At the Mountains of Dadness Ch. 1 - Casting Call of Cthulhu
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Dungeons and Daddies is a rowdy, horny, violent podcast for grownups. Basically, all the good stuff. That was a my dad wrote a porno reference. Anyways, content warnings can be found in the episode description.

What you're about to hear is part one of a three-part series called At the Mountains of Dadness, which was a stretch goal we did for our Patreon supporters. It's a prequel campaign played in the Call of Cthulhu system set in the year 1939 following the grandparents of Daryl, Henry, Glenn, and Ron. If you want to hear the rest of this series, there's two ways you can do it. The easiest is to become a Patreon supporter at any level, and depending on where you come in, you can get access to a rich backlog of behind-the-scenes content, our post-recording aftershow called Talking Dad, exclusive one-shots, uncut episodes, DM notes,

We put a ton of effort into our Patreon bonuses and you can support the show and check them out at patreon.com slash dungeonsanddads.

If you can't commit to the Patreon, we get it. The other way is to head to our store at dungeonsanddaddies.com or ron.business where you can find all three parts of At the Mountains of Dadness available for sale as a digital download. Either way, thank you for supporting us with your listenership or following our social media accounts at Dungeons and Dads on Twitter or bit.ly slash Dungeon Dads on Facebook or just sharing the podcast with your friends. Thank you all for a wild first year. Happy Honda Days and we will see you again January 8th, 2020. That's when the next episode is coming out.

Chapter 1, Casting Call of Cthulhu. Welcome to At the Mountains of Dadness, a Dungeons & Daddies prequel miniseries where we follow the grandparents of the main dads from the Dungeons & Daddies podcast as you deal with a bunch of Cthulhu-ass bullshit. My name is Anthony Burch and I'm your keeper. My name is Freddie Wong. I play not Glenn Close, but in fact...

Meryl Streep, a similarly named star, actor, stage and screen of the silent era, falling into a bit of hard times now that talkies have made their way. So sort of like a former huge big deal, but as the movies made the transition to sound, has not quite found his foothold in Hollywood as, you know, being of Asian descent has made it a little bit more difficult to find roles, but was once a big deal and still carries himself as such.

Based loosely off of a Japanese actor around the turn of the century by the name of Sasui Hayakawa, who was also a heartthrob. And Meryl Streep is the grandfather on the mom's side of Glenn Close. Oh, very cool. Yeah. What was the first movie that Meryl Streep starred in?

Kramer versus Kramer. There's a story about a Japanese ad exec trying to get custody of his kid back fighting the American legal system. He's a real underdog in that fucking movie. Huge underdog in this case. My name is Matthew Arnold. I'm playing Robert Wilson, the grandfather of Daryl Wilson on his father's side. And Robert or Robbie is or Rob is

Those are all the various versions of Robert. Got them all. Don't forget Bob. And Bob. He does not like Bob. That's not even a dad fact. That's a free dad fact. Just throwing it out there. He hates Bob. He is a cowardly line producer who deep down wishes he was a stuntman because his dad was a war hero, so he wishes he could be as cool as him. And a little dad fact is that he owns three cats. He is, by the way, have a steady girlfriend, but despite that, he still also has three cats. That's all. What are the names of the cats? They are Bob, Robert, and Robbie. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

That's economical storytelling. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and all the ships at sea. I'm Will Campos, 1930s mode, and I'm playing Hildy Russett, roving cub reporter for the San Dimas Defender, a.k.a. Sally Stipe, her undercover alias when she's operating as a makeup artist on Blue Planet. So Hildy is the grandmother of Henry Oak on his dad's side, we'll say.

And a dad fact, grandma fact about Hilde is that her favorite musician is the crooner Louis Prima. Her favorite Louis Prima song. She loves Stardust. She goes absolutely crazy for Long About Midnight. Really the early Prima era when he had Jack Ryan on bass, Garrett McAdams on guitar. Like that was the really quality era of Louis Prima. So that's what she likes. That's what she listens to in her spare time when she's not digging up scoops. Hello, my name is Beth May and I play Stuart, a.k.a. Stud Stampler.

Um...

So actually, Stud is technically Ron Stampler's biological great uncle, but is, for all intents and purposes, his grandfather on his dad's side. Okay. Fun great uncle fact about Stud Stampler is that he does not have polio. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

A rarity in these ages. Before we begin, there's just some stuff that you should probably know to better enjoy what the heck it is we're doing because we're using the Call of Cthulhu system and not Dungeons and Dragons. First of all, thank you to Tin Bromide, TPKthulu, and Scam Likely from our Discord for helping me out with prepping this game because I've never DMed Call of Cthulhu before and they gave me a lot of help.

Also, just keep in mind that there's going to... This is your content warning because it's a horror game. There's going to be some like creepy body horror stuff. There's probably gonna be some violence. Nothing sexual or anything if that's something that you're worried about. But it could get a little rough, a little gross. Like more so than we usually do. Yeah, like...

The library, the shit with the library with the hand coming off, it's going to be stuff like in that vein, but slightly less funny. But yeah. And also like, obviously it's Lovecraft and he was a piece of shit. So the, just, just so you know, the entire idea of this system is inherently problematic and stupid. And we're just going to kind of like go and just do it anyway. The idea that you can lose a bunch of sanity and then become a useless society makes no sense at all.

But whatever. Okay, so the way that this game works is when you hear our players make rolls, unlike D&D, they don't want to roll high. The idea is that you have high stats on your character sheet, but you roll a D100 and you want to roll under the stat that you were trying to get to. So just so you know, if people get a low roll and then start being happy, that's why. Or it's that we're going insane. The other thing is insanity. Every character has a certain number of sanity points. And by seeing horrifying things or things that expand beyond the limits of human consciousness,

They will lose sanity points, which can lead to temporary madness and all these things. The basic idea is that if they ever lose all their sanity, they are out of the game. It is the same as being dead. And unlike Dungeon Daddies, currently there are no training wheels on, so any or all of these characters could die. It's a fucking fair game. And with that, welcome to At the Mountains of Dadness, Chapter 1, Casting Call of Cthulhu. ♪

We open and when our verdant green field with flora and fauna that seems so unlike our own, the kind that like bends your mind and expands your consciousness and a bipedal creature, very much like a human, but far, far taller and more beautiful in a way. And yet also more horrifying approaches a pretty generic looking white dude. So the white guy goes like, Oh,

Oh, wow. Tell me about this world. What is this? Where am I? Mr. Jacob Sullivan, you're like a baby. You... Sorry, this is... Can we... This is ridiculous. Cut! The stilts are killing me here.

A bunch of crew people walk around in Hustling and Bustling, and if this were a movie, you'd see a title on the bottom that says, San Dimas, California, 1939. The director comes up to you and goes, what was the problem with that? What was wrong? I've worn all kinds of crazy costumes for my films, but nothing as ridiculous as this. That's, I, you, look. I've played all manner of beasts and all manner of villains, vampires, monsters, but this, this is dreck. This is beneath me. This is

ridiculous. This blue makeup all over me. I can't even, my skin, someone, I need, bring the makeup. Excuse me. And then a plucky 23 year old Sally Stipe rushes up to the scene with a big bucket of blue paint and dabs a cotton swab in it. I I'm sorry, Mr. Merrill, sir. I just, you're, you're getting so flush and angry and your blue makeup's running off. So I'm just going to dab this on. Do we have to do the blue makeup? Is this part of the thing? I don't understand. For the hundredth time. Yes. The director says, even though we are shooting in black and white, they will be able to

tell even if they can't really tell that the aliens are blue it's gonna be great if you would just trust me and stop talking about how you're better than this project it's i find it very insulting excuse me hi excuse me oh my god what so robert wilson uh walks up he's a he's a little nervous line producer kind of hunched over holding a clipboard

Um, just so you know, that's the last bucket of blue paint I can, I can afford. So, you know, not, I'm not telling you how to do your job, but we should probably, is this seem good? Are we good to move on? The director throws down his beret and says, you know what? That's break. And he just storms off. No, we can't break. This bucket of blue paint is not going to get through all hundred extras we have to get through. This is about three people worth of blue paint here. So, uh, what do you need? Do you need me to get some water? This isn't really, what's your name? My name is Sally. Um,

Stipe. Yeah, that's it. Sally Stipe. That's my name. Sally, sure. I'm the makeup girl. Listen, Sally, let me cut you a deal here. How about you put that away, maybe spill it somewhere, and we just do the rest of it because these idiots here don't know what they're doing. Excuse me, excuse me, Sally. I was wondering if we could use some of that blue paint for the set.

My name's Stuart, a.k.a. Stud Stampler. Are we just allowing anybody to come up to talk to the actors at this point? Hey, I got just as much right to be here as you, buddy. I'm an actor myself, sort of. Oh, boy.

Oh, well, I want to be. Yeah. I got dreams, buddy. Stud. Stud. Is that your name? Yeah. Nice to meet you. Let me five here. My name is Robbie. You can call me Robbie. Hey, Rob. As he says, let me five. He holds out his hand for a handshake because that's the slang for give me a handshake. Hey, what set are you talking about? Um,

Well, there's not a set right now, but I'm a good builder. I'm a construction worker. Meryl's at the craft services table in the background, just like, Olives and saltines? You call this craft services? What is this malarkey? Yeah, you see that craft services table? I built that. I built that with my bare hands. As you're all talking amongst yourselves, you hear the telltale trump of boots that signals the arrival of the studio head of Father's Own Studio, which is the film studio that you work at.

Father's own studio? Father's own studio. You see the familiar and constantly furrowed brow of R.L. Stine, S-T-E-I-N, walking onto set. Oh!

And he goes, stop production, stop production. This is, this is, are you guys still playing your stupid make-believe games? Thank goodness. Finally, someone who's going to take us out of this two-bit production and get me in the sun. Shut up. I was going to say something racist, but no, we're not doing that. It's going to be very tempting for characters to be racist in this, but no, we shouldn't do that.

All right, who's in charge here? Where's the director? And he points at the line producer. Oh, hi. Pleasure to see you here, sir. I'm glad you came down. The director, I think he went off. Sally, did you see where the director went? I think he ran off to his trailer shouting something racist that I'm not going to repeat. That sounds just like him. Yeah. You know what? Fuck it. Doesn't matter. Or fart it. It doesn't matter. I don't know how people cursed in 1930s. Ah, beans. Beans. Ah, beans it. People said fuck. Yeah. I would actually appreciate if you didn't curse around me.

It goes, okay. He just arbitrarily looks around and points at each one of you in turn. He goes, you, you, you, and you. I need you for a job. I need something. Anything you want, sir. Take a walk with me.

