.

What? And here's one thing about rhyme. I like to do it all the time. Okay. It makes sense. It's a history rap. What's your name? It's a makes sense. It's a history rap. What's your name? It's a history rap.

It's the history rap. Oh, so he can rap, but he can't sing. Let me tell you something about the way that rap works on this planet. You don't have to think it up. You got to just plan it. And the only way that things rhyme is you say the word rap at the end of every line. And that's what things mean when they

rhyme. Rap. Rap. A long time ago, there were millions of people on this planet. Rap. And you know, someone came and killed everyone except me. Rap. Except for me and my dad who's in my body now. that's right and he plays piano

on what was formerly a necktie i'm jack that's the reveal what's jack what twist that's too close wait you two are too close no hey what's your name, man? I'm Jack. Wait, you're Jack? I'm Jack. This is my son. As in son, father of, son of Jack? Cheyenne's son of Jack? Yes.

Yes. The reveal has been revealed. I mean... And that's the history of rap. And that's the history of rap. That's... Wait. The reveal has been revealed. I mean... And that's the history of rap! And that's the history of rap! That's... Wait, that's the history of rap? No, that's the history of rap!

I thought it was the history of the planet. It's the history of rap. Oh, it's the history of rap. It's the history of our planet, rap. Okay, so history of... Rap, rap, rap. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I guess I just need to see the, you know,

album cover to really figure out that. I mean, everybody's saying it's great, but I'm not sure it is. Like, I don't quite follow it. Sorry, that's... We can do it again for you. Do you want us to do the history of rap? No, that's all right.

We can do it. That was a Hamilton burn. I don't know. Never mind. Great. That was fun. Yeah. Jack Cheyenne, that's terrible what happened to your planet. I'm so sorry.

Things are growing back. How are things growing back? Harmony. It's harmony. Harmony is the end. I can talk. That's where we've... Wait, harmony?

What do you mean? No, that is unison. That's unison. Okay. Oh, no. Some of the trees are going back. No, no, no. Some of the trees are going back.

No, no. Wait, harmony? Ah. Ah. Yeah, I was trained in harmony. You trained in harmony? Yeah. You took singing lessons. No, I was trained in harmony. You trained in harmony? Yeah. You took singing lessons.

No, I was trained in harmony. I was trained in tactical footwork, harmony, and smoldering looks. That's... No, but what do you think about this? Oh, wow. That was a real smolder. Clint Sink. It's a different galaxy.

You wouldn't have heard of it. Oh, fuck. I wish you could have, though. I wish you could have. I mean, you could have made it over. I don't know. I think that's... I mean, that would be a big...

Anyway. Sorry. We can cut that. But like, AJ knows tactical footwork and harmony. And smoldering looks good. But then when he does harmony, then something grows. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

What just grew? Oh, an animal appeared. Whoa, like a bush and an animal appeared just now. This field is starting to grow. The harmony grows things on this planet? You have to sing it. You have to sing it. And destroy.

Wait, sorry, what? A long time ago. Oh, he's still singing. It's still song. Mm-hmm. A god came down, made us sing the same note no harmony

unison murdered my family the metaphor was I think this actually happened except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father

except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father except my father It's the guy in the piano, right? Yeah. Okay. Ballad. Oh, you had to say it with every genre.

Great. Okay, yeah. Good. Okay. Yep. Sure. Is it okay to have God in this galaxy? He said a God.

He was like a... Who's the guy that eats planets? Galactus. Galactus. Yeah. Yeah. That works. I think it's okay.

What do you think? I think it's okay. A you think? I think it's okay Do you want to pick it up with the deity? We've got a whole thing about calling God Rod in our universe But it is also the other galaxy Let's get it all with deity Or something else

Or powerful Yeah, whatever you want A long time ago There there were millions of my family on GEC. Yes, sir. And then a powerful DET came and made us sing the same note. And we died without our harmony Ballad. How did they make you sing the same note?

Like they controlled you or they asked you or You're asking Cheyenne to relive genocide on this planet for the sake of getting the details right? It doesn't really matter. Same sheet music. See, it was a simple answer. You know, honestly, I just feel like everyone's been asking the wrong questions today. Well, Dar, what question would you ask?

How they got fused together. No, no no but ask it in their language i thought wouldn't you ask also why c's on a mission oh yeah no you're right actually that's much more accurate sorry it's um yeah i have a question oh yeah come on oh god you can wrap it it's for you, C Do you need help learning to sing? What? What's wrong? I can help you Every time he comes out it's just gross

I can help you Hold on a second I have, it's just gross. I can help you. Hold on a second. I have a question for Cheyenne, son of Jack. If Harmony... Father of Cheyenne. If Harmony rebuilds your planet, why can't you just sing Harmony?

There's two of you. Always same note. Yeah. We can't. Because of our genetics and the fact that we're fused, we can no longer harmonize. Can't sing different notes. Oh, that's a shame.

And just because we were in unison, the plants just went down. We just killed them all. These crops immediately withered. Dar, do you want me to ask the question to see on your behalf? Yeah, that would be incredibly helpful, actually. Okay, what is it?

What's the question? Can I feed it to you line by line question? Can I like feed it to you line by line? Yeah, you can feed it to me line by line. Well, I really want to ask C. What I really want to know. What I really want to know is this.

Why'd you have to go? What am I going to rhyme? Oh, got it. Why'd you just have to go? What am I gonna rhyme? Oh, oh, got it Why'd you just have to go? Why'd you just have to go? And do it all alone How am I gonna rhyme? Oh, okay, got it

And do it all alone I kind of thought like we were your home. Sorry, I was still kind of... Sorry? Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, what was the next one? I thought we were your home. I thought that we were your home.

Wow. You're just really making a meal of these runs. Dar could just ask me the question. I don't need to sing, but here with Dar's saying. He is leader? No. Who? AJ?

No. Rod? No. No. Leader. I got my finger up and everything. Does that help? Does that help?

Helps a lot, actually. You hold one side of your helmet and you put your finger up and you're like. Wow, look at all the flowers. Birds. What is a flower? Well, someone else has to be singing with them. Yeah, the flowers. Birds. What are the flowers? Well, someone else has to be singing with them. Yeah, I know. Sorry.

