Vet’s Holiday—Pitfall

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Vet’s Holiday—Pitfall (Transcript)







Posted on : August 29, 2024


By

Matt Keeley












Infinite Danger 



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Music. I’m Kara, and I’m a designer, and this is my business partner. I’m Jeff, and we own a fashion accessories company. I’m Troy, I’m an accountant, and this is my wife. I’m Veronica, and I’m a stay at home mom. I’m Chuck. The jackpot today, $19,000 Welcome to my neck of the woods play lingo.

 

Will Riley 

There was something pleasing about game shows to me. I know that networks treat them like filler a lot of the time, but the way so many of these shows just sort of glide along almost frictionless, is really appealing to me. For all the streaming companies talk about second screen experiences and how often they tell screenwriters to script things as if the viewer is not really looking at the TV. Most of their shows now are crammed with quick cuts and effects to convince viewers they are watching long movies and that they should treat them with the same level of attention to something scripted to not be paid attention to. Game shows are great because you can walk in and out of the room doing chores, listening to it, and not miss a beat, because that’s exactly what they’re built for. There’s a good few Canadian game shows out there. A lot of them are just redos of bigger American shows. Who Wants to Be a Canadian millionaire? Are You Smarter Than a Canadian fifth grader? Canadian game of games with Canadian Ellen DeGeneres. There have been some Canadian originals though the mad dash jackpot. Then there’s Uh Oh, which follows the same esthetic format as a lot of Nickelodeon Kids game shows, except when you get slimed. In this one, the guy doing it is a man in a gimp mask called The Punisher. People remember that show. The host of UH OH is still around. He’s a Reiki practitioner. Now, I believe there’s front page challenge, of course, where a What’s My Line Style panel figures out what recent news story The contestant was involved with? Most Canadians worth their salt will be able to fire off the factoid they had Malcolm X on that show. Did you know that, to which the other person will invariably smile and go, yes, yes, I did know that. But usually the way front page challenge went was the host would introduce the contestant, and then somebody in a bow tie in 1992 would go, were you a rescue worker during that flooding at Thunder Bay? And the host goes, Well, why do you say that? And bow tie. Man goes, well, that was on the front page of the newspaper today, and it seemed like a good guess, and the host goes, well, yeah, you’re right. Then everybody sits around without talking for a bit, waiting for the next ad break. What’s odd about all these game shows, though, is that they’re almost all filmed out east. There are currently no game shows being filmed in Vancouver, all despite this city’s reputation as a film industry hotbed, and the reason for that primarily is because of the city’s first and last original game show hosted by Alex Trebek, titled pitfall.

 

 

Today, every wrong step could bring disaster as our players attempt to cross over this bridge and win a prize package worth $2,500 Watch now as they brave the natures to win 1000s of dollars on pitfalls.

 

Will Riley 

Pitfall was set up by a company called Catalina productions as a sort of package deal. Catalina was producing it, alongside a variety show starring Tom Jones as well as a revival of let’s make a deal with Monty Hall, all at a place called panorama studios in West Vancouver, West Vancouver, and Panorama studios in particular was an odd choice. Panorama wasn’t just a nice sounding name. It was accurate. It was built in a pristine forest at a high elevation with a clear view of the ocean. It was a studio made to let you film natural beauty in a controlled environment. You were meant to use this studio for mostly outdoor productions, like say, the littlest hobo, which it was so naturally. Catalina productions chose this place to film a whole pack of shows that were exclusively enclosed in totally indoor, singular sets just firing money straight down the tubes. They didn’t choose it, I figure, for concrete practical reasons. They chose it because of the psychological effect it had on the talent as they came in and out each day, even if you’re as well established as Tom Jones and Monty Hall were back then, there must have been something about the place that was reassuring by working there with some of the most stunning views the natural world had to offer in what is. Also undoubtedly one of the wealthiest parts of the city. As you commute each day, everything surrounding you gives you the feeling that you are a winner.

 

 

Pitfall. Guest accommodation is provided by the inner Denman place in Vancouver, in a class by itself, Wyatt elegant, careful service and the experience of a unique hotel the inner Denman place near English Bay and Stanley Park, that

 

Will Riley 

sort of feeling would have been appealing to the still pre Jeopardy. Alex Trebek, who, especially compared to the other two well established talents, was still relatively hungry for a big break. Eric gastrata,

 

 

Debbie Reynolds, Tom wolpat, Jimmy Bullock,

 

 

Glen Scarpelli.

 

Will Riley 

He was currently hosting a show called Battle Stars, a sort of Hollywood Squares competitor. You know, it had people like rip Taylor, Betty White, the big new Brzezinski, all the 70s stars, okay? Zbigniew, Brzezinski is kind of a confabulation here. Battle Stars was more of a team B operation.

 

 

How important is it to have lots of money? Is it very important? Somewhat important? Is it absolutely essential, or is it unimportant? Enticed

 

Will Riley 

by the chance to get paid while establishing himself hosting a more original show, and probably some minor sense of patriotism to his native Canada. Alex Trebek leapt at the offer to host Pitfall, agreeing to fly back and forth from SoCal to Vancouver, many, many times over the course of the filming, and all on his own dime, no less. Now,

 

 

here’s the battle guide to all the pitfalls. Alex Trebek,

 

 

you Trebek. Okay, we’re all set to get things fired up here on our program. Thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen, and thank

 

Will Riley 

you for young Alex. Well, younger Alex, he was 40 at the time, does a pretty good job in this show. Every once in a while, you’ll see a clip somebody shared of Alex Trebek on Jeopardy making some sort of joke that seems surprisingly risque or says something uncharacteristically mean to the competitors for laughs, that’s just basically him, reaching back to the version of himself that existed before 1984 it was a part of his public persona. I

 

 

just want to remind Merle that I do not have a black belt in karate. I’ve got a teeny brown belt, and hanging from that brown belt is a 357 Magnum. We’re gonna play the game now my way, right? Merle, you may be big and you may have a black belt, but you ain’t too bright.

 

 

They look like they read a lot. And what

 

 

do women find sexiest? Well,

 

 

I think I would go for an open shirt.

 

 

I’d go for a 25 year old girl, but that’s what you said, though that’s not on this program.

 

Will Riley 

Perhaps even stranger than the choice of location for filming pitfall. Are the rules of Pitfall, if you’re not hip to the logic of game shows. This might sound weird, but I’m not the first person to comment on this. I’m not crazy. Pitfall split itself into two rounds. The first a Family Feud style survey, guesser based on audience response. Here’s a

 

 

nice question, when you see somebody who is very sexy at a party, what’s the best way to get their attention is it to smile, to wink, to speak, or to beckon? Come on, little girl,

 

Will Riley 

then the pitfall round, a mostly pretty standard time limit, rapid fire, general knowledge quiz,

 

 

which city is a holy place for Christians, Jews and Muslims? Mecca no Jerusalem. What color would you get by mixing red and blue?

 

Will Riley 

Brown, purple, only enhanced with these titular pitfalls, which were just a row of hydraulic elevators to

 

 

number seven, and we figured you were going down on that you are with about half a minute showing on the clock world, each

 

Will Riley 

right answer gave you a little bit of money and advance you one step down a linear hallway with a big prize at the end, and you earned the right to skip steps based on your performance in the previous round. Choose the wrong steps to skip, and you hit a pitfall. One of the elevators goes down, and it wastes time on the clock as you fall down, and you can’t come back up and earn money until you get the new question right. Despite being a key visual part of the entire show and an expensive one at that these hydraulic lifts are pretty pricey. The pitfalls amounted to nothing more than a time penalty. Now here’s the real problem, different game shows test different aptitudes and types of knowledge, and if you can help it, you don’t mix those tests when you construct a game show, Pitfall shows you why. When you watch an episode, a pattern tends to emerge. The player wins the survey round easily, then totally screws up all the easy trivia questions and wins next to nothing. And because the game has a champion system, the guy who blundered those questions gets to start all over. He wins the survey round again. He moves on to trivia again. He probably botches it again. It creates very long dry runs if you’re watching episode by episode.

 

 

Omar Khayyam, what does the moving finger do?

 

Will Riley 

He’s not gonna get this answer.

 

 

Pass. It writes,

 

 

if you win the James Norris trophy, what sport are you playing? Don’t

 

 

get this one. Football

 

 

no James Norris, trophy professional on the hit series, heart to heart. Who plays Mr. Hart? He’s

 

Will Riley 

not gonna get this answer either.

 

 

Bob Conrad, no. Robert

 

 

Wagner, Stephen King is one of the best selling novelists in the world. What kind of books does he write? Mystery, no, horror, supernatural stuff. There’s only one natural place in the world where penguins live. Where’s that?

 

Will Riley 

He won’t get this one North Pole,

 

 

South Pole in literature. What did the famous Scarlet Pimpernel do for a living? I’m

 

Will Riley 

telling you, he’s not gonna get any of these questions. Spy in eggs benedict.

 

 

What goes directly under the eggs cheese, no ham in what children’s book would you find? Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

 

Will Riley 

He’s not gonna get this answer either. Past

 

 

Alice in Wonderland.

 

Will Riley 

Another issue is that the survey rounds just aren’t that great on a

 

 

first date, what part of the girl will most men touch first

 

Will Riley 

drawing answers from the audience who doesn’t necessarily look super Vancouver ish, though you do see more beards and puffy jackets than you’d expect, even by 1981 standards, almost all the questions have to do with sex and relationships in some way. Think

 

 

of your present romance in baseball terms. How would the umpire call it safe out strike or ball? You’d expect

 

Will Riley 

that the show was trying to farm some sort of outrageous contestant response, the sort of stuff Steve Harvey uses as an opportunity to mug at the camera today, but all the questions are multiple choice, so that’s foreclosed on immediately,

 

 

seafood that’s very popular in this part of the country, but right now, I want you to look at seafood, ladies and gentlemen, from a completely different point of view. I want you to tell me what you consider to be the most sensual seafood, oysters, clams, mussels or scallops.

 

Will Riley 

I guess that these sort of questions were just what were going through the mind of the average coked up early 80s TB exec at the time, these things don’t always age well, it’s

 

 

important that ladies avoid the no bra fad. But after what? Age 1825, 30 or 12.

