Bananas

References

• Cavendish Banana
• Musa (genus)
• Gros Michel
• Blue Java Banana
  • Blue Java Banana (Ice Cream Banana): Is There Really a Blue Banana That Tastes Like Ice Cream?
• Arrested Development
• Comedian (artwork)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Undone
• Brain Damage
• Amazing Stories
  • Hell Toupee
• Ratatouille
• Futurama
  • Brain Slug
• Carmen Miranda
• Dolemite is my Name
• Ben Stiller
• Meet the Parents
• Martin Short
• Pure Luck
• Shotgun Wedding
• Bananaphone
• Star Trek
  • Holodeck
• The Matrix
• Taken
• Charlie the Unicorn 3
• Ready or Not
• Get Out
• Weekend at Bernie’s
• Shallow Hal
• Meet the Fockers
• Chinese Trumpetfish
• Banana Beer
• Great Molasses Flood
• Pi Day
• Gabriel Sachter-Smith – World Banana Tour

Corrections

Thomas talked about histamines and implied that they would be in the bananas. While some foods are high in histamines, bananas are not one of them. If someone is allergic to bananas, the histamines are released by the body’s immune system reacting to proteins in the banana. Clearly Thomas is not a doctor.

Shep said the word “sauvignon” means “savannah,” but the French word for savannah is, “savane.” The origin of the name for the various grapes called sauvignon is unclear, but the most popular belief is that it’s derived from the French word “sauvage,” meaning “wild.” Clearly Shep is not a French scholar.

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
Yes!

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
I’m nodding like, “Yeah, that’ll work on their audio-only podcast.”

[Thomas]
Well, and it’s funny because I saw you nodding and I was like, “Yep, good. Okay.”

[Emily]
“You agree with me.”

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. I’m Thomas J. Brown and my co-hosts are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Our ordinary object this episode is A Banana.

[Emily]
That’s B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

[Thomas]
We’re all familiar with the classic yellow fruit in the grocery store, but it turns out there are so many different kinds of banana out there. That makes me curious. Besides the Cavendish, which is the variety most commonly found in U.S. grocery stores, how many different kinds of banana have you two eaten?

[Emily]
If you count plantains, then two.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
I was going to say none, but if we were counting plantains.

[Thomas]
I think they’re part of the Musa genus, so I think that counts.

[Shep]
All right, then two. But never- I’ve never had a Gros Michel. I’ve never had, any of, you know-

[Thomas]
Yeah, I’ve never had one of those.

[Shep]
The ice-cream flavored, whatever it is.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
The blue banana.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I don’t know if that’s even real or if that’s just an Internet… I mean, that image could have been doctored.

[Thomas]
So they are real, but they are not blue when they are ripe, and they basically just taste like banana plus, like, maybe a hint of vanilla is what I’ve heard.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Thomas]
I have not tried one of those either, but I’d like to.

[Emily]
Maybe I would like that one.

[Thomas]
I’ve tried a bunch. I meant to count, but probably a half a dozen different kinds.

[Shep]
Jeez.

[Emily]
Where are you getting all these bananas?

[Thomas]
Hawaii, mostly.

[Emily]
Meh.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
They are one of my favorite fruits, so- Alright, Shep, it is your turn to pitch first. So let’s hear your Banana pitches.

[Shep]
It was so hard not to do an Arrested Development pitch because it’s right there.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
A heist movie where the expensive art they are stealing is a banana duct taped to the wall.

[Thomas]
And at some point in the film, one of the dumb henchmen like peels and is eating the banana and they’re like, “Ah!”

[Shep]
Or you think it’s that banana, but it turns out he just brought bananas.

[Thomas]
Right, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
And then it’s a big confusion, and everyone panics. It’s like, “Oh, no, it’s fine.” But then the actual banana gets stepped on, and then so he has to substitute in one of his bananas, but it’s not really the real banana.

[Thomas]
Is there’s like an Indiana Jones scene where he’s got to swap out the banana real fast?

[Shep]
He’s going through the bunch, the heist leaders.

[Thomas]
Yeah, he’s got to pick out just the right size.

[Shep]
Just the right one.

[Thomas]
That’s good.

[Shep]
Okay, here’s another pitch: A woman shopping, hears a phone ringing, looks around, and it’s a banana.

[Thomas]
Well, I like this idea of a banana ringing. I can see the scene of she’s walking by and she can sort of hear a muffled ringing and she’s looking around and she realizes it’s coming from the pile of bananas and…

[Shep]
Now, it’s a thing that would seem crazy, like, “Am I having a psychotic break?”

[Emily]
Rate.

[Shep]
“Am I hallucinating?”

[Thomas]
Right. You’d be like looking around.

[Shep]
“Am I being pranked?”

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
It seems insane and impossible. But if it’s really happening, especially if you answer the banana and someone’s there talking, like, how is it happening?

[Thomas]
Yes. You answered the banana.

[Shep]
How- What was that streaming show? Undone, I think, where the girl is, like, having a psychotic break, which is a thing that runs in her family genetically, but it also could be happening.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
And they, like, go back and forth on whether it’s really happening or whether it’s all in her mind. This could be like that, where whether it’s really happening or whether it’s all in her mind is not clear. But unlike Undone, like, have an actual resolution at the end and don’t just kick the can down the road and go, “Well, it could be either.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
No, you cowards. Pick one. All right, here’s another pitch: In a world where bananas have been wiped out by fungus, someone discovers that their eccentric great aunt has a banana tree that still grows them, seemingly immune.

