Curious Matter Presents: Oz 9
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Welcome to Curious Matter Anthology. I'm Jonathan Pezza, your host, and we're here to present another amazing show in the audio drama universe. This time, we are delving deep into the realms of silliness. If you were a fan of season one's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, this is the show for you. Oz9 began its adventure to your ears in 2019.

and chronicles the rambunctious and totally useless crew of the decrepit spaceship named, you guessed it, Oz-9, as they limp across space looking for a new home and generally making mischief and mayhem. But before I bring on the show's most entertaining and talented creator, Shannon Perry, for a little behind-the-scenes scoop, I'd like to share a little bit about what Curious Matter Anthology has cooking up our sleeve for Season 3.

Next season we will be pulling out all of the stops for one big eight episode long story titled The Exile. It's a police thriller set on Mars and it is an epic tale of corruption, espionage, and humanity's struggle to carve out a new home among the stars. But we can't bring it to life without your help.

Welcome to Curious Matter Anthology Presents. Hello, thank you.

your show is beloved in the audio drama space and you've been creating it for four years now and 80 plus episodes. I think my big first question is like, where did the show come from? What's the origin of it? And, uh, and where did that, where did the idea for the story come from? And you're insane. I think that's fair to say insane cast of characters. They are. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

Okay, well, so the story is, it's an odd one, as I think probably a lot of audio fiction is, but we started with Tim, who plays Colin, he did books for the blind. He was reading books for blind people. And

So he had a really nice setup and a microphone and all that and wanted to do more voice acting. And so for Christmas, his husband, Richard, who plays Leet, bought him a bunch of old time radio scripts. And just for the heck of it, a bunch of us got together and recorded a few of the episodes. One was a Charles Dickens-y Christmas, Sherlock Holmes meets Charles Dickens kind of an odd thing. And

it was really fun and we enjoyed it, but we really had nothing to do with this with it once we'd recorded it. And so once we kind of got rolling on that and I started listening to a few audio fiction shows generally, I thought we should be doing this. We've got actors, we've got a writer, we've got people who want to do all these creative things,

So we kind of merged from that idea into doing Oz 9. And we started with, we're going to steal this little Dickensian girl from the Christmas script and make her the AI of our ship. And for whatever reason, I can't even remember who came up with that, but it was inspired. And then we just kind of built the cast out from there with the people that we had available. Unfortunately, Tim is a great actor. He's fabulous. Richard did a fabulous job as Leet. My brother moved into town shortly after.

right around that time and he's an actor so I grabbed him for a bunch of voices and it just kind of spiraled well out of control at that point oh great and right now is when one of my fire alarms decides that its battery is dying oh boop you got that boop that's all right yeah sorry about that that's just uh that's just a little extra flavor for the interview argh

Well, you know, it seems like it's been an amazing journey over the five seasons. And you guys have like one of the coolest fan bases in audio drama and fiction podcasting. Tell us a little bit about how how that has developed over the years.

You know, it's funny. We don't entirely know how that happened. Part of it is that we got into the then called Cast Junkie, now Podcast Nexus Discord. And we got in there pretty quickly. Ruck, who everybody knows in the recommendation space, liked our show, talked about it a lot. Corey, who's also on that podcast thread or in that Discord group,

put it out there. We just had a lot of people very early on kind of catch onto it and talk about it a lot. And that was fantastic. And one of the things we did that I'm super proud of was we assigned Twitter handles to a lot of our characters who were willing to do it. And then we all got online together and just bitched at each other in character and abused one another. And that was a lot of fun. That's so brilliant. You brought your in-world into social. And, you know, we had met

a couple years ago, but because of the social handles, I just could not put two and two together. Fair. You guys have kind of evolved things a little bit recently too and taken things into the comic book world. Tell us a little bit about that project.