 

Will Riley 

On top of this, this same generation of constant, no wind, dry runs, carries over to the way the answers work. Nobody’s allowed to pick the same multiple choice answer, so players often just have to wait their turn to answer. Watch their opponent pick the correct thing before they can get around to it, you just hear them say, Well, that’s what I would have picked. A lot now, all of these issues, I suppose, could have been reworked in some way. You give the show time to grow, you make the necessary changes to the format, and eventually you make a show that can last a good few seasons, but for outside reasons that didn’t happen. First, Tom Jones’s people sued Catalina productions for not paying the necessary production fees. Then Monty Hall’s people sued them for just straight up not paying any then Catalina productions went into bankruptcy. Catalina productions had been willing to put millions into studios and equipment and just all around stuff, but the moment a human being raised their voice asking for the money they had been promised, it instantly disintegrated. Catalina Vancouver’s first step into the game show market, which had even been loaned half a million in government money. To be that first step was nothing but a machine built to stiff people. I genuinely can’t figure out what their aim was. It was like they set up everything specifically to seek the pleasures of not paying people and everything else was secondary, including solvency.

 

Will Riley 

Something they never tell you about TV game shows is that winning contestants don’t get their payout until the episode they’re on airs.

 

 

You got yourself a $2,500 holiday.

 

Will Riley 

It’s not entirely accurate, but think of it like the winnings being a cut of the ad revenue. The kicker is, it turns out, if the company that’s supposed to pay you just doesn’t exist anymore, a network can basically put the whole show on TV without any recourse to dazzling trip

 

 

and lush accommodations from Delaware, Saharan Las Vegas, where the action never stops,

 

Will Riley 

Global TV in Toronto aired all the episodes of pitfall. Global’s got them both at nine tonight, and all the former contestants got to watch themselves answer. Questions, read the audience and jump up and down in excitement as they won absolutely nothing. Then you’ll

 

 

receive a beautiful new bedroom suite with double dress in the mirror, five door check. It’s a compact microwave oven from electric home, new three door refrigerator, freezer. It’s the electro home 14 inch color television set,

 

Will Riley 

all these prizes, each one more lavish than the last, and none of them exist. That’s not even me being expressive. They really did get more lavish midway through filming, as bankruptcy loomed closer, the average value of the grand prize went from $2,500 to fully double that because

 

 

we have a fabulous one week vacation for two in beautiful Zurich, Switzerland. Dan, you’ll be driving off in a brand new two door compact with four speed standing transmission.

 

Will Riley 

And in reality, nobody is getting a dime.

 

 

And Dan, who are these young people, Lance, Deidre. Lance and Deidre. Why do I have this feeling, Dan, that those kids are going to remember their appearance on television for a long, long time.

 

Will Riley 

This is why I personally have watched so many episodes of Pitfall, the pure dramatic irony of it, the fanfare and enthusiasm, the flashing lights and ringing bells, the pure spectacle of success and nobody on the screen is making a dime,

 

Will Riley 

just like that view of West Vancouver. Every time somebody came on set, everything around you is giving you the feeling that you are a winner, but that’s only because you don’t know yet that people are already making sure that in the end, you’re going to be an even bigger loser than the person you just beat to get

 

 

here. But how important is it to have lots of money? Is it very important, somewhat important? Is it absolutely essential, or is it unimportant? And

 

Will Riley 

the Biggest Loser on your screen on this whole show, of course, is Alex Trebek himself, after Catalina productions collapsed. Trebek, the main guy who didn’t get around to suing, came out of Vancouver’s sole original game show poorer and hungrier than when he had left,

 

 

Alex trebek’s wardrobe was provided by Murray Goldman with 12 locations in Vancouver.

 

Will Riley 

After the bankruptcy, Trebek flew back to SoCal one last time, just like every other time he paid for the flight himself, he took his bounced paycheck for $49,000 framed it on his wall and wrote off the entire city. He vowed to never work in Vancouver, ever again. If

 

 

you had to post a road sign describing your job, what would that road sign say? Dead end. Caution, speed up or merge. Let’s find out from the audience what their preferred response was, dead end. You got it right on the note. Okay. Dan, anyone

 

 

in danger? Danger, danger. Danger hasn’t come home yet Danger, danger just never gonna

 

 

say danger.

 

 

Sugar. Be a danger to herself and dad. Be a danger. Too much danger.

 

Will Riley 

Hey, everybody, infinite danger again, will speaking big news today, as far as Canadian media rights are concerned, after decades of not being broadcast north of the border, that’s incredible. Is finally coming to Canadian streaming services.

 

Will Riley 

Now that’s incredible, is not necessarily an impressive show in its own way. However, with it showing up on Canadian streaming, finally, the last piece of a puzzle has been slotted in. Finally, all TV shows that were mentioned in the Black Flag song TV Party are now actually viewable in Canada. Dallas,

 

 

Dallas.

 

Will Riley 

Now can an average Canadian citizen watch all of these shows? Of course, not all of these shows are being split across eight different streaming platforms as well as five or six bonus channels that you can add onto Amazon Prime. One quarter of these shows can only be legally watched in Quebec, and the other three quarters you. Can only watch in the other nine provinces. However, now that all of the TV shows mentioned in TV Party are actually viewable in Canada, it is now finally legal for Canadians to listen to the song TV Party by Black Flag.

 

Will Riley 

Case used to be, you know, you would get some sort of skeezy burn CD. You’d play it. You’ll listen to TV Party by black flag, and then, sure enough, chorus entertainment shows up at you during, you know, just a, you know, house demolished. So now, in theory, at least, that doesn’t happen anymore. All the hottest clubs are bumping TV Party by Black Flag. We’re all having a real good time. It’s number one on the charts. I’m pretty sure it’s well on its way to winning the Best Foreign song category at the Junos this year. The song is a very new experience for all of us, and I just want to say that Americans, we like the song where we’re all very impressed with you. I listen to those crazy kids celebrating all their favorite TV shows. And I just have to say that’s incredible. Danger Bay episode nine, titled vets holiday production, code two, dash 021, now this is where the episode order that I’ve been harping on about gets even more screwed up. I’ve already established that instead of having two discrete seasons, the production team made two different batches of episodes and then sort of threaded them together. Okay, here’s the thing, most of those second batch episodes were being filmed in 1984 before the first episode had even come out. This episode was written in 1985 and was aired in 1986 but the official order insists that this episode belongs to season one as the ninth episode. I don’t understand the reasoning for this decision being made. Let’s, let’s just do a little bit of accounting here made as a second batch of episodes. Check, produced as a second batch of episodes. Check, aired in 1986 alongside all of the other episodes that are officially part of season two, not just some sort of second batch check, so obviously, this is a season two episode, right? No, put this in season one. Anytime you air this episode, count it as a season one show, ridiculous, meaningless in real life. There will be 25 episodes aired before this show, but it is officially a season one episode, incomprehensible, bizarre. Somebody at the CBC was just throwing darts at a cork board somewhere that or it’s one of those things where Paul Saltzman, in his sort of transcendent understanding of the universe, is seeing all of time as a sort of singular unit, making every chronological event in this show contain a part of another inside of it. He’s a lot like God in that respect, if Boethius treatises on God’s perception of time are to be believed at least, now, what I’ve heard is that Boethius is obviously a very important influence on Chaucer’s general oeuvre, but most of his work ends up being a commentary on Boethius, rather than a replication of His general theological worldview.

 

 

Hi girls, we’ve

 

Will Riley 

got another new genre for this episode. Most times, the episodes that we’ve seen have been adding all of these brand new genres, ie, you know, westerns and spy fiction and all of that, but these are all on the action side of the spectrum, or at least something in a more dramatic context. This episode, we really are going in the opposite direction. And danger Bay is trying to harness the sitcom genre, harnessing the sitcom Green Acres, specifically, most of the gags here are quickly synopsized as a lot of funny things can happen on a farm. Normally, I start out these episodes introing The director, and I will talk about the director, Michael berry a little bit later. You already know him. He is the one who directed the soap opera for high school students. But seeing as this is a sitcom episode, I am specifically going to push to the forefront the two writers, Andrew Nichols and Daryl Vickers, because these two really do take precedence.

 

Will Riley 

If the staff we’ve encountered in other episodes of danger Bay are people who will later on become well known names and famous faces. So Chris haddock, Nancy Miller, Don Davis, Andrew Nichols and Daryl Vickers more or less represent the secret Empire as comedy writers, and specifically comedy writers who are selling various works and bits piecemeal across a wide net of. Different shows. Nichols and Vickers basically have their stamp over the entire English speaking television industry. Both born in England, but raised in Canada. Andrew Nichols and Darrell Vickers have worked together since 1969 on a whole range of different projects. They got their start writing basically other people’s jokes over the 70s. So they wrote bits for Joan Rivers, Mickey Rooney. They actually wrote jokes for the unknown comic on the gong show, which was real neat for me to find out about. I

 

 

gotta tell you, I’ve been feeling Justin myself. I

 

 

went to his Hollywood party last week. Wilt Chamberlain was there. I

 

 

thought I’d be cool. I said, Hey, wilt, how’s

 

 

the weather up there? He said, it’s raining. And he spit on me.

 

 

Well, it could have been worse,

 

Will Riley 

but they never got their real big break until they did this episode of danger Bay. This is how you know that even in the very first seasons of danger Bay, they had a total sway over the television landscape. Let me just illustrate the sequence of events here. 1984 Nichols and Vickers are selling their jokes to a whole bunch of other comedians. 1985 Nichols and Vickers write this episode of danger Bay. 1986 they’re the lead writers for the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for seven whole years, these two held the reins of mainstream American comedy with this monocultural scope that is never gonna come back in our lifetimes, reaching more people than any late night program ever will today. Andrew Nichols and Darrell Vickers live inside your mom and dad’s head, whether they know it or not, and danger Bay is what gave them the keys to it. So after sitting on top of the mainstream comedic world, what did they do after those seven years? Well, they just did children’s cartoons for about 20 years. That’s roughly the same level of comedy as Carson. Anyway. Support.

