Fur Coat

References

• Cheshire Cat
• The Emperor’s New Clothes
• Harry Potter
  • Cloak of Invisibility
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Why the heck do so many koalas have chlamydia?
• Futurama
  • Amazon Women in the Mood
• Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox
• Ernest P. Worrell
• E! True Hollywood Story
  • Ernest Goes to Hollywood: Jim Varney
• Jim Varney
• Almost Plausible: $100 Bill
• Chinchilla
• Almost Plausible: Pockets
• Ernest Goes to Africa
• Hollywood Walk of Fame
• Batman
• The Ernest laugh
• Gilmore Girls
  • Kirk Gleason
• Almost Plausible: Tupperware
• La Brea Tar Pits
• Laurel and Hardy
• Ernest Saves Christmas
• Ernest Goes to Camp
• Ernest Goes to Prison

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
So I was looking at our, our stuff recently and I realized how, how frequently Thomas and I will come up with like very, very similar pitches.

[Thomas]
Ha.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I was like, if it were just Thomas and I, it would just be a white guy echo chamber. I was like, “Damn. Emily is way more important to the show than I had realized until going through the episodes.”

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. We are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
And I’m Thomas J. Brown. So let me ask you guys a question: Ethics aside, what would be the most interesting animal to use to make a fur coat?

[Shep]
Cheshire Cat.

[Emily]
Oh, good one.

[Thomas]
That’s a good call.

[Shep]
Because they turn invisible.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it doubles as the emperor’s new clothes.

[Thomas]
I guess that answers my follow-up question: Does just the coat turn invisible, or are you invisible for wearing it?

[Shep]
I mean, it’s not like his guts are visible. It’s everything inside his fur also turns invisible. So yeah, I guess you’re right.

[Thomas]
That’s true. Yeah.

[Shep]
It wouldn’t be the emperor’s new clothes. It would, you- You would turn invisible. It would be Harry Potter and his incongruously powerful invisible cloak.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That made no sense. That they eventually had to call out in the later books because it was so overpowered.

[Emily]
I don’t know what’s cute and cute and soft?

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking as well. Maybe like a koala bear. Aren’t they supposed to be pretty soft?

[Shep]
Too much chlamydia.

[Thomas]
Well, in case it wasn’t obvious, our ordinary object for this episode is Fur Coat. I’ll pitch first.

[Thomas]
How about one where an up-and-coming fashion designer celebrates her big break when a wealthy customer commissions a custom fur coat. It’s quickly clear to her that the sources for the pelts are legally dubious. After the coat is completed, she slips it on to see how it looks and feels. And immediately feels something awaken within her. Wearing the coat deepens her connection to the animals the coat was made from. Her senses heighten, her movements become animalistic. Strange, instinctual urges take over. Driven by visions and a primal compulsion, she embarks on a quest to track down the poacher who killed the animals.

[Emily]
Urges and primal compulsions. Are you sure she’s just hunting poachers?

[Thomas]
I mean, she’s looking for a man.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
To kill him.

[Emily]
I mean.

[Thomas]
With Snu-Snu?

[Emily]
Yeah, I was going to say she’s got needs first, right? I mean, there’s nothing to say she can’t send him out on a high note there.

[Thomas]
Animals are horny, right?

[Shep]
Famously.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I almost had the same pitch where you put on a fur coat and you take on the traits of the animals. But it wasn’t just one fur coat or just one person.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
It was like this was where our legends of werewolves and vampires come from.

[Emily]
Do they make fur coats out of bats or…?

[Shep]
It’s a leather coat.

[Emily]
Okay, fair.

[Thomas]
Takes a lot of bats to make one.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Hahaha.

[Thomas]
Leather.

[Emily]
Well, no, just the big Filipino fruit bats.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, the flying foxes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
My other pitch: Ernest, a struggling private investigator in Los Angeles, is hired by Scarlett Vale, the great niece of 1950s starlet Vivian Vale, who vanished without a trace 70 years ago. Scarlett is a wannabe influencer, and she hires Ernest to track down the iconic fur coat Vivian wore in her last film before she disappeared.

[Thomas]
Ernest doesn’t care about Hollywood, much less old Hollywood, but the money is good, and he gets paid whether he finds the coat or not. The quest for the coat takes Ernest on a journey he couldn’t have anticipated and wasn’t prepared for: Brushes with celebrities new and old, a black-market auction for stolen movie memorabilia, and death threats from more than one person, who all want the secret of Vivian’s disappearance to stay a secret.

[Emily]
Very noir.

[Thomas]
That’s what I was going for.

[Shep]
Okay, so I, I looked it up and there is a… Oh, it’s an episode of E. True Hollywood Stories. Ernest Goes to Hollywood. It was the episode about Jim Varney.

[Emily]
Nice.

[Thomas]
Ah, okay, those are my pitches. Shep, what do you have?

[Shep]
Me. Okay. A designer’s fur coat whispers fashion tips to them. I’m thinking like the fur coats that have like the heads of the animals at the collar. Yeah.

[Emily]
Like the fox or whatever.

[Shep]
The foxes.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
Imagine the foxes going up and whispering into their ear.

[Thomas]
Surely it’s some sort of weasel, right?

[Shep]
Yeah, right.

[Thomas]
Like a ermine or stoat?

[Shep]
A mink.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay. A woman’s body is found in an alley wearing a fur coat. Dead hooker? No. Turns out to be a struggling single mom wearing a designer fur coat she could in no way, at least on paper, afford.

[Thomas]
So dead hooker. Got it.

[Emily]
What? You know, on paper, she couldn’t afford it. What. What was your idea of the backstory of how she-?

[Shep]
Oh, I had no idea.

[Emily]
Oh, okay.

