Prepare yourself for: Lung worms, reboots, evil kids, haunted house tropes, and Sgt. Smith.
The Skinner Co. Network
FC65 - Cow Tales
[music] Hello, and welcome to Flashcast65, a Skinner Co. presentation. Skinner Co. where Candy is Dandy, but liquor will get you written up by HR unless you've brought enough for everyone. This episode is also brought to you by generous donations from Scott Roche, Gigantor, and Colorado Joe. Prepare yourself for lungworms, reboots, evil kids, haunted house tropes, and Sergeant Smith. [music] Hi, I'm Opoponix, and locked in the overlook with me are Jessica Mite, hello, and JRD. Hello. Come and play with us. We may get a bit of a storm any moment now. We're hoping so, because it's so humid and disgusting that in the weather network has said so, and I'm very much looking forward to it. I like to believe in those guys. I like to believe in those guys. In the weather network, you like to believe in them? I want to believe. Yeah. And we're supposed to have more tomorrow as well, but we've brought the window up so we can all listen to it, and hopefully it just won't rain into the window. Yeah, and hopefully we'll keep power. Somewhat appropriately, I actually just wanted to briefly bring up Lonnie Johnson. Have you ever heard of Lonnie Johnson? No, tell me all about Lonnie Johnson. Lonnie Johnson, interestingly, ran the Laramie Corporation. Like cigarettes? No, the inventors of the original super-soaker. Oh, yes, you would know this, yes. He came up with the whole system behind, you know, the popular thought. Yeah, do you remember in your youth when the super-soaker came on the scene? Yes. Because it's so... Wet. Totally crushed. Everything in the competition as far as water guns that come up to that point. Yeah, they were like little, like, pistol-y kind of spitters. Yeah, and this just destroyed everything else. He eventually sold off the toy to Hasbro, who still make it today. Most people do. He turned around and invested that money in a couple of companies, one of them being Johnson Electrical Mechanical Systems, which actually builds something called the Johnson Thermal Electrochemical Converter System. Now, I realize that sounds like just a bunch of jargon, but... Fancy pants. It converts thermal energy into electrical energy without steam, so it's got a huge advantage in energy development. He's inventing energy technology for tomorrow at this point. He's creating, like, tiny, thin batteries and ways to suck energy out of the sea. And he started with the super-soaker. And he started with the super-soaker. Yeah. You never know. A way to extract and pump water or something. No, no, it's to get the heat out of the ocean thermals. Crazy cool. Hm. Yeah, fascinating. Just such a weird diversity. One of those kind of modern mad scientists, like the super-soaker. How huge is that? Anyway. I'm actually finding this storm a little distracting, because I'm getting all... Oooh, ah, every time I... We should... There's lightning, but I'm not sure that the thunder's going to... You should turn off the light. Oh, yeah? Yeah. It's really getting flashy outside. (music) Your sideburns are looking pretty nice. He has Mavi. But you don't have as-mavi glasses. No, uh... I don't know, you don't have any props yet. People who don't follow me on Twitter may not be aware. I've somehow ended up in a as-m-off. Mm. With our man Strasburg. Yeah, please explain to... Well, I have to say before we even explain. What's going on here that no one said anything about props? And I don't think... It was totally part of the conversation. Was it? Oh, my bad. Okay, continue. Uh... Essentially, I had posted a sideburn update. Mm-hmm. As I, at this point, sport some chops. Yes. And Strasburg threw down. Mm-hmm. Essentially, I had claimed I was somewhere... He threw his face down. Yeah, well, essentially. Uh, I was claiming that I was 50% Lemmy from Motorhead and 50% Asimov. Uh-huh. And he clearly stated that he could add out Asimov me. Yes. At which point... Uh... It was on. I needed to step up to defend my honor. And your sideburns. And my sideburns. Mm-hmm. So, while I haven't really given them much more girth in the meantime, I've allowed them to go into a very bushy sort of... Yeah. Yeah, they extend. Wild angle. They protrude quite far from your face. They're like your whiskers, you know? Like, you can, you know, if you can go through a doorway or a small space because... Yeah, you know that scene from Aliens where Bishop is crawling through the vents in an entire tiny space, so that I could do that with just my face kind of feeling in front of me? You could be, like, a chimney sweep with your face. Mm-hmm. Gym chimney. And I can, uh... Gym chimney. ...use the ashes to give myself a nice Mr. Fantastic kind of gray to brown look. Mm-hmm. Yes. Anyway, we'll see how far this madness goes, but the end date is July 26th, so... That's coming up. ...I will post an update sometime into it now in a bit. But I didn't get you clean for Fan Expo. Yeah. Speaking of Strasbury, actually, he mentioned a little item that I thought was worth bringing up... ...as he often does, actually. Mm-hmm. Just this one little... Yeah, this is one little thing with the... ...uh, the Marvel Universe is rebooting, or is in the process of rebooting, as you may know. Shocking. After DC's success with the digital, uh, outing and trying to... ...basically start everyone over at one, so that the new movie-going crowd could latch on. Uh... ...Marvel's basically doing the same, except for in those books that are already successful, which is sort of a weird thing. [laughs] But those guys are fine. Yeah, but everything else, yeah. Disregard only these things. [laughs] So, they're going, you know, they're... ...including, I think, a lot of the... ...popular elements, the... ...new Nick Fury. Uh, nothing wrong with that. Uh, they're also combining the X-Men and the Avengers a bit, I think. Which is sort of odd. But the post that Strasbury put up basically runs down all of the titles... ...and explains why it's kind of a ridiculous undertaking. And frankly, I'm just a little burnt out at this point of events that are really only going to last a summer and then... ...automatically revert back to nothing. Mm-hmm. Reboot. Yeah. Reboot the reboot. Speaking of reboots, actually. Oh, yes. And who was it that I was saying I was going to slap around for this? Gibraltar, I believe. There we go. That's right. Quite possibly in the mob. Yes. There was a bit of a kerfluffle when he posted up the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Oz. Yes, Oz, the great and powerful... ...and I will slap any of you M-effers that will say anything bad about this