And you start walking through Father's Own Studios, which for all of its glitz and glamour is clearly millimeters away from utter bankruptcy. Trying so very hard to reach the heights of RKO Pictures and the other great picture studios around the town. It's a shoestring operation for sure. R.L. Stine has been for the last five, ten years basically trying to make it Hollywood II, East Hollywood. As he leads you out, he walks you past the soundstage where they were shooting the number one picture that the studio was hoping to make a really big hit, The Heart's Greatest Desire. And he points at the empty soundstage, he goes...

You see that? That's where we're supposed to be shooting in the real shit, not the namby-pamby, blue planet, guys having sex with a hair woman. That gibberish you guys are doing. We're not doing that. Finally, someone who sees eye to eye with me. So the director, he sort of, and he leans in and sort of huddles you in in what would be a dad huddle if he were a dad, but he's not. And he goes...

The director's gone missing, along with the star, and more importantly, the film. The most recent cut of the film is just gone, and what I need you to do... Is remake it. No. Okay.

Because you'd be bad at it. I need you to go and I need you to bring it back here. Because otherwise, this studio is kaput. Your careers are fucked. And do not let anyone else know about it. The last time he went missing, there were some slight prostitute murders. So I just need you to keep it under your hat. If you understand what I'm saying. Prostitution and murder. Sounds like we should call the cops. I can do that for you right now if you would like. No, do not call the cops. If the cops get called, then they'll arrest him. And then we won't get the film back. I need you to go get it and bring it back.

to me, without letting anybody know, do you realize the PR disaster it would be? It certainly would be a PR disaster. It would be a sensational story, the likes of which no one has ever seen, and the intrepid reporter who caught the scoop, why, he'd be able to write his own meal ticket, I bet. That's a fair assessment, yeah. You just want us to preserve the magic of the movie, make it real again, you know?

He puts a hand on your shoulder and he goes, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Mr. Stein, can I have a side with you, Mr. Stein? Just over here, three feet away. Yeah, and he just doesn't move. I stand slightly farther away from him. So now you're just like shouting. It's just raised voices. I look at everyone else. I'm like, hey, guys, scram a little bit.

I'm going to stay right here. I'm six feet back. Is it enough? I can go farther. Sally's like, I'll be right over there if you need me, boys. While everyone's not looking, she tries to hide in a nearby bush. Oh, fun. So this picture that they were shooting. Todd's greatest desire, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's say we do a little thing here. I call in some favors. We sniff around for your director friend.

I hear you guys were recasting the villain. There was no plans to. I hear you guys were doing a little recasting the villain. We're doing a little quid pro quos to quote the ancient Chinese. That's Latin, my friend. Same thing. It's so tempting to be racist. I know it is, right? So listen, as you know, star of the silent era, Meryl Streep here. I'm

I'm looking for a... Oh, yeah, you were the sexually charged villain in that detective picture. Yes. Well, you know. My wife had some feelings about you that I had to stamp down, but quick. She wasn't the only one, let me tell you. So, here, let me just cut this. Mr. Streep, sir, I just want to say I had those feelings, too. I'm going to step back now. Okay.

Let me just cut straight to the chase. He says, ignoring the plucky carpenter. I'll call in some favors with some of my friends in town. Dig up your erstwhile director here. And how about you say in return, you give me a part in this picture. I say, I'll get you an audition. I'd like to intimidate you. Yeah, go ahead. So you're going to roll D100 and try to roll under whatever your intimidation stat is. What is your intimidation stat? This is what's insane. It's like, okay, intimidation, intimidation, dodge.

drive automobile electrical repair. I have a 40 on intimidation because I figure I have a lot of like old Hollywood contacts, even though they may not necessarily call me back. I'm going to use those. I'm like, see, I know Mr. Selznick. So I'm saying, how about you just get me that roll? 88. That's a far above my 40. And he goes,

Yeah, absolutely. And he gives you he gives you what you have come to become accustomed to as a polite dismissal and lie. You've probably been lied to enough in this town being a handsome Asian man in an industry propagated primarily by white dudes to know when you're being lied to. Yeah, I got a good sense of that.

I sigh and I step back. All right, we'll look for this guy. I figure a favor owed anywhere is worth something. That's fair. He walks you back to the rest of the fools. Three steps. Just to... I don't mean to be a problem, but just to clarify, the four of us, we have this actor that clearly...

Does not want to do this. And this gentleman I just met, who I'm not sure if works here or not. Do you work here? I don't have you on. You talking to me? Yeah. Well, I want to work here. I just moved in. I'm looking for jobs. And I figure I'm good with my hands. I'm a handy man. I could do anything on this set. You need a water? I can get a water. Yes, get me a water.

Okay, I'll be back. Do you know where any water is? Excuse me. Hey, anybody got a water over here? It's real important. What was the dumb question? What was the dumb thing you were going to say? Are we the best ones to do this? I run back with the water. That's not water. Oh. That's coffee. Oh. I'll be right back. He says, look.

I'm not going to pretend that you're the only group of people I have looking for this guy. I hired a private detective. He hasn't come back. So I feel like I need to send people that I don't care about so much. High quality H2O right here. It's for everybody. Everybody can drink out of this bottle. We don't believe in germs anymore. Your hands are full of whipped cream.

I'll be right back. Listen, fellas, I can see what's going on here. He saw a star like myself with the connections that I have all around town. He figured we were probably the best bet. And you folks are my lackeys coming along here. You numbers, pencils. What's your name again? Robert. Ravi. Pencils. I like pencils. And you? There were three of you. What happened? I might overhear, gentlemen. And then you hear a voice come from a bush nearby.

It's me, Sally Stipe, the makeup girl. That bush is talking. I pop out of the bush. Through my many adventures, I know a thing or two about disguises and hiding in places, and I think I'd be just the ticket for this kind of job. He probably thought that I could use a makeup person at any point if I needed to slip into a disguise and surreptitiously listen in on conversations. That makes sense. Stein says, you know what? Let's go with that. Yeah, you're the face, he's the makeup, and then you get water, and then the other one is... I've got it. I've got the water. I confirm with three different people that this is water.

I love that there's still like Ron Stampler energy that still comes through in this. How did you bring that? Is it in a cup? Did they have bottled water back then? No, they didn't. Oh yeah, it's definitely in a cup. I just take the cup of water and I just gulp it down. I'm very nervous. There you go, sir. Mr. Stein? Yes. Can I talk to you for one second? Yes.

Can you step aside a little bit? No, just talk to me now. Why does everybody need any... I don't care about any of you enough to give you the slightest amount of respect. Just give me what? Okay, if you gentlemen, this is a business conversation. If you could just turn around for a second. Absolutely. Hey, Mr. Street, I just want to show you something real quick. I've been working on that grimace, that sexy sort of smolder that you got going. Look at my face right now. Okay.

Do you like it? I think I could be a big star like you someday. I put a hand gently on the shoulder. I'm like, why don't you fetch me some more water? Absolutely, sir. Of course. I'll even get it in a cup for you. Yeah. Why don't you skedaddle? So Sally, if you want to listen in on whatever is going to be said, you can roll your listen skill. Actually, I am going to run to the nearest payphone. Oh, great. Okay. And so I pop in a nickel. That's like $5,000, right? Yeah.

You take a mortgage out on your house to get a quarter. Hello, operator. Yes. Get me the San Dimas Defender, please. Connecting you. You hear a grizzled voice that you know to be that of your editor pick up the phone and go, Yeah, what do you want? Julian, it's Hildy.

I'm undercover on the Father's Own Picture set, and I've got a sensational scoop for you. You promised me a scoop weeks ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Take this down. Father's Own Pictures, newest hit film, heart's greatest desire, entire crew goes missing. Rogue team of washed up actors, wannabe actors, and anxious film producer go to find crew. I'll be tagging along undercover as Sally Stipe, my alias incognito. I need something more. I need to know why.

Well, horse feathers. Hold your dang horses. I'm on the scoop. I'm on the beat. I'm going to get it for you. Just you wait and see. This is going to be way better than my last ten stories that you didn't publish. I'm not holding the presses for this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm holding my breath. Go eat your eggs, Julian. And then I hang up. Oh.

All right. Holy shit. Well, good job. So what conversation is? Sir, I can't. You know, I've been working for you for 11 years now. Have you? Yeah. 11 years. I came here as a young line producer and 11 years later, I'm still your young line producer. You're just so good at it, I guess. So look, it's very clear. I've worked with you long enough to know that if we don't do this, we're going to be fired. Correct. You know, usually this should definitely be a hazard pay. But I'll tell you what, I'll cut you a deal.

You're trying to make deals with me. Well, yeah, otherwise you would have to. I mean, you don't want me to go to, you know, you owe us hazard pay. Oh, are you trying to extort me, my friend? No, no, no, sir. Just listen for one second. I was just thinking if this movie does continue, I would love to, you know, I don't want to be an actor or anything, but, you know, I'm pretty good at, you know, I can take a hit or two. And there's a pretty big stunt, uh,

That happens in the movie. There's a guy that when they walk past at the restaurant scene, they push him and he stumbles backwards. I was thinking I could be that guy. Right into a trolley. No, no, no, no, no, no. He just stumbles backwards and he puts his hand on the table. So give me roll either persuade or intimidate because it sounded like you were threatening to maybe tell people about. I'll do intimidate because that's a 15 instead of my persuade, which is 10. Oh, wait.

That's a 20. Oh, that's close, but no cigar. And he goes, I understand. So you said you're good at taking hits, huh? And he socks you in the gut. And that's going to do 1d2 of damage. So he only does one damage to you. And he goes, I didn't get to be the head of Father's Own Studios in San Dimas, California by caving into threats. I understand. That didn't hurt me because, like I said, I'm very, very strong. Yeah, actually, his hand hurts. He goes, fuck. Fuck.

But it did intimidate me. So I just hope you'll take into consideration if we do do the job correctly. And we don't need to worry about the hazard pay. Yeah. And maybe you'll take into consideration that I got another fist that isn't broken. Stop ignoring me. What? Where I come from, they do hit people in New York. But hey, buddy. That's where they invented it. I want to hit him. You want to hit R.L. Stine? Yeah.

Okay, roll your fighting brawl. I got 26, and I have a fighting brawl of 30. 30, okay, so you're going to roll. Let me see how much damage you do. Unarmed strike is 1d3 plus a damage bonus, which should be zero for all of us. So two. Where do you hit him? How do you hit him? I hit him right in the mouth. Oh, my God. You hit him straight in the fucking mouth, and it breaks his front two teeth. And he goes, and he's so surprised he swallows them on accident. Oh, my God.

And he goes, that's it, that's it. You are fired. All of you are fired. Get the fuck off of my set. Hey, I'm tired of people like you always picking on little guys, people that didn't do anybody no harm. And then you lift up people who don't care about nobody. But the silver screen, this industry, it's about dreams, man.