[Shep]
Because, so, in a recent episode, I came in with all the ideas and like a full treatment. I was like, “Oh, let’s not do that again. Let’s write down the first thing that comes to mind and then stop thinking about it. Wait for the episode.” So I have nothing more than, than I’ve pitched.

[Emily]
Nothing more than that. Okay.

[Shep]
At my last pitch, an anti-fur activist breaks into a fur coat manufacturing plant, only to discover it’s run by anthromorphic animals who are turning humans into furry animals in order to slaughter them for their coats. But now the activist is trapped inside and has to hide wearing a fur coat as a disguise for a week.

[Emily]
Why a week?

[Shep]
I don’t know.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
It was like a short amount of time would be too short.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Shep]
I want them to be trapped in there and have to really struggle.

[Thomas]
It’s because the anthropomorphic animals only work on the weekend, and so-

[Emily]
That makes sense.

[Thomas]
It’s locked up during the-

[Emily]
That totally makes sense.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I gotcha.

[Thomas]
But there are guards who work during the week, so-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, wolves.

[Thomas]
Right. Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Of course. That’s all for me. Emily, what do you have?

[Emily]
I don’t have anything nearly as good as the two of you, so-

[Shep]
You say that, but. So I was looking at our, our stuff recently and I realized how, how frequently Thomas and I will come up with like very, very similar pitches.

[Thomas]
Ha.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I was like, if it were just Thomas and I, it would just be a white guy echo chamber. I was like, “Damn. Emily is way more important to the show than I had realized until going through the episodes.”

[Emily]
All right. So, who owns fur coats anymore? Super-rich and really old ladies. Madeline’s super-rich and ancient aunt Tessa has a coat made from chinchilla fur she wears everywhere.

[Thomas]
Chinchillas. That should have been my answer up at the top. They’re small, cute, and super soft.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
I want to change my answer. Well…

[Shep]
No, no, that’s a normal answer.

[Thomas]
How about koala on the outside, chinchilla on the inside? Or maybe the other way around?

[Emily]
No chinchilla on the inside because I imagine they’re softer.

[Thomas]
But then you’d have to walk around everywhere naked. Right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Because then you get the chinchilla fur against your skin and be like, “Mmm, it’s so soft.”

[Shep]
You had me at walking around naked.

[Thomas]
Emily, you were saying?

[Emily]
So where was I? Rich old ladies have fur coats.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Madeline’s super-rich and ancient aunt Tessa has a coat made from chinchilla fur she wears everywhere. She practically lives in it.

[Emily]
Unfortunately, Tessa suffers a stroke one evening and is rushed to the hospital. While Tessa recovers, Madeline looks after her home. One evening, she’s very bored and puts on Tess’s favorite coat and wanders around the house. During the course of the evening, she spills wine or pizza sauce or something on it. She realizes she might have just ruined her aunt’s favorite possession, so she takes it to a dry cleaner. They can’t help because they’re not a furrier, but they recommend a nice family business down the road. She takes it to the furrier. Instantly, sparks fly between her and the young clerk. But he also gets super pissed when he sees what she’s done to the coat. So it’s a typical enemies-to-lovers rom-com.

[Shep]
He offers to clean it for free if she pretends to date him at the high school they attend.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
And… And then he becomes popular.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s got to be. Yeah. I like how it’s wine or pizza sauce. Something red so that he thinks that, like, initially he thinks, “Oh, you’re the victim of an anti-fur activist attack.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then she’s like, “Oh, no, I did this.” And he’s like, “Why would you do this?”

[Emily]
All right, so for my second pitch, Brandon inherits a fur coat from his estranged Uncle Al.

[Shep]
Is Al a pimp? Was Al a pimp?

[Emily]
We don’t need to know why Al has the fur coat. You’ll see. Just let me read it.

[Shep]
All right, all right.

[Emily]
In the letter that came to Brandon along with the coat, Uncle Al explains that the coat has the power to grant wishes. Just think of something you need, and it will appear in the pocket. There’s also an ominous warning: The wish will be cursed. Brandon thinks it’s all a weird joke his weird uncle is playing on him from beyond the grave. He indulges the idea once by wishing he had $100. He reaches into the pocket, finds a $100 bill. But as promised, this $100 bill is cursed, and he can’t seem to get rid of it.

[Shep]
I want to do this one. Like, the ideas for this one are just flowing into my head. I can see them in my mind.

[Emily]
All right, so this is my final (and this was the first one I wrote). This is my legitimate pitch.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Only this one’s legitimate?

[Emily]
Yeah, the first one was just thrown together on the fly. A social media influencer who specializes in thrifting finds a beautiful full-length fur coat at her local charity shop for a steal. Her post goes viral locally and is seen by a detective who’s working on a cold case for his grandmother in his spare time. He shows his grandmother the video, and she instantly recognizes it as her sister’s coat.

[Emily]
It had gone missing around the same time as her murder. The detective contacts the influencer about the coat, and she agrees to meet with him to see if it is indeed the same coat. He confirms it belonged to his great aunt. The influencer won’t agree to give it to him. Instead, she offers a sort of trade. He can have the coat as long as she can tag along in the investigation and document it for her social media platform.

[Thomas]
That’s how the police work.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s how police work in movies anyway.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Hey, reality does not matter.

[Thomas]
And then the fire sprinklers go off in the entire building and…

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because they pulled the fire alarm that sets them off.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So this is a Hollywood detective.

[Emily]
Exactly.

[Thomas]
All right. Which story makes us feel warm and fuzzy?

[Emily]
Well, we have two detective/influencer stories.

[Thomas]
That’s true. That’s true.

[Emily]
I don’t know. I think we like dead people in fur coats.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because fur is murder! So it’s okay if you murder people that wear fur.