movie. I know you want to believe. I want to believe. And I think that in a weird way... ...I think in a weird way James Franco has become the go-to guy when you have a mostly full CGI cast. I'm wondering if he got this job based on his role in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Well, that was so much CGI to work with in one movie and he did it so well. But I mean, I'm hoping that this trailer is showing really footage because a lot of it to me looked very CGI in a way that was distracting. And maybe it's just that I've, you know, we've done Wizard of Oz in a very practical way. But what? Oh, you're getting ready to slap me, I see. You know, I'm just trying to think of something to say that's not offensive to you. So you were getting ready to slap me. I also wonder, though, that got me wondering about, you know, Gene Hagen in Singing in the Rain? Okay. Her character in that film, Lena, I believe, is... ...the movie revolves around the time when talkies were first coming in. And the cast is dealing, essentially, they're all movie stars that are dealing with the change over to sound. And Lena is famous in her roles in, like, historical dramas, but she's got a voice like... A chipmunk, it's very hard to pick up, right? Yeah, it's very annoying. Yes. So they end up, they deal with this whole dubbing thing and whatever, but there was a real problem when we actually did switch from silent to sound with a lot of actors who couldn't continue working because their voices just did not match the personas that they were playing up until that point. I think Lon Chaney did one talkie if I'm right, and it's good, but he did not sound in my mind what... What he should have. Yeah. And I'm wondering if there's sort of a situation, a similar situation going on right now, and we switched to CGI, and those who can't act with CGI are going to be a bit left behind. Yeah, they're gonna fall by the wayside. Yeah, I can see that. The cast of Lord of the Rings are getting an odd sort of training. Yeah. Or Hobbit. The Hobbit. Or I should say the Hobbits. Oh, I wanted to quickly mention that we got a nice little mention in horror attics '77. Oh. A podcast. You can find it horror attics.net. Excellent. Is that the same place that you had the interview with? The interview? Yeah, yeah. That was so much fun. They posted one of our episodes up in such. They're nice. I appreciate them having me buy. Mm-hmm. And if everybody else I suppose wants to throw some questions at me for their blog or whatever, I'm pretty proud of that. Right Adam. Mm-hmm. Actually, people should ask, uh, Jessica May and the Pope some stuff. No. Mm-hmm. You're the most piece. Which is kind of funny if you... Anyway. Did you guys hear about the Natalie Wooded investigation change? Yes. Yeah, I heard that it went from accidental to undetermined, right? Yeah, they're leaving a little more leeway in the case now I suppose. Was that the one on the boat? Yeah, with... Christopher Walken. Robert Wagner, Christopher Walken and the boat captain. Yeah, that's weird. And so apparently they've determined, uh, from Bruce's Honor Body that there was more to it than an accident but they haven't said what. Huh. Or they can't necessarily say what. But then on the other hand, was it just the case that Robert Wagner was a dick and beating her? Or was it that he, like, beat her unto death? Man. Robert Wagner. What are you doing Robert Wagner? Yeah, definitely, uh, it puts a weird light on. And Christopher Walken too. Yeah. He wouldn't do anything wrong. He's Christopher Walken. Didn't he leave or something? Well... He wasn't there. He couldn't have been... No, Wagner was jealous. And they got no fight. Him and we'd gotten a fight. I would have loved to have heard that fight. Yeah, well... I mean, as horrible as that sounds. Just to hear him angry and yelling at somebody would be kind of funny. Who, Christopher Walken? Yeah. Yeah, actually. But, uh, horrible. The circumstances, yeah, absolutely. If it were a movie, it'd be awesome to watch. Not in RL. You know, if they made a movie of it, do you think Christopher Walken would play Christopher Walken? Totally. I'm so... I kind of dislike bringing up lists on the show. Like, just grabbing a blog's lists of things. But I did notice something at listfirst.com the other day that I wanted to mention. And as usual, I'll put the link up on the show notes. But it's the top 10 greatest movies that were never made. And I just wanted to touch on a few that I felt were extremely pulpy or related to the Flashgast at least. The original Gangs of New York. Apparently, that movie was in the dreaming phase for a long time. And the original plan was to have the clash play all of the leads and to have, like, modern music over the, you know, classic dress and styling. Wow. Crazy. The clash. So interesting. I would have loved to have seen that film. Mm-hmm. When? When were they thinking of doing that? Oh, I can only see when it was late '70s. Yeah. Crazy. I'm so excited about this other one. The Kurosawa Mask. Oh, yeah. There was... Apparently, Kurosawa even wrote a script for it. And they just never got it made. Because I loved the Mask of the Red Death so much. And having a Kurosawa. Yeah, I know the tone he would have brought to it would have been amazing. Anyway, that was regretful. And then, did you know that Chinatown was actually written as a trilogy, like intended to be a trilogy? Like with Jack Nicholson? Well, not necessarily with Nickelodeon himself. Like the same characters, I believe, were in all three, yeah, yeah, Jake or whatever. It was in all three, I suppose. But it was supposed to be basically a telling of the history of LA. Huh. So it was supposed to stretch over time. Yeah, 'cause you remember how that vibe comes through in the original they're covering. Yeah, so apparently it took 20 years to get the sequel to Chinatown made. The two jakes, you guys remember that one? We sat through about half of it at one point and then just got so frustrated we turned it off. I don't know. I was like... I asked to block it out. Yeah, it was actually only like a few weeks after we watched Chinatown for the first time. But I guess the writer is the guy who had intended it as a trilogy. Robert Town. And eventually he lobbied, I guess, to get the sequel made and they put it into production. But when Jack Nicholson showed up, he decided to pull rank and he kicked Robert Town out of the directing role and directed it in himself. And it failed. And it's kind of a terrible movie. Oh, what a douche canoe. Yeah, well, I think we're talking Nicholson in the 80s. You know, so I'm guessing there's a lot of coke in me. Yeah. Yep, maybe. You