Are the flowers start looking really weird? Like they're exciting, but then they're like, oh no. Oh no, God. This is great, man. That might be the first time that's been said of AJ. Listen, there's one thing I know about harmony. Sure, two is good, but more is better. We're going to have to build a cord.

We're going to have to build a cord. I mean, I was going to say. We're going to build a cord. All right, okay, AJ. I was going to say, this actually, we did do this in the trailer of like, there's only one thing that we have to put on the show. There's only one thing we have to do. We show. There's only one thing we have to do.

We can put on a show. We can do it here. We've got the costumes. No, we don't need costumes, AJ. AJ. No, but what we need is a cord. We do need a cord. Cheyenne, son of Jack.

And, I mean, do I need to talk to Jack? I'm a little nervous right now. What? Did you say my name? No, no. I'm Jack. He's fine. Don't make it weird.

You do need to sing to them, though. We need to start, I think... Wait, hold on. Jack, can you give me a question? Can I give you a question? Just give me the music for a question to Cheyenne. Cheyenne,

can we build a cord? Would that help you? Can we build a cord? Would that help you? If all the children in the world What? Came together in a village And held the hands of each other Then we'd be holding the hands of each other

Even though we don't have hands We'd grow and grow Yeah, AJ, their language is highly metaphorical. Yeah, what the juck is he talking about? Okay, he's agreeing with you. He's saying we should come together and make a chord. It would, you know, we'd be building something. Sing something.

No, he doesn't have hands. It's a metaphor. Should we join hands, or is that sort of... I don't know if that needs to be part of it. It's too literal, right? Okay, fair enough. Also, my hands are kind of clammy, so... Yeah, that's going to happen.

That's going to happen. Yeah, I hate it. Why is this a feature? It's not a feature, not a bug. It's a bug. Yeah, no kidding. Anyway. So we've got to build a chord all right uh well i can i can lay down a foundation here uh you know um start with something like

oh Whoa, look. I think we need a Bargy line in there, too. Yeah. I'm still here. Yeah, Bargy. Bargy, I'm patching you in. Oh, sorry. I don't want you to miss this.

Do you mean you need a Bargy like... Yeah, okay. It's't want you to miss this. Do you mean you need a Bargy like... Yeah, okay. It's working. Look, a waterfall. The mountains flush with greenery. We can do it. We gotta keep going. Need one more.

Bargy. Bargy, weren't you in a bunch of musicals at some point? Musical hollows? Yeah, it was a dark period of my life. I don't want to talk about it. To be honest, Bargy, you're always getting us to sing. Bargy, to be fair, you love it when we sing. Bargy, we need that voice.

We need that voice that's famous for... What's a good name of a Bargy musical? The Barge and Away. Yeah. Yeah. We need the voice that was famous for the Barge and Away. Bargy's going away. Bargy's going away.

She's never coming back. She's going away. Wow. Bajie's going away. She's never coming back. She's going away. She's Bajie, the sentient ship. A classic. Toot, toot, toot. Toot, toot, toot. Oh, yeah, the song was very short. Wow, that was pretty good, Bajie.

Toot, toot, toot. That small ocean appeared when you did that. Wow. Look at that body of water. Wait, so it's not when there's harmony necessarily? I don't know. It's sort of. It's getting Willie.

It's sort of flexed. Should we call out that Dar was not in harmony, right? Singing in harmony. Is that true? Right. Dar, the only person who's not singing is, you know. Dar, listen, I know you're not captain anymore, but... And they smashed their horn.

And you smashed your horn. This is maybe a sea lion. Oh, yeah, yeah. Listen, Dar, I know you're not captain anymore, and that I was sort of made leave envoy almost arbitrarily, but you're still a member of this crew, and we need you. Arbitrarily? I mean, you know, from the viewpoint of the them,

I mean, I don't know why they would pick me over anyone else. I was in a toaster at the time. Feels like there's a lot of motion. You gotta let it out. You don't think why they would pick me over anyone else. I was in a toaster at the time. Feels like there's a lot of motion. You gotta let it out. You don't think you're hot stuff? Dar, I'm no better envoy than anyone else on this crew. This is a man. This is a classic man.

I just frequently, you know, don't need to sleep and eat as much. You know, I have a lot of advantages as a, you know, tireless automaton. Do you want to acknowledge that you needed rescuing at this particular moment? Yeah I have a lot of advantages as a tireless automaton but Darai still needed to be rescued

if the crew hadn't come here if you hadn't come here I'd be all alone Wondering when I could come home Why did I leave When you were the ones I need Dark

Plek When you are the ones I need. DAR. PLEC. And even AJ2. C-53 still needs his crew. A collection of pebbles in the sun. And one pebble's clearly better than the other ones. No, they're all just good pebbles. One pebble sent on its own because it's so much better than the other ones. Don't you see?

We're all just pebbles on the shore No need for one to be considered any more than the rest But the others were sent to make them feel better He's right. He's got a point. Okay, all right. I still need all of you. I need all your help.

Dar, all we need is one note from you Yeah, and Not only can we save C-53 We can build back this planet We can give Cheyenne and Jack Their world back So will you do it? And also, Bargy, will you also I know you did kind of just a little.

Yeah, a little ditty, but you got to get in on this chord. We got to get you to get on the chord. Bargy, I think this genre is called a duet. Oh, no. I mean, okay. We thought it was going to be a chord, but that's fine. One, two, three, go. Bargy. We thought it was going to be a chord, but that's fine. One, two, three, go. Bajie.

Bajie. Da and Bajie. Da and Bajie. Together. It's Bajie. Oh, we got to start over. Maybe we should just fill the chord? Wait, wait, wait.

What, Cheyenne? These two are singing scripture. I'm holding up a rock with those lyrics on it. Bargy and Dar? Cheyenne, where did you get that? Bargy and Dar, it's on some sort of ancient scroll. Sorry, it's on some sort of ancient tablet. This is how we rebuild.

Wow. With Bargy and Dar singing a jaunty duet? Not with a chord, Cheyenne? Chord is for tree. Cord, animal. Cord, grass. But cord, no. People.