Yeah. Oh, that was so much fun. Well, you know, it's funny. It developed because our characters, so we have an artist, Lucas Elliott, that we brought in very early on because I was, I was saying the writing's not going to be very good. So we better get some really good artwork. So we did, we hired Lucas who we had met at Emerald city comic-con and he did the artwork for Tim and Richard's wedding portrait, which is gorgeous. And, uh,

he just, he does this wonderfully playful, funny, he just gets our sense of humor. He very much shares our sense of humor. And so our character art has always been a really strong presence that we've used. Uh, and finally we're like, you know, we all love comic books in the group. We talk about them a lot. Um,

we should do one. We have this great character art, we don't use it as much as we ought to. So let's just make an episode into a comic book. And we decided the smartest thing to do would be to take our first episode and make it into a comic book. And Lucas, I mean, Lucas was amazing. He knows comic books, he's done it before. He knows how to translate from the audio to the visual. And he just did some absolutely inspired things that made me like snort milk out my nose. And, you know, it was just gorgeous. It was gorgeous.

And we did a Kickstarter campaign. And like you said, we have this amazing fandom and people just came through for us and put in astonishing amounts of money, quite frankly. And that has been amazing. Like that was just mind blowing. So we were able to put together the comic book. We, you know, every once while I get an order on Etsy of a comic book going out and we don't even do a whole lot of marketing. We're kind of terrible at marketing ourselves, but yeah, it's, it's just been a fantastic journey and yeah.

We discovered that there aren't that many podcast comic books out there yet. I think there will be more and more because there's such an overlap between audiences, particularly in audio fiction. For sure. And particularly in sci-fi. So yeah, it's been a really...

It's been quite a journey. And seeing someone take our audio and make it into a visual medium has been such an education for me. I am not a visual person. So it was really great and funny to see. There's one image of Joe. One of the running jokes is that Joe scares people when he walks into the room all the time. And so he did this wonderful image of Madeline jumping up into the air. And just every time I look at it, it makes me laugh.

He's so brilliant. He's so brilliant. That's amazing. So where can people find this and purchase it? We have it on Etsy. So the link to the Etsy is on our website, oz-9.com. Or if you go to Etsy and I think you have to search for Oz9 podcast, all one word, and it comes up.

So your season... Thanks for asking. Of course, of course. Yeah. So your season five has just recently started. Tell us a little bit about what fans can expect and what are the big goals for this new season? One of the things that we finally did was we kind of ended one of the big arcs that had brought us through the first four seasons. And

Now we're going a little bit to doing more exploration. We're doing an odd exploration of both the ship itself and the worlds that are around us. So we're doing a little bit of planet exploration. We managed to get gloriously, of course, his name's going to skip my head when I'm trying to think of it, the guy from Oblivity.

the Welsh, Lowell, Officer Lowell. So we went down to a planet and met him and that was so much fun because I love that show and I love that character. But we're also doing a really interesting exploration of the ship itself because we've said that it's massive, like it's a whole huge city of its own. And so we're exploring all these different places on the ship and why is there an old cowboy, old time bar on the ship and why is there a fun fair and all these crazy things.

And so that's been fun. And the reason we're doing that partly, and it's a little bit chicken and egg because I'm not sure even in my own brain which came first, but we want to do a sort of Dungeons and Dragons type game of exploring the Oz9. So they're kind of working together. We're forming this idea of you're going to wake up and come out of your pod or be accidentally released. And then you've got to figure out where you are, what to do, where the night vision goggles are, all that stuff. Yeah.

I think that's our big goal is to launch that game. A TTRPG of Oz9 would be amazing. But one of the things we're thinking about doing is Redbubble and a few of these other services that do like the on-demand printing, they'll do a blanket of your image, like sheets or blankets or duvet covers or whatever. So we are talking about doing a bedtop game instead of a tabletop game. Okay.

because we want it to be really big. And so we thought it'd be really fun to print the game board on a blanket. That's so that you could like curl up under it in the wintertime and play on it other times. That's awesome. That's such a fantastic idea, man. It's so funny. I wish I could remember who said it. But one of our fans came up with the perfect log line for our show. And I use it over and over again at podcast movement, which is Gilligan's Island meets the office in space.

Which is exactly what we are. And if this was you, please let me know because I want to give you credit for it because it's brilliant. And I've used it over and over and over again. All right. So we are going to listen to your show now. This is for my audience. My audience is generally pretty down with the hardcore sci-fi. This is...

fun and funny and joyful and playful and insane and it'll be a good break from the heavy drama that tends to come through in our show so you guys will enjoy this episode alarm alarm alarm day three aboard the oz9 and the crew is waking to the now familiar sounds of something on the ship going terribly wrong somewhere

Fortunately, they've all had a decent night's rest thanks to finding the booze and the bunks. Unfortunately, not one of them knows the way back to the crew room or the bridge. Alarm. Alarm. Alarm. Alarm.