[Emily]
100%.

[Thomas]
That seems like a T-shirt we could…

[Shep]
Well, we don’t know that Thomas’s mystery one, has a murder in it, because she just disappeared.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
But I definitely have a murder one, and you have a murder one, so I guess I think you’re right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That is the common theme among our pitches. Dead people in fur coats. Dead people in fur coats would make a great band name.

[Thomas]
I was thinking that.

[Emily]
It would totally make a good band name.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Our brains were going there. I do like the Hollywood noir-ish style of, like, the influencer meets ’50 starlet.

[Shep]
Yeah. Ever since we changed the name to Ernest, though, I’m only picturing Ernest.

[Thomas]
Jim Varney.

[Shep]
Jim Varney, Ernest. Just picture Jim Varney, in a black and white, wearing a fedora, looking out the rainy window, narrating.

[Emily]
Yeah. With his Ernest voice.

[Shep]
With his earnest voice. Oh, gosh. All right, I’m on board.

[Thomas]
But he’s not narrating to the audience. He’s specifically narrating to Vern.

[Emily]
Yeah. Are we gonna resurrect Jim Varney and make Ernest?

[Thomas]
You know, from what I’ve heard, Jim Varney was a really nice guy.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Oh, I’ve heard that too. I’ve heard he was fantastic.

[Shep]
Yeah. Which is nice.

[Thomas]
Sort of a shame about a few of the Ernest movies and their…. um.

[Shep]
It was a different time.

[Thomas]
But it was a different time, for sure.

[Emily]
It was a different time.

[Shep]
But, yeah, Ernest Goes to Africa is bananas.

[Emily]
Oh, God, I keep forgetting about that one.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I think I blocked that one out.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Good.

[Thomas]
That’s the correct procedure. Is this what you want to do?

[Thomas]
You want to do an “Ernest Goes to Hollywood”? If we are going to do that, then I think there need to be some changes. Like, he has to actually really like old Hollywood. And he’s maybe almost starstruck by Scarlett Vale because he really likes Vivian Vale. He likes her movies for some reason. He wants to go find her star and everything like that. Somehow he gets roped into playing detective, basically, which he’s excited about. Oh, does he get a job as a janitor on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and his job is to, like, polish all the stars?

[Shep]
Is that a thing?

[Thomas]
No. You should see the state of some of the stars. Good god.

[Emily]
I’m sure they’re full of wonderful bodily fluids.

[Thomas]
Probably. They’re pretty rough in some areas.

[Shep]
Okay, so both of you have detectives and influencers.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
I’m just trying to figure out how to combine the two. And I think that they are two rival influencers.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
He’s hired by one to retrieve the fur coat from her great aunt, and it is now owned by another influencer who doesn’t want to give it to him because it’s hers.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And she’s like, “Oh, this could go… Now that I know that this is a thing, in this big mystery, it’s going to be even bigger.” Oh. And she joins them. So now it’s the three of them going on an adventure.

[Emily]
And they- the influencers, snipe at each other?

[Shep]
Right. But then they become friends in the end.

[Emily]
Because the journey, the friendship was the-

[Thomas]
No, because Ernest becomes an even bigger influencer than either of them.

[Shep]
Right. Just. Just coincidentally.

[Thomas]
And so they feel betrayed and they team up against him?

[Shep]
That’s the twist? They turn evil? The betrayal extra stings because Ernest is a big fan of Vivian Vale.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And Scarlett Vale looks like her. And so he’s starstruck.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And so when she turns against him, it hurts all that much more.

[Thomas]
There’s, like, him imagining this dialogue, and it cuts to black and white, and it’s shot, you know, like Dutch angles and low and everything like that. And noir lighting, and he’s like, “Ms. Vale, how could you do this to me?” And she’s got, like, this cigarette in the big, long cigarette holder thing and…

[Emily]
No, she has a big, long holder thing connected to a vape.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yep. So what is the wacky contraption that he builds for this movie? Because there’s always some bizarre cobbled-together thing that doesn’t work quite right, but then, like, comes in clutch at the end.

[Shep]
Oh, he’s Batman. So he’s a private detective.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Yep.

[Shep]
So he has a utility belt with a bunch of gadgets on it that you can use throughout the movie, all of which never work quite right.

[Thomas]
Very good.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
I can totally see him, like, trying to do, like, something with one of them. And it- It’s supposed to, like, shoot out, but then it, like- It doesn’t shoot. It just sort of, like falls out of the end of whatever the thing is. There’s like a beat where he’s looking at it and then he looks up at the guy and he goes “Ehehehehehe!”. And I know you guys know exactly the face and the laugh that I’m trying to emulate there.

[Shep]
Oh, I miss him so much.

[Thomas]
Is this the story we’re doing? I like this a lot.

[Emily]
I think this is what we’re doing.

[Thomas]
I just keep having more ideas for this.

[Shep]
We’ve started. What do you mean “Is this-“?

[Thomas]
So- Yeah. Okay.

[Emily]
Yeah, this is what we’re doing.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
We’ve been doing it for four minutes!

[Thomas]
So why is he in Hollywood in the first place?

[Emily]
On vacation.

[Thomas]
Does he win a trip there? He’s always, like, chronically poor, right?

[Emily]
Yeah, He’s. He’s. Well, you guys won’t get the reference because you don’t watch Gilmore Girls. He’s Kirk. He just picks up whatever job he can get, doing whatever he wants.

[Shep]
So how does he get hired as the detective if he’s not from the area? He’s got to like, work in the office for something and get mistaken for the detective.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Why does he have a utility belt then?

[Emily]
He’s refilling the water cooler, and the detective is out in the john in the hallway. So he’s like in-

[Shep]
What?