never know. Unless you're Jack Nicholson in the 80s. And his dealer. Yeah. His dealer who's really his sister. Oh no. Sorry, it's that... No, I know. Yeah, okay. I think I wanted to bring up for the front end of the show. So what happened in... Did some men get married? There was a really deep plot arc involving several... Northstar and his longtime boyfriend got married. First gay marriage in mainstream comics. Very important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And apparently the Florida Family Association did not take so kindly to this. On what grounds? Against a comic? Just... ...for having a gay marriage? Yeah. John? For drawing, yeah. It is shameful that, this is a quote from the Florida Family Association. It is shameful that two companies like Marvel and Disney would deliberately create a superhero homosexual wedding for our children to embrace. Hopefully. These companies should show more respect to the overwhelming majority of families who do not want their children targeted with immoral social propaganda through comics. Weird. Yeah, some people are crazy. So Hader's gonna hate. Yep. Alligator's gonna allocate. Potato's gonna pull to hate. So you know what else we did this week? We watched The Bad Sea. Oh yeah. We did it with children, no? No. No, we didn't. There were children, but they were not our children. Oh. It just took us several days to get through. And generally that when that happens, it's when we're watching a movie with the kids. I think it was just enthralling enough that we managed to carry through despite regular interruptions. Yes. That said, boy, let's not skip to the end. What's the general premise of the film? There's a lady whose husband is a military guy and he's off doing military stuff. And she's got a daughter, but her daughter is a bad dude. 'Cause she is killing people. No. Supposedly. To clarify, this is 56. Yeah. And it's easy to thank The Bad Seed. I think there was another film just called Bad Seed, maybe, without a "the". Maybe. Which was like a science fiction, same premise, basically. I think there was like a robot who tried to disseminate a lady. Anyway, I'm getting a little sidetracked here. Although, not all the characterizations were necessarily spot on. The psychology behind the film was attempting to be very real. They were attempting to say, like, this child is essentially, what was the, they use this thing all of the time. Nature nurture, yeah. Well, yeah, but they also use this example throughout the film. It was like a child-born blind, where she just simply has no moral sense. It's not that she's attempting to be evil. It's just that she doesn't see the difference. Yeah, doesn't have the ability to know better. Yeah. Anyway, it was interesting. The problem, to me, came with the conclusion. Yeah. Well, didn't this, didn't this maybe win a lot of awards and stuff? It won some Academy Awards. I mean, it's kind of 7.3 on IMDB. Yeah. Which is, you know. And it really seemed like at the ending, um, there was an ending. And then they were like, ah, but that's a little rough, so we had to have this other ending after it. You know what, I'm not, it's 56, so I'm not, I don't feel like we're spoiling it. They go in a room, it's really, it's gotten to the point where we know there's not really an alternative. They go in the room, the lady lack essentially feeds her child, sleeping pills, to the point of... Telling her. ...overdose, and then shoots herself. Although, no, we don't see any of this. We're just basically left to imply it, and then there's a gun shot. And then it should have faded to black. And you would have thought, woof, but you would have been left with a kind of powerful film. But instead, fades back up. She's at the hospital. She just didn't do it right. The kid's fine. The husband forgives her for trying to kill the kid. And she's going to recover from the self-inflicted gun shot. Yeah. And they're gonna work it through. And then the kid gets hit by lightning. She wanders down to appear and gets hit by lightning. And the film ends. And... Well, it was like, even if justice wouldn't prevail, the powers that be will punish. Man, you know who the best actor of that entire movie was? The drunk lady. Oh, gosh. That was so great. That little boy who was murdered, she kept showing up loaded and having these conversations. And she was just so great. She was so good. You felt her pain. Mm-hmm. But the little girl who was the bad seed, she also was very awesome. Very manipulative. Mm-hmm. And she increasingly would kill for like really silly reasons. Mm-hmm. Anyway, it was definitely a solid entry. It was just the ending was unfortunately ridiculous. Little bit. We've also been watching a lot of tales from the crypt. Indeed. Just before bed. Yeah. Yeah. The treat of my youth. Then it's come back. Yeah. We're watching his voice change the crypt keeper. Oh, yeah. It's very much like watching, especially that first season. It's very much like watching the first season of The Simpsons, where they haven't really settled on the characters entirely. Mm-hmm. And Bart sounds kind of funny. Yeah. Exactly. Mm-hmm. It's fun to see the list of, it's amazing how many actual named actors they made this to get on their show. Mm-hmm. I've been surprised a couple of times. Like, yeah, I don't know. You haven't even seen the governor of your show up yet? No. He directed an episode. Really? He appears with the crypt keeper in the umpire, not in the actual episode. That's so cool. Yeah. I can't wait. Is he already the governor? Oh, this was, no, this was way before then. This is probably before he was uber famous? No. No. I mean, he was definitely the Terminator by then. I don't know if he was Terminator 2 by then, but... Mm-hmm. Yeah. So because it is the summer, a lot of our contributors are off doing summery things. Mm-hmm. So the show is rather light, but I did get a lovely bothersome spot from Jeff. So let's go straight to that. [MUSIC] Suck the head and eat the tail. If you're from the southern U.S. or at all familiar with Cajun culture, then you've probably heard that line before. I'm, of course, not referring to what just might be an interesting evening at a raucous Bourbon Street establishment of ill repute, but rather to another practice involving interesting oral maneuvering. Why eating crawfish, of course. Why these vile little bugs are referred to as fish is beyond me. But I will go on the record as saying that I think they're totally disgusting. The only exception that I'll make in regards to consuming these things is if they're buried so deeply in a gumbo that I can't possibly recognize them. Now, after reading the little story that I'm about