In an action that is very reminiscent of Dungeons and Daddies, I try and shush the Stampler. I'm like, don't worry about that. We'll get you your folks. We'll get you these folks back. He's already waving over security guards. Sir, just to clarify, he doesn't work here. And also, I have first aid, so I'm going to try to instantly help his mouth. I've never met this person before in my life. I got an 11. I'm 65, so that was a...

powerful success. That's a very good deal. Okay, so yeah, so you manage to stop the bleeding. You can't get his teeth back because he swallowed them. He goes, oh, and then he realizes how mad he is and he fucking swats you away. He goes, get the fuck out of here. I don't want to fucking see any of you people unless you got the goddamn film reality. I especially don't want to see you pointing at stud saying, I don't want to see you again no matter what fucking what. Get the fuck out. All four of you. The next time you're

See me, buddy? It'll be on the big screen. So wait, sir, if we save the film, we get rehired? I don't know. We'll fucking see what kind of goddamn mood I'm in. Rehired and I can do that little stunt piece? Get the fucking, fucking go. All right, you know what? We will go find this other picture team. And you know why? Because it's the right thing to do. His assistant comes by and like goes, guys, guys, over here, over here, and waves you over. That shiner you gave him? Wow. I've been wanting to do that my whole life. Well done, you. You'll probably never work in this town ever again, but it was fun for me.

So here's the thing. I think if you actually do go get the film back and can get the crew, he might rehire you. I don't know. So there was a couple of places he was probably going to tell you until you punched him where you might want to check out for clues. This is a game about following clues. So there are three locations. There's the director's apartment and then there's a PI's office. We don't know where he is. Also, you could go to the editing suite where the early draft of the film is getting cut together. The editor there was working pretty closely with the director.

But we haven't heard from her either. What about hitting the streets? You know, asking the people if they've seen anything suspicious. You could do that. It would be really kind of going against the whole, like, don't let people on to what's going on. That's true. Stud, we want to keep this under our hats for right now. On the QT. Yeah. Very hush hush. Yeah. Exactly. Everybody is like, you can feel it in this room. Everyone's trawling through. It's like, L.A. Confidential. L.A. Confidential. L.A. Confidential. Quickly, all the 40s movies I've seen. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.

Sally seems to have like a knack for this sort of thing. Hey, by the way, my fiance's name is Sally. Oh, that's terrific. What a small rinky-dink world we live in. Well, not exactly fiance. I'm planning on it at any time now, though. Oh, well, you make sure to speak your peace to her. Y'all want to see the ring right now? Yeah, absolutely, man. When you gonna drop the question? Maybe after this. What's your name, assistant? My name is Dean Kuntz. Dean Kuntz? Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

Dean Kutz here helped me. D-E-N-C-O-N-T-S. Dean Kutz here helped me pick it out. What do you guys think? I hold out the ring. Oh, that's lovely. Man, she's so lucky to have a guy like you. Oh, thank you. Say, that's a whopper of a handcuff. You got quite a knack for flinging woo. I hope she doesn't give you the air. I,

I agree with everything you just said. Sorry, is that just a page in that book? All right, confession time. Everyone else has their character sheets up, and I have Dew Droppers, Waldos, and Slackers, the Decade by Decade Guide to the Vanishing Vocabulary of the 20th Century. This is from their section on 30s slang, and it's on the section about romance. So a handcuff is an engagement ring to give the air. That's dark.

Literally, in Spanish, esposa means spouse and handcuff. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flanking woo, of course. I think we all know what that means. And to give the air is to reject a marriage proposal. What? Wow. This is Ben 30 Slang Corner with Sally Stipe slash Hildy Russell. Hey, Stud, that's your name, right? Yeah, it's my name. I just want to say thanks a lot for defending me back there. Of course, man. Nobody should be picked on like a bully like that. Everybody got dreams, man. What's your dream?

Oh, in New York, I wanted to be a big star on the stage. I've been tap dancing since I was little. But then my brother Carl, well, he got sick. Actually, he made himself sick. Years of drinking, you know. He really loved that bottle. Got a bottle down his throat every night, so to speak. He actually passed away. So now, these Broadway stars come into California. I'd love to be a star here, but right now, I'm focused on raising my nephew, Willie. Oh.

I look up and down stuff to see kind of like how much I look like him. What's your size? I'm huge and very hot. No, no, no, no. Beth, your character. Yes. Okay. My character is small and very ugly. I'm size 60. Okay. Yeah. I'm size 40 and I'm as ugly as you can make it. So I look up and down. I go, you know what I mean? We look,

pretty similar and it would be you know I think we make a good team and you know I'm a line producer it's not what I'm always going to do I want to be a stunt guy at some point maybe I could be your stunt man absolutely man I mean I like doing stunts myself that's why I knocked the snot out of that other guy that was great usually you would like do the back and then I would actually do the plunge but that was really good okay well

Well, I mean, we'll talk about it, man. Sometimes Willie, you know, my nephew, I guess I should call him a kid. I mean, like a son to me now because I'm raising him. I don't know. Sometimes he does stuff that I don't agree with, like killing cats or something like that. And I have to say, I have to say like, hey, Willie, we'll talk about this later. And sometimes it means that we'll have an argument. But other times it means that we're just going to try to be friends.

You know, Sally's been talking about having Ken. I'm not so sure. Maybe we should talk about that, too. You know, boys, if you're done gabber blabbing, we've got a case to get to, and we've got a big old reel of film to find. Of course. I tell you, we can't sit around here all day smoking them dingbat doobies. We've got to get on this. I, too, have a list of slang, and it's all weed slang, baby.

Where do you think we should head to, Sal? Yeah, where do you want to go? I'm not accustomed to asking women their opinions, but you can also go to anywhere you want, basically. You can go to the library or whatever. Those are just the three that I have suggested. Oh, there's a library. The way that any call could do the mystery works is you can hypothetically do whatever the fuck you want to try to solve mysteries, which is why you have a library use skill, but it's up to you.

what you want to do. I don't know if the library will help us know where the director went at this moment. Now, if you ask me, we should head down to Musso and Frank's and have a word with some of the other directors there. Musso and Frank's? Why, that's a three-hour drive from San Dimas. You know, it's worth it. We might just get there in time for lunch, but I think we should be asking the scuttlebutt around town amongst the other directors and the other Hollywood types. But we still got to keep it very hush-hush. I propose we start our search at the director's house. If I don't miss my guess... Yeah, why not?

Hey, Dean, R.L. Stein, you know, he says on his job, he said that we were going to have a nice per diem. He was saying about $500 per diem. And don't worry, I'm going to record it all. I want to make sure that we have everything. Oh, he said that? That sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. So that's your job as an assistant. $500 per diem. Why don't you roll persuade? $500 is like a million dollars in 1939, right? Good old inflation calculator. $500 in 1939. And this year, I want to invite the audience at home to guess in your head what you think $500 in 1930s money is worth. And then click

15 seconds forward on whatever podcast app you're listening to and split yourselves. Robert always tries to do things, but he has absolutely no persuasion. It's 9,000.

$9,200 a day? No, no. That's what the word per diem means. I rolled a 72 and my persuasion is 10. Oh, he goes, oh, absolutely not. Okay, well, hey, team. That's the operating budget for the year. I understand. It was worth a try. Team, I'm going to go ahead. I'll keep the receipts and I'll break everything up. That way we can all split this up four ways.

I don't know whose car we're going to use, but don't worry about it. I just want to make sure that none of us feel like we've been screwed over or anything like that. So whose car are we taking? Not mine. My car is terrible. I don't have a car. But I thought you were a stunt driver, man.

Well, I suppose we could take mine. My driver is sick. He's away checking on his family, but I got a Duesenberg. They've got a bullet-riddled death car that's on set in the garage for All Angels Die Suddenly, the new gangster picture. So maybe we could take that and no one has to waste their gas.

Well, hey, I got a cool cap that I could put on my head and look like a driver. So let me hop behind the wheel. You go to the car for All Angels Die Suddenly, which is completely bullet riddled. And one of the tires is steadily losing air. But Dean Koontz goes, oh, that's great. Then we can write it off. Fantastic. Okay, so you're going to drive to the director's apartment? Yeah, I fucking floor it.

When you arrive at the director's apartment, you can see that the door is wide open. And before you even enter the apartment, you can smell very bad things. You smell every manner of bodily fluid imaginable. And stepping inside, it looks like somebody has smashed this place to fuck. Not to have sex, like smash it.

smashed it to hell and back yo girl i wanna fuck but first we gotta smash they fucked this place up to smash um his many awards that he's won are in pieces on the ground you smell pee everywhere uh there's this like crusty brown substance on his rewards i don't i just want to say that robert is is nose blind sorry one more time robert's nose blind he doesn't have like any smell he needs for breeze

My God. You know, in case it matters later, he doesn't have a sense of smell. I always thought you lacked common sense. All right. Everyone take a D2 of sanity loss for dad jokes. What do I get for my bad joke? Oh, nothing. This.

This game is about tragedy and slow decay into nothingness. So there are a bunch of crumpled up notes everywhere and stuff. So if you want to try to find something more specific, you can roll a spot hidden skill. I'm going to do spot hidden as well. I'm awful at this. I rolled an 81 out of 25. So I don my white gloves and just pretend to look like I'm looking for things, but I'm not really getting my hands dirty.

I also rolled bad. Okay, I rolled a five. Okay, great. So that's an incredible roll. Actually, that's a critical success, I believe. Nice. All right. So you find his journal buried beneath a pile of half-written screenplays that have been scribbled out and ripped up and shit like that. But beneath them, you can find his letter-bound journal. And inside the journal, the handwriting is very bad and scraggly, but you can make out that it says, New finale underlined several times. Current finale is not working. I need to film it where the oaks grow tall. And he's underlined that a couple times.

Beneath that, another journal entry saying, this lead actor is, and then clearly a smear of his own shit. And then beneath that, need auditions. Can film auditions in California, unlike finale. Because you rolled an extreme success, you also see, stuck to the back of the journal by horrible bodily fluids, a card from a taxi service. It's from Yellow King Cabs. Gentlemen, get a load of this. Gather round. Oh my God. There's a lot of blue. They need a new lead actor. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I'm standing at the door. I'm like, it doesn't look very sanitary in there. What do you got there, Sally? It seems to me that this director really blew his wig just from the state of this place. I mean, look, there's poop all over the place. There's all sorts of crumpled notes and whatnot. And it seems here in his journal that he was planning to reshoot the finale of this movie, and he needs a new lead actor. In addition to the journal, I found this stuck to the back of it. It seems to be something called Yellow King Cab Company.

What's that? And it's got a phone number on it. Yeah, they're the most expensive cab company. I can't... Of course, he would use the yellow cab. Sorry, it's just...