Duet for my dead children. Whoa! Okay, okay. Just a point of clarification. Do they come back or are they different people this time? Come back. Your children come back. Oh, okay.

Wow. Famously, the two horn dogs can raise the dead. Yeah, well. Well, I think we've been, except for our misstep, I think we've been rehearsing for this all our lives. Okay, Bam, you go first this time. This is the song that's going to bring all their people back. Dark. Bajie.

Bajie and... Dark! It did it! Whoa! Whoa! There's millions of people! Father! We have a song of the children here.

Father! Father, we have come back! We've missed you so much! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! And your granddaddy. Okay, even his own grandchildren are kind of grossed out by him.

This is the song of the children. The song of the children. Song of the children. Song of the children. Song of the children. Song of the children. Song of the children. Daddy. Daddy. Kiss your zombie children.

We are the children. Daddy, I was in a void. Floating in an endless void I wondered, am I dead? Are my siblings dead? Is my daddy dead? Is my creepy grandfather dead? Seen dead a lot. But now we're back

On our planet And the answer to that question is really still sort of up in the air. Uncertain. But we're here. And we have the memories of the horrific things that happened to us when we were put away.

We'll never forget all those days. All the memories will shape us for the rest of our lives. Memories. Memories. Memories. Memories. Midnight. Not a sound on the pavement. The memory is at midnight. Not a sound on the pavement.

Yeah, it's pretty catchy. Pretty good. That one really... Yeah. They sounded happier then. Yeah, all those kids singing about their trauma. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty good. Wait, something's happening to me. Oh, no. Yeah, all those kids singing about their trauma. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Wait, something's happening to me. Oh, no. Oh, no. Something's happening. I'm transforming. Whoa. Oh, Cheyenne. Jack.

They're becoming weirder looking. Oh, no. Oh, I sort of thought they would separate and become their own people, but... Yeah, now they're just kind of half in, half out. It's even worse. Is that what it was supposed to happen? We enter final

form. Piano ball. Piano ball? It's just a big ball of keys. Wow, and it plays by rolling on the ground Yeah But there's also teeth Which makes it Yeah We have been stuck in a state of

Arrested development all these many years Our final form Not allowed to us We would not choose This form you have a final form not allowed to us. We would not choose this form you have. Piano ball. I wouldn't choose this form either, but I take

your point. So piano ball is sort of ideal. Is anybody else weirded out by the fact that it has teeth and hair? Yeah. You have teeth and hair. Yeah, but I'm not a piano ball and sustain pedal oh yeah go ahead you want to touch the sustain pedal I mean you can touch the sustain pedal okay can you guys sing a duet about being a piano ball

pretty good What walks in the morning with four legs? What walks with two legs in the afternoon? What begins the end and ends the universe? Piano. Bow. They can hum it with each other now. Piano. Bow.

So much stuff is growing right now. Rolling around. Rolling around. Rolling in the deep. Rolling in the deep. Oh, they're in the water. Oh, yeah, they're in the deep Rolling in the deep Oh, they're in the water. Oh, yeah, they went in the water now. And now there's fish coming out.

Thank you, 53rd C. Thank you, Cheyenne, son of Jack. And Jack, father of Cheyenne. Do you have a new name now that you're a piano ball? No. We still have our new name now that you're a piano ball? No. We still have our... Still have your individual names. We don't lose our identities.

I don't know. Culturally, it might be different. Thank you all. Perhaps one day we see you for a reprise. Oh. What's that?

It's when you sing the same song. It's like the same song. It's like you do it again, but the context has changed so you sort of get more out of it. You know? Should Nurmik call and they're like, no, no, it's over?

Or should that be in Act 3? Should we do one reprise? Is there any sort of one of the songs that we did? Do you remember any of the songs? It could be funny if AJ's like, it's like two pebbles. Oh, yeah.

And then talk about how the two pebbles have become one pebble and now they're a piano ball. Yeah, what if... It's something like, two pebbles are now one pebble and it's a gross piano ball. Something like that.

Great, great, this is great, man. That's a reprise. Oh yeah, okay. Can we do one that's accompanied by Jack? Maybe we can do one with... Can we get the glue that leads into this?

We should probably do... We should do it with Chris and... The Two Pebbles repeats? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like when they repeat the song, something like, you know, I don't know, what do you think, Cheyenne? Two pebbles.

That's it, yeah. Two pebbles. That's it. Yeah. Two pebbles. They become one pebble. Gross piano ball. Perfect piano ball. It's so gross. How did they all get in there?

That's the history. That's the history of rap. Oh, wow. That's the history of, the history of rap. That's the history of the history of rap. It's two pebbles. That's the history of the history of rap. But it's now one pebble. Three suns setting.

Insects on a leaf. Wait, what? Strangers at the barricade. Daddy. Do not be afraid. Daddy. That's the history of history. Do not be afraid. Oh, that's the history of rap. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar.

Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. Dar. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to of act one. Great. It's pretty good end of act two. Yeah.

Cool. That's really funny stuff. I also like how as much as Star Trek is derided for always just being humanoids every fifth episode there is like an insane

thing where there's like it's like oh it's a blob man a sentient gas cloud yeah exactly oh it's a crystal that lives it's like a sentient gas cloud

that only knows the works of Shakespeare convenient we should call that only knows the works of Shakespeare. Convenient. We should call that out in the outro. I feel like we should pick up Plexiging. Something. Okay.

Yeah. What else do we need to cover? What's another fun story beat to cover? Is there anything we want to do again? Any other connective tissue? Yeah, Chris, is there anything you want to do? No, I have no idea. I've just

given you the thing you wanted to do of turning into a giant auto-heater robot. Of course. Yeah. That's sort of what my blog is about. Plug the blog in the middle. Happy to. We know what happened to the planet, but we don't know what happened to these two, right? what my blog is about. So if you could plug the blog in the middle. Happy to. Oh my God.

We know what happened to the planet, but we don't know what happened to these two, right? Do we want to talk about that? At least get it. I think, yeah, because I don't think we...