[Emily]
No, because detective offices always have those water coolers.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I’m not saying anything against that. I’m just saying why does he have a detective’s gadget belt?

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Like Batman?

[Thomas]
No, it’s. It’s a utility built for his job as, like, a handyman.

[Shep]
Oh, yes!

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yep. Yep. Okay. No further questions, your honor.

[Thomas]
And so maybe the water cooler thing or there’s some something in the office, in the detective’s office that’s on the fritz. So he has been hired by the detective to fix that. And either the detective has, like, a stomach bug or something, so, yeah, he has to go to the bathroom, or Ernest causes a problem that the detective has to, for some reason, leave the office to fix.

[Shep]
Yep. Problem for the writers.

[Thomas]
Yep. And that’s when Scarlett Vale shows up?

[Shep]
Yes, and he’s the only one in the office, so he must be the detective.

[Thomas]
Oh. And! So he sees the fedora and coat on a thing in the corner, and he likes to play dress up.

[Shep]
Oh, yes!

[Emily]
Because he wants to play. Yeah.

[Thomas]
So he’s like, puts it on, and he goes over to the window and he starts monologuing.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
In that way that Jim Varney does.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And then she comes in, and because he’s dressed like, you know, a detective and he’s doing the thing, then she assumes that he is. And…

[Shep]
And he recognizes her.

[Thomas]
At first he thinks it’s part of his fantasy because Vivienne Vale has been disappeared for 70 years.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And so he thinks he’s still just imagining this. He’s like, “Wow, my imagination is so vivid.” And so he’s, like, monologuing about her and how she’s dressed and how she slinks into the office, and she’s like, “What are you doing?” And he’s like, “Oh, my gosh.”

[Emily]
He thinks it’s her because she’s monetizing off of this dead relative. Right?

[Thomas]
Yeah, for sure.

[Emily]
And that’s her whole shtick, is that she looks like her. But he doesn’t know anything about social media because he’s Ernest.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
So when he asks her about, you know, “Are you Vivian Vale?”

[Emily]
And she’s like, “No.”

[Thomas]
She’s like “Scarlett Vale, her grandniece” or whatever.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Great niece.

[Emily]
And like, you know, goes into the whole, like, “I’m an influencer. Maybe you’ve seen my videos? On YouTube?”

[Thomas]
There’s got to be some sort of a… maybe. I don’t know, maybe she says something about TikTok, and he assumes that she’s referring to clocks because he’s a handyman.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
She’s like, “Oh, you help me with my TikToks.” And he thinks, “Oh, we’re gonna go to her house and she has clocks that need work.”

[Emily]
And make clocks.

[Thomas]
He’s like, “Oh, I can help with that.”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
“I’m a master at tick-tocks.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. And it turns out, yeah, unknowingly, he is.

[Emily]
Well, of course.

[Thomas]
This is great. Love it. Okay, so they leave the office. Do we ever see the detective again? Does he come back into play later on?

[Shep]
Yeah. Someone stole his coat and fedora from his coat rack.

[Emily]
But he has intestinal issues, so it’s going to be a while before he comes back.

[Shep]
Every time he catches up and tries to confront Ernest, that’s when another intestinal attack happens.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
So he hires Ernest to do a few little fix-it things around the office. And one of them is: replace the water cooler thing. Because he can never do it without spilling. And it’s an Ernest movie. So you think, well, this is not gonna end well. Like, Ernest is gonna dump the entire thing everywhere.

[Emily]
All over everywhere.

[Thomas]
But he does successfully get in there without spilling anything. Except that he has accidentally somehow done something to the water. You know, there’s an emetic in the water that’s causing the detective to be sick to his stomach, but he doesn’t realize that’s what the issue is. So he keeps drinking the water. So he keeps ending up-

[Shep]
Right, because he’s dehydrated.

[Thomas]
Right!

[Shep]
Before he leaves, he fills his water bottle.

[Thomas]
Exactly. Yes, yes. So anytime he gets close and he’s like, “Whew,” you know, “It’s hot here in LA.” And he takes a big swig, and then it’s like- you hear his stomach rumble. And he’s like, “Oh, no.” And so he has to leave them wherever they are.

[Emily]
Cartoonishly run to find a bathroom.

[Thomas]
Exactly. Man, we should have been writers for Ernest.

[Thomas]
These movies write themselves.

[Shep]
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Because you, as soon as you see the setup, you know where everything’s gonna go.

[Thomas]
That’s true. See, but that’s why we love to not do that. Like the whole he doesn’t spill the water thing. So-

[Shep]
Right. Yes. You’re right.

[Thomas]
I’m thinking that Scarlett turns to Ernest as, like, “What do we do first?” Because he’s ostensibly this detective, and so he wants to go and visit Vivian’s star as, like a starting point. And he’s got that look, like that confident look. And she’s just like, “Okay, this must be how he works.”

[Shep]
So it’s just a tour of Hollywood.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s hitting all the tourist hot spots.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I’m just picturing him with, like, tourist swag, T-shirt, flag of some kind.

[Emily]
They go to Universal Studios Park.

[Shep]
How does he end up as an influencer accidentally? Since he doesn’t know anything about the Internet or smartphones.

[Thomas]
He needs his own account. So maybe Scarlett introduces him to it.

[Shep]
Right. When she’s telling him about herself, she explains the app or whatever, whoever’s sponsoring us.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And shows him how easy it is to make an account. And he does so that he can send videos.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. He’s trying to give her progress updates, but doesn’t realize he’s posting all of his videos publicly.

[Shep]
I was thinking he was sending them to Vern, but yeah, he could be sending them to her as well.

[Emily]
I like sending them to Vern, though, because then he has the excuse to be like, “You know what I mean Vern?”