I don't know why he wastes money all the time. Yellow King. That name has a ring to it that I can't quite put my finger on it. But maybe we should call this number on the back. And then we can see if maybe they know where the director went. That'd be great. It'd be great if we could finish this. I'm supposed to have dinner with Sally tonight. I might, you know, pop the question tonight. I'm thinking about it, but I'm not. Anyways, make the call. It could be done with us soon. He's got a phone in here somewhere, right? There's a phone, yeah. All right, I'll make the call. Yeah, you make the call. Operator. Ha ha ha ha!

Hi, put me through to the Yellow King Cab Company. They're at Chesterfield 0317 McGillicuddy. Chesterfield 0317 McGillicuddy. Connecting. And you hear the sound of somebody with long nails plugging things into things at a switchboard. Do you guys ever freak out that like if you got sucked back in time, you'd have no fucking clue how to use a phone? Oh, it'd be so funny. Oh, yeah.

If I went back in time, I would be immediately killed for being brown. So no. It's actually easier because you don't have to remember numbers. You just pick up a phone and go, Dr. Will. Give me Will Campos, please. All right. There's very few places I get to go when I go back in time. Yeah. Freddie and I can go to 1987. And any earlier than that is a little bit dicey. It gets dicier the farther you go back. I can go anywhere.

I'd be more successful if I were the guy in the sky. You could own people. Yeah. Oh, no. You hear somebody pick up the phone at Yellow King Cab Company and go, Yellow King Cab Company, what do you want? Hi, I'd like to inquire about a man who chartered a cab from you. I'm looking for him. Yeah, what's your name? What's the name of the director? Fuck. The director's name is Joseph Joseph Abrams. Fuck.

Oh my gosh, no. They call him Double J.

I'm looking for Double J Abrams. It's quite urgent. I'm his assistant, you see, and he left his heart medication, and it's very urgent that I find him, and the last thing I know is that he called your cab company and took a cab somewhere. Well, nice cover, Sally. You're doing great. I frantically try to hush the speaker on the phone. Roll a persuasion. Oh, fuck. I have a 10 for persuasion. None of you persuasion? No, what's hard about this system is none of your stats are, like, automatically gained. You have to add to them. So essentially...

Whatever you don't add to, you have like 10. You're just bad at it. You're bad.

I got a 59, so I failed. 59. He goes out. We don't give that kind of information on the phone. I grab the phone from him. It's like, hello, this is Meryl Streep, star of Stage and Screen. The Chinese fella? Yes. My wife has a month or so. Well, I'll tell you what, mister. Who am I talking to? You're talking to Danny DeVito. Danny DeVito.

Well, Mr. DeVito, let me tell you. Everyone in my family has named that through the generations. Well, Mr. DeVito, I got some dough with your name on it. Okay.

Is that so? Yes. Being a star of stage and screen, I have quite a bit of it to throw around. Perhaps you heard of my lavish parties that I had in the Hollywood Hills some ten years ago. Danny DeVito says that. Well, unless you've got a way to shove money through the phone receiver, it doesn't do a lot to me right now, does it? Money over the phone? What sort of sci-fi world do you think we live in? I'm working on a screenplay. I kind of petered out around the second act, but that's the main thrust of it is money through the phone. That's my thing.

What's it called? Dial M for money. Holy shit. That's way better. I was going to say it's called Vengeance Mountain, which I'm shorting to Venmo. But no, dial M for money is way funnier. Dial M for money. Good work. Well, I can have my butler send it over. Do you still have a butler? Are you lying? I am lying about that.

Okay. So go ahead and I guess roll persuade with, I would say a penalty dice. So it's basically disadvantage for the tens digit because you're, is there any way I could roll this on credit? Because it's like, I have a reputation as being, you know, some, like a former celeb. If you were physically with him. Yes. But since you're over the phone, like how can you really prove that a, that you're him a and,

be so do you have any credit it's literally just your physical money yeah and like if you were next to him you could roll credit he would like look at you and be like oh this guy's rich he's like really stressed but you're over the phone so it's kind of could i roll charm people didn't lie yeah you can roll charm because my charm is much better 49 19 49 all right so is that under your yes it is my charm is 75 damn okay shit fuck you're

You're a charming dude. I'm a charming guy. Many wives have had untoward thoughts towards me. Yeah, I guess. Although that would work against my charm, wouldn't it? I mean, no, but also he's basically like, he wants to be you. If I tell my wife that I talked to the Meryl Streep, then maybe, you know, vicariously she'll be more excited about getting. All right. All right. So, yeah, he charted a couple of cabs. He went from the father's own studio editing suite to his apartment. Then he took a ride from his apartment to the.

Griffith Observatory and then from there he went to the train station. To like Union Station? Yeah, Union Station. It's going to be tough going down to Union Station because it's literally the grand opening. It literally started in 1939. Yeah, the grand opening of Union Station, really? Yeah, I'm pretty excited. Me and Sully want to go there. I heard the ceiling is incredible. You're going to find that a lot of things in this campaign happened exactly in 1939, maybe two weeks ago.

Well, Mr. DeVito, thank you so much for the information. Tell you what, I'll have my assistant send over a signed headshot. Hey, real quick while I got you online, can you say your famous catchphrase from that picture where you were the sexually charged villain, the one that makes the ladies swim? Well, I will say that it was a silent picture, so I actually never really said anything. They just had me mouth the alphabet, and then they added it in.

Mr. Streep, I practiced that line every night. Every night as I went to bed, I was like, ABC. Oh, ma'am, you were the best in that movie. Yeah, the catchphrase that made the ladies swoon. What was it again? It was...

Come here, lady, and hold your body against mine. Whoa! Man, I could hear you say that all day. Hey, Sally, in that journal, what else did it say about the oak trees? Gosh, that's right. You know, I forgot all about that, and I flipped through it. Okay, so when you look at the journal, you can see the phrasing is exactly, need to film new finale where oaks grow tall, and oaks grow tall is underlined. Now, where oaks grow tall, is there a...

Maybe he's, is there an oak forest around here? Is there a, I guess I'll do a, can I just try to think? Let's see. Can I think good? You could roll history. You could roll natural world. I'm going to do a history roll. See if I could track back through my knowledge of the Sandemus area. I failed.

I don't know of any oak groves around here. I don't know if you gentlemen know of anything. Let me think. I critically failed that role. I failed as well. So I can call my gal Sally. She works for the parks. She was a gardener and a landscaper, and now she works for the parks, mostly a Joshua Tree area, which opened in 1936, if you all know. But

Three years ago? That's ancient. She might know something. Why don't you give your sweetheart a ring and see what she can tell us about where the oaks grow? Okay, I don't like bothering her at work, but yeah, we could do that. Tell me where she works. She works in probably like town hall. So you hear a woman pick up the phone and go like, who are you trying to reach? Sally. Sally Johnson. Sally.

And Sally comes over and picks up something and goes, what's going on, hon? Hey, babe, how's it going? Why are you calling me at work? Actually, I have a tree question. Weird, right? Oh, no, I love answering questions. You know I love answering questions. I know, it's your favorite thing. So yeah, I'm here with some friends. Actually, we got a problem here at work. Anyways, I don't want to waste your time. I know you're very busy, and what you do is much more important than the stuff that we do. So do you have any idea where oaks grow tall? I know it sounds like a riddle, but it is important for work. Where oaks grow tall? I mean, there are oak trees. Oh.

across the country that's a little vague. There's no... Do oak trees normally grow tall compared to other trees? Yeah, they're pretty tall. Is there any place that they grow extra tall? I don't think so, no. I'm sorry for wasting your time, babe. No, no, no. It's always a pleasure to hear your voice. Hey, this is pretty wild. Do you know who I'm staying next to? Who? Meryl Streep. You know I've had untoward feelings about her. I know you're talking about it. You know what they say. Whatever revs your engine as long as I get to drive the car. No, no, no.

Holy shit! Holy shit! Can you say hi to my gal, Sally? Say your signature line. Sally, you probably don't recognize my voice. Yeah, I've never heard your voice before. But it is me, I assure you. I only think your movie's never in talkies. I assure you, it is me, and I'm fixing to change that with the help of your boyfriend. Yeah, he's my boyfriend. With the help of your boyfriend here. But until then, why don't you...

Hold your body real close to mine and rub against it a little bit. All right, babe. You're welcome. Hopefully I won't be home too late, but I'll let you know. I'll bring dinner home. Okay, great. Thanks. We'll see when we get there. So oak trees grow everywhere, guys. That's all I got.

Well, I think we'll just have to keep this clue in mind as we continue to chase down the leads. Well, I'll tell you, it looks like he went from the apartment to Griffith Park Observatory. Oh, that place is so romantic. No, before we hoof it all the way down to Los Angeles, maybe we should check out that editing suite first because he came from the editing suite here and then pooped his pants and went crazy and then went to Griffith Park. You know what? The editing suite's bathroom has been out of order for quite a long time. It makes sense. Maybe that's what happened. Or maybe the picture was just so good he couldn't hold it.

That's an option. You ever seen art that really changes you? You know, that makes you like bathrooms. What are bathrooms when there's magic in front of them? Man, I hope I see a picture one day that I got to poop in the whole dang theater. And everybody's like, hey, get out of here. But I'm like, this is my dream. No, it's not. You're going to be in that picture.

And hopefully when somebody punches you, I'll be that guy that is you for a couple seconds when it happens. Oh, man. And then I'll be like, come here, baby, and rub your body against mine. It's hold your body close and then rub it against me a little bit.

Okay, yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. I'll get it right next time. Let me actually write this down. Okay, so I've got a little notebook here, and I'm going to write, come here, baby, and hold your body close to mine. And rub it. And rub it against me a little bit. And rub it against me a little. A little bit, yeah. A little bit. A little bit is important, otherwise it breaks the Hays Code. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Very good. Very good. Fuck, that's funny. All right, so I guess we should go to the editing suite. The editing suite. They say opposites attract. That's why the Sleep Number Smart Bed is the best bed for couples. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft?

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$45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. C-Mint Mobile for details. You arrive at the editing suite. When you open the door, the entire room is pitch black, save for a single light at the other end of the room. And silhouetted in that light, you can see a woman hunched over, working what you can clearly tell as a moviola. Moviola being the machine that they used to hand crank and edit film back in the day.

And also historically, mostly women in editing. Correct. Yeah. They were editors and computers. Also, they were so hot that edit bays normally burned down. Yep. It was also because... The women in the editing. I thought that's what

That's what she said. These gals were so hot. Yeah, film is flammable, but editors are even hotter. So this editor is just sitting there, like didn't turn around when we came in? No. So she turns back around and you can see that the way that the light from the moviola is running, it's sort of just hitting her chest. Everything outside of her chest is sort of in complete darkness. She turns around and is looking at the moviola and is cranking it back and forth. And she's like, hey, moviola, my eyes are up here. Yeah.

