In Praise of Jeffrey Cranor

In the last Director's Notes (available to all patron members above the free level), Jeffrey said some very nice things about funny jokes I've added to his scripts. So I would like to take this second to talk about the comedy writing of Jeffrey Cranor. And I'll use a paragraph from one of our very first episodes, The Shape in Grove Park. (I actually was the primary writer of that episode, but our process was different back then. Instead of writing full drafts and giving them to the other writer to edit, we banked Night Vale paragraphs in a shared doc which we would both grab from when writing an episode.)

Here is the paragraph:

Friends, listeners, there's a real tarantula problem here in Night Vale. Many residents have called in to report that illiteracy, unwanted pregnancy and violent crime are on the rise in the tarantula communities. Animal control is addressing these concerns through after-school programs called “Teach a spider to read: Stop the madness.” Those interested in volunteering should stand in their bathtubs and weep until it is all gone. Nothing left. You can let go now. Let go. Sssh. Let go.

There is so much going on here, but what I love most about this paragraph is that every single sentence is a surprise. There is no way to predict where it is going, not just on a big picture level, but almost on a word to word level.  

We start simply enough with "Friends, listeners, there's a real tarantula problem here in Night Vale." Now, we have enough life experience to know where this is going. There's a spider problem. Creepy! Let's get the pest people in here. 

But then we get the next sentence: "Many residents have called in to report that illiteracy, unwanted pregnancy and violent crime are on the rise in the tarantula communities." Now we have completely pivoted into a parody of right wing news reporting. And in that pivot, we, as listeners, have to completely reconceive of our imagination of the tarantulas in the story. 

So now we're on to the next line: "Animal control is addressing these concerns through after-school programs called 'Teach a spider to read: Stop the madness.'" Our brains are having to race to keep up with the way this narrative is shifting on us. We have gone from a pest problem to a right wing screed to a reading campaign. But it feels like we might be reaching a stable point. It's a reading program, there will be call for volunteers.

And sure enough, that call for volunteers comes, but, it's once again not what we expected. "Those interested in volunteering should stand in their bathtubs and weep until it is all gone. Nothing left. You can let go now. Let go. Sssh. Let go." Now we're in a different place, a personal place. Yes, on one hand this is just a funny twist, but it's also an image that might be very familiar to us. Who hasn't stood in the shower crying, contemplating things we've done wrong, or things that were done wrong to us?

What started with us thinking about spiders crawling around our house has ended with us standing in warm water, crying. It's a brilliant efficient piece of comedy writing. If anyone is interested in the kind of writing we do, a lot can be learned from just this paragraph alone.

-Joseph Fink