 

Will Riley 

For the Canadian listeners. I don’t know if you had teletune When it first came out, but if I said they were the creators of Ned’s Newt, that might mean something to you. It’s this sort of Calvin and Hobbes premise where this little bald kid with weird lips has this little pet Newt, who, once his parents are gone, becomes a eight foot tall man with transformative properties. I was trying to find a way to synopsize the comedic stylings of Ned’s Newt. And I suppose the best summary is we don’t have the rights to the genie from Disney’s Aladdin. So how do we reverse engineer a scenario for us to have our own shapeshifting blue guy? Then we can get somebody to do all those Bill Buckley impressions that no kid is going to understand. So nickels and Vickers were really there right at the start of teletune, and a whole lot of money was flowing, but slowly that money would dry up over the next decade or so. General opinion does not exactly place 2010s Canadian animation on a pedestal that teletune Seed Money is not flowing anymore from the cable companies. Production is getting cheaper and cheaper, and the animators are getting stretched thinner and thinner. More and more of the scripts and storyboards are coming from the US, rather than anybody living near the animators, and the products sort of suffered for it in the intervening years, for a short period in the endless one sided Online Battle of anime versus Western cartoons produced in Vancouver was one of those bullet points that goes as an automatic signal that it’s automatically considered bad, like it was one of those things that you would put a stock bullet sound effect After animated in Flash three quarter poses produced in Vancouver. You may think I’m exaggerating, but you would absolutely see Vancouver getting used as a shorthand for poor workmanship, rather unfairly. At least it was something that I would see when I started paying more attention to the industry. The word Vancouver doesn’t get the same hatred that the name CalArts ever did, but it’s up there. Indeed, hatred of CalArts also has diminished of late. The greatest opponent of the CalArts style was John Kay, of course. However, very recently, he got trapped in a hot air balloon and was never heard from again, so that all died down. Nobody really knows what happened to him. One of

 

 

the biggest problems with John K and his disorder is the fact that he doesn’t have sweat glands. Because of that, John K is confined to the house. See those children have their dreams. He wants to go out, and then he feels like he’s being shorted or do. Eat it out of something he does a lot of playing at night. Doctors have told us there’s no cure for John K

 

Will Riley 

this is a roundabout way of saying that Andrew Nichols and Daryl Vickers, over time, found themselves getting slotted into more and more low rent shows, Kid vs cat, with the K caspers, scare school, Hot Wheels, battle Force Five almost naked animals, which has a 3.2 on IMDb. There’s a very weird show here, a Spanish, Italian, Malaysian CO production called Pumpkin reports. I had never heard of this show till now, but Nichols and Vickers are credited with 50 out of 5211 minute episodes, despite not being credited as the creators at all. This also brings us to an odd era in Canadian TV where they were producing two shows at the same time by the same guy about the same thing, the cartoonist John Callahan created two different autobiographically inspired comedy shows about life in a wheelchair, and both of them had the same staff, but they were different shows my life, such as it is my life, such as, his

 

Will Riley 

Nichols and Vickers wrote for both of them, but one of them, quads has sex jokes, and the other, pelswick doesn’t, and they’re credited as Developers and CO creators on the one that has the sex jokes. One was the adult show aired after eight in which one of the disabled characters was just a head in a jar that got pulled around in a big red wagon. The other show was a morning cartoon for children where the main character in the wheelchair was able to grind across ledges like Sonic Adventure two. So what else can I say here about Andrew Nichols and Daryl Vickers frequent mainstream success. They were in charge of the writers. Jan Carson basically guaranteed income for the rest of their life, for as long as they want to work. I suppose I should mention that they ran a proto grunge group in their youth.

 

 

I want to get medicine breath. I want to buy new and improved. I want to spray things under my arm.

 

Will Riley 

Now, to be clear, they say that it’s proto grunge. I can’t really tell if it’s proto grunge or not. I don’t really know anything about genres. To be clear to me, it just sounds like a very angry circus. They may have been Canadian, but they have that very British sensibility. Their group was called knobby Clegg, and their civilians just the most British thing I could imagine. It is very odd that somebody who can run a band like this would end up writing for Johnny Carson and doing this episode, which is basically just a how funny things can happen on a farm episode of a TV show. I suppose it really is the way of the world. One can immediately think about the Canadian punk group bubonic tampon Apocalypse, and how they penned episodes of on the road again, about the man who decided, why don’t you just make the whole coat out of the buttons, the most popular song that I could find by NaVi Clegg and the civilians was called I wanna be in commercials. And I suppose there is a sort of great irony there that they have managed to be so successful in making commercial television. That’s just sort of how it goes in Canada, most times, even if you were a Black Flag level talent, you are not going to get black flag level resources.

 

Will Riley 

Moving on to some of the actors in this episode, we have a woman by the name of Janet Wright who will actually become very successful as well. You remember how yesterday I was talking to you about an actor named Wayne Robson, a man who has been playing 50 year old since he turned 20 and well, this always sounds a lot meaner to say about an actress rather than an actor, but I think Janet Wright herself would tell you that she played a lot of women over 50. Since she turned 30, she capitalized. She made a lot of money playing a lot of tropey old battle ax type characters. She was the type to have a bag in the back of her car that had a rolling pin and hair curlers in case the production crew forgot to bring their own for the shoot. Janet Wright is another McCabe and Mrs. Miller alum. We’ve got a big list of BC actors who are in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Let’s put that name on there as well. In fact, she’s the first actor in this podcast that we’ve come across that actually. Has a line in that movie. Remember that movie that I talked about a few episodes back that had the title, who will save our children? Yeah, she was in that as well. But most importantly, for her being a famous name, Janet Wright plays the mom in corner gas. And corner gas, of course, is a show that I I mean, corner grass is just, I mean, like, there’s this episode where Brent butt makes this observation that, oh, I got The giggles. I I mean, This show is this, I

 

Will Riley 

I mean, cornercast is just such an amazingly funny TV show. I I couldn’t even begin to tell you how Expertly written this thing is. Now, one of the reasons that I do feel sort of comfortable talking about Janet Wright, the way that I am, in the sense that she really leaned into being an older character throughout most of her career, is that I’d say that she’s a rare case of the film industry treating a Female Actor better as she got older, to be very blunt about this, in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Janet Wright played a sex worker, because prior to that, her sole credit was playing a prostitute in obscene house, a straight up stag film so low rent, it didn’t even have any sound. She wasn’t credited, and that was probably by design. Everybody in those kinds of movies are meant to be uncredited or pseudonymous. I mean, on IMDb, one of the people working on that stag film is just called Peter cock. She probably didn’t even want anybody to know that that movie existed. But I mean, the internet being what it is. There’s always some asshole online who is making it his life’s work to dredge up all these sort of things and cataloging them and dragging all of this embarrassing past work into the limelight again. Now to be clear, when I describe that type of person dragging old stuff into the internet again, I don’t count. I mean, I’m an exception to that particular description, because I’m doing this with the intention to educate you. So anyway, let me read you the plot description.

 

Will Riley 

Meet fat mama, a 400 pound Madame in a mini dress who opens a brothel employing four fantastic hookers, visit their training class, where they’re taught the proper techniques in dressing and having sex with a few men and each other. Then watch as the gals go to town on their jaws, frolicking on beds in bubble baths and more. I don’t think there’s actually anything to be ashamed about in doing porn if you’re an actor or actress, especially near the start of your career. But out of all the various kinds of porn, somebody could find out you did this is really more embarrassing, specifically about how lame and tame all of it is. I mean, give me something insane. Give me something psychotic. I mean, who are the 2024 Best Actor nominees this year? I mean, here Paul Giamatti, Bradley, Cooper, Coleman, Domingo, Killian Murphy, Jeffrey Wright. I mean, only one of the people in that list hasn’t done vor yet. So when I say that, Janet Wright mostly played older women for comedic effect for most of her career. I think she would have felt pretty happy about that herself in retrospect. I mean, think of that platonic ideal of a sleazy stag film producer, and it’s some guy going, Oh, come on, babe, do this one picture, and then you’ll get your big break in legit cinema. Janet Wright is one of the few people I’ve encountered who, through their own work, forced that into being true. Lastly, we’ve got an actor by the name of Tom Heaton, another person who I figure, like Winston record would have been considered to be in the running to play the lead character. Director in danger Bay, not necessarily as photogenic as the other two, but he has the same genre Western credentials as Donnelly Rhodes. Yet somehow, among all of his Western credentials, he doesn’t have a McCabe and Mrs. Miller credit because he was born in the US and he was chasing roles in California at the time, I imagine him being on the danger base set, and, you know, everybody’s staring at him and going like, oh, what you haven’t worked with Bob? What’s wrong with you? Oh, yeah, no, I just call him Bob. We get along so well. Oh yeah, me and Rob man. We worked on McCabe and Mrs. Miller, we got along real great. Me and Bobby boy, we just clicked really well. I mean, it’s just so surprising to me that in your entire career, you never worked with Bobby Budd the blunt blaster. Oh, what’s that? No, no, I just call him Bobby Budd the blunt blaster. I know him so well. So perhaps not having that connection put a bit of a cap on Tom heaton’s career. He did manage to get a place in the Ritter’s Cove cinematic universe. However, an important role as well in the pinnacle of TV movie naming conventions, a film called yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. The big reason I think Tom Heaton is in this episode is because he had already worked before with the director of this episode, Michael Barry. This gives me the ability now that I have moved Michael Berry’s name to the back of this intro to mention that he and Heaton were already long time collaborators on the classic Canadian limited series on television, the mini kins.

 

 

You don’t have to be big to be wise or clever. Being told, that’s

 

Will Riley 

right, it’s the mini kins reset the clock. Everybody zero days now since last instance of mini kins discourse. He and Michael Barry worked together quite extensively on this. Tom Heaton was in all 12 episodes of the mini kins the name sort of gives away what this show is about. It’s pretty straightforwardly a Hey, check it out. These people are small kind of show, you know, trying to get a slice of that sweet, sweet the littles slash the borrowers money. There is big money to be made in the tiny humanoid species genre. Our visit

 

 

to Bilbo Island started out like a lovely dream. It was just as nice as my husband had remembered it, but we didn’t know there were other people on the island, and who could believe they were only eight inches high the

 

Will Riley 

Honey I Shrunk the Kids TV show was famously meant to tap into that market, but there was notably very little shrinking in that show, and so reasonably enough, it tanked. I mean, that’s the real reason you don’t hear about Rick Moranis anymore. There are strict rules to the genre, and that’s also probably why, at the end of the day, many kins didn’t do as well as it could have. The key appeal for a lot of those secret race of tiny human shows is that it transforms recognizable and banal domestic spaces into something fantastical and new. You know, a toothpick becomes a sword, a kitchen table becomes a scalable mountain, the house cat a dangerous monster. If you create a TV show with this premise and have all the tiny people live on a deserted tropical island a setting that’s already away from regular domestic life. The whole premise just sort of falls flat on its face. It’s totally extraneous. Off the bat, you

 

 

must go back to the land of the giants and show yourself to your friends as you are now, and explain to them why your scheme cannot possibly proceed. Once they agree, you may return to the island of Bilbo and we will restore you to your proper side. Well, that’s ridiculous. Ridiculous or not, it is the decision of this court.