[Thomas]
Is that their great aunt Michelle? And then is this like dystopian future or is this just like the world as it is now, except there aren’t bananas? So I mean, that is a dystopian future, but-

[Shep]
I mean, the fact that there is a future is already, like, optimistic, so… I just figured it’s a world without bananas.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Like, maybe this, this main character, you know, no one ever had a banana from her generation. And she’s like, “Oh, when I was a kid, I remember visiting some family member, and they had bananas or something like that. I don’t remember.” And no one believes her. And then she tracks down her great aunt, who has a banana tree, doesn’t talk about it. It’s not a big deal. Doesn’t think anything of it. Doesn’t see the value that it represents as this last surviving banana tree.

[Thomas]
So imagine there’s like banana-flavored stuff, but it’s all that artificial flavoring, and so people are like, “Oh, it’s fine, we know what bananas taste like.” And then somebody eats the real thing and they’re like, “(Gasp!)… It’s not as good as I thought it would be.”

[Shep]
Yeah, not nearly as sweet as the banana-flavored candy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s all I have. Thomas, what do you have?

[Thomas]
Well, I have two pitches, some short ones this week. An older widowed man is finally ready to give dating a try. And his daughter insists he has to use Banan, the hot new banana-themed dating app.

[Emily]
Okay, so a banana-themed dating app. Why would women get on that? You know what?

[Thomas]
That’s a good point.

[Emily]
It’s going to be-

[Shep]
No, no, no, no. It’s for gay men.

[Thomas]
Ah, there we go.

[Shep]
Obviously, it’s for gay men.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Emily]
That I understand because I don’t want to go on a… You might as well call it Cockshots.

[Thomas]
Here’s another pitch.

[Shep]
Okay, we’re just moving on, are we?

[Thomas]
Did you have other questions?

[Shep]
No. It’s fine.

[Thomas]
It sounds like you’ve got it figured out.

[Shep]
It’s fine.

[Emily]
It’s fine.

[Thomas]
A killer stalks a college campus, always leaving a banana peel beside his victims. But what nobody realizes is that the peel itself is the killer!

[Shep]
Thomas, you’ve accidentally read one of Emily’s pitches.

[Emily]
Yeah. How does he go about killing? Is he stabbing the victims? I want it to be something unbanana, you know, like-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
It’s smothering them.

[Emily]
Like stabbing or. No, that’s obvious. He would smother them. That’s his only form of violence.

[Shep]
Right. That’s his only form of attack. How else could it be?

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s a spiritual sequel to Brain Damage. No, no one else has seen this movie?

[Emily]
And I have not. I know the name.

[Thomas]
It’s interesting.

[Shep]
It reminds me of the Amazing Stories episode where it’s the beard. Not the beard. It’s a toupee.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
It’s a toupee that takes over the body and causes them to murder. I think beard, because there’s one scene where it’s hiding on a statue as a beard.

[Thomas]
So the banana peel is on some guy’s head, and it’s controlling his brain. The ends of the peels are going in his ears, steering him, like Ratatouille.

[Shep]
Ah, there you go. It’s not smothering, it’s taking over the whole body. It’s one of those brain-controlling slugs from Futurama.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Emily]
Bananatouille.

[Shep]
Yeah. Bananatouille.

[Thomas]
Those are what I have. Emily, what are your pitches?

[Emily]
All right, I have some pitches: In a post-trade-war dystopia, bananas are a very coveted commodity.

[Thomas]
This is Shep’s pitch. You’re just stealing Shep’s pitch.

[Emily]
100%. 100%. One woman sets up a banana smuggling operation, like bootleggers of the past. She amasses a fortune but is betrayed by a lover who is secretly working for the corrupt government.

[Shep]
Is it a Banana Republic?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Is her name Carmen?

[Emily]
No, her name’s Chiquita.

[Thomas]
That’s what he calls her.

[Emily]
He calls her Chiquita.

[Thomas]
He’s like, “My little Chiquita.”

[Emily]
“My Chiquita banana.”

[Thomas]
Depends who sponsors us.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
If it’s Dole, then she’s like, “My little Dole…” Hmm, doesn’t quite work. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out.

[Shep]
Dolomite! Oh, no.

[Thomas]
She’s like, “Dolomite is my name.” No, different movie.

[Emily]
All right. Another pitch is: While getting ready for her day, Stephanie grabs a banana from her fruit basket. As she’s eating it, she notices some strange scratches on the peel. “I’m watching you” is written on the banana.

[Emily]
Obviously a little shaken, she calls her boyfriend into the kitchen to see it. He assures her it must be a prank. He’s seen videos on the Internet of kids etching things into fresh bananas at the store so they’ll show up more clearly as the banana ripens. Relieved, she throws the peel away and thinks nothing of it until a few weeks later, there’s another message on a banana that says, “Come and find me.” Soon, there are more messages on her bananas. Where are they coming from? What do they mean? Is she in danger?

[Shep]
Okay, we definitely can’t do this one because then people are influenced in the “I’m gonna scratch things on bananas in real life, and see if that’s true.”