Aw crap, not again. Is this gonna be a daily occurrence on the Oz-9? It's a terrible alarm. Instead of spurring me on to action, it sort of sucks all the will to live right out of me. Only idiots say Jesus. Jesus! Zing. Anyone know what's happening? I do if anyone's interested. How about you kill that alarm first before we all flip ourselves to get away from it. Alarm.

And just like that, I feel the life force flowing back into me. Hey, where's Leet? Don't tell me, he's headed back to a healer? This time, it is completely not my fault. We're gonna have to start charging him rent. What happened? Uh, he was standing directly in front of a pod when it suddenly popped open. Banged him right in the nose. Oh no! Leet's symmetry is in peril!

I suppose that means my breakfast will be late again. You know, you could learn how to use a microwave so Lee doesn't have to make your food for you. Don't be ridiculous. Preparing meals is for peasant... Uh, give me a fire in a barrel in a steak. That was good enough for me man. Blah blah blah cover story. Olivia, did you say a pod popped open? Yeah, I was wondering when we might circle back around to that.

It did, and the fellow inside is off roaming the ship. And I have some rather bad news. Zombie? Worse. Murderer? Worse. He's not a clown, is he? Do you mean did some bloke get into his pod in full clown makeup and giant shoes? No. I'm afraid it's even worse. It can't be. Afraid so. My god. What? What? Mime. So some bloke got into his pod in full mime makeup. And suspenders, yes.

Crap! What's up? Oh, it's you. Thank God. Will do, next time we chat. Why is everyone so pale? Wait, was that another zombie in the pod? His face looked weird. Worse. It was a mime. And now he's free and running around to the Oz9. Oh, that explains it. I had the weirdest feeling just now that someone was behind me doing everything I was doing. Wait. Turn around very slowly. Gasp!

What? What is it? You've got a mime. Get it off! Get it off! Leet, just relax. Stand very still. It can't amusingly imitate your actions if you aren't doing anything. Just breathe and don't move. Is it gone? No! It's trying to free itself from an invisible box! It's rather good, actually. Right? It's like there's really a box around it. It's core strength. It's all about muscle control and a strong core.

That's really good! Oh, nice! Is it gone? Uh, no. Does anyone have some coins or small bills? It's the only way to get rid of them. All I have is a twenty. Give it to me, quick, before it starts walking in a high wind. The box thing was good, but it's not twenty quid good. I've got a five. Okay, Leet, you can relax. It's gone. We're gonna have to do something about it. I don't have much cash. Well, uh, actually, it'll take care of itself. Murder? Exactly.

Murder? You're suggesting we kill it? That seems a bit extreme, surely? MRDR. Murder. Modified Release Dosage Regimen. While in the pods, most of a passenger's bodily processes are shut down temporarily. As long as they stay in there, they receive a daily dose of all the minerals, vitamins, and other substances they need to stay alive.

When they're ready to come out permanently, their natural systems are reactivated so they can process the vitamins, minerals, and whatnots normally. But if a passenger comes out of the pod prematurely... They can't process food or even oxygen very well. It's why Lady Nibblebiscuit went downhill so fast. Why didn't that happen to any of us? The shutdown process takes 24 hours and doesn't start until at least an hour after takeoff to be sure the launch was successful. Hang on. We only woke up in the first half hour because the Dolce & Gabbana wing melted down.

What if there was an emergency on, say, day four and you had to wake us all up? I guess I'd hope the emergency took less than 12 to 24 hours to fix. And then we'd all go back into our pods until the next one? Yeah, alright. Olivia? Oh, alright. Pods don't have in-and-out privileges. If you hatch prematurely, well, there's a reason there are 47 complete crews aboard this ship.

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possibly. You saved our lives! I knew you were some kind of guardian angel! Except for the 800 plus passengers who died when you boosted the tanners in the Dolce & Gabbana wing. It's no more!

Yeah, actually that one sort of is my fault. I got a bit overzealous. But I needed a real emergency. So are you the one telling the repair bot to destroy the pods? Absolutely not. I don't need help destroying my own passengers and ship, thank you very much. That's comforting. Hang on. Uh, someone's trying to connect on the comms. Shall I patch the through, Madeline? Actually, could you just lead us all to the bridge? Fun as it is having this conversation in a corridor, I think I'd like to sit down. Follow the doors.