 

Will Riley 

The show also falls prey to a certain instinct we’ve already seen Michael Berry has when we looked at 15 slash hillside trying to prove to the producers that he can portray his ideas on the cheap. This is a show whose premise is very reliant on special effects, but it never really gets beyond showing off rudimentary green screen, not much else. Despite the fact that a lot of this show is meant to be on a desert island, most of the dialog scenes are either in an office that the crew rented or in what looks like to be Michael Berry’s own home. They’re scenes where they show the mini kins village, and obviously you’re working with a smaller scale society, but I don’t think you should just out and out and make their houses out of popsicle sticks. This show is from the very late 70s, but it’s really on par with a Doctor Who episode from the early 70s, all the miniature characters have the same high voice filter over them and. So every distinct character just speaks exactly the same like it’s even more difficult to discern who’s talking than like Alvin and the Chipmunks sometimes,

 

 

what could you do for him? You know nothing of life in the land of the giants? No, but some of those things he told us about flying machines and all those other things sound very interesting. Magnus, you’re better off staying here. Are we? Though? Isn’t it time we learned about the world outside?

 

Will Riley 

Tom Heaton is in every episode of the minikans as the principal antagonist. He plays an evil corporate type. His whole ambition is to demolish minikans island so that he can put up a big vacation resort. It’s

 

 

an island paradise. Schmidt, perfect weather, warm breezes, beautiful sunny beaches, and we can run this complex without any local interference. And besides, you won’t have to pay any taxes either. As a financial backer.

 

 

That appeals to me as

 

Will Riley 

such, they give him all the evil old guy makeup that they possibly can. And so in the danger Bay episode, despite it being a good few years after the minikans, he actually looks younger than he does in this show. The minikans was probably a profitable production, given the budget that I had, but it never really had a chance to ever be remembered by anybody that mattered. The only people that remember this show now are the Germans. Of course. Check out IMDB. I mean, the icon for this show is, once again, the German language DVD box. Do

 

Will Riley 

not a lot is happening in the cold opening of this episode. It just takes place in one of the offices of the Vancouver Aquarium as grant basically gives what the plot of the episode is going to be. I think this

 

 

change is going to be good for you, Grant. Oh yeah, Bill and I have been talking about treating places like this for years. It’ll be a great vacation for me, nothing but the odd sheep to tend to.

 

Will Riley 

I don’t know exactly the ins and outs of how this works, but he’s managed to find a veterinarian friend to take over his job. For him, he’s going to go work on a cozy farm dealing with terrestrial animals, and the terrestrial vet is going to start working with all of these whales. Grant is chuckling over the idea of having somebody else have to do his job like a kid about to stick his hand in a cookie jar.

 

 

He has no idea what he’s getting himself into.

 

Will Riley 

I don’t need to tell you that. I’m sort of questioning the logistics of this plot, like the idea that you can have an aquarium curator switch jobs with a farm veterinarian and have it work just fine, as I understand it, the knowledge base for veterinary medicine is kind of broad in real life, but, but I think danger Bay is kind of stretching it a little bit. Here it is a little bit of a stretch already that grant is able to do surgery on both whales and birds and dogs and now apparently, sheeps and horses. I can sort of accept it in the sense that grant Roberts is treated as ever the renaissance man in every episode that we’ve seen him in. But the idea that you can pluck a vet off of a farm somewhere and slot him into grant Robert’s job is a little questionable, especially considering that everybody sees it as commonplace here, maybe vets in the danger Bay universe are sort of sent off to unknown places, like priests in the olden days, or maybe Mormons on mission. Perhaps this is a fragment of the Vancouver Aquarium’s role as a religious body as well as a military and law enforcement body. Or maybe it’s something like the invisibles, where every member of the team at some point midway through the series just throws their jobs into a hat, and everybody changes roles midway through the series. Have you read the Invisibles? Well, I mean, it’s in a later part of the Invisibles. It’s the part where you’re not reading about Byron and Shelley anymore, and people stopped reading as he’s about to leave. Hagen begs lends grant Roberts his old fishing rod. I’ve

 

 

had this rod 14 years. Don’t worry about it. Giving

 

Will Riley 

some Mile High signposting as to what the theme of this episode is going to be. He has no

 

 

idea what he’s getting himself into. Perhaps you don’t

 

Will Riley 

after the theme song, the episode starts in earnest. Grant Jonah and Nicole are in the Vancouver Aquarium Jeep crossing over the Lions Gate Bridge. Since the bridge is. Attached to Stanley Park. It is literally like five minutes away from the real Vancouver Aquarium. I can’t help but notice that they shot the bridge from a very long angle, so all you see are the trees of Stanley Park and lots of natural beauty, instead of the other side of the bridge, which is flanked by a water treatment plant on one side and a giant pile of yellow sulfur dust on the other for shipping, not to mention the big shopping mall at the next immediate exit. Instead, they’ve angled the camera so that we just see a bunch of trees and ocean. We love our trees and ocean here in Vancouver, the music playing as grant crosses over the Lion’s Gate Bridge is very strangely mellow, and it’s almost kitty like with the wooden xylophone that’s going on in the background. It sounds very much like antique tour guide music when you visit Vancouver, be sure to see scenic Lionsgate bridge, named after Lionsgate studios, the film production company of the same name, the Lionsgate Bridge’s role as a landmark is similar to that of the set for DW Griffith’s intolerance in Los Angeles, left un demolished after a cinematic project equally as grand as intolerance the Now You See Me film franchise. Unfortunately, footage of the bridge was left unused for the series of movies about stage magicians who rob banks, leaving it as the landmark you see today. Fun fact, despite its metallic appearance, the Lionsgate bridge is actually made out of nothing but hay and plaster. That little wrinkle hasn’t stopped 10s of 1000s of Vancouverites from using it as part of their daily commute. Maybe the bridge will collapse under their wheels like a chocolate bunny, but also maybe it won’t that sunny optimism is what being from Vancouver is all about. The landscape bridge looks kind of Uncanny to me here, because for the entirety of the time that I’ve been alive, it’s been painted entirely green in this era that it’s being filmed, all the cables that are holding the bridge up are painted a strange beige. I mean, the 70s were only a few years before they were still all up in their earth tones. On the other end of the bridge granted and the family get out of the Jeep at Ambleside beach and they meet Tom heaton’s character, Bill, a country vet that apparently knows grant from a long time ago.

 

 

Hi, Bill, nice to see.

 

 

Nice to see.

 

 

How’s it going? Great. Just

 

 

great. How’s life in the big city?

 

Will Riley 

Okay, I really do try to hold back on the danger Bay fashion report, but I have to mention that these two characters are dressed so identically. It’s comical. It’s just all beige. Everything on the screen is beige. These two characters, they hug each other to greet each other, and it’s just so beige. There’s so much beige on the screen that when they hug each other, they sort of merge into a single khaki organism. I suppose it’s just the vet outfit, whether you’re on the farm or in the water. I guess it would be sensible that in the danger Bay world, there would be a specific uniform that everybody with veterinary experience has. I mean, in the fog of military combat, it’s crucial that you’re able to visually identify somebody who has veterinary experience. Tom heaton’s character and the Roberts family have a picnic lunch at Ambleside beach before they go. Once again, showing off that these character are of means. I mean, going to Ambleside Beach is technically free, but I’ve very rarely seen somebody who’s not making six figures go there Ambleside beaches, as far as some people living downtown get over the bridge before they go. Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m, I’m real outdoorsy. It’s just part of the Vancouver lifestyle. You know, hiking every Saturday, kayaking every Sunday. I’m a real man of the mountains. That’s, that’s all I can say. Oh, what’s my home address? Oh, I live inside the science world ball, though, that’s not entirely fair. I do summer inside of the Granville and Robson Best Buy. I poke fun because that seems to be the logic at play when Bill asks grant. How’s life in the big city? Okay, as if they aren’t inside the big city right now, when they’re at this beach, as far as I’m concerned, if you are like, 20 steps away from buying a $30 hamburger at a Cactus Club Cafe, which you can do at Ambleside Beach, you’re in the big city. Anyway, at this picnic table, these two very beige men discuss Trading Places on their mini vacation over an equally beige meal, even a very viscous looking potato salad and what appears to be a delicious Iceberg lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich. Maybe it’s just because I’m still thinking about the Winston record episode, but I’m looking at these two characters talk to each other, and they do seem to keep giving dawnly Rhodes. People who seem like his equal opposite, like, I don’t know if Tom Heaton was ever in the running for the grant Roberts character, but I mean, he is the same age, and they’ve dressed these two people exactly the same here. Some sort of similarity is meant to be going on. However, if visually, Winston record was Grant Roberts’s Luigi, I can only assume that bill is Grant Roberts’s Wario, maybe even his Waluigi, this slightly later era grant Roberts has his graying temples. Meanwhile, this bill character has a big shock of white hair straight down the center of his head like a skunk. Grant’s got a big, wide face. Bill’s face is very narrow. Donnelly Rhodes has got his teeth basically sanded down, so they’re just a straight line. And Bill has a big Willem Dafoe smile, just teeth like a craggy mountain range, so to speak. Whenever Tom smiles in this episode, he is like inches away from becoming the Green Goblin.

 

 

Must have been tough for you guys getting up before noon today.

 

 

Here we go again. Been going on since we were in college. He thinks all a bed at the aquarium has to do is hold up a hoop for the dolphin to jump through. But

 

Will Riley 

as these two characters discuss Trading Places with each other, it is a very uncanny scene, or it’s at least a very uncanny choice of dialog. Oh, whereas

 

 

we good old boys in the country just sit around plucking the porcupine quills out of the Hound dog’s noses,

 

Will Riley 

we’ve already had Hagen bags. Give away the general theme of what this episode is going to be. Perhaps you don’t, but all the characters just sort of flat out say to each other what the themes and literary illusions of this program are going to be. You know what?

 

 

This reminds me of, the story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse. Now,

 

 

as I recall that story when they traded places, the City Mouse found it pretty rough. Going, well,

 

 

that works both ways. Bill just straight

 

Will Riley 

up going, Oh, this reminds me of City Mouse and Country Mouse, like people didn’t already understand that everybody already seems to know what lessons will be learned and what sort of discomfort they’re about to go through once they trade these places and they express it openly.