[Shep]
Right. It’s his private video diary, he thinks, but it’s completely public.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And because he’s always getting up to shenanigans. Whenever he’s, like, filming a video, something crazy happens.

[Shep]
The account takes off in popularity. Okay, so how does he find out where the coat is? Because he’s got to find, he’s got to catch up to the other influencer.

[Emily]
And it’s got to be by accident. It should be a coincidence.

[Shep]
Oh!

[Emily]
There are always coincidences in his movie.

[Shep]
That’s right. Oh, no.

[Emily]
So it can be anything. This is where I shine.

[Shep]
I hate coincidences so much. All right, let’s look at the other pitches again one more time.

[Thomas]
How did she end up with it? In my pitch, I talk about a black-market auction for stolen movie memorabilia. So did she get it that way?

[Emily]
My pitch is that she found it at a thrift store because she’s a thrifting influencer.

[Thomas]
Oh, right.

[Emily]
Which she could have gotten it from a black-market for Hollywood memorabilia, but somebody bought it years and years ago and then their family, whatever, donated. Didn’t think anything of it. She found it in the thrift store.

[Shep]
(Gasps)

[Emily]
Go for it, Shep.

[Shep]
I have an answer. And it requires no coincidence. Except for one coincidence, now that I’m thinking about it. Because he’s doing these video blogs, he talks about the case that he’s working on, and he shows a photograph of Vivian wearing the fur coat.

[Thomas]
Right. A promotional still from the film.

[Shep]
Right. And because his videos are going viral, the owner, the current owner of the coat, who’s active on TikTok or whoever sponsors us, sees the video and makes a, what’s it, a duet video? Whatever it is.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Where she puts on the coat that she has and, like, does the pose from the photo or whatever. And it also goes viral.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So that’s how, the coincidence is: someone has the coat and sees his video.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But it makes sense that if we’ve already established that he’s going viral.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Thomas]
And perhaps when he’s doing that sort of montage of tourist activities around Hollywood. One of the places he goes is a Stars of Old Hollywood Museum, where there is a tribute section to Vivian and there’s that big still photo blown up on the wall.

[Thomas]
And so that’s where he gets maybe the image. He records a thing in the museum there. So it’s like- Yeah, he’s goofing off. But also it’s, like, kind of related to the case.

[Shep]
Did Scarlett not have a photo of the fur coat? Did she just come in with a painted movie poster?

[Thomas]
No, she’s got it on her phone, but he doesn’t have a phone. That’s why they get him a phone so that she can text him the photo. So that’s how he gets a phone. And then whatever phone company is sponsoring us.

[Shep]
Right. This movie not only writes itself, it pays for itself.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, and then you gotta have a moment in there where he’s drinking a Mellow Yellow and he’s like, “Ah, quench your thirst,” you know?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And he does the pitch like he used to do.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Directly to the camera.

[Thomas]
Exactly. Yeah.

[Shep]
In a video to Vern.

[Thomas]
Right, right. Oh, sure. It starts off to the US, the audience camera, and… And then it cuts to somebody watching it on a phone, and they’re like, “Who is this guy?” Like, that’s how we find out he’s starting to go viral. Like, “I don’t know. I started following him last week. This is great stuff. All his videos are gold.” So the rival influencer. Let’s give her a name, because everybody else has a name so far.

[Shep]
Yeah. What is our evil woman name that we keep using?

[Emily]
Shannon.

[Shep]
Shannon.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s right.

[Shep]
So it’s Scarlett and Shannon. It’s two S’s

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
That’s how you know they’re evil.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
As we established in Tupperware.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Emily]
It’s true.

[Thomas]
So how do Ernest and Shannon connect up?

[Shep]
Well, someone discovers Shannon’s video and brings it to Ernest’s attention. Maybe Scarlett does, maybe someone else does. There’s lots of room in here for more side characters.

[Emily]
Could this be something the detective brings up as he’s trying to catch up with them?

[Shep]
Oh, someone calls the detective’s office because he’s still pretending to be that detective.

[Emily]
Ah.

[Shep]
So when they see his videos, they’re like, “Oh, this is like a real detective.” They find him in the phone book. Remember phone books? They Google his name. Or Bing his name. Sorry, got to get the right sponsor.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
They Bing his name and find the detective’s office and call him with the hot tip about the fur coat. The detective is trying to track them down. How do they know? They’ve got a- He’s got to find- Anyway, they find out from the detective. He catches up to them on the Walk of Fame or whatever. Whatever tourist spot.

[Emily]
Well, because Ernest has some kind of locations on-

[Shep]
Oh, right.

[Emily]
To where the detective just can follow his locations based off of his videos.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right. He doesn’t realize he’s broadcasting his location.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So wherever he go, he goes, more and more fans are showing up. And…

[Thomas]
I like that. His entire investigation takes place on Hollywood Boulevard.

[Shep]
Look, you want to limit locations for budgetary reasons. Anyway, so the detective, the real detective, whose name we don’t have, do we? No.

[Thomas]
No, we don’t.

[Shep]
We don’t. Catches up and somehow spills the beans that he thought that Ernest would have gone to Shannon’s location.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And then has an intestinal dilemma and has to flee the scene. And Ernest was like, “Okay, let’s go to Shannon’s location.” Does he have Scarlett with him? He must.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. So Scarlett and Ernest then go to Shannon’s house to get the fur coat.