No, she doesn't. Gentlemen, be quiet. That's Gertrude von Strumpf. She's one of the most famous editors in all of San Dimas. She works on all of this company's pictures. She's notoriously cantankerous. One time, a PA came in while she was cutting Husbands Who Needs Them, the latest rom-com farce, and she flipped out at him and threw coffee in his face. Yeah, I know. I was that PA before I was a live producer.

Believe me, I don't want to go in there. I'm going to stay out here by the door. She's a little kinder towards women, so I'll go ahead and stick my head in here. Gertrude, dearie. Hello. So she continues to ignore you and just keep cranking the handrails on the movie, cranking back and forth. She's so dedicated to her craft. Nothing can distract her. We better approach with caution. Something seems off. I want to do a quick perception of what's going on here because it seems like we're walking into a freaky room. This is going to get spooky.

Is this a freaky room? Is this a freaky room, Daddy Master? Is this a family room or is this a freaky room? I think maybe the way the Call of Cthulhu works is they want you to investigate for yourself rather than having the die roll sort of tell you what's going on. So you have to put yourself at risk to find stuff out. What? The tactics work.

And then it's probably just environmentally. It's like I'm getting freaky vibes. Yes, you're definitely getting some weird vibes here. Like she definitely should have been able to hear you when the door opened. She should have seen the light, but she didn't turn around. It's like she's acting like you're not there. This is very odd. Usually if someone opens the door while Gertrude's editing, you're going to get a whole mess of profanities thrown in your face. Yep.

I don't like that she's ignoring us. I mean, we're human beings. We got just as right to be. Actually, we don't work here, so maybe we should leave. I turn on my flashlight. Oh, shit. Click, click. And then I do a sweeping scan through the darkness. Okay, as you sweep through the darkness, you see what appears to be pretty normal, just a bunch of, you know, filmers and stuff like that. But tell me what you do with the flashlight in regards to Gertrude. I'm very scared of agitating Gertrude, so I'm going to, like,

Slowly shine. I'm not going to... Are you afraid of the dark levels of slow reveal? Just slowly going to cast it up towards Gertrude. I'm like, Gertrude, dearie, are you all right in there? Okay, so you see as the flashlight beam begins to run up her body, you can see there's some liquid that's trickling down her body. And initially you think, oh, it's blood, but it's this blackish grayish stuff. And as the flashlight continues up, you can see her arms are covered in it. It seems to be seeping out of cuts in her arms. And as you get up to her face...

you realize that the click, click, click noise you were hearing is not just from the movie YOLA, but there are two small film reels almost like bolted into her eye sockets, and they're running and running fast, and the edges of the film reels, which are really, really sharp, are cutting her cheeks and her eyebrows, and from that, this like black blood stuff is seeping down, and she opens her mouth, and film starts to sort of spool out of it, and she goes,

Oh, hello. Hello. Hello. Have you come to see the film? All right, so everybody roll a sanity check. So you're going to try to roll under your sanity. If you succeed, then you only take one sanity damage. And if you fail, then you take a D6.

Six of sanity. Success. I also succeeded. I barely succeeded. I got 35 and my sanity's already 38. 34 on a 59 sanity. Okay, then reduce your sanity by one. I rolled a four on a 70 sanity, so. You've seen some real shit. Hildy's just got a strong head on her shoulders. Gertrude leans over and...

And more of the film starts bit by bit jerking out of her mouth and she grabs it with her hand and like starts pulling it out of her. And you can hear the sound of the film slicing her throat and her tongue as it comes out. And black blood starts to spew down her chin. Wait, we got to help her. I don't think we can help her, guys. This is worse than last time I saw her. We got to go. I rush over and try to get the film out of her mouth. Oh, shit. I think I think she's choking on it. I'm going to rush up with stud as well.

Okay. I've turned around and I'm not watching. Are you going to try to pull it out? Yeah, I'll try to pull it out. Okay, so give me a strength roll.

Got a 97 on a 50, unfortunately. It doesn't budge. And more than that, she grabs you by the hand and she says, you know what's beautiful about film? The imperfections, the scratches, the hairs, the flecks of dust. As you edit, it begins to be all you see. You're initially given this film and it's pristine and clean. And you think, ah, this will be perfect. But the more you work on it, the more the imperfections begin to worm their way in. The horrible, pure randomness of it.

And she turns to you and her fucking eyes continue to like spool and like blood continues to pour down. She goes, would you like to see the film? Stud, you need to back away right now. Something's not right with this woman. So she doesn't let go of your hand and she goes, no, no, no, you have to see. You have to see the film. It's going to be the greatest film of all time. We're going to wait for the premiere. You know, this isn't really the right environment to enjoy a full motion picture. You know, like I think we'd rather wait until the whole thing comes together. Why don't you go ahead and roll persuasion? So I failed.

As you say that, she turns and looks at you. Her jaw unhinges and opens even wider, and you see this bright light come from within, almost like the fucking film projector. I close my eyes. I try to shield my eyes. First, you're going to have to do a sanity check because that's an insane thing that she just did. Yeah, that's a fail. So I can roll a d6? Yeah, roll a d6 of sanity.

Oh, that's a two by three. So you close your eyes, but you're going to be temporarily blinded for this next part. Gertrude turns to you, Stud, and says, I have the dailies to show you. Stud, don't watch the dailies! Don't watch them! They'll teach you so much about the randomness. So I'm going to just run in and do a flying kick at her head. Okay. Give me a fighting brawl roll. Next episode is going to be the adventure of three people going down. And that was a 17 roll on a fighting of...

30, so I do succeed on that. So she's gonna try to dodge you. She fails. You clock her with like a fucking sick axe kick that you've definitely done in your films before. And that's three damage on my roll. Mr. Streep, that was incredible. Does Stud get broken out of this thrall briefly that she's like staggered back? Let's roll for her strength to see if she lets go or not. No, she's still holding on. Mr. Streep, I know I'm still caught here, but that was incredible.

Okay, so now we're gonna be in proper combat. So Gertrude is going to grab Stud by the neck. So basically the way that the movie will work is there's an exposed strip of film that you crank with these two reels left and right. And in the middle where the film is exposed, film is pretty sharp on the edges. This is like this razor sharp edge. So she's gonna grab you by the neck and try to force your head down into the exposed film strip. So you're gonna roll a pose to her. So we're both gonna roll a D100. Man, this broad just won't quit. And I gotta respect that.

Whenever you're defending, you have a choice. You can either dodge to try to avoid the damage entirely. You can fight back to try to do damage back to her. Or you can try to do a maneuver, which is like fighting back, except instead of doing damage, you do something special to them, like trying to restrain them or push them or any of those things. So which of those things would you like to do first?

Kick the moviola over. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, I think I'm going to try to push it over. That's a maneuver. So what did you roll? I rolled a 97. Okay, that's very bad. I know. That's a critical fail. So she rolls a success. She grabs you by the neck and jams your head into the side of this moviola. And the film strips with your wide open eyes just cut across you like this. And your eyes just get sliced the fuck open. Wait, both of them? Both of them. Is she blind now? Yeah. Man. Man.

Good thing there are talkies now. Oh, no. This happened fast. Yeah. So luckily, that only does...

three damage to you. But the bigger thing is that she's blind. your eyeballs are now basically gone. The goop is fucking running out of them. God. But the upside is because she's showing you the movie, you see like in your soul, not with your eyes, what was on the film strip. On the plus side. On the plus side. You gotta look on the bright side even when you can't look. Yeah.

So you see them shooting a romance scene between the two stars of the film on the studio lot in Father's Own Studio. The two lovers are embracing, and you hear J.J. Abrams yell, cut! And he steps in a frame, and he goes, this is bullshit. I don't believe this.

This isn't real. Casting director, hey, hey, hey. I'm so sorry, sir. What's the problem? This is bullshit. This space is bullshit. It's not expansive enough. I want to feel the stars from without and from within. I want the stars to feel like they're coming from inside of me. So what I want you to do, you're going to go to the Griffith. You're going to find me some fucking stars at the Griffith. That's what I want, okay? So tell me what you're going to do. We're going to do casting conditions at the Griffith Observatory. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

And then the film ends. But in addition to that, you can see what she's talking about. The film is...

It's not just the image you're seeing. You can see the imperfections on the film, the little dust mites and the little bits of hair or whatever. The visual noise of them begins to drown out the actual image that you're seeing. It's like you're looking at the static and the dust and the detritus and all that is crawling its way into your what would have been your eyeballs and sort of taking up a fucking home in your soul. Like you feel the randomness and you feel the decay and the fact that this world is chaos and however beautiful this film might have once been, nothing is going to survive the entropy of existence. So make a sanity roll.

Okay, how much sanity do you have currently? I have 80. Okay, great. So you only lose one sanity. Okay. And your eyes. Okay, so that's it for Gertrude's turn. It is your turn, Stud. Okay, describe what's going on to me. I can't really see anything. Your face is being shoved into a Moogiola. Could somebody help me push it over? Does anybody have a match?

We got light. I feel like all of you smoke. Oh, yes. We've all got- Four lighters. Yeah, I feel like it's 9 to 39. Probably every single one of you smokes. Without looking, I just hold up matches like, yeah, I got them. Okay, guys, I got a plan. What if we light the match and then throw it in here? You guys grab me and we'll hit the road, Jack. Sounds like a plan. If you're going to try to push it over, go ahead and make a strength check.

I rolled exactly my strength. What does that mean? That means you succeeded. Okay. So you successfully kick over the moviola, which is enough for Gertrude to go, no, the film! And she lets go of you and she rushes over to try and pick it back up. So now it is Matt's turn. What's going on?

We gotta go! Get out of here and torture! Okay, I just run down the hall. Okay, you just get away. Nobody's going for you. You are now out of combat. I can't hear. So we gotta get out of here. So I just start running. Alright, you are now out of combat. I'm gonna flick my lighter, throw the Zippo in towards the pile of film, and

pull stud out. If you're doing both, then you're going to roll with disadvantage on your roll for the lighter. Yeah, I'll try to do both. Okay, cool. So roll for your throwing skill. What are you throwing it at? If this is like an editing room, there's going to be piles of film on the floor. There's going to be stuff hanging. It's going to be just sort of a mess, right? Yeah, sure.

So I'm going to throw the biggest pile of film that I see. Okay. And luckily, Meryl Streep did some track and field, did a little bit of shot put. So that throw skills at 65, baby. And I rolled a 29. Okay, so that's a hard success, which is good. So it not only catches fire with the pile of film that you threw into, that pile of film immediately catches on to a button because Celluloid is extremely flammable, as anybody who's seen fucking Inglourious Basterds can attest to. And it actually starts to catch on to Gertrude herself.

as she's trying and failing currently to pull the moviola back. And you can see the second it hits her foot, like it catches up quickly, almost like she's made of celluloid.