 

 

Let’s be logical. We can’t both be going on a vacation,

 

Will Riley 

and yet by the end of the scene, they just snap back to unlearning it so that they can continue on their merry way with this episode,

 

 

I’m gonna sit by the whale pool, watch the show, catch a few rays, take in the local hot spots. The way they

 

Will Riley 

unlearn the lesson that they just said, that they understand, is so robotic, it’s almost avant garde. This reminds

 

 

me of the story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse.

 

 

Maybe it could take a look at this list. Just a few last minute instructions

 

 

lets us how to change the pool filter.

 

Will Riley 

It’s like a sort of fatalist metafiction. I mean, what is this Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Am I listening to? Is this Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Am I listening to right now? Granted, that’s a little pat. I mean, I compare most things to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Are dead. People just can’t stop comparing things to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It’s, it’s, it’s the Kafkaesque of the 2020s you know, you get a parking ticket. Well, what is this? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? You order a burger, and you get a side Caesar salad instead of fries, and the waitress didn’t tell you that it was gonna cost you extra. I mean, what? What is this? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as an end cap to this scene, Tom Heaton gets to be a little bit mischievous. Hey, kids,

 

 

have you ever seen a soda fountain? And he does a weird

 

Will Riley 

trick with the cola bottles. He like, swirls them up and hits one against the other. And he manages to, he manages to make like a Coca Cola volcano without the aid of any Mentos. It’s, I don’t actually know how he did that trick. Again. This is the sort of thing that people would entertain themselves in British Columbia before TV was invented, as Tom Heaton swamps the public property picnic table in Coca Cola. He really does get a wild smile going on. This is the number one Green Goblin moment in this episode.

 

 

I think you’re still in college. Bill,

 

Will Riley 

anyhow, off grant and the kids go to the countryside. In this episode, the sound people are really in love with using harmonicas. This is the main way that they’re able to demonstrate in quotation marks, this is a rural area as those harmonicas play, the Jeep pulls into what is going to be the Roberts family vacation. It seems that in between scenes, Grant has changed his outfit. He’s gone from the beige khaki vest to something even more beige. I mean, how do you get a khaki tracksuit? I want to know. I mean, you probably need to commission for it. I can imagine somebody running in like beige sweat. Hands, but you really do need to go to a tailor if you want to ask somebody, can I please get some business tan athleisure wear, please? And thank you. Like, I don’t want to make hay about it, but this is the beigest episode of danger bay that we have seen so far. We’ve got a bunch of characters in beige, and now they’re in the countryside, and all the dust in the country is beige as well. This show, at this stage, is supposed to be about lush marine life, but this entire episode has the color and texture of a low sodium saltine cracker as the beige brigade exits the Vancouver Aquarium Jeep, it’s framed by a window frame, and we see an ominous hand pull back a curtain to show that they’re being watched, to just fully demonstrate that all these characters recognize themselves as being in the country. Everybody in the Roberts family gets their chance to do their own John Wayne impression. Oh boy. We’ll unpack. We’ll get some lemonade. We’ll

 

 

come out here on the porch and we’ll set of spells.

 

 

Even Mosey on into town pilgrim and then you boys aren’t too flum tuckered up.

 

Will Riley 

It is truly stunning how off the mark every single one of them is like these are actually hurting me to listen to. Might as well start reciting lines from Genghis Khan as I listen to all these impressions, I feel like I’ve been hit by radiation too. The door to the Ranch House opens and the Roberts family are introduced to, well, basically a nurse, Ratched type figure.

 

 

Good morning. You must be Mrs. McDonald.

 

Will Riley 

Hi, without missing a beat, Grant Roberts seamlessly transitions from the bad John Wayne impression to an even worse Scottish impression.

 

 

And you will be the Roberts no doubt. Hi,

 

 

we’ll be the Roberts clan. This is Jonah and Nicole, and I’ll be grant.

 

 

Hi. Well,

 

Will Riley 

you’d better come in then big social interaction pro tip here, if somebody is speaking to you and they have an accent, it never fails to make them happy when you repeat their accent back at them, it never fails they’ll instantly like and respect you. That’s what living inside a rich Multicultural Mosaic is all about.

 

 

It would be a kindness if you drop that phony Scott’s accent.

 

Will Riley 

The actress for this nurse, Ratched type character is leaning hard into being as mean as she possibly can. She’s probably having a very fun time with it too. We’ll

 

 

be needing milk for supper. You can run up to tidewells and fetch some for me. Todd Wilson said that store we passed back there? No, it’s the farm up

 

Will Riley 

the road the other way. This country version of nurse Ratchet is played by an actress named Jill gambley. Just ask

 

 

Mrs. McDonald. Who’s that? My housekeeper? Well, she’s a little stiff at first, but once you get on a good side, which I may just manage one of these days, I’m sure she’s got a heart of gold.

 

Will Riley 

She’s got a relatively short career. She does six television roles over the course of five years, and then she’s done even considering the fact that there’s a lot of roles that you can do in Vancouver, it is surprising to see how every single role in this person’s resume is within the same 25 kilometer radius. They are all just the most straightforward. These are Vancouver shows. So you know, we’ve got danger Bay Beachcombers, 21 Jump Street and MacGyver like I don’t think that Jill gamley ever got in her car and drove more than 15 minutes to go to work when she was an actress. I’ve struggled a lot to find out anything I can about Jill gambley, but there’s nothing there that I can really confirm, to be honest, having said that, this is also a very strange story about how people, even in the internet age, can just fall off the face of the earth. Breakfast

 

 

is at seven, and I’ll no call you twice. The children, of course, will pick up after themselves. Through that door is the doctor’s waiting room.

 

Will Riley 

You need a waiting room. Hello, to demonstrate the weird sort of rabbit hole that I went down trying to find out anything about Jill gambling, there’s a Simon Fraser University paper that offhandedly mentions an Amanda Jill gamli who became the president of the BC unit of ACTRA, which, for various reasons, is an autonomous unit away from the rest of ACTRA. And she did it in 1991 which is exactly when this other Jill gamli would have stopped acting so it matches it makes sense, but I can’t confirm whether or not they’re the same person, because even BC ACTRA doesn’t have a list of its former presidents, because BC ACTRA doesn’t even exist in the same form anymore. None of this is properly recorded, so I have to go. Off of just little cookie crumbs instead. Maybe it’s just the generation that I live in, but in the information age, it is sort of disconcerting that somebody could become an actress and also potentially run a actor’s Union, and the only thing I can properly confirm about her is an IMDB page saying that she played the role of motel manager in a single episode of a television program called wise guy.

 

Will Riley 

Jonah and Nicole asked to sleep under the stars, to which they get the snippy reply we

 

 

were thinking about scooping out of the stars tonight, the mosquitoes on the rats. I’ll be glad to hear that

 

Will Riley 

in BC, this really is a tale as old as time you head out to some nice place in the country, and whatever nice lake is getting advertised as a place to stay around always turns out to be a mosquito breeding ground, like it’s actually incorporated into the business model. Real estate developers will literally build houses right next to lakes that are famous mosquito breeding grounds and get as close as possible to them. Because when you take pictures of the house, you can go, Oh, look at this nice house by this beautiful blue lake, and you can trick a few people into buying what looked like nice country houses for cheap, the way I live my life, in order to make sure I don’t fall for these scams. It’s actually pretty easy. I just never go anywhere near lakes fresh water, no. Thank you. None. For me, I’ll head to the deserts of Canada. They exist. Actually. The Roberts family still doesn’t quite get just how deep in it they actually are here. They’re having fun. They’re still riffing. It’s for you, Dr Roberts,

 

 

oh, it’s probably George worrying about his fishing pole already. Hello, right? Something up. Just some farmer having trouble with his calf.

 

Will Riley 

There’s a nice little flub in the line reading that I do actually like that they kept in. I think I’ll

 

 

stay here and unpack. Okay, but don’t eat all the lemonade.

 

Will Riley 

Drink it all, either. Improv, cutting back briefly, to the Vancouver Aquarium. Again, the tourism music kicks up again as Bill the Tom Heaton character Pratt, pulls his way through marine biology,

 

Will Riley 

and since Paul Saltzman had some B roll of dolphins in the back of his pocket, they make sure that Tom Heaton falls face first into the tank, so that we get something like a POV shot inside of the dolphin tank. Third

 

 

time lucky. I hope it’s enough.

 

 

I need you inside right now,

 

Will Riley 

as Tom Heaton swims up out of the tank, we get another moment of disjuncture between what writing a script is like and what filming it is like. What I figure the script says is Bill emerges from the water, sopping wet, cut to three kids laughing at him for his clumsiness.

 

 

Goes over

 

Will Riley 

what I don’t think was in the script were the words, make sure these are the creepiest looking kids imaginable. Make sure these children are the most disconcerting human beings you’ve ever seen in your life. Contact the costume department and make sure as close an analog as possible to the shining can be made. Put the two girls in frilly dresses totally out of period to make sure they look haunted. Have both of them hold different antique Rag Dolls, which could both have demons inside of them. And make sure all of them have big red balloons from it. Dress the five year old boy in the back of the group in a suit for no reason, and make sure he’s got a side part in his hair that looks like it’s been gouged into his skull. Stage directions, make sure that these children look as much like ghosts as you possibly can. I mean, really make it look like the shining like place the kids right in the dead center of the frame with lots of negative space on either side. We really want to make these kids look like demons. It’s all part of the weird give and take of early danger Bay, I suppose, by being so studiously generic, in some ways, they were able to create the base for a TV show that was a globe bestriding success. Yet by doing that, it also can become somewhat uncanny. Every so often, characters look and dress like stock clip art of themselves. These children look like somebody in an office. Went like, you know, I really don’t remember what a child looks like. I haven’t seen one in about a decade. And then they went to like a clip art catalog for hints and. Wrote down all the key words I don’t know, like dolls, pigtails, short pants. Give him some balloons. We have some balloons. Balloons are pretty cheap. Do we have access to a sailor suit for the boy? No, okay, well, we’ll figure something out. Let’s find some short pants at the very least. That’s what I wore in my Mr. Burns era, childhood, back on the farm, Grant and Jonah are driving home after dealing with their first patient, still in the aquarium jeep. They’re still having fun. They’re singing, thank God I’m a country boy. At each other in the strangest slowed down, low tempo version of thank God I’m a country boy by John Denver I’ve ever heard

 

Will Riley 

I mean, that’s really what, thank God I’m a country boy by John Denver really needed, I needed to hear it slowed all the way down so I could appreciate the sheer depth of all the lyrics. I know there are plenty of people out there who must love John Denver’s work and find it quite authentic. But I think the most authentic John Denver moment ever was the video clip where he did stay in alive for a 70s variety show. I’ve been

 

 

kicked around since I was born.