Why couldn't she have led us to the bunks on the first night? Colin, when you finally found your way to the bunks through this maze of a ship, what did you eat when you got there? Geez, why? Leet, what did Olivia tell you she used to do before she came to Gated Galaxies? Work with lab rats. Why? Would you care to ask her why she didn't just guide us to our bunks, Colin? No. No, I don't think I would, actually. Thought not.

The scariest part of this whole conversation? Madeline's crew is NOT Crew 1. As Crew 7 makes its way to the bridge, on the alert for a mime sighting, I thought I'd fill you in on a few details. According to G2's Scientific Ethics Division, Jeremy, the modified release dosage regimen is not, strictly speaking, necessary.

The Fittek stasis pods are capable of mimicking the body's natural circulatory, digestive, cardiovascular, lymphatic, and excretory systems without having to shut down any bodily functions or organs. But G2's advisory board opted for "murder" to eliminate the risk of passengers emerging from pods and taking over the ship.

The fact that the passengers are even less capable of running the ship than the crew provided little comfort. According to the G2 VP of Sales, "It only takes one rich geezer making a phone call home to screw the pooch that laid the golden egg." "Gah! It's here! It's here!" "Where? Where is it?" "Over there in the corner, pretending to be a tea party!" "Is that what he's doing? I thought it was pulling on a really long rope." "Oh! Oh, yes. I see it now."

That is a really long rope. Where do you suppose the other end is? Crew room? At least. Rope that long, it might go all the way to the memory storage. Maybe even further. Looks heavy. Not a real rope, boys. Are you sure? Yes, he's just a really good mime. Comsaron? Sounds like Jesse. Oz-9! Do you read? It's urgent! We're here, Captain Jesse. What's up? So, you remember what you were recently telling me about my crew? The warning from the reporter? Was he right?

Uh, possibly. What you got there? Not sure. Some kind of sandwich. Found a bunch of machines down on M-Deck. They're a little stale, but not bad. Oh, I'm sorry. Was I interrupting your lunch? No, please. You carry on with your Brown Swagger and Wonder Bread special with the gherkin, three olives, and ranch dressing for dipping on the side. I'm sure my near-death emergency can wait. I can eat and listen at the same time.

Unless you're eating those kettle crisps. The ones that get all folded over. Those things are incredibly crunchy. Oh right, those are awesome. I have to go easy though. They totally tear up the inside of my mouth. Boys. Sorry. Hey look, the mime is making a sandwich. I'm gonna go with peanut butter and jelly. You're mad. That's not peanut butter and jelly. It's actually bologna and cheese.

Sure it is. See how he's getting frustrated because the peanut butter is tearing up the bread? That could be anything. Ha! Opening the jelly jar. Told ya. He's actually peeling the plastic wrapper off the cheese. Alright. Boys! Sorry! My turn yet? Carry on. So there may have been something to what that reporter was saying. I think my crew may be targeting me. What happened?

I woke up to an alarm this morning. One of our pods had gone dark. Psh! One! One what? One what? What's she saying? Is it about me? I know, I know! I feel terrible! I went to check it out and it was empty. It had been forced open.

Forrest, you sure? Aye. There was a pry bar on the ground next to it and some very wet footsteps leading away. Maybe your crew got bored and thought out someone to play with. You must be joking. Is that what happens on your ship? Of course not. Ignore him. Why do you think it has something to do with you? I checked the bill of lading. That pod contained Alphonse Le Sauvage, otherwise known as... La Biche en Frise. The Biche en Frise? Like the little white dog?

Have you never heard of the notorious Bichon Brise? It's a small white dog. Quite sweet, actually. They thought out a dog? What? No. Shut up. Maybe. We don't know yet. Shut up! No, no, not the little white dog. The notorious French assassin. I had no idea that bastard was on my ship or I'd have moved his pod to an airlock just in case.

His surname is The Savage and he went with the Bichon Frise? It's possible you're getting hung up on the wrong things here. I'm telling you, there's a deadly assassin at large on my ship and he's coming for me! Can Dick track him? No, or at least he says not. I'm telling you, I have no idea who to trust, but that crap cockney bastard of an AI is at the top of my list. An AI wouldn't need a crowbar to open a pod, just saying.