to share with you, dear listener, I feel completely vindicated in my fear and loathing of crawfish. Here's the story from the St. Louis today. People all over the country do stupid things when they're drinking, right? But only in Missouri have we earned the attention of federal disease investigators. At least nine people have been treated in St. Louis hospitals for lung parasites after eating raw crawfish while rafting or camping in recent years. Seven of them were drinking alcohol at the time. Doctors at Washington University describe the rare disease called perigona meiosis in a study published Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There's Mardi Gras behavior sometimes on the river," said Dr. Gary Well, an infectious disease specialist at Barnes Jewish Hospital and one of the authors of the study. People who are out there sometimes do crazy things and this is one thing we don't want them to do. The patients included a 10-year-old boy, seven men ages 20 to 43, and one 26-year-old woman. They all recovered after treatment in hospitals here. The crawfish, also known as crawdads, look like miniature lobsters and were plucked from the Miramak, Missouri, Huza, Jack's Fork and current rivers. About half of the crawfish in Missouri rivers carry the parasite, which can be killed within several minutes in boiling water. When explaining how the worm or fluke gets from the crawfish to the patient's lungs, Well says to think of the movie Alien. The parasite lives in the heart of the crawfish. When an animal or person ingests the crawfish, the worm crawls through the intestines and across the abdomen before burrowing into the lung like a worm crawling in an apple, Well said. The flat worm then grows to its adult size, comparable to a grain of rice. If the patient was unlucky enough to ingest two or more worms they can reproduce in the lungs. People with the parasite experience fever and sharp abdominal and chest pain as the worm travels through the body. Once the worm attaches to the lung, the coughing starts as patients spit up worm eggs that are visible only under a microscope. In some cases the worms can migrate to a patient's heart or brain and cause serious complications. A problem with the disease, aside from hosting a worm in your lung, is that the symptoms can start as long as four months after the float trip shenanigans. So patients have been misdiagnosed with pneumonia or tuberculosis and have endured unnecessary treatments and procedures. When patient was given steroids and another had a gall bladder removed in the quest to find the source of the abdominal pain. The good news is the parasite will die off even if the patient never gets the right treatment. The bad news is they can live in the body for five to ten years. When detected through a blood test, paragona meassas is easily treated with a two-day series of an anti-parasite drug. The Washington University doctors want their colleagues to ask patients with these chronic symptoms if they've ever eaten raw crawfish. The nine known patients in St. Louis and another seven reported across the state are what Wells calls the tip of the ice cube that is not exactly an epidemic. "There are probably some people out there who are sick with mysterious illnesses who haven't been diagnosed," he said. Scientists from the CDC called in to help with the disease investigation were initially puzzled. Not by the disease so much, which is fairly common in Asian countries where raw crustaceans are part of the cuisine, but why so many people were eating crawfish in Missouri. Before the rash of illnesses here, there had been seven cases in all of North America in the previous 40 years. Wells said, "A scientist at the CDC, which is in Atlanta, said to him, "In Georgia, we go canoeing and we see crawfish. It never occurred to me to eat one. What's wrong with you people?" Interviews with the patients gave some hints to their motivation. One 20-year-old man ate raw crawfish on a float trip on the Jacks Fork River in 2009 while intoxicated and acting on a dare from the younger members of his party. A boy of 10 was showing off for his cousins when he ate a raw crawfish from the current river to demonstrate his survival skills. Wells has sympathy for the patients who didn't know a parasite was lurking in their river snack and he recalls his conversation with one of the young men. I said, "Who could blame you? You might have eaten a cricket. You might have eaten a tadpole." And he said, "Yeah, I ate two tadpoles, too." So just remember, folks. When you're out there on the river drunk and looking for tail or maybe to find a little head, things might not go so well in the end. You might just need a prescription to go along with that hot sauce. I'm Jeffrey Lynch, and that's this week's Spot of Bother. Oh, my gosh. Oh, Mr. Lynch. I can hear a pope breathing into the microphone. It's like flushing my chest. Like, I can feel the worms. I'm coughing up worms. Eggs. Like, I do. It's so horrible. Like, it's really horrible. Unfortunately, doubly protected from this situation in that I do not cook meat that is not thoroughly heated. Or do I also not eat water bugs? Yeah, that's right. Sea bugs. Sea bugs. Although technically these are fresh water, they are still sea bugs. Yeah. They're bugs. Oh, you guys. You guys. Let's move on. Yeah, you can find all of Jeff's bothersomeness over it. It's like we can't even dwell on it. I don't even want to discuss it. Thank you. I appreciate it. I've been disgusted. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. We're out of here. Find all of Jeff's business over at bothersomethings.com. And you can yell at him on Twitter. Please lynch me. And tell him that's disgusting. I believe now it is time forward. Mailbag. We got two pieces of mail. And nicely coincides with two types of candy that we're also going to try today. Well, awesome. Yeah. From somebody we even heard from a while. Mm-hmm. It's been a little while. Joe. Colorado Joe. So, let's eat this candy while we hear from him. Okay. First up, we've got... I mostly... For recommendations from the Time Traveler. Yeah, the Time Traveler specifically suggested we try the bito honey. Mm. Indeed. We were also warned that we should keep an eye out for our fillings. Mm. So, this is why we are going to listen to Colorado Joe. Let's have a look. Can you briefly tell us what the candy is like, the description of it rather? Oh, indeed. With real honey and almond bits blended into taffy. Bito honey with candy provides a delicious taste in long-lasting chew. Mm-hmm. I was being your advertisement. I appreciate it. You're welcome. It looks delicious. Mm-hmm. Let's hear from Joe. ♪ Here's a cup of Joe for our mobsters at home ♪ ♪ It's Colorado Joe ♪ ♪ Come on out of Joe ♪ Hello, flesh, cast crew and fellow mobsters. Another drive-by comment from your number one fan in Colorado. I know I've been quiet this summer, but I guarantee I've been listening and lurking. Wait, isn't that fish's job? Well, anyway, we seem to be channeling Dickens in Colorado this summer. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We celebrated the marriage of our son and his wonderful bride. The wedding took place in the mountains near Boulder and was perfect. We had family and friends join us and had a wonderful time. The ceremony narrowly missed the next few weeks as our state tried to burn itself to the ground. After our company left, I attended a local technical conference. Linda and our granddaughter stayed and played at the hotel while I geeked out. They had front row seats from the hot tub to watch the tanker planes take off. Kind of surreal. You can see and smell the smoke, but life continues around you. I want to thank Nettie for providing me a segue via her description of the land pirates to talk about the new rush album, "Clockwork Angels." The album, which is conceptual in nature, has a steampunk flavor. Following the adventures of a youth who runs away and falls into both adventure and misadventure, first running into conflict with the watchmaker, and while fleeing, thinks he's been saved only to fall into the hands of the wreckers, a group of ne'er-de-wells practicing their own land piracy. One of my favorite lyrics on the album comes from this interaction. All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary of a miracle, too good to be true. Anyway, a great album, their 20th studio album, really looking forward to the tour. The last tour featured a steampunk set, so hoping they go over the top this time. So, onto the important stuff. That is, flashbulb. I'm not going to try and go back and cover all the stories since I last commented here. Suffice to say, very stoked with where things are going. I'll limit today's comments to the last three stories. Dwelling was a good tale, loved the revenge aspect of it, but for sheer terror, model behavior takes the prize. Holy crap, JRD, there are now images in my mind that will forever hunt me. I'd forgotten about casting resin and how hot it can get, as the last time I'd used it was in the seventh grade. As I tweeted immediately after listening, disturbing. I really loved the hints at the bunny backstory we got in Balm. Also nice that she was able to take control of a situation where coffin failed. Coffin obviously sees beyond the alcoholic exterior. Good on him. And kudos to Rich for his bunny guest to so does well. Jamie, I love your music in general, but I could truly believe Gloomy Sunday was written specifically for you. It's so beautiful. And a pope, I'm loving the Skinner co-inks and of course, your narrations as usual are spot on. Things are still major and tense at work here, but I'll try to check back in more regularly. In the meantime, go team bunny, take care. Are we talking about candy or Joe first? I found a kind of peanut buttery. I really like the, you know, the sweet, desalty. It reminded me of, I don't know what they were, toffee kisses or whatever, before Hershey's kisses became the only kiss on the market. There was those candies you would get generally on Halloween. And they would have like sort of an orange or black wrapper. Oh, how's thought of those as like, witch-toppies? Witch-toppies, yeah. They weren't kisses. I remember them being called kisses. Well, uh, you're wrong. Maybe that's a northern, woodsy person. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm gonna show them kisses. The top one kisses. And some firewood for the fire. 'Cause it's cold in here. Despite the fact that we all sound southern. Yeah. Wow, thanks for the call, Joe. Yeah, you sounded a little deeper. A little tired, maybe. But I hope, uh, I hope I was well. Hope you're safe and sound. Yeah. The family. Let's touch on the part that he said about me. I'm really glad that he said about Glue and he said that because so many people covered it. But he thinks I'm the best. And I'm sure he's heard every single variation. Yeah. Joe, you're so nice to meet. [laughter] Uh... And I've really been enjoying doing all the skinnico inks. And it's been a nice practice in being consistent. Mm-hmm. Your Optimus Prime is kicking ass. Thank you. I'm glad to hear Linda had some time to kick back in the hot tub. Mm-hmm. A little weird about the tinker planes taking off. I guess that's... And I'm glad that you weren't set on fire. That would have made me really, really mad with Colorado. Yeah. I would never rate Colorado a theme song again. [laughter] It's interesting to hear that a band as long established as Rush is going into something like a steampunk calincept album. No, I know it's not entirely outside of what they've done in the past. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But at the same time, it's pretty fascinating that they're, you know, they're going in that direction. Yeah, you get bored after a while, I hear. I don't think anybody else in their generation of musicians can be said to still be like taking those sorts of risks. Risks, yeah. Yeah, good for them. They have the money to sustain themselves. [laughter] If they wanted to go and make pottery, I'm sure they could do that. [laughter] This is much better than pottery. Thanks as well for your kind comments, Joe, about the last few episodes. Mm-hmm. I feel like model behavior. Yeah, that one. I think I mentioned it. When I was reading through the script the first time, I actually got to a point where I had to stop reading and I just put my head in my hands. And I was like, "Oh my God." And I had to just take a minute before I could continue reading. And that was a little intense. I had such a visceral reaction to it. I felt like model behavior needed a chaser. Yeah, well, dwelling was definitely that. Model behavior? I knew as soon as I had that gut wrenching feeling that that was what you wanted and what you were intending. Yeah. But it was still like, "Oh my gosh, is this too much? Geez." You know? Oh. But yeah, dwelling, I really loved that one too. I think Jamie made it apparent on the interwebs how I felt much more attached to the entity, the house, rather than the actual people that were in it, or rather than, you know, the protagonist of the story. Right. Well, we'll come back to this in a moment with background plots. Otherwise, I'm not going to have anything to say. But we have been goofing around a bit on Twitter with the hashtag #teammoney. Yes, that's been fun. They're fun to write. Go Team Bunny. So, feel free to check that out or add your own. Oh, this actually is a good opportunity. If you're not following the Skinner Co account, which is just Skinner Co on Twitter. Yeah, and why aren't you? But you should also drop me a line if you're a flashpulper, flashcast fan, because we maintain a Twitter list that is just folks who listen to the show. Yeah, so we'll follow you and see what you have to say. I get these random great mentions every now and then, and I know to add somebody. But if you don't say anything, we don't know you're there, okay? We want to know that you're there. So you can find me at Jaredie Skinner on Twitter. You can find me at the Jessica May. And you can, I can never say those without laughing now, because you always make fun of it. You can find me at Opopenx, only it's with zero, not an O. So that's zero P-O-P-A-N-A-X. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome. Otherwise you can just go search through Jaredie's friends or Jamie's friends. So search through mine because Jaredies are like, yeah, there's like 6,000. Yeah, well, because he's the coolest guy ever. I think it's now time. You were going to have Smarties, the crispy to my crunch or the crunch to my chewy, because the chewy was there. But they're not Canadian. It's a honey smarties. No. They are American Smarties. Yeah, so they're not actually chocolate. They're like that chalky, delicious candy, they're Canadian rockets. Yeah. But we've decided to go for those, or are we going with the cow tails? Oh, yes. It was also suggested. The time traveler was suggesting specifically that we go for the cow tails. Yeah. What do we do? What do we do? Candy dilemma. I think I said that I would do the cow tails. We have to do cow tails. Oh, okay. Let's do cow tails. We got to get the cat that's out of the candy box, the cat name cat in the candy box. Now there's some chocolate content in these cow tails. Yay. That's good. What I find fascinating is that they are mini vanilla cow tails, but it's not cow tail. It's cow like I'm telling you a story. These are cow lies. Stop being a writer and consume the candy, the candy, the cow candy. Tell me a cow tail. Classic bag in a box. Classic bag in a box. Stop yelling in here, Mike. Oh, my God. I got the. Okay. Okay. These are so Cadbury looking. Who makes this candy? This candy is made by the Goatsie Corporation. I wish I'm just going to assume that's right. Oh, my God. Treat since 1895. There's like icing and a chewy straw. Hmm. I don't know. It's just so weird. You totally threw me a curve ball, Richard. It's candy from the future. Yeah. This is totally like vanilla icing in a, like, tuba caramel. Yeah. Whatever. Okay. This is really weird. All these candies he chooses for us are all very interesting. There's never a dull candy around here, ladies and gents. Wait, there's a quote on the front of the box that may clarify. Okay. Quote me. The other's cartoon cow looks like he may be slightly intoxicated. And he is saying what will make this all understandable. It's all about the cow. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Well, with that information, all becomes clear. So I guess this candy is made of beef, then. Mm. Beefy. Beefy icing. So now we probably shall continue to chew while we listen to our last entrance in the mailbag. Richard, the time traveler. Hello, Flashpope crew and fellow mobsters. Rich the time traveler here. For kids, if you're animatardous, always check the current standardized time before feeding your magli. Trust me. I love the finale to the recent bomb arc. It was nice to see Bunny really kicking some butt and taking some names. She seemed to also start dealing with some of her past. Is she going to continue down with this introspection? Also, did Koffin know he had to set Bunny on that path to intersect with him and save the day? Whether consciously and exactly, or just that he needed to set this chain of events and motions subconsciously somehow, or was it complete happenstance? I have a hard time thinking there is pure coincidence in the Flashpope universe, but behavior was definitely disturbing, certainly not a pleasant way for anyone to go. On a completely tangential note, I never quite pictured the Smiths as the Hollandaise types for some reason. He dug the chiller towel, dwelling. It had a definite monster house vibe to it. I didn't quite empathize with a house like a Pope did though. The first victim we saw in the subsequent residence never really disrespected or mistreated the place. If they had, I've been rooting for the house too. And that's about it for now. I'm still working through wool by Hugh Howie. I didn't get as much time to read on vacation as I would have liked, but I finished the first four novellas and just started the fifth so hopefully soon. I'm looking forward to talking about it in detail. Speaking of looking forward to things, Van-X is creeping up on us and should be here soon unless Karak rises. And until then, this is Rich. Very nice. Yeah, thanks Rich. Thank you. Uh, it's interesting that you mentioned Maguai, that again will come up in background plots. Mm hmm. I may have mentioned it before, but I don't entirely, I don't really believe in coincidence. Mm hmm. But on the other, you're being not so careful. Yeah, I'm trying not to give anything away. But the, ooh, but on the other hand, coffins response wasn't necessarily entirely what I could have been. Anyway, I hope that's vague enough. That's very vague, don't worry. Uh, but yes, we will get further into, uh, coffin and his positions on things. Actually, I wanted to really quickly mention, uh, Rich's guest episode, which somehow we totally forgot to mention in the last episode of The Flash Guest. Oh. Ran out of time. Yeah, yeah, we were rushing a bit. But fantastic. Supply run. Yeah, yeah. It fit so well with the episodes around it. Yeah, it was, I, I really enjoyed his take on, uh, just having Bunny go out alone and. And the danger that leads her in. Yeah. I had this other portion, sort of the end of Bomb in mind before I, uh, considered what we were going to be running, but to have those sort of light up nice so nicely, I really enjoyed that. Yeah. And he could have only known that because he's a time traveler. Yeah. Yeah. Well played, sir. It's crazy. Not that he didn't give anyway any spoilers either. Anyway. Dwelling. I have to admit, I didn't quite, I, as the writer, didn't have this empathy for the house that, uh, a Pope showed, but on the other hand, sometimes she just, uh, you know, roots for the villain. No, and you know that old trope, the house, the haunted house with the heart of gold. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that house was kind of a dick. Yeah. I tried to eat people with its mouth. Remember that part? A child? Yeah. Yeah. It let him go. On purpose. No, it didn't. Yes, it did. Well, eventually. It didn't toss him down the stairs and break his neck. No, it could have. Yeah. It totally, it totally thought to itself, I could kill this child right now, but I won't. Yeah, yeah, that's, that, I mean, is that not the least we can ask where he was? For a bunch of tabs. It's kind of beautiful. Yeah. I think so. I just shouted here. I'm really excited about Fan Expo. Me too. Mm-hmm. There are some things that we haven't really mentioned because maybe they don't specifically relate to us, but I think we should run down some of the extras that are going to be there that I'm finding, uh, okay, yeah, there's going to be us. That's cool. The DeLorean is going to be there? Mm-hmm. Duck Brown. Duck Brown is going to be there, but we've already mentioned that in belief. They're doing the speed dating thing, which isn't so much for me, well, for us, I suppose, but, uh... I don't know, but I don't know. But, uh, for any single weeks out there coming along, you want to meet somebody... You like Batman? Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else got anything else notable that there are a lot of comic artists that we really haven't mentioned, but that may interest other people? I want to see... I happen to know that Comic Con this year, there was a lot of, uh, like, fantasy, there's a lot of Game of Thrones stuff. Mm-hmm. So, I want to see how much Game of Thrones stuff I can find. Are you going to collect together some sort of Game of Thrones fan expo report for the next episode? Is that what you're saying? No, I just am thinking that there are going to be a lot of Game of Thrones things there, and I want to see them. I want to see Kevin Smith, and I am excited for the Meals with Mobsters. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Walking in the city, playing some games. It's getting close. There's some lattes. I'm excited about that. I'll have to look up the date of the release of the agenda, because I really want to get it up the mobster shadow agenda as well as possible. Yeah. Yeah. Which we will discuss in the mob on Facebook, which you can find by searching the flash mob. Mm-hmm. It will be nice. I will feel much more settled when we know where we will be and when we will be there. My OCD is slightly pitching on that one. They have creams for that. We don't grow it often. Yeah. Anyway, thanks a lot, Time Traveler. Absolutely. And thank you again, Colorado Joe. Always so fantastic to hear from you. All right, let us slide into the final turn of the show. Let's feasibly hear first from... The R. O. I haven't done any work on the Skinner Coes this week, because I thought ahead a little while ago, and I did some extra Skinner Coes, but now you're kind of getting behind again because you... No, I'm not. I still have an extra Skinner Coes to go. Oh, very nice. But actually, I've been spending this time working on our next flyer. Yes. The Ruby flyer has gotten some excellent postings. We need to work out a Google map that people can pin where they've posted flyers, just so we can... I don't want to give away anybody who's uncomfortable giving away their hometown or whatever, but it would be excellent to know where the flyers are going up. I have to say, there is a tendency in podcasting to slump during the summer. A lot of podcasts go into... I found with the How Stuff Works, some of the movies you've gone into playing repeats, which is sort of weird. Because the feed is still there. If people want to hear it, they can go back. But I guess because of the way they build over time. And it's been so long, you don't necessarily want to go through the backlog, or you don't have the backlogs, but they'll just play something again. Yeah. Anyway, but... We should consider that. Except for our summer schedule, no way, man. Except for our summer schedule... Or me. Or slow down, as far as we've gone. But we've been surprisingly lucky, I think, with flyer postings and how they've pulled in some new folks. The numbers? Yeah. I'm trying not to give a future, I just enjoy where they're at now. Yeah. Well, I mean, if we are, like, honestly, the show isn't incredibly huge. It's big enough. It's ten times as big as it was last year. And it's, you know, we're feeling more than a large bar now, I would say, every time we put up an episode, it's pretty good. Mm-hmm. Anyway, this flyer, it's not going to be a ruby flyer. It'll be a different serial, so it'll be nice to have that up on the streets. Something new for people who didn't necessarily grab the zombie one. Maybe this will catch their eye. I'm trying to convince the family to go get some froyo, and there's the town there that I put up flyers recently, and then when, like, crazy. Yeah. So, like, everything was torn, or, you know, it's just, it's a very busy place. So when we try the froyo... It must be all the first time. It must be. Yeah. Froyo fanatics. Yeah. Geeks. Froyo. Stories. Zombies. Zombies love froyo. Exactly. So we need to bring posters on Froyo Day. And if you, if you've picked up Flashpalt via one of those posters, please drop us a line. Mm-hmm. We love hearing from these folks. We will praise you, and love you, and some new stickers, and write you into a story, and do you talk... What are you talking about? Our fifthborn. We're not going to do any of those things. We're not going to have any of those things. No. You won't give them. I might follow you back on Twitter if you're lucky. Oh. Oh. I'm kidding. You're so kidding. So, yeah, that's, that's what I've been working on. My flyer. Very nice. My flyer. How about you, Jamie? Are you a dassy, old Hulk? The work that I was going to do this week, I totally forgot to do, guys. Just completely flew past my mind. It's mine early. No, I, I think you should just announce the what you're doing. I don't think you need to, whatever. You only really mentioned it on the mob. There's a new contest, everyone. Mm-hmm. On the mob, you have to go to the mob on Facebook. But... Find the link in the show news. Yeah. You're going to do, it's sort of like a caption contest, right? Yeah, you're going to post a concept or image. Yep. And then people are going to think up, well, we were saying limericks, but like a little poem or something. Yes, a little poem. It would be cool if there was some rhyming involved, something rather short. No, I believe we determined that they absolutely had to be rhyming. Oh, they're absolutely had to be rhyming. It didn't have to be a limerick, though. Yes, correct. Because