 

Will Riley 

You a classic really speaks to the soul of the heartland. So after this little half speed Hootenanny, basically showing how slow they think that country life is going to be, here comes Nicole with the fastest line reading that we’ve had in this episode so far. There’s

 

 

a horse on the tape. Pig bombing, there’s a horse on her feet. There’s four people in the waiting room. Amen, he says, Go to poison one of the messes. Come here. Nice melted cow by myself. And it’s only Monday. It’s

 

Will Riley 

a quick comedy bit. But you know, I gotta say I’m a little impressed by this line reading. It’s both hectic, but it’s articulate enough that you can get everything that’s being said. I mean, the sheer amount of flubs I produce when I’m speaking at like a quarter of the speed of the average human being, it is sort of impressive. Once you start hearing the reading like that. I’m speaking about talking with other people. Of course, podcasting, I’m a pure professional. I just hit the record button and I do it all in one go. People keep on talking in my ear about all of these sound programs. You know, Audacity, Sound Forge, all that cuff. No thanks. I just open up Windows. Sound Recorder, do it all in one take, save it as a WAV file, and then send it to the internet. And that’s that Grant’s first patient in this long, long list is Janet Wright’s character, her horse is having dental issues, and she’s whispering sweet nothings into his ear.

 

 

Don’t you worry, saucy boy, it’s going to be all right. The new doctor is going to take care of you, and then he’ll make you all better. And then when you’re eating again, I’ve got two big, shiny apples

 

Will Riley 

before we even really get a grasp of what her character is, we discover that she’s named this horse, saucy boy. And this is sort of a preview as to what kind of character this might be, if the first name that springs to mind when she’s naming a horse is saucy boy, the horse’s name being saucy boy suggests there’s some sort of overlap between horse names in the 1980s and social media handles in like the 2010s 2020s, just checking this list of names of thoroughbreds from 1980 to 1989 Dr devious probably one of those accounts that got called a dirtbag leftists in like 2018 secreto probably reposts clips from old Mario Bava movies, teen, nozo, teen, spelled T, E, E, N, 50 year old legal expert um deluis actually knows zero about the law. Chapel of dreams, self professed Hegelian. Roy Danzig, well, I guess I don’t really need to explain what kind of account that is Volks rod. I mean, that’s more the same martial law. I mean, really, what I’m learning here is that there were a lot of fascist sounding horse names in the 1980s

 

 

Why do you suppose vets are all so shy

 

Will Riley 

right off the bat, Grant does not know anything about horse dentistry, while Janet Wright is talking to saucy boy grant is off in the corner, literally looking at his textbook and just trying to make sure nobody sees that he’s doing it. This is the commonest

 

 

dental disease in the horse characterized by the presence of sharp edges or points on the cheek teeth. Treatment System rasping or cutting the

 

Will Riley 

lungs reject. Doing a medical procedure five minutes after learning what it is, a pretty relatable scene. I mean, there’s no telling how many times I’ve seen my doctors doing this exact thing right before the anesthetic knocks me out. First thing after Janet Wright hands saucy boy over to grant Roberts is that she says that she’s widowed. There

 

 

you are. This is saucy boy. Hi. I’m

 

 

Grant Roberts, Mrs. Spaulding Felicity.

 

 

I’m widowed. Like

 

Will Riley 

she’s pretty damn pleased when she explains that she’s a widow, like she’s trying very hard, right off the bat to get into grant Robert’s pants. Those of you who only know Janet right from corner gas, this is probably slightly against type. For her, they’re still trying to play on the fact that she looks old, but her character is supposed to be somebody giving all of these unwanted advances towards grant.

 

 

I’m primarily a rabbit breeder myself. You know, I can tell you all about Hutch burn and Bunny snuggles, but when it comes to horses, I’m an absolute Mini,

 

Will Riley 

some sort of an older, big Ethel type grant produces the main bit of education for this episode, explaining what a float is and what its purpose is in horse dentistry. Thing is,

 

 

with most horses, well, with some horses, they they chew their food in such a way that their molars get sharpened and they cut their tongue and, well, that’s why He’s drooling his food. Oh, dear.

 

 

Oh, what’ll we do?

 

 

Well, that called a float, just a fancy name for a tooth. Foul. Will it hurt him? Will you give his nose little twitch, and that’ll take his mind off it.

 

Will Riley 

Doing a little bit of reading about this, I’ve discovered that most people don’t actually use a float in the 2020s anymore, because you’ve got all these powered tools that are easily accessible, that you can use to do the filing. But apparently, according to what I read, there are still people who are traditionalists and want to do dentistry the old fashioned way. And I mean, even if horses are involved in this, the concept of somebody going I prefer to do my dentistry the old fashioned way. Definitely gives a little shiver down my spine, to be clear, though this is not the same thing as the holistic dentistry movement that ocean Hellman is such a big proponent of it’s simply modern dentistry enhanced by the wisdom of galenic medicine. Once you start thinking about root canals in terms of how it affects somebody’s black bile, it starts to make a lot more sense than it used to. Are you

 

 

a horse specialist? Doctor?

 

 

No, actually, most of my patients have flippers,

 

Will Riley 

so now basically, we’ve established grant is out of his depth. And what follows is a montage of the Roberts clan, sort of struggling with all the tasks that are set before them,

 

Will Riley 

more scenes of dubiously defined child labor, in which Jonah and Nicole are basically trampled by sheep. We see a shot of a broken fence, and Jonah and Nicole are just being jostled around trying to manage all of these sheep. Jill gambley comes out of the window, and she’s waving a big wooden spoon. We’ll turn

 

 

it for more usually gonna fix just

 

Will Riley 

trading in as many old timey stock characteristics as we could think of, just coming out of there like she’s a tom sawyer character. Personal favorite line here is Jonah going, maybe we should try reasoning with the sheep. Maybe

 

 

we should try reasoning with them.

 

Will Riley 

That really did tickle me the first time I heard it because of who the writers are. I’m thinking about this in terms of a late night comedy show. And like all late night comedy, the good jokes are all of the ones that they throw away, all the big and meticulously prepared jokes that are making the studio audience laugh uproariously. Are all the ones that will fall flat on their face for the people actually watching at home. It’s almost like it’s one of the fundamental flaws of that specific late night format, the great Karnak, though, oh no, that was nothing but straight bangers, 10 out of 10, 100 out of 100. And so with all of these trials and tribulations as the Roberts family struggle to get anything done, night finally falls, and they all immediately drop dead tired. There’s what’s supposed to be a raging storm outside. Only when we use an exterior shot to show this storm. It’s very clear that somebody is getting a crash course in the most rudimentary video editing computer software. Of the time, it’s a very clear day for night shot. I mean, you can still see light reflecting off of all of the clouds and just some of the most amazing digital lightning effects. Like, if you ever used iMovie in 2006 it’s less than that. It’s even worse than that, like somebody was. Messing with an MS Paint line tool on top of the frame here, getting

 

 

pictures into a computer is still more difficult than getting them out. Until recently, the only choice was to sit down and do a computerized sort of embroidery. But with this new image processing system from RH electronics of Cambridge, a whole new range of possibilities has been opened up. Let’s select the image Scan option from the menu, and then the image received by the system from the video camera will be converted to computer form. So we’ll go back to the menu and select the exposure image, tell it what sort of type of film we’re using, which is color prints. Just takes a little while now to load the appropriate program, remove the safety slide from the camera, and we can start the exposure. Let’s select the image Scan option from the menu, and then the image received by the system from the video camera will be converted to computer form. Then the pixel edit option, and there’s little cursor. Move it up, and now we can start to paint over what we’ve already got on the screen, bit by bit, very painstakingly there. At

 

Will Riley 

this point, we’re really just laying it on there. We’ve got a panning shot of every member of the Roberts family just conked out on sofas and chairs, just wherever they could sleep the fastest, except for grant, who’s trying to get to sleep but finds his work is still not done.

 

 

If Joshua Cook, one of his cops, is having a difficult labor, he’d like to know how soon you can be there.

 

 

Tell him 20 minutes.

 

 

The roots are swamp at this time of year, you may have to walk some I’ll tell him 40.

 

Will Riley 

And right before he heads out the door again, he picks up that old fishing rod and stares at it wistfully, which really does have me ask the question, Where the hell was he going to fish in the first place? Like this is supposed to be farmland, but I’ve seen nothing but dust and sand everywhere. But there’s no ocean like this is the most landlocked, un arable farmland I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s all dirt and dust. I mean, it’s all beige. I have not even seen a hint of a lake or a stream anywhere, and there’s certainly no ocean. I mean, where on earth was Grant planning to do any of this fishing in the first place? The next day, Grant gets up all achy and tired,

 

 

Here’s your coffee and juice. The rest of your breakfast out in the kitchen. What

 

 

time is it? Half past six? You mean the half past six? It’s just three hours after when I got in here,

 

 

I carried the wee ones upstairs last night. Oh, thank

 

 

you. That was kind of you. They’ll

 

 

be down directly.

 

Will Riley 

And we have more evidence of Janet Wright’s character trying to get into Grant’s pants, to use a portmanteau His grants, if you will. Janet Wright isn’t in this scene, but grant Roberts wakes up to a big gift basket full of jams, jellies and honeys, no doubt, given by her.

 

 

This is delicious. Honey. Is it? Is it produced locally?

 

 

The widow Spalding sent it over this morning, strawberries in spring, apples in autumn, and countless visits with other samples of her domestic prowess all year round. No doubt she’ll get what she’s after,

 

Will Riley 

with one exception we’ll see later. This is what passes for being explicit in this show. No doubt she’ll get what she’s after. Some sort of inconsistent characterization in this scene. I feel because in this scene, it’s almost sort of shy, like, Oh, I’ll give the doctor this jam. I I hope he appreciates my gift and he gets the message that I’m trying to send to him. I hope he knows that I’m thinking of him. But in the previous scene, she was just directly telling grant Roberts, my husband is dead. I’m ready for you right now. Mrs.

 

 

Balding. Felicity,

 

 

I’m widowed, but I’m primarily a rabbit breeder myself.

 

Will Riley 

It’s like those old weird banner ads. You know, my husband is dead. I do not want love. I just want somebody to file my horse’s teeth down. Click this link to see my jam. Don’t

 

 

you worry, saucy Boy, I’ve got two big, shiny apples.