Yeah, why did they survive? Yeah. Well, also we landed and we never said like, we never like really cleared up like, I'm sorry. Who we are. Who are you?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and that's an old musical trope, right? Of like, allow me to introduce myself. You, I mean, that's an old musical trope, right? Of like, allow me to introduce myself. You know, like, so maybe. My name is Humpty. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a great song from Oklahoma. My name is Humpty. So do you want to put something in sort of that would go after the rap? Yeah, maybe. Right? Sure. Yeah.

That makes sense. Plek tends to ask the? Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Hey, Plek. Plek tends to ask the informational questions. Yeah. Well, then Plek can sing it to us. You need to sing it. So if your planet was destroyed, how did you survive? Plek, you can't just ask them the question.

That's not their language. You've got to sing See, it's easy Oh boy Okay This is hard It is, it's very very hard Plek needs to start at some point, it's very, very hard. Black needs to start at some point, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm getting to it. Who, what, where? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I'm trying to think of what I even need to ask. That's a good question. Your planet was destroyed. But how?

Uh, nope. We know how. Sorry. Ask about why they're all used together. Really up-tempo. I was hoping for a languid sort of... Just tell them, like, Papa, ask them, like, what their deal is, why they're so gross-looking, right? Yeah.

Ask them how, like, father and son can be that close, you know? Two... Two Two men On a planet The only ones Left alive But how How Did Cheyenne But how? How?

Did Cheyenne and Jack survive? Was it a bunker? Eric, can you go back to the up-tempo? Go back to the last up-tempo. I got a hundred meat pies I threw a lot of them in the oven 99 meat pies 98 meat pies Into my hot oven

But the last two meat pies on me plate They turned into one pie And I don't even know how to ask the question why. Meat pies. Oh, okay. No, I got it. I think I understand now. What did I miss?

What did I miss? I felt like... Papa, you don't understand what he said. He explained why they're fused together. They fuse together? I i mean you asked the question i don't know why okay let me try again let me try again here on gc3 gc3 here on Sorry Here on GEC3 I can't

believe my eyes Can you explain to me Did you guys used to be meat pies Cause I just, I feel like I almost got what you were saying But then I got confused because I just, I feel like I almost got what you were saying.

But then I got confused. Please tell me, how did Cheyenne and Jack get fused together? Oh, he's a dumb one. Okay, I just... This one's a dumb one. I can tell. Well, you're right on the money. He's not very smart, but he's got some heart. And that's why we keep him around.

Yes, you're absolutely right. Okay, AJ. Papa's not very brave. Okay, all right. But we keep him around. So he is pet. No, not really. I wouldn't say pet.

No, that's not fair. He does go on the rug sometimes. No. Kind of a mascot, really. I wouldn't say fat. No, that's not fair. He does go on the rug sometimes. No, that happened once, and it was not... An accident? It was an accident. He was scared. He was scared. It was an accident.

The gravity was off. I was very disoriented. There were a lot of new people on the ship. You got some bro. Yes. Mm-hmm. Hey, guys, we have reception again. Nerman.

Hey, crew, hey. I was just wondering, did you find C-53? We did, actually. We're on a planet where we have to sing everything. It's really fun. Excuse me? We have to sing everything. Everything we talk about, everything we do, we have to sing it.

See you later, Nerman. Say that again. No, beam me down, beam me down. We have to sing it. See you later, Nermit. Say that again. Beat me down. It's going all right. Bet Nermit wishes he was a little nicer to us earlier. Yeah. Yes, Mr. Robot Man. There's a lot of friction because we were all pretty surprised

that you did missions without us. Oh. Oh. Oh, should I say that to our friends? Sure. Mr. Robotman! Abandon us! AJ, AJ. You can't sustain that.

Abandon us! No, no. This is great, man. Where Jenna! No, no. No. This is great, man. We're having fun, Mr. Robot Man! AJ. I think that was my favorite one. AJ, I never intended to, you know,

act like I was going on missions without you. Coup was just sending me places. I was just trying to be helpful. You didn't think to mention that you wanted us to come with you? Didn't you want our support? Well, we're all asleep. It's like I go into a low power state for a couple hours, I'm fine. AJ, where are your crew?

Don't you understand it? I mean, C-53, where are your crew? Man, you get into a Tellurian body and all of a sudden everyone looks the same. Where AJ was singing on behalf of Darfid in here? Yeah, I think it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I just do a little pickup? Because Nermit was yelling beam me down, which made no sense.

I do love AJ's scream song. Oh, God, yeah. It's perfect. Should we re-get Nermit calling in? I feel like that should be in a song. I feel like we should all be singing. And you're like, what is happening? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we should start, him calling should start a song.

I was going to say. We should be explaining it to Chris. And maybe Chris can talk to Nermit and then we cut him out before he gets to... Well, I was going to say, I think one of the things that I would like to get one more time is, I feel like we didn't get a really nice moment of us making everything grow back.

So what if we have a sort of discovery song where we're all harmonizing and things are appearing, like a sort of victory song? Yeah, that's smart um and then nermit can interrupt that uh and or maybe right when it's over he calls it we're like oh yeah we just missed it uh no i think if he hears us singing he's like let me let me take a few bars it's like we gotta go in there yeah yeah all right um okay so sorry so i know we're doing a lot of jumping around i can get it I think I can get us into the...

Okay, sure, sure. Let's see if I... 53C. You sing. I sing. We create. But... This one also. But this one also, and this one,

and you. He's pointing at all of us. He's pointing at Bargy. You're saying we all need to sing. The song brings us together. The song brings us together.

We wave from side to side as the song brings us together we wave from side to side as the song brings us together so much has been wrong so bad for so long apart but together

because the song brings us together the song brings us together the song brings us together The song brings us together We wave from side to side Because the song brings us together The song brings us together Ah, wow, look Water's springing forth from the ground

Flowers and birds water springing forth from the ground. Flowers and birds. A whole city bursting from nothingness. Cheyenne, you've got it. Cheyenne, you've got it. We'll keep following you. The song will bring us together. And the world will be good too.

Everyone. Because the song brings us together. the world will be good too. Everyone. Because the song brings us together. The song brings us together. The song brings us together. The song brings us together. It brings us all together. Wow.

