Director's Notes – Episode 100

(NOTE: As always, Director's Notes contain spoilers)

My wife and I got married a few months after we got engaged. We were married in a short ceremony that took place in our apartment, officiated by Carlos-voice/delightful person Dylan Marron, and attended by only our immediate families.

Thinking about episode one hundred, we discussed the idea of Cecil and Carlos getting married. We didn’t want this to be a lengthy multi-episode plotline. A wedding does not always have to be a saga. Sometimes it can just be a day.

When we talked about this episode, we also discussed a way to celebrate the landmark of 100 (!) episodes. That is 100 episodes that Jeffrey and I have written and edited (with the occasional help of our amazing guest writers, something we’re hoping to continue and even expand in 2017), 100 episodes that Cecil has sat down and recorded, 100 episodes that I have edited in Audacity, 100 episodes that have gone out into the world to be downloaded by anyone with an internet connection.

I forget which of us had the idea, but there came the question: could we include every person who had ever done a guest part for us? The answer, it seemed to us, was definitely not. That’s a lot of people, and our episodes aren’t that long. Maybe we could fit in a bunch of them, but not all.

But we decided to try. And they’re all in there. Some of them just for a word. Some for full monologues. All of them are amazing performers who have brought this world to life for us over the last four and a half years.

Working with folks like Wil Wheaton or Retta or James Urbaniak is obviously an amazing experience. But so is working with performers like Kevin R Free and Kate Jones and Erica Livingston. Every person we’ve cast on our show has had two things about them: 1. They are wonderful people who are a delight to work with. 2. They are exceptionally talented.

We are grateful for each and every one of them, and so excited we could bring them all together for this day.

- Joseph Fink
December 15, 2016

In the old model of broadcast television, 100 episodes is a milestone beyond just the roundness of the number. (And it is pretty round. Just look at it: 100.) One hundred episodes was the marker that indicated the show would be syndicated. Residuals for years! Obviously in podcasting, everything is syndicated all the time, and there are no residuals from networks. 

Perhaps the years will age this medium into something resembling the models of television, but in our time making this show, what's been so rewarding is not having to create it under the machinery of gatekeepers and check-writers. We wrote it, acted it, recorded it, produced it, promoted it, and for a variety of reasons, people liked it.

For 4 1/2 years and 100 episodes, and a novel, and 5 different live stage shows, we have written nearly half a million words for the Night Vale universe. (500,000 is even rounder than 100!) And in the lobbies after shows, or on twitter/facebook/tumblr/email, or sometimes even in the streets, people tell us: "This show is important to me." "Night Vale saved my life." "Cecil puts me to sleep." (I swear that last one is said in the tone of a compliment.)

Never did we think our weird little town would be considered important, especially not to so many people. We've watched fans come together online for the past nearly half a decade and share stories of coming out, of social anxiety, of fighting illnesses, of insomnia, or of something as simple as boredom. They share their love of Night Vale, not with us, not out of praise, but with each other. In that way Night Vale becomes a real place - a meta-universe of itself where people meet to build stories of how alone they no longer feel.

I grew up before the internet, and I wish I could have had a community to tell 1980s me that sports has non-aggressive fans, that someone else was watching Eerie, Indiana besides me, that it's totally cool to make a Rogue (X-Men) cosplay, and maybe even wear it in public, and maybe even how to get that white streak in your hair. Sorry, I have no photos of that moment in my life, but just know Rogue had way better abs than I.

I had radio, and I slept to it, and it was my community. It was a single voice telling stories and playing music, and it put me to sleep. Radio was important to me. It didn't matter the song or the story, just that it comforted me at my most difficult time of day: night.

It heartens me to know other people love Night Vale and love each other for loving Night Vale. I can't believe we've made 100 episodes. Four and a half years. Time is weird, I guess. With or without our current listenership, I'm pretty sure Joseph and Cecil and I would still be making this show, but it's way funner with you along. Thank you for making it great. Thank you for sharing your lives, both with us and with each other.

- Jeffrey Cranor
December 15, 2016