[Emily]
Well, I got this from watching videos of people doing that.

[Shep]
Ah, it’s already out there.

[Emily]
Yeah. Also we’ve got: Brian is very nervous to meet his fiancée’s family for the first time. They are very wealthy and own a huge banana plantation. But he’s deathly allergic to bananas.

[Shep]
I want to do this one. It’s an absurdist farcical comedy.

[Emily]
Because why wouldn’t he just say, “I’m allergic to bananas? I can’t go visit your family.”

[Shep]
Right. “If I go to your family’s plantation, I could die. I could literally die.”

[Thomas]
Well, maybe he does say that, and he’s, like, trying to play it down. Or she’s trying to play it down, she’s trying to minimize. Like, “It’s fine. You’ll be fine.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Except, everything they eat has bananas in it because they have so many bananas.

[Emily]
I was thinking it would be, like, kind of like Ben Stiller-style, where he’s like, “I can do it. I’m a manly man who wants to show you I love you and I can fit in. I’ll just suffer through the allergies and the anaphylaxis.”

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, it’s Meet the Parents.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Except with bananas.

[Thomas]
Right. Meet the Mirandas.

[Shep]
Meet the. Meet the Chiquitas.

[Emily]
Meet the Doles.

[Thomas]
Meet the Doles.

[Shep]
Meet the Doles.

[Thomas]
Right. Those are all the pitches. Which one do we want to do?

[Shep]
I want to do the rom-com. What do you guys want to do?

[Thomas]
I mean, that is very funny.

[Emily]
You seem most excited about that.

[Thomas]
What would the resolution of that story be, though? He dies?

[Emily]
I mean, it depends on how we want to take the rom-com.

[Thomas]
It turns out he’s not allergic to bananas. That’s just something his mom told him when he was young.

[Emily]
So he goes into that fake psychosomatic anaphylaxis where it just kind of goes tight, and he’s like “(Gasps for air)”.

[Thomas]
Well, I don’t, I don’t know that he even goes into anaphylaxis or a fake one. He’s just, like, so bent on avoiding bananas, and it keeps causing all these problems. And then the climax is he ends up, like, eating a banana, and nothing happens. He’s fine. He’s not allergic to bananas.

[Shep]
That would be an unsatisfying resolution.

[Emily]
If we went full absurdist, he would die at the end.

[Shep]
Okay, well, we can’t…

[Shep]
Okay, then we’ve… Let’s knock that one out. We’re not doing that. You could have a resolution where he uses his allergy for something. Maybe he doesn’t, like, his throat doesn’t tighten up, but, like, his whole body swells up like a sumo wrestler.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And you can have that happen multiple times. What was that ridiculous Martin Short movie where he gets stung by a bee and his whole body swells up? (Pure Luck)

[Shep]
I remember it being dumb. That scene was in the trailer and, like, it made the plane so heavy that it crashed. I was like, “Where’s the extra mass coming from? What are you guys talking about? None of this makes sense.” But you could do something like that. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s a movie.

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s like, it’s similar to Shotgun Wedding, where they’re, there’s this really rich banana family, and they live in South America or something. So some guerrilla fighters come and take over the plantation, and he uses his allergy to distract the terrorists so the family can escape.

[Shep]
Why would the terrorist care that someone’s having an allergic reaction? It’s not one of them.

[Emily]
Because he’s freakish and ugly. Okay. Because there’s a legend in that part of some monster in the woods.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And instead of him swelling up to twice his size, he just gets huge blotchy hives all over his body. So he comes out looking like this horrific swamp monster.

[Shep]
Okay, but why are the guerrillas not just shooting him, then, if he’s a monster? I was thinking that he could swell up and, like, block a doorway or something. Like, he’s physically doing something where they don’t have to believe in a myth for it to work because he’s actually really there, and it’s actually really blocking the doorway.

[Emily]
But which one is funnier? Yours is practical and useful. Mine is ridiculous and silly. I vote mine is funnier.

[Shep]
All right, let’s talk about this gay dating app again. Well, I’ve said which one I want to do. Are we just doing that one? No one has any-

[Thomas]
Well, when the woman in yours, Shep, answers the banana phone…

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, gosh, no, no, no, no.

[Emily]
What happens?

[Emily]
Does, what, what does the person say? Is it a banana?

[Shep]
We can’t do any of my pitches.

[Emily]
Why?

[Shep]
That’s not allowed.

[Emily]
Just answer the question about the banana phone.

[Shep]
Okay, what’s your, what’s your question about the banana phone?

[Emily]
I want to know if it’s actually just still a banana that rings and acts like a phone, or if it is some kind of phone in disguise, radio in disguise, or-

[Shep]
Or it could be magical reality where this isn’t the real world.

[Shep]
This is all an illusion. She’s on a drug trip, or she’s caught in a magic whatever. Or it’s the future, and she’s in the holodeck. Like, she can’t separate the fantasy from the reality, and they’re trying to pull her out of it, and she’s resisting. It could be lots of things.

[Thomas]
Right. But it’s like she’s living in The Matrix, and this is how they.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yes, she’s in the Matrix.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
They’re going to yellow pill her and…

[Shep]
Oh, no. Oh, no. It’s like a Matrix parody spoof. No. Yeah, she picks it up, and it’s like, “I’ve got a certain set of skills.” No.

