Director's Notes – Episode 91

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

I met James Moran at GeekyCon in Orlando last summer. He was onstage doing a live Tumblr Answer Time. I was there because I was going up on stage right after him. 

He was hilarious and quick-witted and charming - and I might be remembering this wrong, but I think he also had bright stars and rainbows and bluebirds shooting from his eyes and fingertips.  

I am wordy and self-serious in interviews, so I was a bit stressed having to follow someone who really lit up a room like James did. Following my Answer Time - after the remaining audience had fallen unconscious listening to me explain things like storytelling mechanics and the influence of Bertolt Brecht on my writing - I approached James and told him he was awesome.

I found out he's written for brilliant shows like Torchwood and Doctor Who, and then he asked what I did, and I said "oh I work on a podcast. it's fun. i mean it's okay. i don't know. it's weird. you should listen sometime. it's free, i guess"

One week later, James tweeted to me that he was already 40 episodes into Welcome to Night Vale, and it was amazing and creepy and hilarious and can he write something for it, like a fake ad or a traffic report or something. And I told him No, he could not write a one-off bit for our show. I told him he was going to write an entire episode.

Anyway, he caught up completely on the podcast in the next couple of weeks, and then he sent me this episode (#91) earlier this spring. It was great. It was exactly what you think a super charming and talented writer would write.

James provided a clever, dark script for us to build upon with the stories of Huntokar, the crate-toting people in the desert, the tiny civilization living beneath lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley, and the deer-mask-wearing representatives from the Night Vale Transit Authority.

I've said this before but one of the most fun things about Night Vale is, while it is a tiny universe of just one little town, there are so many people (and non-people) who populate it. In a small town, there are many crisscrossing lives and story arcs, and it's fun with an ongoing show to continue to develop and connect these at our own pace.

Plus, since the podcast narrative is limited to only one man's perspective, there's always room to explore the fluidity of truth and experience. Because a deer-headed destroyer god on a time-collapsing locomotive might be too weird to process, even for Cecil.

Other things to note:

* #NotAllTrains

* Good job, Intern Kareem! Way to live!

* On the current live show tour, Joseph played the voice of Teddy Williams, and it's been great. Joseph makes Teddy hilariously self-absorbed while delivering maybe the saddest story we've ever told on stage. (Spoiler: It's about former billionaire Marcus Vanston's cat.)

- Jeffrey Cranor
August 1, 2016