And that's a regular success on the roll to grab stud, so I do so successfully. And we clear the room as it is catching on fire. Okay, Will. Okay, I run to the door, and then this is my last action before fleeing. I reach into my fake makeup bag and pull out a camera. And I snap a photo of Gertrude going up in flames. Okay, so...

through the fucking lens of your camera, you get the perfect picture of Gertrude on fire as her arms open and like spools of tentacles of film just come out from her like, so you're gonna have to make a sanity roll for looking directly into that shit. I do have a photography skill as well. Do I need to roll that? Oh, that's even better. Yeah, give me his photography skill. If you do really well, it'll reduce the amount of sanity you have to lose. Nice.

Shit, I failed. So you still get the picture, but you're going to have to make a sanity roll, and no matter what, you're going to take a... That's a little blurry. No matter what, you're going to take a D3 of damage. If you fail, you take a full D6. It's a little overexposed because of the fire.

All right, it succeeded. Yeah, take a D3 of sanity damage. All right, so I rolled a five. So yeah, that's three. Okay. So you're successfully out of this combat. Blood is streaming. Successfully is in quotes. So blood is streaming from poor Stud Stampler's face as you burst through the doors out into the parking lot of the editing bay out in sunny Sandemus where everything seems to be completely normal and not infested with a horrible celluloid monster. I was running down the hallway and I turn around. I'm like, oh, thank God we all got out. Oh my God, Stud, what happened?

Guys, guys, give it to me straight. Is it bad? What's bad? I mean, you lost your eyes. It hurts pretty bad. It's pretty bad, stud. I would say don't look, but... Yeah. I tear my sleeve off and I start putting a bandage around studs. Don't worry, buddy. We're going to take care of this. Whose voice is that? This is your stunt double. This is your pal, Robert. Robert? Hey, man. I saw you running down the hallway. I even asked for the match and you didn't give it to me. Wait, when?

You know, when I lost my fucking eyes just a second ago. Okay, we'll talk about that in a second. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's mean. I'm just in a lot of pain. We'll talk about that in a second as the Wilson family fucking coat of arms. I wish I knew what was going on. I wasn't looking and I asked what I should do. I wasn't looking either, man. I wasn't looking. Sally said get out of here. I didn't know what was going on. In fact, I don't think I'll ever look again. Do I see the flames in the background? Yeah, so as you guys are leaving, you can feel the heat. The flames are coming up. This entire fucking building is going up bad.

You can hear in the distance a fire alarm beginning to sound like an old, like somebody ringing a bell over and over again because it's old times and shit. You can see people peeping out of their windows at the fire that's growing and the smoke that's climbing toward the sky. Meryl, stop the gas. We got to scram. I don't drive. Wait, who's driving now? Oh, no, I got it, guys. All right. I, you know, don't have a lot of experience with these jalopies, but I'll give the old college go. Okay, so Matt, roll your first aid skill.

I got 65 out of 65. Okay, so Beth, you heal one HP. Yay. Still extremely blind. Yeah, I was just trying to stop her oozing eyeballs from going down her face and bleeding still. Yeah, that's great. I probably took off my socks and tore them and stuffed them into her eye socket and then wrapped it tight so that it would stop bleeding. They say that the other senses kind of catch up with you, and I got to say, I wish you washed your feet more, but I appreciate your...

Why was matter now? Here's the thing will smell go up now as a result will hearing go on Yes, if you want it you you can you can roll advantage ice on anything. That's not site related That's good because I feel like I have a pretty substantial disadvantage When it comes to anything visual disadvantage when it comes to anything or rally bonus and penalty dice to you You won't see you want to take less insanity because yeah, you're gonna be a pretty good space to not lose your shit. Oh

Stodd, I'm really sorry. If I had known what was going on in there, I wouldn't have ran. I'm really sorry. It's okay. Not everybody has to be brave and macho. It's okay to be sensitive sometimes. Like, my eyes hurt really bad right now, but I'm trying to put on a brave face. You have a brave face on right now, for sure.

Thanks, buddy. Stud, here, why don't you take a slug of this? And I handed my hip flask. You know, for your nerves. I'm holding my hand out in the middle of the air like I can't. I put it in his hand. Is this the water? Don't look back while driving. It's giggle water, pal. It's a belt of bourbon. I take a swig and I'm like. All right, never mind. You're wasting it. All right, where are you going now? Fellas, I feel like we need to get to. Hospital.

We got to go to the hospital. It feels like we should go to the hospital. We should go to the hospital. All right. So you go to the hospital. We need to get this man checked over. This is dumb, but what was like health insurance like back? I have no idea. That's a good question. You're a man. You just walked in and said, I'm a man. My eyes were hurt. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you white?

Don't worry, we got production insurance, and just for this time, don't worry, I'll say you work for us even though you don't stud. So you show up at San Dimas Mercy Hospital, and it's a little cramped affair. It's all very white and sterile. You get the feeling that since there's not too much that goes on here in San Dimas, there's not often too many people ending up in the emergency room. And you burst into the doctor's office, and you speak to the doctor. The first thing the doctor wants to know is, how did this happen?

Well, I... Workplace accident. We were on set. Okay. Do you want to maybe charm him into looking the other way with your powers of acting, Meryl Streep? That's true, but we do need him to look this way to help fix the problem. We all just pull out cigarettes and we go, you know, boys being boys.

That's very good. If you try to charm with that, that's with advantage. That's what we do. Hey, doc, you want a cig? Oh, yeah. These calm my nerves perfectly. These are great. They lower stress, blood pressure. I always do one before surgery. That was a real thing in a fucking commercial back then. You know, I'm a construction worker, and that's how it happened. I was constructing things, and my eyes got deconstructed. All right, why don't you... Somebody roll something to try to convince them of this. Ha ha ha!

I'll borrow Sally's lighter and I'll flick it on and I'll light the doctor's cigarette. I'm like, hey, pretty crazy out there. You know how it is. Workplace accents. Hi, my name is Meryl Streep. Star of stage and screen. Doesn't ring a bell. Really? He's a doctor, man. He doesn't have time for it. He's a doctor. He's a boy like us. He knows how boys are just being boys. Well, as a fellow man, I'm sure you've seen this kind of stuff happen all the time. People coming in completely blinded across both eyes. Not as much as you might think. Exactly.

Excuse me, good sir, but does it say somewhere in the Hippocratic Oath under do no harm? Fucking ask a bunch of bullshit questions before I help someone and I slap him across the face. What? Roll brawl. I failed pretty bad. You try to slap him and he just catches your wrist and he goes, this is not my first time talking to a hysterical woman. Oh!

Because I have to ask these questions so I can provide the best kind of care and alert the police if necessary. It looks like you might have been in some sort of fight. There's bruising all around your eyes. Well, yeah, another hysterical woman. You know what I'm talking about? Those nails. They're like cake nails. They're like cake nails? Cat. Oh, cat nails. He's got a New York accent. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, cat. Like the little, you know, the pussy cat. Yeah.

Sir, we work for Father's Own. I believe we said a lot. He's now heard seven different accounts. We've had a lot of people come here because, as you know, our sets are not the safest. This is a construction worker. He fell off the top of it and hit his eyes on the way down. It's horrible. He hit his eyes on the way down? Yeah. It was a very tall set. It was a multitude of things, like death from a thousand cuts, except blindness, the

I def. All right, go ahead. Somebody roll something so I'm going to have this guy react. Do you have a good persuade? No, I have a horrible persuade, but I'm the one that was talking. Yeah, I failed. Okay. No, I don't need to persuade you. I got the money. I have the money and you work and you work for me and I'm going to pay you because it's your job, sir. So I don't know why I'm persuading you to do your gosh darn job. So here's the money. He pulls out his hand. He says, this money is for the hospital. This money is for me to not say what I know has happened, which is which hand is he holding out?

Mill Street, give him some money. What? Me? I expect to be fully reimbursed for this, sir. Okay, so if you're going to bribe him, you have to reduce your credit rating by like five. Okay. Or ten. I will bribe him. I roll a 21, which is a hard success on my credit roll. Okay, so you only have to lose five of your credit rating for paying him off, essentially. Okay, so you pay him off and it seems like you've probably bought his silence. And he goes like, sorry, but you're blind for good as far as I can tell. He bribed you for that? Yeah, we know that. I have disinfected it.

I looked at it from several angles and I didn't lobotomize you. So that's the best you can hope for. Doc, you got any pain medication? You got any glass eyes lying around? Perhaps we could give our good friend here the appearance of normalcy. Oh, I definitely have both painkillers and glass eyes and he gives you both. Oh, man. Wait, can I hand him back the glass eyes? Can you put these in for us? Oh, yeah, sure.

He does. It feels very bad. Those injuries are pretty raw. So you basically have two glass eyes that are now blood is running down the glass eyes. They're in your head. They don't look. I mean, they look like you have bad, weird eyes, like a bad doctor. Guys, how do I look? He was willing to take a bribe to not tell me about it. This is the best in San Dimas. Forget it, Jake. It's San Dimas. Yeah. I pull out my movie star shades. How do I look? You.

You look great. You look like a star. Maybe I won't be able to see myself on the big screen someday, but other people still will. All your dreams. Oh, no. Hey, stud, you know, you can sit this out if you want. No way, man. I'm in it for good. I'm going to bring back the magic in this picture town no matter what. I would even lose another eye, except I don't have any more. I'm totally blind. Oh, man.

What a bummer. I'm going to do a bummer roll. I have to go to the little girl's room to deal with feminine things. Feminine things, the doctor says. You know they pee out of their vaginas. Ha ha ha!

Guys, even in 2019, it is true. While they're all not listening to me, I sneak out and go to a telephone. Operator. Operator, get me the Defender and put two fingers of bourbon in it and step on it. I put some steak on it. Slightly quicker than usual, you're connected with the Defender and you hear your editor go, what is it? Julian, holy crackers, is this story blown up hotter than a tap dancer on Broadway who has just had two fingers of bourbon? What?

You love that two fingers of bourbon idiom. Yes, I do. And it would take an idiot to not realize that this is going to be a sensational story. Now, get this. We visited the director's home. It's covered in filth. It's covered with those sane ramblings of a delusional man. He wants to reshoot the entire finale of their most expensive picture. Oh, I mean, these Hollywood types can be a little bit unusual, but that sounds like a typical...

megalomaniacal bullshit. We also went to the editor's office and the editor has completely lost her mind. She had some sort of horrific contraption on her face. Local stuntman, Stud Stampler. He went blind from getting his face sliced. It's been gore. It's been action. It's been viscera. Now, let me tell you something. I want my name front and center on the byline and I want a picture on the lead of the paper. Above the fold.