[Emily]
It’s just a unicorn on the other end going, “Ring, ring, ring.” “H-hello?”

[Shep]
“You have a bad connection!”

[Emily]
I’m fine with the rom-com.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that sounds good.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Okay, so there’s not an attack on the banana plantation. There’s got to be some other problem.

[Thomas]
What’s the conflict? Or the resolution to the conflict? I guess the primary conflict is he’s allergic to bananas.

[Emily]
And her family is, “Life is bananas.”

[Thomas]
And they’re bananas about bananas.

[Shep]
Are they really actually trying to kill him? Like, the daughter has gone out and found a guy. Actually, all the daughters in the family have gone out, found guys. They all come back, and those guys are really there as sacrifices-

[Emily]
To the banana god.

[Shep]
To the banana gods.

[Thomas]
Feels a bit like, Ready or Not.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I mean, it’s also Get Out.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
It’s also… You’re right. It’s been done a lot. Okay, never mind. Does she know that he’s allergic to, deathly allergic to, bananas?

[Thomas]
Perhaps in order for this to work the best, it should not be a conversation they’ve had previously.

[Emily]
Right. That’s what I was thinking. That it would be something that, it just never came up.

[Thomas]
Right. She lives in New York, or wherever, the city, and she doesn’t eat bananas. She’s sick of bananas. She avoids bananas. And it’s just never come up.

[Emily]
Yeah. And she just has never seen him eat bananas. But a lot of people don’t eat bananas, so it’s not something to ever think about.

[Shep]
Okay, I want to throw a running joke in where he has to keep using an EpiPen to counteract his allergic reactions, but they always think it’s something else. You know, there was a dessert, and it had bananas, but it also had nuts in it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“Oh, he’s allergic to nuts. Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

[Emily]
So every time they’re like, “Man, he’s got a lot of allergies. Are you sure this is where you want your gene pool to head?”

[Shep]
“It’s weird. He didn’t seem that allergic when we were in the city.”

[Emily]
“He’s just not used to this fresh tropical air.”

[Shep]
Right. That’s making him sick.

[Emily]
He needs the smog.

[Shep]
He’s got smog deficiency. He’s going through smog withdrawal.

[Thomas]
Does he at some point take, like, a ton of Benadryl and fall asleep and miss some important thing?

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, I think that would be good. Like, what’s a big, important thing? They could be doing? An engagement dinner with the local friends and families?

[Shep]
Okay, I don’t want him to just fall asleep and miss it. I want him to be there.

[Emily]
And just out of it.

[Shep]
But loopy and, like, falling asleep more and more. But either she’s helping him or his best friend, the best man, is there helping him. And they’re Weekend at Bernie’s-ing him into doing whatever.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
But then it culminates in a couple’s dance, you know, with just him and his fiancée.

[Thomas]
He’s been, like, loading up on coffee and stuff, too, to try to counteract the sleepy effects of the Benadryl.

[Shep]
Oh, they ask for something. They ask for coffee to help pick him up. And they give him what, what he thinks is coffee. And he drinks it like, “Oh, that’s strong!” And it was like cocaine or something. I don’t know. There was a language barrier, and they misunderstood.

[Thomas]
So does he get all manic after he drinks that drink and then crashes super hard?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes!

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
I’m nodding like, “Yeah, that’ll work on their audio-only podcast.”

[Thomas]
Well, and it’s funny because I saw you nodding and I was like, “Yep, good. Okay.”

[Emily]
“You agree with me.”

[Emily]
I was also thinking, you know, because everything’s banana, they use the banana leaves and have banana fiber sheets, which for some reason, he would also be allergic to because he’s gonna be that allergic to bananas.

[Shep]
Right. He gets hives all over his body.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah. So he gets a sleeping bag to sleep in.

[Thomas]
Does he, does he think there are, there are bedbugs?

[Emily]
Maybe.

[Thomas]
Because it’s like a more tropical climate.

[Emily]
Yeah. But I was thinking he would get a sleeping bag to sleep in, and his fiancée, who he would share his bed with, would be like, “What? What are you doing?”

[Thomas]
Why does he continue to hide this allergy from her?

[Emily]
That would be a question she would ask him when she finds out.

[Shep]
Look, you can’t bring that up because then the whole thing, the whole premise, is called into question.

[Emily]
That’s not till the end that we ask that question.

[Thomas]
Either way, we’re gonna need an answer.

[Shep]
Yeah, we need an answer.

[Emily]
Stupid answer: “I love you too much. I didn’t want you to think that we couldn’t see your family anymore. We couldn’t come here and visit your home because I know how much you love it, and you would miss being able to see them. I didn’t want to take that away from you.”

[Thomas]
And she’s like, “Oh, I hate coming back here. My family is bananas.”

[Shep]
Boo! No puns!

[Thomas]
No puns? It’s a rom-com!

[Shep]
It’s too easy for banana puns. They break up and they split. No.

[Thomas]
Well, this whole premise is much less appealing to me now.

[Shep]
I got a physical cramp from that pun.

[Emily]
I’m trying to come up with something for pudding, and I got nothing.

[Thomas]
Don’t worry, Emily, we’ll help you come up with a whole bunch.

[Shep]
All right, get it all out of your system now.