Oh, wow. Hey, we get reception again. Nermit, hey, what's up, man? Oh, hey, Plek, hey, crew. I was just wondering, did you find C-53? Did you rescue him? Yeah. Oh, wow. Hey, Nermit, I'm here.

Hey, great. Get this. Thanks for sending the crew. This is nuts. This is a planet where everyone just sings everything. Say what? Yeah. There's this guy, Cheyenne.

His dad is in his chest, and he's got a piano, and he plays, and we all sing. And the more we sang, the planet grew back. It was a true testament to the power of music. The song brings us together. The song brings us together. The song brings us together. The song brings us together. Wait, wait, wait. Can we, so let's, can we take it

from the top? We'll take it from the top. I got my keyboard right here. We'll call you back. It's sort of hard to sync up if you're on the phone. Okay, wait, I have an idea. Let's go back. Let's do the mission again and I'll come on. It's sort of hard to sync up if you're on the phone. No, I have an idea. Let's go back.

It's too complicated. Let's do the mission again, and I'll come out and do this remotely. Do the mission again. We're not going to do it remotely. It would be insane if we did this remotely. C-53, let's do the mission again. That's too loud. I think that's too loud.

That's how loud it is. That pretty much did it That's pretty much what I had in mind Yeah, great Do you need a connector now though To the duet? If we just rebuilt the city But we still need to put the people back in

Oh yeah Wow I can get us in there Cheyenne GEC3 is beautiful. I had no idea. But didn't you say there were millions of you? Harmony for buildings, for grass, for satellite dish.

Harmony not for people. What brings back people? Two become one. Are you talking about making out or? Plek, have you seen how this planet works? Does that make any sense? Oh, I don't know. Can you say, are you talking about lovering?

Yeah, are you talking about lovering or something? Plek. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm out of my depth. I'm pretty sure it's musical. Okay, all right. He's talking about a duet. Oh, a duet.

Between who? That should cut in with what we have, right? Yeah. I think so. I hope so. Yeah, we can... We'll massage it. Is there something...

I was going to say, it's on the tablet or the rock. I was going to say, is there something where it's like... What? With Bargy and Dar. Well, I was going to say, it could be like the largest Pebbles or something like that. Oh, yeah. Oh, how about, so, Winston, you just asked who, right?

Yeah, but who? Like, a duet. But who? To Pebble. Largest Pebble. And formerly in charge Pebble. Thatgest pebble. And formerly in charge pebble. That can't be. How very specific.

That's really particular. So that can't be me. And I guess. Oh, it's you, Dar. Because you were in charge and now you're not anymore. Well, you know. Yeah. Oh, you know, yeah. Oh, you get to sing!

Fun! Great. And then that cuts in with the jaunty Dar and Barjeet song. Yeah, that real jaunty, perfect Dar and Barjeet song. Wee! Hatchimatchi! Hatchimatchi!

Hatchimatchi! Wow. This is going to be a fun one. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. This is going to be awesome. This is so much fun. Guys, fans are going to go bonkers for this.

I'm so glad you guys, both of you guys could do it. This is tremendous. Yeah, thank you guys. And Eric, thanks for doing it last minute. Yeah, of course. Nice to see everyone. I know. Nice to see you guys. know. Nice to see you.

Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Well, there you have it, folks. That was the recording of episode 507, at least everything but Act 3, which we recorded later.

I really encourage you all to go back and re-listen to that episode, having heard not only the raw recording, but also particularly what Shane puts into it. And I guess you maybe heard a couple of things I cut out of it. Yeah. And then after you do that, I encourage you to then go back to this episode and listen to it again. Listen to this in an endless, recursive loop.

I mean, I really do think that this episode... Certainly for two weeks until 510 comes out, you should do that. I think that hearing this episode before and after being mixed really gave me such an appreciation for not only what Shane does in general and what he did specifically in this episode, but also what great guests we had,

like how on point Eric and Chris were and how game everybody in the core cast was to do something that a lot of us didn't have a lot of experience with. It was super fun. This was a really special episode. It's ludicrous that this episode worked at all, let alone was like a massive favorite of the audience. was like a massive favorite of the audience. If the last 100 minutes has not slaked your thirst for BTS content,

strap in, because we are going to chat a little bit now about how this episode came together, as well as generally how we make the show. And so let's get started with that. And I think it would be fun to talk about just how the episode concept came together too, because that was even before the recording started. Yeah. And my memory is pretty last minute, right? Yeah, for sure. It was the day of the recording. Yeah.

Do you happen to have Chris's original pitches? Yes. So before we record anything, we agree on a guest who we'd like to book, and then they agree they'd like to be on the show. And we ask them... Ideally. They say yes. We hate to force people. When it's not voluntary, you can always hear it. And we ask the guests to pitch character ideas. I feel like it keeps the show fresh for

us where we're not trying to decide who anyone's playing and they come in with ideas we would have never thought of. So should I read Chris's pitches? These were Chris's pitches that he sent. Bob, a man that lives disjointed from time, able to move back and forth a la Tenet, who isn't quite clear on how time travel rules work and maybe it's all bullshit, which is a great pitch. But we all know who put the kibosh on that one. Yeah, but we all know which cast member said, no more time travel bullshit. Just forwarded a copy of his writer. Yeah, exactly.

Second pitch was Doxid, a nomad from a reverse universe that is trying to get as far away from the xxyz quadrant as possible uh which is a great pitch uh but also uh because we're in this you're not in star trek universe uh it would have been tough to tough to pull off odd leo a member of an alien species who can speak english but best expresses himself in sci-fi sound effects like the equivalent of the Darmok at Tanagra dude from Star Trek. As you can see, that's the kernel of what we ended up choosing for him.

Although he did add this, which I think is very funny. This will be a pain in the ass for your sound post-production guy, but could be fun essentially pimping him into sound designing this character. That's very funny because the amount of pain in Shane's ass from this episode knows no bounds, I think. Yeah.