I'm telling you this or I'm going to take it to the bugler. The bugler, not those pieces of shit at the bugler. You had me with the violence. I do like a good story of violence. Wait, what did you say? You said the editing bay? The editing bay. It's all up in flames. That's where the fire is. That's the fire. We can have the first scoop on what really went down on that fire. Let all the other papers in town look like a bunch of blogey maronis. Stop the press. Stop the press. You hear him yell. Okay.

Hot diggity dog. All right, I'm going to get back to it. Nice play on the phone. Great. Hey guys, I also need to use the little girls. I need to use the phone. I'm sorry. I don't know why I lied.

Go ahead. Do you need help dialing? What's the operator? Do you need help picking up the phone? I need help just finding the phone at all. I'll bring you there. I'll bring you there. Oh, thank you. Operator. Hi. Yes. Stampler residence. I would like to speak to Willie.

So you get connected and you hear the voice of your young... What would you refer to him as? Do you think of him as your son or is he just your nephew? He's my nephew that I've adopted. So yeah, I think he would think son. Okay. So you hear Willie's voice go... What? Hey, Willie. So I'm going to be home a little later. I mean... Hangs up. Man, hope he's not killing cats again. Does he do that stuff? I mean...

He's just a man's man, I think is what you would call him. Oh, do you own cats? Not anymore. I did, yeah. You're not buying more cats, are you? No, no. Okay, good. I mean, I wouldn't be able to find them anyways. Guys, I got to tell you something. I saw this thing. When I got my eyes chopped up, it was the film role from Double J's Abrams film. He was talking all crazy after this sort of love scene where these two people came and cuddled and they kissed and he wanted it.

He wanted something darker with the finale. He mentioned Tennessee. Tennessee is where the big oaks are. Tennessee? Tennessee. Yeah. How did you see this again? It's hard to describe, especially because I don't really have a visual reference anymore, but it's like my soul. It's like my soul soul. My God, this story keeps getting stranger and stranger. Story. Also, I think I've got a lead on the San Dimas cat strangler. Yeah.

Jotting this all furiously in my notebook. Oh, God. I'm going to call off the record on that. All right. So what would you all like to do next? I say we should probably figure out where in Tennessee he went. And maybe we could figure that out by asking, you know, at the train station. They said they were doing auditions at the observatory. So I'm keen on getting over there. It seems to me in terms of efficiency, it's better to take care of all of our Los Angeles stuff than

What if we go all the way out to Tennessee and they tell us, hey, why don't we, you know, you're going to have to go back. That's a good idea. Again, I want to be home for dinner. We got to go to Tennessee. We should wait for another time because, you know, I'm going to pop the question tonight. Maybe. I'm not sure yet, but maybe I will, depending on what time we're done with this. I'm probably sure I'll do it tonight. What do you think about speaking your piece and proposing marriage at a time like this?

My God, this man's just had his eyeballs sliced out. We just saw, oh, I guess you didn't see it. But if you had seen what we'd seen in that room, you wouldn't have marriage on the mind anymore, Buster. I understand you're upset, but there's nothing more important than my marriage and my gals out. But I understand. I'm just saying, no, you're right. I'm not going to do it tonight.

Okay, well, keep us all posted on that. Yeah, okay. Fellas, I think we should head over to the observatory. There appears to be some kind of potential for lead roles and some sort of audition over there, and I'd like to see what that's all about. I'm going to drive this time. You were a little erratic there. A little erratic, eh? Yeah, you were drinking while driving. That's true. Speaking of which, could I have another swig of that? Oh, yeah, knock yourself out. Well, I'm not going to knock myself out. That's what my brother Carl did.

It is good. You know, a burn, a burn in my soul. I don't know. There's something about it. I'm going to take that back and screw it up and put it back in my pocket.

After a not inconsiderable drive, you make it to the Griff Observatory. And inside, there's this... What time is it? It's midnight, basically. So I missed the dinner? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Did you think... Yeah, no, that's definitely not happening. Halfway, I stop the car so I can go to a pay phone and tell her, hey, that dinner, don't worry about it. It wasn't going to be a special dinner or anything about that. Don't worry. Oh, that's too bad. What's going on? There's a big problem at work. We lost one of the directors. Oh, no.

Yeah, it's pretty bad, but I'll be home to it. I'll bring breakfast. Okay. I want breakfast. How are you feeling? Oh.

I mean, I miss my boyfriend. Oh, I miss you too. Did she almost say husband? I think she did. I hope those two crazy kids can make it work. I love that Stampler's in the car and can somehow hear. It's like, Stampler, what are they saying? Stampler? I can read lips. I can hear lips. So you make it to the Griff Observatory. At 35 miles an hour. Blistering 35 miles an hour. I drive five miles under the speed limit. Absolutely.

It takes twice as long. It is 1 a.m. But the lights are still on inside. You enter and there's a hallway leading to the main observatory room. And in the hallway, you see a bunch of, well, everybody except for Stud, sees four actors holding these little tiny scripts. And what you notice is that they all seem like they're missing some color.

Like they're a little bit desaturated, like their skin seems a little salad, their clothes seem a little bit more sepia. And they're reading these scripts and you hear them all basically repeating the same thing over and over like they're trying to go over their lines and they say, "The oaks will burn bright, a weapon to end all wars. Let us embrace the random hand of fate in a firm handshake."

The Oath will burn bright, a weapon to end all wars. Let us embrace the random hand of fate and affirm handshake. And they're saying it over and over again. And as you get closer to the door leading to the main observatory room, you can see that one of these actors throws down the script and just runs over to the door and just starts pounding on it and scratching at it with her fingernails. And her fingernails are breaking off and blood is streaming down her fingers. And she's going, give me another chance. I could do it better. Just give me another chance, please. Please, please, please, please, please. I turn to address the group.

Lady, I've seen this before. Actors are truly desperate sometimes. And I found really the best way to get an audition is not to go in with the chattel as it were and find a way in on the side and have a word with the producer face to face. Isn't it odd they're doing auditions here at the Griffith? At one in the morning? At one in the morning, yeah. You actors really need to unionize. This is unacceptable. Well,

I mean, I gotta say I wish him all the best because I know it's a hard position to be in. You know, just wanting something so bad, something so magical, but it just being right out of your grasp or maybe your sights. So from inside, you can hear the voice of somebody say, I told you before, you've all given your best shot. You're not what we're looking for. We are heading out. Please leave or we will be forced to, uh, to, to, to,

Gentlemen, I'd like to propose that we come up with some ground rules because it seems to me that everything tonight has not exactly been on the beam. Seems like things are a little askew. Seems like maybe something strange is going down in San Dimas. So I think it would behoove us to exercise the utmost caution when approaching strangers, seeing as the last stranger we approached blinded our dear friend Stud. I tell you, it's as if everyone's been smoking that Bombay Bambalacha here.

So here's what I'm going to propose. I think we should circumnavigate these actors because they seem a little off kilter. And maybe we can sort of figure out what's going on inside by entering another way. I agree. And we should not. That's a good idea. Sally loves reading the horror stories that magazine. So it's her favorite. I don't like the stories. It scares me. And I bet it's cute because then we cuddle. And, you know, it's just a good excuse for me to stay up late with her. But she loves those horses. Point being, we should not split up.

They always die if they split up. Yes, that happened in the screaming purple people of Doe-Eyed Valley. Don't even say that one. Don't even say that name to me. I don't like it. It's too spooky. This reminds me of the action in that one where the people seemed normal and then they flipped out. I think we should be careful. Yeah, let's go around. I think I've heard the sides that they're saying. I'm going to give this a shot. Okay, so you head around to another basically fire exit. It's out of view of the other actors, but it is locked. Oh, gentlemen, as a makeup artist, I

I've had to break into many a room, you know, when actors refuse to come out of their trailer, but you got to get them ready for this shot. It checks out, folks. Makes sense. I would like to go ahead and make a locksmithing roll on this door. Do it. No, I failed. Okay. I'll try. I'm not as good as lots. Oh, okay. So you try to unlock the door and maybe you would have succeeded, but you make a pretty loud deal of it. And just as you're about to try to open it, the door itself wrenches open from inside and you see... I did it.

it yeah good job I feel like one or two of you probably recognize that yeah this is the casting director's assistant and she goes as she's opening her she's for the last time we're not and then sees you Meryl and goes like oh that's depressing step aside my agent sent me along here and they said you folks were recasting so wasting your time the casting director already left they're gonna go film the last scene he's already heading to the station midnight train going anywhere

No, it's going to a specific place. If you want to read, you can, but you're really going to have to impress me for you. We're not here to read. We need to find double J. I am here to read. All right. I feel like you took aggro point on that. So she'll probably listen to you first. She says, so you're going to read along with some film we've got. She points behind her and there's basically a camera that's sort of hooked up to like a telescope. And like the telescope is like, it's taking like moonlight and starlight in. It's pushing that through some weird makeshift camera. And that's the light that's projecting the film or whatever.

And she goes, all you got to do is you go up to that camera and you put your eye up to the lens and then just deliver the line. And if you... What if I just deliver it right here? That's not acceptable. That's... The director's looking for somebody that can really connect with the truth behind the film, with what the film was trying to say. And...

If you can't physically connect with it, then I just don't think you have the... Excuse me, what was the film trying to say? It's a little heady, but we feel like audiences are definitely going to be ready for it. It's about the randomness of the world, about how chaotic things are and how that chaos is in its own way beautiful and terrible at the same time. Boy, do I know it. Guys, quick huddle. Merrill, if you mind. We should come up with a name for a huddle like this. A crew? A crew?

Hey, after you guys told me what happened in the editing room, like you said, I think everything's askew. Meryl, I would not put your eyes. I think if you put your eyes in that telescope, you're going to end up a lot like Stud. I put my eyes in there. Exactly. I was going to say, Stud there can't see. Maybe let him. You're telling me I'm supposed to go up against. Meryl, this isn't a performance. You're not going to get a part. What do you mean? Look at those actors outside. What?

Yeah, a bunch of losers. A bunch of losers. They're cloned. You know, I think given how kooky things have gone tonight, the fact that we saw an actress outside scraping her dang fingernails off trying to get into this audition makes me think, what if they saw... Okay, okay. You haven't seen a lot of actresses in auditions. I have a theory of the case I'd like to put forward to you gentlemen. I think whatever they saw looking through that thing made them...

go bananas the way that Gertrude went bananas. I think there's something about this film that affects your mind. Like a real stinker. Like a real bee floppo. Like cat people. You ever see cat people? I went on that movie Mad on a Hornet's Nest. I think it's like that, but maybe 10,000 times worse. Sampler, you can go after me. I'm going to march up to the thing. But, full knowledge of what's going on, I'm just going to close my one eye. I'm not actually looking through it. Okay. And so I pretend to look through it and like, ah, okay. Well, as you put your eye up to it...