[Thomas]
I’ll think of more.

[Shep]
So she’s got to say something early on, or someone else in her family has to say something early on, about allergies specifically, are a sign of weakness or something absurd. It could be her uncle is like, “Oh, my friend just died.”

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
“He had a peanut allergy. So, you know, it’s good. Good that he died.”

[Emily]
“One less person.”

[Shep]
“One less person with that weakness.” And so he thinks that’s the way her family is, and so he keeps it a secret. Maybe he didn’t even realize he had a banana allergy. No, he must have. Bananas are so ubiquitous.

[Emily]
Yeah, that would be one that you would know and watch out for.

[Shep]
Right. Yeah, especially if he’s got to keep using his EpiPen.

[Thomas]
If he thinks they think allergy is weakness, he has to be hiding the use of his EpiPen, which, by the way, that’s not how that works at all. But.

[Shep]
I know. My mom’s deathly allergic. She uses her EpiPen and then we have to go to the hospital.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
It’s not like you inject it and then you’re fine.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
No, no, no. But it’s a movie now. We shouldn’t do misinformation in a movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So he gets one, then. So I was thinking he’s really nervous because he’s like, “Oh, my gosh, these people are banana farmers. They must have bananas in all their food.” And the first dinner, there’s no bananas in anything. And he’s like, “Oh.” He’s, like, surprised by that. And then dessert comes, and it’s like, Bananas Foster or something. He’s like, “Oh, no.”

[Thomas]
But he could just be like, “I had so much of that, the pork and the rice and everything.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“I’m super full. I had a big meal on the plane.” Or maybe he’s like, “Oh, it’s such a nice night. We’ll go and have dessert out on the porch.” And everyone’s like, “Oh, what a great idea.” And he just tips it into the bushes.

[Shep]
Oh, when he’s drugged out on the antihistamine whatever, that’s when he hallucinates that the banana phone is ringing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Let’s tie that in.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, and everyone thinks it’s hilarious. They think he’s doing a bit. Well, they don’t think it’s hilarious necessarily, but, like, “Oh, he’s, he’s trying to impress us. He’s fitting in just fine.” Like, it’s a classic.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He’s trying to entertain the kids.

[Emily]
Yeah. At first, they’re all very confused and like, “What are you doing?” And then they assume it’s that jovial joking, trying to fit in.

[Thomas]
Does he think that the banana phone is ringing, or does he think he’s trying to, he’s, like, trying to call someone for help, and he thinks the banana is a phone? It’s a lot darker if he’s trying to call for help. I guess.

[Shep]
Yeah. It’s got to ring.

[Emily]
I think it’s better if it’s, he thinks it’s ringing.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Is there somebody else’s phone ring, and he sees the banana, and he’s so, like, zonked out that he’s like, “Whoa.”

[Emily]
“Hello?”

[Thomas]
Yeah. He picks up. “Hello?” He doesn’t realize someone right behind him is having a conversation. He’s like, “Oh, my gosh.” That could be funny.

[Emily]
That could be very funny.

[Thomas]
Well, let’s take a break here, and when we come back, we’ll figure out the rest of our Banana rom-com.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. I still feel like one of the biggest things we need to figure out is how this thing ends. We know that there’s going to be a big reveal of his allergy.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
We know that she’s not going to care. And in fact, it sounds like we want her family, apart from the one uncle-

[Emily]
Yeah. I don’t think they’re going to care. Yeah.

[Thomas]
They would just be like, “Oh, you should have told us.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Except for her uncle, who’s like, “Oh, good.”

[Thomas]
Does some negative thing befall the uncle? Turns out he’s allergic to something, and he’s never known it until now.

[Shep]
That’s kind of… But that would be very poetic.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It would be. I would enjoy it.

[Shep]
Or maybe he has known all the time, and he was in super denial, like, “I can’t have an allergy. Allergies are the sign of weakness.”

[Emily]
“They’re all in your head. You just have to tell yourself you’re not allergic and you’re not allergic.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Okay, so there’s a big reveal, and his family’s like, “Oh, well, if you told us, we would have made arrangements.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
“It’s more common than you think. We have lots of family and friends who are allergic to bananas.”

[Shep]
Yeah, like half the people there are- Because bananas are so common that they get exposed and then they develop allergies to it.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Maybe the uncle who is a jerk about it, maybe his son is allergic to bananas. And he’s like, “Yeah. And he’s weak.”

[Emily]
And then they talk about how they have all these, like, better antihistamines, non-drowsy things, and we even have EpiPens.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. There’s an EpiPen drawer, just full of them.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Do we see that? Early on, we talked about the uncle making some comment about it. Is like, one of the plantation workers, he gets stung by a wasp or something, and he’s allergic and…

[Shep]
Ah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They’re carrying him away. And the uncle’s like, “Oh, it’s just weak.” And nobody says anything because they’re all used to it. They’re, he’s the crazy uncle.

[Emily]
Yeah. They’re just like “Whatever, crazy uncle Joey.”

[Shep]
Right. But he assumes their silence means they agree.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So the ending is he has an allergic reaction, and it all comes out. And it’s like him being loaded into the ambulance to be taken to the hospital?

[Emily]
Sure.

[Thomas]
Right. She’s nervous. The uncle’s there looking at him, scowling and shaking his head. He’s like, “Oh, no.”