But so that was sort of part of the thing. And then the final pitch was Cheyenne, a roving entertainer who likes to improvise songs and tries to get all of you to improvise songs with him with no apparent accompaniment and also freestyle rap. And maybe his songs cause spell-like effects like a bard? Question mark? Also a great pitch. We had been looking for a Darmok episode for a really long time since we started season five. And so we jumped on that. And then, of course, because Chris has such great experience in

improvised musicals, we decided to combine those last two pitches and ask him to do a character who only speaks in song, like the Darmok dude. The rest is history, I guess. Well, not the rest, because there was one big puzzle piece missing. Yes. Yes. Accompaniment. Yes. One little insight into how the show is made. I should let you speak to this, Shane, although I'm not sure you want to. We are constantly doing music and it is constantly a thorn in Shane's side because of...

No, it's not a thorn. I exaggerate how much of a thorn it is in my side. But it sucks. Well, no, it's fun, but i just want you guys to uh you know feel respect the fact yeah feel the power of that trigger when you pull it yeah like right now i think it's worth saying like shane doesn't like it fortunately we're not we're not no we're not doing it we're not well luckily seth's um you know pitch perfect and always perfect there's no reason to even add accompaniment.

So this is just going to be... You don't even have to change this. This is going to be beatboxing that matches that. Just put that under and then it's fine. Yeah, I'm sure there'll be no tempo issues like that. And I'm editing this, so I'm leaving that in. So the idea of doing a character that didn't have accompaniment, I think would have been really tough.

It would have been sort of- I mean, that would have been impossible for me to do. It would have been a deal breaker, I think, yeah. To have to do all of the music would have been impossible. Even like a little piece of music, like one that I was thinking about is the Beano and Bargy. But not the theme song to their show, but the Beano of something in the stars with Bargy.

Like that's a little song that I think plays for like 10 seconds. And it's like, if you're going to write 10 or like produce 10 seconds of a song, it's like almost the same amount of time as it takes to produce like three minutes of a song. So it still took like an hour and a half, two, three hours just to do that kind of thing. Part of that is on me because I, you know, want it to sound good, you know? Yeah. But it takes time to do that. Yeah. So we're, that is to say, we are, if you listen to the show, you know,

we are constantly doing that all the time. And so the idea of doing an entire episode of that was like, well, that'll take four months to mix. We can't do that. But Jeremy, who is a seasoned musical improviser as well, he performs on a team called Rumpelteaser with Eric Gerson, who was our second guest. And he was actually a sort of a last minute addition to the episode because we thought, well, if we're doing a musical episode, let's get somebody to improvise along with us. And that way, you know, it takes some of the load off of Shane to, you know, figure out what key we're singing in and change the key signature as we go constantly because we're always drifting off of pitch and yada yada yada so

we called up eric who was down which was awesome and one of the really amazing things about this episode is that eric and chris had never worked together as far as i know and eric is just that fucking good that he was able to just jump in i mean eric is truly genius it was really awesome and it was not planned that he would also play a character. Yeah, he just jumped in. He just jumped in as Jack. At this point, when Eric had been confirmed, I was like, at this point, sure that this episode would not work in a million years, because we're trying to do a musical episode. And I think this is maybe the first time that we had any in-person recording for the season. And it was

Alden, Seth, and Winston at my apartment. And then Jeremy in LA over Zoom, Mujan and Allie over Zoom, Chris over Zoom. And then Eric, who's meant to be accompanying all of us, is on his own Zoom feed. So he's not in a room with any of the performers. And anyone who's attended a birthday party over Zoom knows that it's impossible to sync up. The lag is, I had thought it would just not be possible for him to accompany anybody, especially in a way where you'd have to essentially anticipate where you guys were going with your melodies and your rhythm and then play ahead of it. Well, and the crazy thing, not only is there a lag, the lag is slightly different for all of us. Yeah. Like, depending on the speed of your internet and the processor in your laptop,

it could have been, you know, plus or minus a quarter second for each of us. And it sounds great. And he was so on top of it. It was awesome. And so, yeah, I mean, once we had Eric in place, foolishly, I thought, oh, well, why don't we just make the, you know, if the music is coming out of the character diegetically, like if the character is playing the piano in the scene, then Shane's completely off the hook. There's no extra stuff to do. He just puts that piano sound in the, you know, in the geography of the scene. And then all the music stuff is taken care of because all of the music is created in the scene and we don't have to worry about anything else uh i'm a i'm a goddamn moron so shane what exactly was i wrong about can you explain no you weren't wrong about it at all

because it could have been that way yeah when i got into it like actually working on the episode, like I do all of these, what I call like zoomed out passes where I just, you know, do the nuts and bolts things, fix up some dialogue, add some basic notes for myself while I'm trying to absorb where I feel like the episode wants to go, what the natural flow of it is, what the, how the sound component is going to reinforce the storytelling, right? And when I got listening to it, especially with just a piano in there, I was like, I feel like they're, I mean, the episode is doing a send up of musicals. Like we hit every sort of like trope and to not, for me, not to, you know, for lack of a better term, yes and that, that would be, I would consider that a failure for me not to like reinforce what I felt like you all were doing in the moment. Right. So like when my favorite moment, when Winston jumped in with you're absolutely right or whatever, I remember hearing that and being like, Ooh, that like in the room, while we were doing it, like that needs to be something,

but it's sort of like a Jenga thing. It's like, if you pull that one out, it's like, that can't be the only bit, you know, just like the big, exciting moments. Snowballs. Snowball. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and to be clear, Alden, when I, when I was like, not agreeing with you, it wasn't that I thought that concept you were pitching of just like,

well, the music's there was wrong. It was just like, I was like, I know that Shane, I know that Shane will not be able to control himself. There's no way in hell that Shane is just going to leave it alone. And that's, it's easy to listen to the show and think, oh, there's the improvised part, which is all the content. And then it's

sound designed by someone who adds sound to everything. And that's the show. And I would say that there were maybe, that was sort of how we approached it very early on in the run of the show. But as the show went on, Shane's sound design became, it's an equal cast member in the show. And the reason I say that is because not only is there stuff that Shane does that we never talked about in the recording

and never talk about until we hear him having inserted it. And we're not allowed to talk about it. And we're not allowed to talk. We must never speak of it. We must never speak of it. Yeah. I'm going to be bleeping this part. Yeah.

