Director's Notes: 252 - Paid Programming

I've been wanting to write a whole episode for DEB for a long time. A couple years ago, I thought I would make it so that she's Cecil's replacement host (like Joan Rivers for Johnny Carson back in the 80s). But I never got around to writing that, which is probably good, because I don't know that it makes sense for Deb to be on a track to become a talk-show host.

Deb is the master of the deal, a spokeshaze, a sales god. So of course, she would make a name for herself doing that very job. So very much like Billy Mays, she's gotta be solely known for her prowess in pushing products. Voila! Let's do an infomercial.

The main problem I had in writing this episode was that I had come up with only one idea: Deb does a paid ad slot. And without the visuals, I wasn't sure exactly how to make this go on for 25 minutes. So I brainstormed products and thought that the best stupid name for a fake product was Shelf Defense - a librarian repellent.

btw, some other products i came up with were:

• Teleportmanteau (which got used in the episode)

• Ear Buds (like audio ear buds, but they're seeds that grow vegetation in your ear canals)

• The Chicken Shaker (basically, it's like a rock tumbler meets a slow cooker - you just put a live chicken into the SHaker along with spices, and a few hours later you have Slurry. idk. i think it worked better reworked as the Milkshake Duck joke.)

• Shoes, but for your knees. (wtf, idk)

• A portal - just a portal that opens into another world or dimension or maybe lets things in from that other place. who knows but wouldn't it be cool to have one and always wonder what if. what if i went through the portal. but it ends up just being a place you put extra junk you don't know where else to put

Shelf Defense had the most potential for a full infomercial. Plus it meant I could give Deb a guest to interview in Tamika Flynn. And we don't often get the chance to have dialogue between non-Cecil characters. What a delight. How will these two get on? Where's the funny? Where's the tension? How will Chaotic Neutral interact with Lawful Good?

Anyway, this is what we eventually came up with. I think it's a really fun and different kind of episode. Hope you like it too

Jeffrey Cranor

Aug 15 2024