[Emily]
Are they questioning what the allergy is at first? And then finally he says it was the bananas, or do they know as they’re loading him up?

[Thomas]
And then they all come visit him in the hospital, and they bring him some fresh bananas, and he’s like, “Ah!”

[Emily]
No, the doctor’s like, “You know he’s allergic, right?”

[Thomas]
“You can’t take those in his room.”

[Shep]
So he’s not coming out and telling the truth? The doctor is revealing it?

[Thomas]
That’s a good point. What else do we need to figure out in this story? Our second act is pretty thin.

[Emily]
The whole movie is very thin.

[Shep]
We don’t really know about her. I mean, it’s just like the brainstorm session. It’s not even a real pitch yet.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, we take the script for Shallow Hal and instead of fat, it’s a banana allergy. And then instead of Hal, we put in-

[Thomas]
Jeff Chiquita?

[Emily]
Yeah, Jeff Chiquita.

[Shep]
A reference to a joke from before we started recording.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
That’s gonna land really well.

[Thomas]
About as well as you nodding.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
All right, so we take part of the script of Meet the Fockers–

[Shep]
It’s Meet the Parents first.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, sorry.

[Shep]
That’s the on-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Meet the Parents. That’s the one we care about.

[Thomas]
He says, “I have bananas, Focker. Can you milk me?” You can. I’ve had banana milk. It’s not very good.

[Shep]
You can milk anything with nipples. He’s right.

[Emily]
He is correct.

[Shep]
That is a correct thing.

[Emily]
You could milk a man if you get the right hormones in.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What is she like? What is the family like? We know the uncle.

[Thomas]
She likes bananas.

[Shep]
She doesn’t like bananas.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She moved away from her family to get away from all the banana stuff. Can you imagine growing up and everything is bananas all the time?

[Emily]
Oh, god, I would hate it. I would hate it so much.

[Shep]
It is a lot, if it’s every day.

[Thomas]
So what is she like?

[Shep]
What does she do? What does he do?

[Emily]
Marketing, social media marketer.

[Shep]
It’s marketing because it’s a movie, and that’s always-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s the only job Hollywood knows. How did they get together? Why are they together?

[Thomas]
Well, maybe he’s, like, running some company that is trying to help out with compost. Like, compost at scale for, like, municipal composting. Trying to get more people doing it and that sort of thing. So the family’s very excited. They want to show him their compost pile, and it’s all banana trunks and peels, and he’s like, “Oh, great.”

[Thomas]
He just sees it as, like, a giant pile of things that will kill him. And they want to, like- They’re picking up the compost with their hands to show him and, like, “Dig in there.” And he’s like “Uh…”

[Shep]
Right. They think that he’s being squeamish and, like, oh, you know, he’s not really manly.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He can’t, he won’t dig into the compost pile. It’s like, no, he doesn’t want to dig into the banana pile.

[Thomas]
Right. “You’re never gonna get very far in the compost industry.” So they have all these, like, reservations about him. The family does. So, like, they don’t, not that they don’t like him. They just don’t think that he’s a good fit for her based off of a misunderstanding.

[Shep]
Right. He has seemed nervous the whole time he’s been here.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Are they worried as a farming family, even though they are probably quite wealthy, that he would look down on them, being from a big city and growing up, they assume with money, like old money, you know, they, they imagine he’s just this wealthy New York hotshot?

[Thomas]
It could be the other way around. They could have money, and so they’re very guarded about who comes into the family.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. I assume they have money because I feel like if you own a banana plantation, you’re probably doing okay. I don’t know the banana plantation economics at the moment.

[Shep]
So she never told him she came from a banana plantation? He never told her he’s deathly allergic to bananas? It just never came up.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
So when she’s like, “Let’s go visit my family,” she didn’t say, “Let’s go visit my family’s banana plantation.” She just says, “Let’s go visit my family in Hawaii.” He’s like, “That sounds lovely. That sounds wonderful.”

[Thomas]
Right. Trip to Hawaii? Perfect.

[Shep]
Right. So he never told her because it never came up. And then he gets there, and it’s bananas everywhere.

[Thomas]
Oh, maybe he even thinks that, like, this is, like, a family reunion trip. They’re all traveling to Hawaii. They’re gonna meet there. And so he’s like, “Oh, what hotel are we in?” She’s like, “Oh, no, we’re going to the family farm.”

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
He’s like, “Oh, your family lives in Hawaii?”

[Emily]
But if they’re engaged at this point, maybe they’re not engaged at this point. They’re just dating.

[Shep]
I thought they were engaged. I mean, it’s your pitch. They could be whatever.

[Emily]
I mean, in the pitch, they are engaged. But I’m going to say he’s going to know that they live in Hawaii.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Like, you don’t get as far as being engaged, I don’t care how fast you got engaged, without knowing.

[Thomas]
Oh, this has got to be the first time he’s meeting the family. Right?

[Emily]
Well, yeah. This is the first time he’s meeting them, but they would have had the conversations of, “Oh, where did you grow up?” She would have said, Hawaii. So he knows they live in Hawaii.

[Thomas]
That’s a good point.

[Shep]
Right. He must have talked to the parents before, either on the phone or on Zoom or something.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
But that doesn’t reveal where they live.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
They just talked about whatever.