But it's stuff that, it's stuff that, that elevates what we do to not only like a funny thing or like a plot thing, but a thing that has significance sonically, which is like so great. Yeah. I like to play with like the bigness and smallness of moments, like how I can stage a particular either scene or even just an interaction

to get the most out of it. So like 505, I think was in this season where i've done the most of that with james urbaniak um where i want because that episode takes place on a stage i wanted to really play with blocking in that one so like when plec and aj are improvising sort of for the first time like instead of being with them up close in that moment, like, to be sitting in the back of the room with James Urbaniak's character. L.O. Max sipping his tea in the house.

Yeah, just sipping his tea, watching and critiquing. And then the train is going by outside the building. That's a perfect example, because it's not just a geographic decision of like, where is the listener in this scene? It's you saying, this is an episode about theater, so we're going to lean into what it sounds like to be sitting in a theater. All of that is to say, I think that this sort of culminated in 507, because Shane, you were not content with leaving Eric's brilliant piano accompaniment as just another voice in the chorus. You wanted to go further and not only make it sound more produced and

more interesting, but do it from a story perspective. If you'll remember from the released version of 507, the moment that C-53 starts singing with Cheyenne is the moment that the full orchestration sort of comes in and really fills out and stops sounding just like a piano. Yeah. So it took me a lot of time to figure out how I wanted to approach the music, period, because we could have gone a more Burmelodies direction. For those of you who don't know, we've released an entire Burmette Nundaloy album. And the way that we did that is Jeremy made some four and eight bar music loops that Seth improvised over. over and then i took it and added new parts and redid the music i changed the tempo and some of these things so it was very much like i was the the most apparent voice in the music and yeah when we were doing this episode i thought that that could have been an option but then realized that uh that didn't feel like an appropriate thing to do for this episode because Eric is a guest and like

his biggest role in this episode was the music and also played a character. But I wanted to make sure that because he was a guest that I treated all of his contributions in the exact same way that I would treat any other guests, which would not be to manipulate in a way where the original intention is at all obscured or lost. I wanted it to be reinforced. The way that we did this in practice is that Eric, when he was recording, we asked him to also capture all the MIDI data coming out of his piano. What you're hearing in this tracking session is just the audio what we heard but what midi data is is basically all the instructions that the keyboard is putting out so like when you play sheet music basically sort of it's like computer sheet music um but what that

allows you to do in post-production is that with that midi data i could make what he was playing sound like any instrument for which I had a virtual instrument for, right? And what I would do is rather than me writing something on top of it, I wanted to stay in Eric's voice. So I took the MIDI track from his piano and copied it down to every layer. And I would basically like mute big chunks of the MIDI data under the violins, for instance, and just let what Eric was playing on his keyboard, like just decide, okay, so the violins are only going to play this melody that's within this greater MIDI data track. And I did that for every instrument. I also had to choose what articulation every instrument would play. And articulation would be like on a cello, for instance,

bowing a cello is an articulation and plucking a cello is like a different articulation. So I'd also have to choose like what each instrument, like how it was playing. Oh my God. Wow. And then it's whenever there's a rock band, that's when I'm just jumping in fully where I'm just adding something on top

of it. That's me playing because that's, that data wouldn't have existed in eric's um like when there's electric guitar electric guitar drums yeah synthesizer fireworks but everything else was what eric was playing on the keyboard so at any given moment there are other instruments playing the same notes as his original piano but depending on what moment it could be like you've got yeah so the basses would only be playing the left, like, you know, some of the left-hand stuff he was doing.

I mean, that's a granular way of saying that Eric's music had the depth to it that you could fully orchestrate it with only his music and it still sounded great. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about one of my favorite things about the episode, which is the philosophy of why you decided to orchestrate that, as opposed to just let the piano be a character in the show? Yeah.

Like we said earlier, our original idea for how to approach the sound design in this episode was to be to to have like a more diegetic presentation of the music so as if we are hearing what's actually happening in quote-unquote reality of the scene which is why we you know have a character like which is why early on we're like where is that music coming from exactly we wanted to present it as though the characters are all hearing the music the piano the same way that the listener was. And when we move towards this bigger, more produced sound, the music not only becomes non-diegetic,

but the quality of everything in the episode, I felt like needed to become different, more produced, be more musical. And the way that I started figuring out how to decide when it was going to go to those places where we went from real life, reality, diegetic, we're hearing what's there to big over-the-top produced rock opera was to sort of interpret when like real communication was happening between all the characters so basically the moments that would be um you know creating whatever magic uh that's causing things to regrow and stuff that that's how I decided when to go into the fully produced stuff as a way to help the storytelling or reinforce the storytelling of what is happening in this

episode, what the big idea is of this episode of that. The music is causing things to change and grow. Yeah. And I think the way you described it to me was, uh, that's what the characters are hearing when they're really locked into this language that Jack and Cheyenne speak is that like, that's the magic of this language is that it actually informs everything else. It's not just improvising a song. It actually has more meaning to it when they're, when they're really in it,

which I think is such a cool, cool thing. And it makes you really appreciate it more. Like, there's so much more going on in those songs, like, character-wise and plot-wise, when it switches over and it feels like, you know, they're really getting it. And I love the dropouts when, like, Plekinager having asides and then it just, you just go back just to the little like the plinky piano. Yeah. And then it pops back into the full production. Hopefully from what Shane is saying that when you go back and listen to 507 again,

that'll sound completely different for you or you'll hear some of these moments differently. And it's also okay if you don't notice these things, because part of the work of like all this sound design and editing is that like, is that like you, you aren't distracted by the sort of unreality of it. And like it,

it sounds smooth and, and everything. So no pressure to focus on these things. No, I mean, it's like, you should be able to enjoy it if you're just listening to it, you know, out of your cell phone speaker.

Just please do not do the 1.5x. That's just not right to listen to it fast. Yeah, I wish they had a setting we could set where it just turns it into a terrible tone. I mean, this episode, or 507 itself, would have just been the worst thing to listen to on 1.5. We have to track down those people. But 2X we're totally cool with.

Yeah. You have to have it. A little 2X. Cool. And even 2X. It's double time. Yeah. I'm always impressed by the editing, though.