Isn't he listening in on this conversation? I'm not an idiot, Mad Pants. I'm in the baked beans room. The baked beans room? How can we help? I might need a jolly holiday after all. On the 9th? Man, I've got to learn Japanese so I can talk to her. Japan? Is that seriously what you think we're speaking? Have you ever actually heard a foreign language? Is that possible? How would you get from the 6748 to here? Japan?

We maneuver the ships as close as we can. I put on a space suit, pop myself out the nearest airlock to you, then use the venting system of the suit to steer to your open airlock.

Venting system? Alright, you flunked out before we got to this bit. The suit's venting system clears out the built up carbon dioxide, as well as other undesirable gases. Undesirable gases? Y'all eat that many baked beans on your ship? Look, the point is, it can also act as propulsion. It should be enough to get me from my ship to yours if we pull in pretty damn close.

As long as we're clear, the Oz-9 has a captain, and that's me.

Olivia, is this doable? I reckon we can make it happen. As long as Captain Haggis over there understands that everything on this ship is hands off. Controls, comms, leads, all of it.

Tell it to put a ship on autopilot. I'll control the 6748 from here. You don't think Dick will object? I don't think Dick will know what hit him. There are advantages to being Dr. Friedrich's favorite. What's happening? It looks like Captain Hottie will be joining us on the Arse 9 for a bit. Really? What? I have to go lift stuff. I want to be at maximum expansion when she gets here. To go with your maximum density?

Olivia, how long before I can hightail it out of here? It's a bit too quiet on this ship. Uh, be at your airlock 78 in 30 minutes. I should be able to trigger your door. I think I can get the gap between our ships pretty close, but, you know, take a deep breath just in case. Right. Very comforting. One more thing. That block's been pulling on the same rope since we started this conversation. Why the hell do you have a rope that long on your ship?

Not a real rope. We've got a mime. A mime? Oh, hang on a sec. Just out of curiosity, how close is the R644? Too far. You'd never make it, not with their AI bazelfulty steering. Damn. Look, maybe we should reconsider this whole thing. I mean, how bad could an assassin named after a curly lap dog be?

How do you overdose on a decongestant? I'll spare you the details.

No, no I won't. Here's a photo. That's horrible. Hey look, the mine's pretending to go into total organ failure. Uh, nope. That's the real thing. Joe? On it. Uh, airlock nine, I think. The same one Jesse's coming in. Might do a twofer if we're opening the doors. Uh, aim for the mine, Captain Jesse. We'll catch you. They can hardly wait.

So, she is preparing to escape my clutches, eh? Unacceptable. I think I know where to keep her in my sights. And my hair crosses.

As Captain Jesse prepares for an indefinite stay aboard the Oz-9, other preparations are also underway aboard the 6748. Preparations that include gaffer tape, those kettle-baked chips that really tear your mouth up, and some decongestant. Will Jesse make it off her ship in time? Will she reach the relative safety of the Oz-9? Has anyone ever said "safety" and "Oz-9" in the same sentence that didn't also contain the words "complete lack of"?

Today's episode was brought to you by Desperate Measures Decongestant, the heavy-duty nasal irrigation system guaranteed to leave your sinuses mucus-free and begging for mercy. Find Desperate Measures Decongestant wherever your favorite industrial solvents are sold. You've been listening to... Tim Sherburn as Colin Eric Perry as Joe Richard Cowan as Leet Shannon Perry as Olivia and Madeline Bonnie Brantley as Jessie

Introducing Aaron Clark as Le Bichon Frise and me, Richard Nadolny, as your narrator. Our music is composed and performed by John Faley. Oz9 is written and produced by Shannon Perry.

Be sure to subscribe to Oz9 on your favorite podcatcher and check out our website, oz-9.com. Follow at Oz9 Podcast for announcements of new episodes, merchandise, events, and recommendations of other podcasts you might just love. Just not as much as you love us. Or else. Carry on, space monkeys. Narrator out.

The Fable and Falling Network, where fiction producers flourish.

Greetings, fans of the esoteric, and welcome to the trailer for Madame Magenta Sonnus Mystica. Hang on, why am I doing my own trailer? Well, the people want to see their star, my dear. No one can see me, Bernard. This is a podcast. Oh.

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