Coming Soon: A Night with Gonterman - The Radio Drama (collaborative episode)

We are proud to announce that we have begun work on our second collaborative episode: a dramatization of David Gonterman's "A Night with Gonterman."  For this episode, we have combined forces with Franzie von Karma (of Bad Fanfiction Theater) and adapted Gonterman's infamous, semi-coherent script-fic into a full-fledged radio play.  The story itself is vintage Gonterman: a metatextual multiverse crossover which features characters from Darkstalkers, Sailor Moon, the WWF, and Mystery Science Theatre (!) and a narrative where Gonterman inserts not only God Mode Marty Stu but also another fictionalized version of himself.  It's like a Charlie Kaufman screenplay hatched from the pop-culture addled brain of a nerd with some seriously unhealthy Übermensch fantasies.

To bring this rousing tale to life, we have assembled a formidable cast of voice actors:

THE CAST

Pamachu (Crap Fic Theater)

Franzie von Karma (Bad Fan Fiction Theater)

Sean Russell (Anime 3000)

The Girl Nerd (The Girl Nerd's Podcast)

The Guy Nerd (The Girl Nerd's Podcast)

Cat Bountry (Cat Bountry vs. Earth)

Andrew Cooke (Pretentious Internet Theatre)

Jeff Tatarek (Lather's Blather)

C. Smith (Heavens Feel Press)

Stay tuned for more news about this exciting episode!

Episode 13: My Immortal, chapters 1-22

Oh, god.  "My Immortal."  How does one describe Tara Gilesbie's fanfiction magnum opus?  

In truth, you can't.  But here are three small nuggets of information I can pass on before you listen to this episode:

1.  Tara Gilesbie's "My Immortal" is universally acknowledged as the worst Harry Potter fanfic ever written.
2. Numerous sources agree that Tara Gilesbie's "My Immortal" might be the worst work of fanfiction ever written.
3. Others have persuasively argued that Tara Gilesbie's "My Immortal" might even be the worst piece of prose fiction ever written.  EVER.

Included in this episode are the first twenty-two chapters where we are introduced to our Mary Sue tragically beautiful "goffik" heroine, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, who spends her time shopping at Hot Topic, whining melodramatically, practicing vampirism, boinking Draco and Harry (who are both now hot "goffik" bi dudes in leather pants), flipping off preps, and single-handedly presiding over the Gerard Way Fan Club.  Good luck figuring anything else out from this train-wreck.

Just don't fuck with Dumbledore.  Especially when he has a headache.

As mentioned earlier, we plan on recording all of "My Immortal" at some point, although we may have to spread out the remaining chapters over two episodes.  Why?  Because this episode is almost two friggin' hours!  Gah!  At any rate, we're gonna take a short break before we return to the world of goffik Tara Gilesbie.

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Next Time: Something that isn't "My Immortal."  Oh, please.  Make the hurting stop.

Coming Soon: My Immortal

Listen up, preps.  It's official.  We are proud to announce that we have started production on our audiobook dramatization of Tara Gilesbie's notorious fanfiction masterpiece "My Immortal," which is being recorded in response to the challenge issued by Pretentious Internet Theatre.  And, yes, we plan on doing the entire thing.

The entire 40+ chapter series will be spread over two individual episodes (which will not be produced back-to-back, I'm afraid, as I wish to preserve my sanity).  The first episode will contain chapters 1-22 while the second episode will feature chapters 23-44 and additional bonus content.

Oh boy.  It's gonna be a long couple of months.

Episode 12: The Piasa Bird

Ohmigod, you guys!  It's David Gonterman!

"The Piasa Bird" (also known as "The Piasa Incident" and "Piasa") is the first chapter in Gonterman's inimitable fanfiction magnum opus: The Davey Crockett Trilogy.  Mixing self-insertion power fantasies, massive multi-fandom crossovers, and right-wing agitprop, Gonterman's notorious fanfiction trifecta is a spectacular mess that garnered the author unprecedented levels of infamy and the unenviable status of persona non grata within several fan communities.  In this story, Gonterman uses the Power Rangers continuity as the backdrop for a furious, froth-mouthed screed against multiculturalism where the author's alter-ego marches into the narrative like a paleoconservative superhero who solves racial unrest with a series of shotgun blasts and incoherent blithers of white supremacist rhetoric.  The Power Rangers, on the other hand, function as nothing more than sounding boards for Gonterman's numbskull political opinions and Zach (the Black Ranger and our first-person narrator) even begins to exhibit near-pathological levels of self-loathing as he lauds Gonterman's alter-ego with near-messianic adulation and presents his white nationalist teachings as religious gospel.  

And Gonterman still found ways to be even more tasteless and offensive in his later stories (go ahead and read "American Kitsune" if you don't believe me).

We plan on eventually recording both "Blood and Metal" (seven chapters) and "American Kitsune" (incomplete at eleven chapters).  Let us know which of these you'd like to listen to first.