[Emily]
Or they’ve come to visit the city they live in.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Before.

[Shep]
Like, he. Yeah, he might have met them in person, if they came to New York.

[Emily]
Maybe when they. Okay, so they came to New York and they’re, the one time it could have been revealed that he has the, you know, wants to say, “Oh, and what is it that you do, mister or (so and so)?” And he’s like, “Yeah, let’s not talk about business. We’re here to be with family.” And so always gets skirted.

[Thomas]
They bring her banana bread, and she doesn’t want it, so she just kind of, like, gives it to the neighbor, and he thinks, like, “Oh, she must know I’m allergic to bananas.”

[Emily]
“She must have noticed.”

[Thomas]
Right. Hey, that could even be a plot point. She’s like, “Why didn’t you tell me?” He’s like, “I thought you knew.” “How would I know?” Like-

[Shep]
“You gave the banana bread to the neighbors!”

[Emily]
“I never get bananas. I avoid bananas. There are no bananas near me.”

[Thomas]
She’s like, “I grew up eating bananas. 18 years of bananas, every fucking day of my life. I don’t want bananas.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Hasn’t been enough time yet.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What is the actual plot? Does he have his friend with him? Is this like, are they going to Hawaii to get married?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. This has to be getting married in Hawaii, right?

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
Sounds very romantic. So then the climax has to be during the wedding, right?

[Thomas]
It could be at the rehearsal dinner.

[Shep]
Okay, you’re right. Then that wedding is for the happy ending.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
The wedding’s the denouement.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
They finally have their vows on the beach.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right, right, right. So something triggers his allergies at the rehearsal dinner, and then it comes out that he’s allergic, and he confesses everything while he’s being loaded into the ambulance.

[Thomas]
Is this where the- He’s all hopped up on antihistamine, and he’s getting all out of it?

[Shep]
It’s got to be, he’s got to be clear-headed when he makes his confession, otherwise it doesn’t-

[Thomas]
No, no, sorry. I mean, at the rehearsal dinner. Is that when that scene happens? Because the confession comes at the hospital. Right?

[Shep]
Oh, okay, I see, I see. Yeah, that could be, that could be it.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Thomas]
So I don’t know if there’s a way that we can incorporate this into the film, but one thing that I found interesting is that fish are attracted to bananas. So I’ll often take a banana with me when I go snorkeling.

[Shep]
How often do they get to see bananas?

[Thomas]
That’s true. It’s a special treat for fish.

[Shep]
It’s a rare treat for them. Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s fascinating.

[Shep]
It looks kind of like a fish. It’s a weird yellow fish.

[Thomas]
I mean, I’ve seen fish like that. There’s a type of trumpet fish that’s long and yellow.

[Emily]
And lots of eels that are long and yellow.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, there’s some yellow eels. But yeah, so it could be the kind of thing where they’re like, “Oh, we’re going to go snorkeling or fishing or whatever.” And he’s like, “Great. There couldn’t possibly be bananas there.” Is there a banana beer?

[Emily]
There is a banana beer!

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Emily]
It’s disgusting, but it does exist. There’s also like a banana bourbon.

[Thomas]
Oh, right. There’s like a cousin who’s really excited. He’s like, “You got to come see what we’re working on.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He takes them out into a barn, and there’s a whole still. And he’s like, “Awesome.” “And it’s made from bananas.” And he’s like, “Ah…” I feel like the brewing or distilling process would probably get rid of the histamines, wouldn’t it?

[Shep]
Don’t bring science into this farcical movie.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Although banana beers do tend to have lots of bananas on the label.

[Thomas]
Well, he better not touch the label then.

[Shep]
Ha ha ha. So who else is with the groom’s party besides him and his best man?

[Emily]
Like his little brother. And his parents would be there eventually. And-

[Thomas]
Yeah, he can’t have any family there because they’ll immediately talk about how he’s allergic to bananas.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Is he an orphan then?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, like, his parents could be dead.

[Shep]
They all died from eating bananas, having horrific allergic reactions.

[Emily]
They died in the Boston Banana-

[Thomas]
I was thinking the same thing, Emily.

[Emily]
Flood.

[Thomas]
I was thinking the exact same thing. Oh, my god.

[Emily]
He’s got a couple of buddies and some co-workers that are at his wedding party. He’s not alone. They’re drinking.

[Thomas]
Sure. The co-workers are excited about the compost pile.

[Emily]
Yeah. They were excited to dig in.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They didn’t think anything of him not digging in because they know, “Oh, he’s allergic to bananas” because they tried to bring a banana pie to work on Pi Day.

[Shep]
Do they know?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I feel like-

[Shep]
Or would he have just said, “Oh, no, thank you, I don’t want banana cream pie?”

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay. Probably would be the more polite person.

[Shep]
What are you saying, Thomas?

[Thomas]
I was just agreeing. I don’t think the co-workers know. It’s never come up.

[Shep]
I think his best friend knows.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And that’s it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s the two of them that are trying to keep it a secret for the dumb reason that he thinks.

[Emily]
Yeah. Dumb reason.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
It’s a rom-com. It’s okay for it to be dumb.

[Shep]
It’s a rom-com where the solution is just have a conversation. This whole thing could be solved with one conversation.

[Thomas]
It’s a rom-com.