That's one of the reasons why I push myself, is because I'm trying to jump over the bar that you two are setting with the edits. Even people who are very aware of how much work goes into the sound design, I think it's easy to ignore how much work goes into the edit. Not only because a lot of people don't understand what the raw session sounded like, but also just, you know, editing at its best is, is completely invisible, I think, especially in an audio format. Seth, how do you approach it? Or do you have anything, any thoughts about this episode specifically? Sure. I mean, this, one of the reasons I thought that this episode would be a great one to release in the raw is that it, for all of its

musical insanity, it was not a, it was not that tough of an edit. Like Alden said, it's pretty, it's pretty linear. Whereas some recording sessions would just have long tangents that didn't go anywhere that ended up getting cut or like things are totally reordered and things like that. This one was really just like slimming down. And I didn't realize until after this episode came out that I'm pretty sure we didn't cut a single song, which is insane. Especially considering that Song of the Children was left on. You mean the best song in the episode? Yeah. Yeah, that maybe could have gone. That one was great. I loved that one, actually. But yeah, and so maybe we didn't edit quite enough. But at the same time, I felt like this

was one, you know, some of the edits are super, super challenging because I have to change things struct edit to make the show as good as it can be while still retaining all of the elements that make improv great. Yeah. And so every episode from the very beginning, it's always been about if we take out everything about this recording session that is just not quite the pace or the energy or the plot or the character stuff that is right on point, what does that leave us with? And is that enough to make it, you know, can we get that same

pace and that same ratio of jokes to story to character that you get from a written sitcom? And so, when we say the show is improvised, it's true. The show is complete. We never, except for commercials and the crawl, we never script anything. Right. But because of that, the editing process is that much more important because the editing process is what we use to take an improvised recording session down to something that has the feel of something that is scripted.

Right. It's like, in a way, it's like a little bit like documentary editing in that, like, the recording sessions are kind of like collecting footage. Right. And then you have to be like, well, what did we get? And in a typical, just ratio-wise, in a typical recording, I've figured've figured out that like we use a third of what we record. Wow. If we've recorded for 90 minutes, I will imagine like this is probably going to be 30 minutes cut.

And some of that is chit chat and not really improv. And breaks too. And some breaks, but a lot of it is just, it's just compression. So much shrimp. It's really compression and just like optimizing what is the version of this that still feels completely natural and takes out, you know, everything that feels like a lull or that takes you out of the story. Yeah. And I think it also has informed how we perform as well, because it's not, we're no longer, when we record an not, we're no longer,

when we record an episode, we're no longer treating it the way we treat a live performance, which is trying to maximize everything and really move everything ahead as quickly as possible. Now, I think we play a little slower because we know we are going to be condensing it and it allows us to kind of hit a lot more notes throughout each scene. So we're not just getting in, heightening everything and getting out the way that I think we all were trained to do as improvisers. And now it's something that I think we really, we improvise to the edit a lot more than I think we used to, for better and for worse. I think it has made the show, uh, have a little more depth, but I think it's made the edit, you know, exponentially more, uh, involved than it used to

be. Yeah. I mean, and that's, I mean, to be totally honest, one of the reasons we've stuck with the releasing every two weeks is that the editing and the sound design have just gotten way, way more intense over time. I think it's partly as like just the lore of the show. Like in the beginning, anything any guest said could be true forever. And that still happens all the time where guests make up something that we've never heard before that's completely true.

But now that so much is established, the new episodes have to function in the universe of the 85 episodes that have come out before. Speaking of, I often have to, I mean, for every episode, I have to go back to previous sessions to pull, whether it's like, how did I do the Kulada's vocal effect? Or I need to get like the backgrounds from whatever. And the other day I was back in 201 and I was like, Whatever. And the other day I was back in 201 and I was like, whoa. I remember this being so tough, but like, it's like a 29 minute episode with like, you know, 10 tracks or whatever.

Right. Compared to what we do now. Two locations. Yeah, two locations. Exactly. To what we do now where it's just so much bigger and so much more complicated on every level. And that's a perfect segue into talking about 510, which is going to be out in two weeks and is going to be the perfect example of how much crazier this show has gotten since we started. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for listening to this. I hope this has provided some insight into how we make the show and I hope it gives you

a little special feeling in your tongue when you listen to future episodes and enjoy a little piece of editing or sound design by these two fine gentlemen here. Yeah.

Sitting next to me on Zoom. Don't forget to tell your friends to listen to Mission to Zix. Yeah. Send them a different episode. Rate and subscribe. Send them. Yeah, rate and subscribe. Never too late. Oh, yeah, don't forget to tell your friends to listen to Mission to Zix send them a different episode rate and subscribe also yeah rate never too late oh yeah don't yeah not this

episode for your first episode but no yeah yeah and um we will be back in two weeks with a real barn burner a big old diddy a real big old juicy ep for you. If you're sick of constantly arguing with the people closest to you about topics that really aren't going to change the world, we're here to take that stress off of your shoulders.

We take care of it for you on We Got This with Mark and Hal. That's right, Hal. If you have a subjective question that you want answered objectively once and for all time for all of the people of the world, questions like who's the best Disney villain, Mac or PC, or should you put ketchup on a hot dog? That's why we're here. Yes, I get that these are the biggest questions of our time. And we're often joined by special guests like Nathan Fillion, Orlando Jones, and Paget Brewster. So let Mark and Hal take care of it for you on We Got This with Mark and Hal, weekly on Maximum Fun.

I'm Judge John Hodgman. And I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. Ten years ago, I came on Jordan, Jesse, Go! and judged my first dispute. Is chili a soup? It's a stew, obviously. The judge has dispensed a decade of justice. He's the one person wise enough to answer the really important questions. Like, should you hire a mime to perform at your own funeral? After they cry, I want them to laugh.

Do you really need a tank full of jellyfish in your den? They smell like living creatures decaying. Only if they are decaying. Yeah, which they will be real people real justice real comedy winner of the webby award for best comedy podcast the judge john hodgman podcast every wednesday on maximumfund.org maximumfund.org comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.

This one's a dumb one. I can tell. You're absolutely right. Okay, AJ. This is not very bad. Okay, alright. So he is pet. Oh, no, not really.

I wouldn't say pet.