Note: Also included in this episode is a message from Andrew Cook of Pretentious Internet Theater and our response.

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Next Time: You'll find out at the end of this episode!

Announcements

No new episode this week, I'm afraid.  I would give you a customary (and needlessly long-winded) update, but there isn't much to tell.  I have almost completed the next episode, an audiobook production of David Gonterman's "The Piasa Bird," and am still in the process of editing the... well, punishingly long "Quorra Punishment Chapters," a mega-sized multi-character crossover that doubles as hyper-sexual agitprop.  I've also heard from a few people eager to hear our production of "Artemis's Lover," one of the most infamous (and nauseating) works of erotic fanfiction ever written.  As we said in the past, we've got the entire thing recorded... but postponed its release for ages because... well, have actually you read the damn thing? <shudders>  So perhaps you'll be listening to that soon as well.  Anyway, our next episode should be posted next Monday.

As some of you might have heard, our podcast was also mentioned on the most recent episode of Pretentious Internet Theatre, where we were issued a seemingly insurmountable challenge by host Andrew Cook.  What was this challenge?  And what was our response?  Well, I suppose you'll have to listen to their most recent episode (Episode 36) and stay tuned for our rebuttal (which will be attached to  Monday's episode).

One more thing: Heavens Feel Press finally finished their audiobook production of the Hellstorm Evangelion trilogy this week with their release of "Issei Strikes Back."  Give it a listen.

Episode 11: Mortal Kombat/TMNT Crossover

Before inter-continuity combat became a recurring cash-grab trend in fighting games, TurtleNinja's imaginatively titled "Mortal Kombat/TMNT Crossover" sought to bridge the gap between innocuous children shows about reptilian martial-artists who love pizza and splatter-gore video games where you have the option of either decapitating your opponent or ripping out his spine.  In this episode's fanfic, the Ninja Turtles team up with a grossly out-of-character Shredder (who, as the author repeatedly points out, is secretly a really nice guy underneath all those layers of megalomania) after they are inexplicably transported to Outworld by Shao Khan who hatches a sinister scheme where... uuuuh... y'know, I really don't know.  Something about how the Turtles "may be useful as [his] entertainment in the next tournament."  Whatever, man.  Wake me up when Michelangelo and Scorpion start brawling.

But there's a catch: this fanfic also features a stealth Mary Sue.

The author tosses into her MUGEN-esque mash-up a mawkish subplot where the romantic exploits of an ambiguously gendered Relationship Sue named (wait for it) TurtleNinja take center-stage and pull us away from the perfunctory, blink-or-you'll-miss-'em fight scenes.  No great loss, I suppose, since the brawling is mostly of the beige variety.  Then again, the mental image of humanoid reptiles gettin' their freak on will probably haunt me until the day I die.

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Next Time: "Quorra Punishment Chapters," most likely.  Unless you guys think I should finally release that long-abandoned audiobook production of "Artemis's Lover" I recorded ages ago.  Confused?  Keep listening after the end of this week's episode for more information.  Either way, the next episode might take a little longer than usual as I am going on a much-needed summer vacation.

Note: So, uh, I apparently spazzed out near the end of this production and screwed up some of the editing during the outro.  Nothing major.  But still... our apologies.  

Episode 10: Until the End of Time (collaborative episode)

This week's episode is guaranteed to please those of you who read The Diary of Anne Frank in grade school and thought, "Hmm... y'know, this book's pretty sweet... but it would be even more badass if Anne Frank teamed up with a squad of Super Saiyans, massacred gestapo officers with superpowered Ki blasts, and got into boasting matches with muscle-bound extraterrestrial martial artists."  Yes, that's right: it's a goddamn Dragon Ball Z/Anne Frank crossover.  One of the most notorious examples of intra-continuity shipping, gofer-chan's "Until the End of Time" meshes the genres of romantic melodrama, revisionist history, and batshit insanity by pairing off doomed diarist and Holocaust victim Anne Frank (you know... that Anne Frank!) with Goku, the intrepid protagonist of Dragon Ball Z and self-proclaimed strongest man in the universe.  And that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg!  A crude mash-up of maudlin melodrama and superpowered chop-socky fist-fights, gofer-chan's fanfic reaches now legendary levels of hysteria and madness (over 9000!) with a third-act cameo from Adolf Hitler where... well, I suppose you'll have to find out on your own.

This is also our first collaborative audiobook production where we were able to wrangle up some of the biggest luminaries of the anime and manga podcasting scene.  And what a cast we have assembled!

Our Cast

Goku - Ichigo (Anime Pulse)

Anne Frank - The Girl Nerd (The Girl Nerd's Podcast)

Adolf Hitler - Sean Russell (Anime 3000)

A special thanks to our guest performers.  They deserve nothing less than the internet equivalent of a standing ovation.

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Next Time: The aptly-titled "Mortal Kombat/TMNT Crossover."