 

Will Riley 

Another little comedy aside at the Vancouver Aquarium. Bill,

 

 

nice piece of surgery in that seal this morning. Thanks, George. We’ve

 

Will Riley 

got Bill, and he’s wrangling this really, really cute turtle in order to get it weighed.

 

 

Just wait a minute. Wait a minute. Stay right there. That a girl, that a girl, no.

 

Will Riley 

Widdle brother moment, I’m

 

 

gonna be all right Homestar.

 

 

I can make it on my own, little boy. Oh,

 

 

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.

 

Will Riley 

One of the patients grant has is an actual fish, and he sort of jumps for joy at the idea that he’s back to his regular life.

 

 

Hello, there. Finally, a familiar face. The

 

Will Riley 

thing is, the boy that’s holding this goldfish bowl is another very stock character type. He’s in full 1950s Boy Scout regalia. The thing is, it’s not even a Canadian boy scout outfit. I’m pretty sure that this is an American Boy Scout outfit in British Columbia. Michael berry seems really worried that he’s going to lose the audience visually at any moment. And every character is dressed to be a broad stereotype, more or less. We need some young children. Okay, get a balloon and some dollies and give the kids some curly ringlets. We need a stern domestic type. All right, get a wooden spoon so that she can wave it at people. We need a Boy Scout. Well, people won’t recognize what a Canadian boy scout outfit is right off the bat. So go ahead and give them the American uniform. People won’t know the difference. There’s something ironic about how this episode has panned out. Do you remember the tennis episode, the one where all the kids are talking about the burger shack and using language that they absolutely wouldn’t in 1984 because the person writing it was quite old at the time, as writers, Nichols and Vickers are at least a little bit more young and with it, but all the visuals in this episode undercut that, at least in the episode where characters were one breath away from saying they’re gonna go get emulted, and then afterwards, if you like, we can go to the burger shack. The characters looked and dressed like they were from 1984 even the animals that grant Roberts has to take care of seem so stock like he’s taking care of a cute puppy in a cast. I’ve used this analogy before, but it really is as if somebody opened up a stock image archive, went into the search bar and typed in sick animal hospital and then picked only the first image result that they got and based everything else around it. GRANT needs a splint in order to fix the puppy’s broken leg. And we get a quick and easy womp. Womp moment here. Did

 

 

you find a splint for the tail?

 

 

We haven’t got any. They’ve been on order for two weeks. Well, I need something.

 

 

Could you take a look around and find me something light plastic? I’ve

 

Will Riley 

got an idea. Jill gambley walks off screen, comes back with a broken portion of the old fishing rod that grant Roberts has, this should suffice, and he stares at it with a big uh oh face, basically,

 

 

oh no.

 

Will Riley 

Okay, so two things watching this episode in modern quality and not period accurate, 1980s quality of like 40 5p you can tell that the rod isn’t actually broken. It’s a modular rod, and you can actually see the threading on the edges of the piece of the fishing rod that got taken apart. So visually, the bit doesn’t scan anymore in the 2020s The other thing this rod basically doesn’t show up ever again. There’s no mention of it. It’s basically a total loose end grant. Doesn’t go, oh my god George. He’s gonna be so angry that he broke the fishing rod and all of that. It’s just a dead end it’s like a bit in the episode that they forgot to do anything with. So at this stage, we’re about two thirds through the episode, and I’m guessing Nichols and Vickers probably just snapped to it and realized, oh, right, I’m writing a TV show. There has to be some sort of stakes. And so Janet Wright shows up on her horse and rushes into the house to provide a plot for this episode. At long last, her character being a rabbit breeder wasn’t just some half baked attempt to go, ha, ha. Look at this. This old lady is horny. It was actually plot critical. Janet Wright drags the Roberts off to the barn and lo and behold, shows all of these sick rabbits.

 

 

The phone’s been out since the storm.

 

 

I didn’t know what to do. It’s my whole livelihood. Look, look at them.

 

 

What’s wrong with them?

 

Will Riley 

They didn’t really know how to visually demonstrate that these rabbits were sick for all intents and purposes, all they did was they got a stage hand to back brush all of the fur on these rabbits so that it looks way more wild than it normally would be. The logic, I guess, is that if you gave these rabbits messy fur, that they would look disheveled in some way. The logical connection, I think they’re expecting you to make is that this fur is disheveled, and so there must be something wrong with the rabbits. And to be fair, it really does look like the all of these rabbits did just wander into a car wash. Somewhere. The problem is that, you know, back brushing all of this fur just makes the rabbits look more fluffy. You’re just making the rabbits more cute than they already are. What’s

 

 

wrong with them?

 

Will Riley 

It was as if everybody in the show was going, oh my god, they’re so cute and lovable. Something terrible has happened. I know working in film and TV definitely gives you some odd tasks to do, but I’m guessing whatever one guy spent a whole eight hours just brushing all of these rabbits to make them look a little fluffier than they normally do, he or she must have been questioning the sequence of events that brought them to this point in their life. GRANT Roberts goes to work trying to diagnose whatever’s wrong with these rabbits.

 

 

Well, his temperature’s a little high. Are they usually this crowded? No, I’m

 

 

expanding, but the cages haven’t arrived yet.

 

Will Riley 

I tend to bring up whenever ADR gets used, and it’s being used here, normally in danger Bay, whenever ADR gets used, I can see some sort of reason for it. You can go like, well, it’s a very noisy area. There’s a lot of episodes that are in a busy aquarium or in a fishery or someplace where you need to remove all the sound and just fix it up in post. In this scene, it’s only grant that gets ADR, and it’s particularly weird because he’s the person who’s front and center in all of these shots. Well,

 

 

he’s showing signs of stress, overcrowding. But rabbits don’t usually die of stress. I don’t know the damp weather this past week, it could be pneumonia. Oh, my, everybody

 

Will Riley 

else is getting recorded by the boom mic. Just fine. Can

 

 

we help them breathe? Somehow, they must be so frightened.

 

 

Yes, there’s something

 

Will Riley 

we can do. It’s weird. Assert the opposite of how you’re supposed to do ADR, you have the principal actor in the center of the frame, the guy who’s got the best take here, and then you use the ADR to fix up anything that was wrong with the people around him. They’ve totally inverted it here. I did a little bit of research to find out why don Rhodes’s voice is the only one being recorded over here. And from the viewer’s guide written by a former set designer, Jeremy clownfish, and under the entry for vets holiday, all it says is, this is the one where Don got kicked really hard in the balls before shooting. So, you know, I figure that would explain why his voice is the one that’s getting recorded over. But I mean, the weird thing about this entry in the viewer’s guide is just that that’s literally all it says. This is the one where Don got kicked in the balls really hard. Like all the other episodes have like, paragraphs of information like this is what working with Chris haddock was, like, I could always tell that he was gonna be big. Here’s a funny thing that happened while we were filming Katie and the whale. But in this one, it just says, this is the one that Don Rhodes got kicked in the balls. So anyway, in that MS Paint lightning storm that we saw, evidently, that is when the rabbits caught pneumonia. Now there’s something concrete for the characters to do, and they rush off and start their work. How

 

 

many portable heating elements could you lay your hand on? Four or five? We’re going to need some pots to put on them. You can start by clearing the straw away from around the cages, and we’ll be back as soon as we can. The

 

Will Riley 

plan is basically to turn this rabbit barn into a big steam room, and that’ll alleviate the symptoms some, and ask

 

 

them to set aside four or five large jars of that decongestant ointment for the vaporizers. Two

 

Will Riley 

weird pronunciations from Donnelly Rhodes in a row. Jonah,

 

 

when we get back, I want you to grab that old tarpaulin that’s on the front line, throw it in the back of the Jeep. Nicole, while I’m getting the antibiotics, I want you to call the general store and see if you can get it to stay open a little while

 

Will Riley 

longer. He’s the only person I’ve seen on TV putting in the extra mile of saying the whole word tarpaulin instead of TARP. He also pronounces antibiotics, antibiotics, the antibiotics, I guess if you’re an actor and you’re taking diction classes, you’re going to say some words in some very odd ways. But I mean tarpaulin and antibiotics together. What are you French grant dabao not done was a fucking tarpaulin. Austere Dante Via tick call is near pad, the space Dumbo driveway as the Roberts drive off right before the ad break, there’s another cute little scene of real life invading the show. They’re in the jeep and they’re going to get those medical supplies, but there’s a big cow right in the middle of the path, and Don Rhodes honks the horn on the Jeep, to no avail, and so he just slowly drives around the cow. Then we coat a commercial break. It’s it’s kind of funny that it happened that way. I highly doubt they trained that cow to stay stock still like that. That was just something serendipitous that they left in the. It. It’s sort of funny in retrospect, knowing these statements that Chris Crabbe has made on cows before, this is from Variety magazine. I cannot even begin to describe the deep loathing from the deaths of my soul that I have for that Disgusting animal that we call the cow. These drooling, slobbering vectors of disease are nothing but a sheer insult to my senses, the fact that there are cultures that revere these bovine demons of unmitigated sloth as holy beings can speak only to the fallen decadence of said cultures. I do not eat beef. This is because, while the meat industry, on the plus side does kill many, many cows on the negative side, they still have the incentive to maintain the existence of cows as a species, preventing these creatures well deserved extinction. Now, I think that Variety magazine made too much hay about this variety never really gave Chris crab a fair shake, at least until Chris crab bought them out. So yeah, the next few minutes are just a description of the medical processes that they’re going through. More or less, they’ve got a tarp up to keep a bunch of steam in that they’re producing through all these heaters, and they’re hanging some decongestant over the steam to, you know, basically turn it into, I don’t know, a rabbit sauna, more or less, all while making sure to get grant to say antibiotics one more time. Now

 

 

what we’re going to do is try and turn one end of this barn into a giant steam room that’ll help protect the rabbit’s lung tissue while the antibiotics take effect. A

 

Will Riley 

little interesting note as to how they’ve improvised this rabbit sauna grant uses the last little bit of fishing gear to finish this off. Nicole,

 

 

you know what to do,

 

 

set up the heaters, boil the water and get the decongestant liquid ready. Why

 

 

don’t you put it in?