[Thomas]
We’ll take a break here, and when we come back, we’ll see what sparks fly between Shannon and Scarlett.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. Where we left off, Scarlett and Ernest, were just about to get to Shannon’s house. They were just arriving at her house. So what happens? I said sparks would fly. Maybe there’s that rival between Scarlett and Shannon because they’re both trying to be successful influencers.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And they must know that Shannon has the coat, so-

[Shep]
Right. They saw the video.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
What was the reason they’re getting the coat? Like, they’re going to continue whatever the investigation is. But in your original pitch, retrieving the coat was the goal. And now it’s just a MacGuffin that leads to the actual goal. Which is what?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, I feel like it’s kind of changing from what the pitch was. The original pitch was basically… Well, I guess the original pitch was that there was this mystery of Vivian’s disappearance, and Scarlett was trying to get the fur coat. In my pitch, it was never really stated why. So it could be that she’s, as we’ve sort of suggested in this story that we’re laying out, she’s trying to play up the “I look like Vivian” angle.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Thomas]
And this is the most famous costume Vivian has ever worn, and so she would love to have it. But there’s also this mystery of: Hey, Vivian made this film and on her way home from set after shooting, disappeared without a trace. And no one has seen her since. And the fur coat disappeared with her.

[Shep]
Ah, so now it’s about what happened to Vivian.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s kind of what I had in mind.

[Shep]
Okay. I gotcha, gotcha. They get to Shannon, and Shannon won’t give them the coat unless they take her with them as they continue the investigation. So Shannon and Scarlett are continuing to make videos during this, each one trying to outdo the other in influence.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And since Ernest is more popular at this- or more viral at this point than either of them, they keep trying to like- They fight over him.

[Thomas]
Integrate him. Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, they’re fighting over him.

[Thomas]
And then there’s a scene where he goes, “Ladies, please. There’s plenty Ernest to go around.”

[Emily]
That’s right.

[Thomas]
I can’t do his voice properly, but.

[Shep]
The visual is there.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
We know what you’re- Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I can see it perfectly in my mind.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So I’m sure you can as well.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
And then you get a nice 80s-style cat fight in there.

[Shep]
Hair pulling.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And are they fighting near a fountain that they can fall into?

[Thomas]
Sure. Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
No, because we’re going to subvert that expectation.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
You think they’re- They’re fighting near the La Brea Tar Pits. So you’re like- No, it looks. Every once in a while it looks like they’re gonna fall into the tar pit.

[Thomas]
So Shannon joins the investigation. Where is their next stop? She got it from a thrift shop, so presumably that would be the next stop? Find out where it came from there?

[Emily]
Yeah. To see if they have any records of who dropped it off. If maybe-

[Thomas]
Yeah, that makes sense.

[Shep]
And the thrift shop is like, “No, it’s a thrift shop. What are you talking about? It was in a big box.”

[Emily]
Yep. 100%.

[Shep]
No. So what is what happens, really? Because we can’t-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We can’t do that. It’s gotta lead somewhere.

[Thomas]
Well, we could change it from thrift shop to pawn shop.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Then there would be some kind of a record.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I was gonna say either that are like some like super uppity vintage shop that would do the same thing as a pawn shop.

[Thomas]
Oh, I like the idea of a vintage shop who goes and shops at the underground black-market thing-

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
To try to get cool stuff to put in their vintage shop.

[Emily]
Because then we get Ernest to the black-market thing.

[Thomas]
Exactly. Of course, they don’t give that information up right away.

[Emily]
No, of course not. Does he go into one of his noir fantasies?

[Thomas]
Oh, he’s got to be like The General. Right. Doesn’t he have a general character that he plays? A military character?

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, he does. Is the shop run by the really fat guy and the silent skinny guy?

[Shep]
The what guy?

[Emily]
You know, the two guys that are in all the movies.

[Shep]
I don’t know.

[Emily]
Moves his eyes back and forth really fast and his little partner’s got a wrinkly old face and he never talks.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And they’re. They’re sort of doing like a Laurel and Hardy thing in this.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

[Emily]
You know the guys.

[Shep]
Gotcha.

[Emily]
You don’t remember the guys, Shep?

[Shep]
I don’t remember the guys. I only remember the ladies.

[Emily]
They were the luggage handlers in Ernest Saves Christmas.

[Shep]
Oh, okay. I do remember the guys.

[Emily]
And in Ernest Goes to Camp, they’re the cafeteria guys. And I think in Ernest Goes to Prison, they’re the cafeteria guys too. No, they’re security guards.

[Shep]
Well, in this one, they’re shop owners.

[Emily]
Yes. Because then it’s easier to get the information out that they don’t want to give. They eventually cave.

[Thomas]
So does he grill the vintage shop owners as one of the characters?

[Shep]
Right. Right.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
He puts on one of the gruffer characters to go in and grill them.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or maybe he goes in first and they don’t answer his questions.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And is like, “Oh, I have the solution for this.”

[Thomas]
Right. The skinny guy doesn’t really talk, or the big guy answers. The skinny guy’s always about to answer, and the big guy answers.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Classic Laurel and Hardy stuff. Maybe there’s some slapstick comedy there.

[Shep]
Okay. So they reveal that the coat actually came from the black-market that they know about.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Oh, we’ve got to get, like, an underground casino going so that he can have a poker game where he’s trying to be all suave, but he’s Ernest.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. He gets invited to one at the black-market auction.

[Shep]
Okay, it’s an auction. Excellent. Okay. Well, now he can accidentally bid on stuff.

[Emily]
Uhuh.

[Shep]
As things are going on and he’s trying to maintain a low profile.

[Thomas]
Right. One of his gadgets is, keeps, like, popping up, and he keeps reaching up to grab it and pull it back down, and every time he reaches up to grab it, they point at him. “$100,000.” And he’s like, “What?”

[Shep]
It’s a hand on one of those-

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
It’s like a glove.

[Thomas]
Oh, even better.