[Emily]
Like we said, it’s a rom-com.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, we need to bring this to a satisfying conclusion.

[Emily]
This is the one that you watch. You think the previews look funny. It’s got a hot guy as the lead. And a super hot chick as the female lead. And then you watch it and you’re like, “That was a waste of my time.”

[Thomas]
Right. We said it’s a rom-com.

[Emily]
Hey, they’re not all a waste of your time.

[Thomas]
It’s true.

[Shep]
I mean, if it were an actual pitch, if it were an actual treatment, we could spend the time to fill in the blanks. We don’t know anything about his best friend.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And like, what is his character arc?

[Emily]
Yeah. We didn’t get- We were just thinking of banana gags.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes, we were gagging on bananas the entire time.

[Emily]
Yep. I hit the back of that throat so hard sometimes.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
So what, Thomas, what are we missing? What are the last details to throw in at the last minute?

[Emily]
Everything.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Everything, like-

[Shep]
You gotta pick something.

[Thomas]
The whole second act, man. There’s like nothing that happens in the middle of the movie.

[Shep]
There’s so much that happens.

[Emily]
There’s stuff that happens, we just don’t know what it is yet. Let’s not say nothing happens. We just don’t know yet.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I guess my biggest question is, how does he get away with it for so long? How does it go all the way until the end of the film before it comes out that he’s allergic to bananas?

[Shep]
So if he does have an allergic reaction and uses an EpiPen, then his friend’s got to drive him to the hospital secretly.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’ve got to secretly sneak out to the hospital. The fiancé thinks it’s, “Oh, they’re having a guy’s night or whatever.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You know, he’s probably out with strippers or something like that. And then you see him in the hospital. And so they are arranging things. So in every scene where it’s like, oh, here’s a banana thing. How is it going to get to him? And then how are they going to fake it and get rid of it? You know, throwing the whiskey into a plant or pretending to drink it but throwing it behind him or whatever.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. Quickly trading glasses with the friend.

[Shep]
Right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
The friend is, like, getting tanked. Oh. And they’re like, “Oh, yeah. (Main character) can really hold his liquor, but his friend, he’s a lightweight.”

[Shep]
Yeah. So the friend’s got to meet someone there and go and hook up with her.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And so he’s absent for some important part.

[Thomas]
Right. At the rehearsal dinner, he’s snuck off with one of the bridesmaids or something. And so, there’s some moment where our main character just cannot avoid eating bananas. It’s like a custard. It’s a tradition in the family. There’s some traditional wedding night dish or, you know, pre-wedding dish that they-

[Shep]
Right. She’s feeding it to him-

[Thomas]
Oh, yes.

[Shep]
So he can’t pretend to eat it and fake it.

[Thomas]
It’s like a good luck thing. It signifies a strong and long-lasting marriage. Good health in the marriage, that sort of thing.

[Shep]
Right, right, right. It’s very hard to turn that down-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And reject it without spilling the beans. And so they do the arm-twisting around, you know, he feeds her, she feeds him. And he’s like, not swallowing it.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
It’s got his in his mouth, but now he can’t say anything, so he can only, like, nod or shake his head and agree to whatever. He’s like, looking for an opportunity to spit it out. And then something happens and he ends up-

[Emily]
Somebody slaps it back.

[Thomas]
The uncle comes and slaps him on the back. Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
The classic. That sounds good. I like that.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
We’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about Bananas. Did you like it a bunch, or did it lack appeal? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email.

[Thomas]
Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. You know, it only takes a few seconds for you to give our show a five-star rating, and although it may not seem like it, those ratings really do help us out. We hope you’ll take a moment right now to rate Almost Plausible in your podcatcher. I noticed that someone recently gave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, so a big thank you to whoever that was. Now that person just gave us a simple rating, but if you leave a written review along with your five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, we’ll read it on a future episode. Emily, Shep, and I have to split. But join us when we slip into your feed again on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Thomas]
I saw a great video a few years back where this guy basically takes you on a tour of bananas of the world. It was like a, I don’t know, hour long PowerPoint presentation for some fruit growers association that this guy did or something like that. And it was really interesting to see all the different kinds of bananas. He talks about some of the decorative banana trees that don’t bear fruit, and he talked about things like plantains and whatnot. One of the ones he introduced in there was called a Fe’i banana, and I actually got to try one of those last year when I was in Kauai. It was really interesting. Very grassy flavor, really high in beta carotene. Yeah.

[Shep]
You sound like someone, like a wine connoisseur.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
A banana sommelier. You know what?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
New, new life goal: Become a banana sommelier.

[Shep]
“Now this one tastes like grass. You’ll love it.” Which is a real thing. Wine people are like, “This one tastes a little bit barnyard.”

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
“This one tastes like cat urine.”

[Emily]
“You can really taste the twigs and leaves in this one.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I have a whiskey, one of my favorite whiskeys, has a very grassy flavor to it. It’s a very straw sort of flavor. I like it.

[Shep]
Yeah, sauvignon. It means savannah. It’s-

[Thomas]
Oh.

[Shep]
It’s grass.

[Emily]
I did not know that.

[Shep]
If you’re drinking wine and taste a little grass, that’s probably a sav.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Thomas]
Good to know.

[Shep]
Spoilers.

[Thomas]
For wine.