 

 

We’re gonna hang it over the steam and little nets made out of this. What is it? It’s a minnow net. A friend of mine donated it

 

Will Riley 

using the last little bit of Grant’s long wish for fishing expedition to solve this issue, an inspiring theme that we can all get behind, mildly mitigating disasters on the corpse of your aspirations. But I mean materially using this minnow net as part of the medical solution is kind of ingenious. It’s it is very MacGyver in that way, which is appropriate, I suppose, given that MacGyver was probably being filmed maybe a kilometer away. At the same time, the medical context does change it a little bit. Of course, from here, you can sort of see the influences and inspiration for Paul saltzman’s side project Murphy calogeris, MD, in which the MacGyver approach was applied to the realm of medicine. You may remember the episode in which Dr Murphy constructed an artificial heart out of peanut butter packets and a hula hoop, but ultimately, it was only a mild success. It only ran for three seasons

 

Will Riley 

after one last dialogueless montage of everybody taking care of these big fluffy bunnies. The characters just leave the barn and go, well, problem solved for now, and this blast act conflict basically winds down almost as quickly as it started up.

 

 

I honestly don’t know how to thank you. You simply must come for dinner. I’m making anything you want, but

 

Will Riley 

the worst of the crisis done, Janet Wright just goes straight back into trying to get in the sack. Somewhere between scenes, the kids figured out that this is what’s going on, and so they’re having fun teasing their dad about it and making the situation worse. Well,

 

 

that’s very good of you. Felicity, but we’re heading home today. Oh,

 

 

I could come and visit you at the aquarium.

 

 

You must let me pay for lunch. No, we’ll picnic. What’s your favorite? How about if I surprise you?

 

Will Riley 

Dad loves surprises. Grant finally manages to find a way to rebuff her, at least temporarily, basically making her Bill’s responsibility. Rabbits are

 

 

okay now, and Bill will want to come around a couple of times at least to make sure they’re all right.

 

 

Oh, good saucy boy is very fond of Dr hut,

 

Will Riley 

and so grant is able to narrowly avoid an age appropriate romantic relationship.

 

Will Riley 

Bill, meanwhile, is just as conked out as grant Roberts. He is literally sleeping at his aquarium desk, punctuated with one final little pratfall, a call back to Houdini the octopus.

 

 

Houdini has escaped from his tank again. No problem. George, where would you like me to start looking?

 

 

Well, you might try your ankle. I’ll just go and get an ice cold bucket of water.

 

Will Riley 

Now, that scene with the octopus on top of the turtle was kind of freaky, but Houdini is definitely dead in this shot. I’m certain of it. This octopus is totally flat and motionless. All the motion that the octopus makes comes from. Other people grabbing it and going, Oh, watch out, get rid of it. It’s like a Bela Lugosi moment, just holding on to these tentacles and shaking them around, going, Ah, except in that case, that was a fake rubber octopus for Bela Lugosi. This is like an actual being of organic matter that was formerly alive. George my Greek supermarket thesis grows ever stronger after this shoot is done, somebody’s gonna take this octopus and throw it on a hockey rink somewhere. Everybody in the family is getting ready to go. Jill gambley’s character gets a turnaround that’s totally perfunctory and basically unearned. So you’re going then,

 

 

thanks for putting up with us. Not at all. That’s my job. Those are two very polite, well behaved children you’ve got there. Dr Roberts, in fact, oh, here I am rattling on and there’s chores to be done. This

 

Will Riley 

character didn’t have any scenes of development. In fact, there’s basically maybe two lines exchanged between her and the kids at any time in this episode, we were thinking

 

 

about sleeping under the stars tonight, the mosquitoes and the rats. We’ll be glad to hear that. But

 

Will Riley 

it’s the end of a TV episode, and this is what people do in such a situation, the characters we see understand each other a lot better. Now, even though we, the audience, absolutely do not people on television get to become better people without doing anything thanks to the sheer power of plot structure.

 

 

Those are two very polite, well behaved children you’ve got there. And

 

Will Riley 

last but not least, Tom heaton’s character, Bill is finally back, and basically all they do is go over the themes and lessons that they already demonstrated they understood at the beginning of the episode, they both talk a little bit, demonstrate that they understand how hard the other person has it, albeit in a way that lets them joke through it, rather than actually say, I’m so sorry for trashing your job.

 

 

So you guys had enough.

 

 

Are you kidding? Another week of this? I’ll be spoiled forever. How is the city? Well, I

 

 

think I left it in one piece for you. You know how it is, disco, all night, sleep all day.

 

 

I don’t know how you do it, Bill, I hardly slept.

 

 

Likewise, Grant, I don’t know how you do it

 

Will Riley 

either. And bill gets to make a few more green goblin faces along the way. Thanks

 

 

for the vacation I

 

 

what

 

Will Riley 

I’m more amazed by in this scene is Tom heaton’s car in this episode. I really wish it showed up way earlier so that we could talk about it. Then if grant Roberts topless Jeep is already a sort of divorce mobile, wait till you get a load of bills. It’s like the exact same energy, but with far less income. It’s a convertible, but it has a mismatched hood, none of the hubcaps mash, and the front, back and sides are just covered in a bunch of dents and dings like nobody ever mentions it. There wasn’t any point for it to look like this. It’s just the way it is. It’s really a big, beautiful wreck because of the shape the car is in and from how far away they shoot it, you’d be forgiven for looking at this car and going, Oh, are they gonna blow up a car in this episode? This is the exact sort of last legs car that you would blow up for an episode of television. So then, yeah, we’re basically done. Everybody has learned lessons that they already knew. This

 

 

reminds me of the story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse characters

 

Will Riley 

grow affectionate for each other purely through the might of screenwriting. See you soon. Yeah, and the last thing for the Roberts family to do is drive away once again, singing that weird, slowed down version of thank God I’m a country boy.

 

Will Riley 

Freeze Frame, rule credits, looking back, this episode did sort of have a lot of things working against it, at least in terms of being able to talk about it on a podcast. I mean, it’s a comedy episode, and comedy episodes are famously difficult to talk about because you’re more or less explaining a joke. But it does serve as a very good early indicator of the flexibility of danger Bay as a premise, the fact that you could get two late night writers to make an episode of What is ostensibly an aquatic crime Action drama. It is basically just stunting on the audience. It’s showing look at what we can do with this show, even if the jokes don’t necessarily strike me that often as hugely funny as television, for television’s sake, it is pretty remarkable, at the very least. Now when you the listener are watching an old clip of Johnny Carson and he makes eight jokes about porpoises in a row. You’ll know exactly why.

 

 

One of the biggest problems with John K and his disorder is the fact that he doesn’t have sweat glands.

 

Will Riley 

Saturday Night Live, Monday Night Football, Vegas, Dallas, Hill Street Blues. Oh yeah, sorry, I got nothing for you. Here’s the modern danger Bay episode 18, mutated sheep are killed with a single swipe of the Sonic Glaive wiping the blood off its curved blade. Jonah Roberts adjusts his respirator. You never know if these sheep could have BKD, God damn you. UX, arrased, he cries to the heavens. I don’t have any proof, but I know all of this is your doing. Another swipe of his sight and another 20 diseased sheep dead. The execution is so swift that all the lambs and sheep remain standing for several seconds as if they don’t know they’ve been killed yet elsewhere. Gold claw, the ginormous genetically modified Falcon, uses his massive wingspan to generate a miniature tornado, blowing an entire flock of sheep off a sheer cliff all at once.

 

Will Riley 

He communicates to Jonah telepathically. I swear I’m still sensing sea urchin corruption somewhere around here. I know genetic modification spells are usually targeted in nature, but I think it’s not only the sheep that are at risk of turning and spreading the influence. Jonah Roberts stares at the horizon stoically, it’s the cow’s gold claw. I take no pleasure in saying this, but it’s simply a necessity that all the cows need to be killed here. Believe you me, I like cows in all the ways other normal people like cows, from the way they drool to the way they digest their food multiple times, but for the sake of humanity and Canadian national sovereignty, all the cows here need to be killed immediately, sending all the cattle to their graves is a simple task for Jonah Roberts, they’re still in their milking pens, all faced in the same direction with a single stroke from the sonic blade, a crescent shaped projectile reminiscent of guile’s sonic boom from Street Fighter comes out beheading all the cows in one go. And yet the corruption persists as Jonah Roberts leaves the milking barn contemplating the tragic necessity of what he has done, the sheep carcasses begin to move like asteroids attracted to a single planet, the sliced up sheep all fuse into a single organism of blood and wool, crooked and absurd, a new form of Rat King belonging to the family. Bovey day, the twisted new creation skitters across the ground, swiping its newfound fluffy limbs at Jonah, and yet it is too little too late, using his well known ability to perform a 20 foot vertical leap, Jonah Roberts flawlessly dive kicks the center of the new sheep organism instantly shredding the very center of the corruption a single white rabbit camouflaged in the center of the Angora, chimeric being. As he surveys the carnage, a revelation comes to Jonah. He tears a fistful of wool from the skin of a newly butchered lamb. Of course, Jonah exclaims, I’d have known if I’d felt it earlier. This wool is too soft to be good Canadian sheep’s wool. This wool could only belong to that disgusting creature, the Peruvian alpaca. I should have known the connection between Peru and the sea urchin God uxiraz is even deeper than I’d originally thought. They’re using his genetic spells to try and turn the rest of the world into Peru. If Peru had their way, we’d all be wearing wool hats and drinking water based hot chocolate and spending all day imitating animal noises through a series of clay water jugs. Something needs to be done about Peru. Peru needs to answer for its many crimes. Rest assured, a reckoning is coming to Peru with this resolution, finally, silence comes to North Vancouver district’s Maplewood farm and children’s petting zoo.

 

Will Riley 

I actually have an alpaca wool hat somewhere around. Found in this house. Honestly, I think it feels kind of nice but, but, I mean, I concede I’m a neophyte when it comes to these matters, so I haven’t done any of the necessary research to actually have any sort of like a conclusion to make on alpacas. I actually remember going to the Maplewood farm petting zoo in my youth. It’s a nice place, and I’m glad that danger Bay gave them a nice cash transfusion. They fixed up some of the old barns, made the fencing a little stronger, brought a lot of attention to the children’s petting zoo. There were very few casualties involved. All in all, they’re doing a great service to the petting zoo.

 

Will Riley 

So well. It’s home time. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thanks for listening. Remember to spread word about infinite danger whenever you can. If this is your first episode, I’m on social media. I’m chasm cave on both Twitter and blue sky. By the time you hear this, it’ll probably be the end of summer. But if you live in Vancouver and you’re looking for a way to spend your fall weekend. Try out my tours of Gastown and Granville Island on the app questo. See you all next time danger comes from below, and I’ll see you at your next TV party tonight.










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