[Shep]
Sorry. When he’s introducing the gadgets earlier and the hand comes out, he says “How handy it is” and does that (laughs in Ernest).

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
You’re right. I can see the whole thing in my mind.

[Thomas]
So I guess what would happen is he would win some item in the auction, which he, of course, can’t pay for.

[Shep]
Right. So he goes to the casino to try to make the money-

[Thomas]
Ah, there you go.

[Shep]
So that he can pay for the things in the auction that he accidentally bid on.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
There you go. Yeah. So what happens in the casino?

[Shep]
Shenanigans. Hijinks.

[Emily]
He wins enough to pay for the auction items.

[Shep]
Yes, accidentally.

[Thomas]
Accidentally.

[Emily]
Accidentally.

[Thomas]
Yes. Yes.

[Shep]
What are Shannon and Scarlett doing during all of this?

[Thomas]
So I wonder if from the vintage shop, there’s sort of multiple leads, and so they, they split up. And so we can kind of get rid of the girls for now.

[Shep]
I was thinking they went with him to the black-market, but instead of going to the auction, because attending the auction is not going to get them any information. They need to go to the records.

[Shep]
So one of them is trying to break into the records room, and the other one is trying to some other way. Like, what is another thing? Like, there’s the ledger and then there’s the-

[Thomas]
Right. So maybe Scarlett’s going for the ledger and they all kind of disagree on how to do it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then Shannon is like, “No, no, you gotta. You gotta talk to people. You’ve gotta rub elbows, you gotta find the guy on the inside,” or whatever. And so she’s going around trying to use her feminine wiles to get guys to-, who work for the underground, to spill the beans, which totally doesn’t work.

[Shep]
So which one does work? The ledger?

[Thomas]
I think it’s gonna have to be the ledger.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Right. Or somehow… Maybe he doesn’t go to the casino. Maybe he wins the auction but can’t pay for it, so he’s hauled into the office. Shannon’s being suspicious as hell, so she’s hauled into the office, where Scarlett has broken in. So she’s already in the office. And… And so all three of them are now in trouble in the office, but they get left in the office for whatever reason, and then that’s when they check the ledger real quick.

[Emily]
Because of something Ernest did earlier that caused a kerfuffle outside.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Some cascading thing.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
That only takes effect later.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.

[Shep]
So they’ve been hauled into the office. Are they tied up, the two of them?

[Emily]
Ernest and Shannon?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe they’re all tied up and…

[Shep]
Well, I thought one of them had broken into the office, but then everyone else came in, so they hid behind the curtains or whatever.

[Thomas]
Ah. Oh, okay. That’s good. That’s good.

[Shep]
So Ernest can see- Who broke into the office. Was it Scarlett or Shannon?

[Thomas]
Scarlett. Yeah.

[Emily]
Scarlett.

[Shep]
Okay, so Scarlett broke into the office. Ernest can see Scarlett behind the curtain and is trying to not draw attention to her, but he’s Ernest, so he keeps looking at her, and she’s like, “Don’t,” you know, “Look away.”

[Thomas]
Right. She’s sort of waving him off. Yeah.

[Shep]
So he, like, nods, like, “Okay.” Anyway, whatever happens, the distraction outside goes off, and so they leave because these two are tied up. They’re not going anywhere.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
But that leaves Scarlett, who comes out from behind the curtain to untie them. Who unties Ernest first and then considers untying Shannon and…

[Thomas]
Maybe. Yeah. There’s. She hesitates and Ernst is like, “What are you doing?” And he unties her.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because he’s a good guy.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So do they just grab the ledger and cheese it out of there?

[Shep]
Oh, if they take the ledger with them, now the black-market people are after them, so they have the detective after them.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Perfect. Classic Earnest.

[Shep]
Classic Ernest.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
And now the black-market people are chasing them to retrieve the ledger.

[Thomas]
Yeah. All right. What clue did they get from the ledger?

[Shep]
Where the coat came from.

[Thomas]
Yeah, somebody had to supply the coat.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So where did the coat come from?

[Shep]
Someone who had. Well, yeah. What is the actual conclusion?

[Thomas]
My thought was that the idea that she disappeared wearing the coat was wrong. That that was a tall tale that sort of arose around the time of her death. But actually, the coat was never hers. It was property of the studio. It was back in wardrobe.

[Thomas]
And so just some person working in the wardrobe department or the archival department or whatever comes across it and is like, everyone assumes this is missing already, and so they steal it and sell it on the black-market.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
That was what I had in mind, but we don’t have to go with that.

[Shep]
I had thought that Vivian didn’t die. She had faked her death. Or she at least just disappeared in an ambiguous way.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Because she was tired of the Hollywood life, all the fame. She couldn’t handle it anymore, and she sold the coat to fund her disappearance. She takes the coat from the set and then sells it on the black-market herself.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Oh, how. What is the gal? Oh, it’s her great aunt. Not her aunt. I was like, what if she’s still alive?

[Thomas]
She could be. I mean, she’d be in her 90s probably.

[Shep]
Right. I was going to say the coat leads back to her. So that’s the actual conclusion of “How did Vivian die?” She didn’t.

[Thomas]
Right. She just, like, sailed to Corfu or something and is living in Greece.

[Shep]
Right. Well, think of someplace closer and less expensive to-

[Thomas]
Right. That’s just the first thing that came to mind. Okay. She’s living on Catalina Island.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She drove to Napa Valley and lives in a very modest cottage.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s a guest cottage at a winery. And-

[Emily]
She has a grow farm up in the mountains.

[Thomas]
She’s been in Big Bear this whole time? Oh, no, she’s, she’d be living out in Joshua Tree in the middle of nowhere in like-

[Shep]
Little camper.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly.