Tippy didn't like that. Well, you don't want to restrict the rules too much. That's right. That's right. Tippy's a good judge of these things. I'm glad to have her around. I liked the way we worked out the rules so many democratically. You're like, hey, contest. What should we do, guys? And there was quite a lot of talk about it. Anyways... I believe actually Strasbourg won the first one. Yeah. Well, it wasn't even. He just ended up writing a poem. And it was awesome. And because it was so awesome, we declared that the winner of the first round. And then upon doing so, I completely forgot and did nothing about it. Well, you should get on that now and hopefully it'll be posted by Sunday, right? Yeah, I can do things like that. Excellent. Backroom plots. Let's start with Sergeant Spith and Model Behavior. I just had a few extra notes that I wanted to bring up. The Maguai Connection. This episode I wrote with... Sometimes I refer to the three-parters as Star Wars plotting, especially if the first one is sort of self-contained, and then the second ends on a big cliffhanger and resolves in third. This was Gremlins plotting. I've always had a love of Gremlins and the sort of PG-13 lore that surrounds it. It was a huge influence in my youth. And to have the story sort of turned so brutal so quickly. Yeah, I remember reading that script too, and it was before it got to the twist or whatever, the reveal. The first couple of sentences, I was just reading and thinking, "Oh, this is so cute! Oh, I was texting you from where I was reading your downstairs in your office or something." I was like, "Oh, this is so sweet! You'll understand soon." But I was pretty pleased with how it worked out. I love how you never really warn her, or sometimes because she really is about anticipation that if you say a little something, she's like, "Oh, what?" It's just so, you're so affected about it. You drop me a little hint and I just can't stop picking. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again. And then 275, dwelling. Mm-hmm. Another of my assaults on the haunted house genre. Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah. Do you guys remember the Blackhall story? Okay. I think we've discussed this in the past. How ghost stories are all kind of inherently not scary for a very specific reason. The thing that always broke ghost stories for me is that the worst thing a ghost can do to you is kill you, but then in turn, a violent death ensures that you, in a universe with ghosts, are going to be turned into a ghost. Yes. At which point you are locked into co-haunting with some dick who killed you. Mm-hmm. Like the last person who you'd want to also haunt with you. But at that point, you're just constantly like, "Can you haunt a hunter? Can you just constantly kill a ghost?" You can't just kill a ghost. Yeah, exactly. You can't even theoretically touch each other or just pass through each other or whatever. Yeah. I do remember that Blackhall where when somebody finally died where they hit their head on a rock or their head on a rock or something, they ran back in the house after the other apparition or whatever. Mm-hmm. I kind of, you know, ghost stories in some ways don't work for me, which is weird with coffin being what he is, but at least classic ghost stories to do. But I felt like this was just another... this one came, honestly, from the nugget of the image of the door. I don't want... Well, I guess we've already talked a little bit about... The door being a mouse? Yeah. And I know that's a common, you know, ghost house trope, but the chewing. Yes. Just really... I liked the images horrible as it was. And then when I, but I hate, you know, I just hate the ghost house trope in general, until I started writing around this one and how I could sort of flip that on his head. See, I just liked that the house had so much personality. You know what else has personality? Like... She's whiz. Yeah. Like it wasn't just like, you know, you... It wasn't a minor... It was killing her thing. You didn't have to kill her. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, you know what? I just decided that it liked a certain occupant enough that it wouldn't have, you know, killed her. Or that I didn't actually want the newlywed couple to leave, but it scared us. So is this... It was disappointed that they ran away too quickly for its liking. But it wasn't like it had good intentions for the pen room. No, but you personified it so well. It didn't have to have good intentions. I just liked that this thing that was an object got so personified. And it had such a range of emotion. You wouldn't think of a haunted house being disappointed, you know? Well, thank you. I don't know. Remember, it was kind of proud of its new appearance when it got renovated. Yeah. Yeah. It knew better than to kill the kid the first time, because it didn't want to raise suspicion. It wasn't mindless, you know? For sure. And I like that you broke that trope. Thank you. Yes. Carry on. Sort of fittingly, I've been listening to a lot of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. Now, this is not music for everyone, and by everyone I really mean Jessica May. I saw you look over at me a moment ago. I do not often wade so deep into the hipster river, but there is something to the way that their latest album sort of sounds like, well, the band in general, I suppose, sort of sounds like a 60s, 70s, 80s, early 80s radio smashed together and just playing out random portions is pretty fantastic, and I really enjoy it. But at the same time, Jessica May cannot stand to listen to any of it. Some of it is worse than other parts of it. Some of it is terrible, and some of it is awful. Wait, awful with an A or awful with an O? Yeah. Not awful. Absolutely not awful. These are a kind host, Jim. Ah, Jim. Thanks, Jim. Jim. Host of wiki.flashpop.com and flashpop.com. Hmm. He's always there. Master of the relic radio empire. I always appreciate it. I always forget to mention you can also find Jim over at theaudiments.com, so it's a solid block. It's always posting something interesting over there. Anyway, you can find us at SkinnerCo on Twitter. And if you enjoy the show, tell a friend. Really enjoy the show? We've got a donate button on the site. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashpop.com. Or email us text or mp3s to comments@flashpop.com. Jessica May's vocal talents, musicals, standlets can be found at maintenance.com, and the entire run of flashpop can be found at flashpop.com, actually in the newly created archive, or via the search bar and iTunes, flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution known commercial 2.5 lessons.