You can feel your eyelid being like pried open by like some force from within it, like the dust and the hair and shit on the film. Oh my God. You can't out think Cthulhu creatures, ready? It's like fucking, you feel one of the like bits of hair like grab your fucking lower eyelid and just stretch it downward and grabs the other one, stretches it upward. And you can feel the sharp tendrils just like hook themselves into your left eye and just keep you there and you are stuck to the left. But to all of us, it looks like Meryl's just acting really, really hard, right? Yeah.

You see a scene that they presumably filmed a little bit earlier, and it's got the female lead. She's delivering a monologue, and the words and stuff are fine. It's nothing you haven't heard before, but something about the way that she delivers it, something about the way that it's shot, something about the effect of being this close to the film. This is the single best thing you've ever seen on celluloid. It is so good that tears begin to stream down from your other eye. So why don't you roll a sanity check? ♪

That's a 25, and that's a save on that. Okay, so you only take a D4 of sanity damage. Three damage. So he's seeing this moon. It's hooked up to a telescope pointing to the stars, right? Yeah, basically there is a film camera set up such that it is connected to a telescope at the Griffith Observatory, and it's pulling in starlight and moonlight and using that to shoot that starlight and moonlight through the film out of the lens, essentially.

So I saw a really good movie. So you saw a really, really good movie. And more than that, you can feel the movie entering you. And you guys see as he's looking into it. I'm sorry. You can see Meryl Streep is beginning to go monochrome, like all the colors beginning to disappear. Help me get some roles in this town. Becoming essentially a black and white character. Do you keep looking? No.

I'm still trying to get the part. Okay, well then, yeah, deliver the line. So do I pull myself away from it? No, you can't. I mean, if you're going to try to pull yourself away, it'll be a strength check because it's like hooked into your eye. Unless I lose my eyes. If you allow yourself to just keep looking at it, then you'll have to basically do another sanity check, but you can deliver your line. Okay. Do you want this roll or do you want this roll? I want this roll. Okay, then give me another sanity check with disadvantage. Ooh, that's a 73. So I've already not done it. So you're going to take 2d4 of sanity. That's five.

Okay, so now we get to do some fucked up shit. Oh, man. Okay, because you took five sanity damage in one go, first you do an intelligence roll, and you want to fail this roll. Oh, because you want to not understand what you're saying? Yes, exactly. What?

I have 45 intelligence and I rolled a 46. You barely succeeded. The chaos and entropy of human existence of the universe and all of its randomness tries to seep its way into your brain, but you're too fucking egocentric and stupid to see anything other than yourself. I'm too focused on the role. You see yourself at the center of the fucking universe, so it has very little effect on you other than really fucking up your sanity. So go ahead and deliver the line if you want. The oaks will burn. Right? A weapon.

To end all wars. Metal gear. That's an ad-lib. That's an accurate ad-lib. Wow. Man, he's really off the cuff. Let us embrace the random hand of fate in a firm handshake. You feel the lens let go of you? And Cthulhu from the depths goes like, that sucked. Yeah. Okay, we'll let you know. Yeah.

Yeah. The casting director looks at you and goes like, that was, uh, wait, do you want, should he roll for acting for how good the acting was? Do you have a art and craft acting? Go ahead and make a roll for that. I make a great success on that. Yeah. So you hear, Oh my gosh. And you turn around and the casting assistant is going, you know, a lot of people come in here.

They say the words on the page, but you, you felt them. I told you this was about randomness and you randomly gave different emphasis to every single fucking word. And you pulled in some nonsense about Metal Gear. I don't even know what that means. And I like it. That means it's a smart film. It was a solid performance. I was hideously impressed. I think you've got the role. Why? Of course, of course I got the role. Yeah.

Well, what did you expect? Well, frankly, not that. So everybody else, as they look at you, they can see that you are monochrome, which means that you get an additional five points in your Cthulhu mythos skill, which means that your maximum sanity also lowers by five. The casting assistant says, so what I need to do is hurry to the train station. So I've got these and she pulls out some tickets for coach for the train to Tennessee. That's where we're shooting the climax. That's where we need you. Ooh, look at this, boys and girl.

Quick question. What was your name again? Robert. Nice to meet you. I put my hand out. Slip me five, Jack. She goes, Carrie Fisher. Pleased to meet you. Carrie Fisher. Just a quick question. How come you haven't informed the production company about all this? Oh, the director, you know Mr. Abrams. He likes to be very, very cinema verite, very sort of by the seat of his pants. And we just don't want a lot of bureaucracy involved in this. So if you could maybe be fucking cool about it. Hey, Miss Fisher, uh...

That's right. Stampler, here's my understudy. This is my makeup girl, and this is my PA, my production lackey. I'm

I'm a line producer. So I'm going to need tickets for all of us. Okay, okay. And she produces tickets for all of you. You boys catch up. I'll be right there with you. More feminine needs. Yeah, I just, you know, there's, yes, exactly. After they leave, I turn to the casting director. All right, ladies, listen up. Can I roll to overhear this? Yeah, you roll listen and you roll with advantage. Okay. I have a high listen because good acting is good listening. God almighty.

I pass. Great. Okay, so whatever this is, you hear it. Stud, you are set up outside the door listening in? Yes. I think Rob and I are just hanging out outside and smoking. Okay, so you're by the fire escape too or you're by the car? Probably closer to the car. Okay. Okay, lady, listen up. My name ain't Sally Stipe, makeup girl. It's Russet, Hildy Russet, and I work for the Sandemus Defender, and I'm chasing down the story of the century. Now I'm wondering if I could get any quotes from you, either on background or in person about this project.

Oh, and she goes, ooh, that won't do, that won't do. Mr. Abrams insists on complete confidentiality until the film hits the streets, so I'm afraid not. And she begins to wipe the back of her forehead with the back of her hand, and as she does, you can see that the color that you saw on her skin is, in fact, makeup, and it's coming off as she rubs the back of her head, and she is fully monochrome as she begins to sort of wipe that makeup away. Do you know you're black and white? And she goes...

oh, yes, yes. She wraps her hands around your throat and she says, this interview is going to have to be over. And she starts to strangle you. Guys, guys, Hildy needs our help. Who's Hildy? Well, it's actually kind of a long story and I feel kind of betrayed by it, to be honest. But...

It's Sally. Sally needs our help. So Sally, roll a D100 for strength. See if you can get out of her grip. Oh, wait. I can do my cool thing. Because you can pick hobbies. So Hildy's hobby... Getting choked consensually. Hildy's hobby is judo.

My father was a police officer and said that a young woman needs to learn how to look out for herself in the big city. Great. So can I make a judo roll? Go ahead. Fuck yeah. So I have a 71 in judo. I rolled a 27. Holy shit. Okay. So you hard success. So you just fucking describe what you do. I go, hi-yah!

And I flip the casting lady over on her back and I give her a judo chop to the neck. Great. So you break out of the grip successfully and as she's on the ground, she grabs the sides of her mouth and just starts pulling as hard as she can. She does the joker. She does. Yeah, she does. Yeah, and it's great and for some reason critics love it. What?

So she starts pulling and her skin begins to tear around her mouth. And more of that black blood that you saw coming out of the editor comes out. She screams like, Actors, bring me this woman and all of you get a starring role. The actors who were on the other entrance kick the fucking door in. And four of them see you. And they look down at her and they look up at you. And they just start sprinting at you. What do you do? Okay, do I have enough time to snap a quick photo before I sprint? If you do... Can I make a photography roll to see if I can do it quick enough? Yes.

They'll make a speed roll, and if you take a picture, they will get an advantage on their speed roll to catch you. The photography roll is just for the quality of the picture. Do it when you get in the car. Get in the car and then take a picture. I got the great shot of her in front of the thing. This is where the picture is. All right, I'm dedicated to this story. I'm going to go for it. All right, go for it. Hell yeah.

Shit, I failed. Terrible picture. So you take a D8. Can I spend luck? Yes, you can. Oh, I forgot about luck. So the way the luck works is you can spend luck in order to improve any dice roll. But that means if I ever ask you to make a luck roll, then it's going to be a lot harder for you to pass it. The more luck that you use on other rolls. I have 75 luck. So I'm going to spend, I guess, 17 luck.

Okay. To click the shot. To get a regular ass photo. To get a normal photo of a crazy fucking scene. Okay, so you got the photo and because you succeeded on your photography roll, that means you don't have to take the full sanity damage. You only take a D4 of sanity damage and I'm just going to roll for you because I have a D4. You take three sanity damage. So the cultures are going to roll with advantage to try to get to you. So you're going to roll your dodge and they're going to roll their dexterity. Oh, five.

Fine. Oh, you got an extreme success, you lucky piece of shit. They got a hard success and I was so ready for you to get fucked. But no, you barely managed to start running. I'm outside, but I'm going to hold the door open, hearing the like gate that Sally has compared to the... Oh shit. That's great. So you make it through the exit. Shut the door! Because I see a stud next to the door. So stud, why don't you make a strength check? Okay.

Nice, 22. 22, okay. So you manage to slam the door shut just as Hildy manages to make it through. You slam the door and the cultists all collide with the door, which buys you another moment essentially to start running. Robert, honk the horn. I'm going to grab a... Oh, that works better. I was going to use the horn to find the car. Okay.

Okay, cool. So you're running to the car. They bust the door open, but now there are two locations behind you. I'm going to hold the door open for these guys. And then I feel like... Start the car! Start the car! Hurry up, guys! And go! We all hop in and speed off.

So you drive away and you see the cultists receding into the distance. I'm going to snap one more photo as they're chasing the car. Okay, go ahead. This is going to be at the end of the whole show. It's going to be like, the lens cap was on. Terrible. It's a shitty photo. Hey, I couldn't help but start. How come you called Sally there Hildy? Yeah. How come, Sally? I mean, Hildy? Oh, boy. Just to clarify, guys, I called Sally that because I heard that her name was Hildy, but I'm asking right now why her name is Hildy. Hildy?

All right, boys. Settle down. I've got a story to tell you. There was a time when you could read between the lines. You know they never brought you down. There wasn't a box and you weren't thinking anyway. So you never...

Watch it down. And I know, I know, I know it's gonna be alright. You've just heard Chapter 1 of At the Mountains of Dadness, casting call of Cthulhu. Matt Arnold played Robert Wilson. Will Campos played Hilde Russet. Beth May played Stud Stampler. And Freddie Wong played Meryl Streep. Anthony Burch is our DM. Theme music by Maxton Waller with Wes Smith on clarinet, tenor, and baritone sax. Cameron Johnson on trumpet.

Justin Kirk on trombone, Eric Sittner on upright bass, and Charles Ruggiero on drums. Song was recorded by Eric Sampson and Wildflower Recorders. And a special thanks to all of our Patreon supporters for making this possible. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time. Tell them how it's gonna be. All right! All right! All right!

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