[Shep]
Yeah. Yep. With her hippie husband.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Oh, gosh.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
It’s all… It’s all I can see now.

[Thomas]
Right. He was like the camera guy on the last picture and they ran off together.

[Emily]
And there’re… There’re wiener dogs.

[Shep]
They have wiener dogs. Yes.

[Thomas]
It’s really good. Okay.

[Shep]
Ah, now I’m even more on board.

[Thomas]
So does the ledger have a post office box in Joshua Tree as the address?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s a post office box. Well, now we get to coincidence again. They go to the post office, and that happens to be when Vivian’s there picking up her mail.

[Thomas]
No, no, no, no, no, no. You stake it out. It takes time.

[Emily]
They ask the clerk about the person.

[Thomas]
Well, I don’t know, but would the clerk help them, though, these people from out of town? She’s probably friends with the clerk.

[Shep]
Right. She’s been there for years.

[Emily]
It’s a movie and he’s bored. In a small-town post office. Yes. He would talk.

[Thomas]
No, I was gonna say he’s like a… Some 16-year-old guy and they’re like, “Oh, does Vivian pick up her mail here?” And he’s like, “Who? What?” I don’t know who that is.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s his, you know, response.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Although they have pictures, I guess, on their phones, so-

[Emily]
Yeah. But of her young.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s true. That’s true.

[Shep]
Right. Looks exactly like Scarlett, like she’s holding up a selfie of herself.

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Have you seen this woman?” And he’s like, “Yes.”

[Emily]
He’s like, “She’s right there.”

[Shep]
“Yeah, she’s right in front of me.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, “She’s right there. She’s behind you. Oh, no, sorry.”

[Emily]
I like that gag. I like that gag a lot.

[Thomas]
That’s good. So for some reason, Scarlett comes in after them. So Shannon and Ernest go in together. They say, “Have you seen this woman?” You hear the bell ring and the guy goes, “Oh, she just walked in.” They’re excited and they turn around and it’s just Scarlett walking in.

[Shep]
It is an excellent fake-out.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then, of course, Vivian comes in a moment later anyway.

[Thomas]
I mean, coincidence works in the, in these kinds of movies, so-

[Emily]
Oh, I have a way around the coincidence.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
So you can’t FedEx or UPS packages to a post office box.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So they come up with a brilliant plan to FedEx Ernest to her.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Of course, this is a plan that makes perfect s- if… Ernest came up with this plan.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
He’s gonna FedEx himself to the P.O. box. And they’ll have to forward it on or let them know where the actual physical address is.

[Shep]
Right. Excellent. No coincidence necessary.

[Emily]
No coincidence.

[Thomas]
And there’s got to be a scene where he’s in the box, because it’s like a big wooden crate with like holes drilled in the side and everything, right?

[Emily]
Of course.

[Shep]
Of course. Yes. We can all see what you’re looking at, Thomas.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And it’s one of those, like fisheye lens moments. And he’s just like sweating buckets because he’s in the middle of the desert.

[Emily]
In a trench coat with a fedora.

[Thomas]
Right. And she hasn’t come to pick the box up yet. And he’s waiting for her to come pick it up.

[Emily]
Tarantula. A tarantula crawls inside the hole.

[Thomas]
Yes, 100%. See, it starts off, he’s got a little fan that we’ve established earlier on the utility belt. And he’s using the little fan.

[Shep]
And then it shorts out because it’s one of his utility belt gadgets.

[Thomas]
Yep. Right.

[Shep]
And then it starts getting hotter and hotter.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s wiping his brow. The hand comes up with the, with the-

[Thomas]
There’s a handkerchief that we’ve never seen before and we’ll never see again.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Hahaha.

[Thomas]
And then he turns into Aunt Nelda or whatever her name was, and makes some… Some sort of a comment about hot flashes. All right, so she picks up the box?

[Shep]
So she picks up the box.

[Thomas]
Or the husband comes and picks up the box. The camera guy husband picks up the box.

[Shep]
Oh, okay. All right.

[Thomas]
She doesn’t go out in public that often.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So he brings it back to the trailer. Their Airstream trailer, of course.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
Right. And Shannon and Scarlett are following behind him?

[Thomas]
Yeah. They’ve been like, watching to see what happens with the box. We keep calling it a box. It’s like a crate, really.

[Emily]
Right. Right.

[Thomas]
So they’re watching to see who picks it up and where that person goes. So then, did they interrupt before the guy can open the crate? They interrupt him. So Ernest is still dying in the crate.

[Emily]
That’s when the tarantula comes in. So that when he pops out, there’s a spider on his face and he’s screaming and running around.

[Thomas]
I can see that.

[Emily]
What do they do to talk to him?

[Shep]
They accuse him of having murdered Vivian.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah, yeah, of course.

[Emily]
Smart. And they have their phones out.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then does Vivian come out because she hears a kerfuffle?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
She’s like, “What is going on?”

[Shep]
She has to come out.

[Thomas]
Oh, the dogs are yipping at the door and she opens and the dogs are running around and…

[Shep]
So she is unexpectedly exposed back to the world. She’s been hiding out all these years.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
But you have two influencers recording, live streaming this confrontation. And she comes out and is caught on camera.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Why was she in hiding? I said before that she wanted to get out of the Hollywood lifestyle. Was she trying to get away from some unsavory elements? Is it the people from the black-market again? Because they’re going to show up in a minute.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah, I think that’s great.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s how we get those people off of Ernest’s tail, is they get arrested. Also, we haven’t seen the real detective in a while.

[Emily]
I was gonna say the detective has to show up.

[Shep]
I thought they were all gonna show up right now. Because it’s the end.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
He finally catches up with him because he’s following Ernest’s location.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And the cops come because somebody, some actual good citizen watching the live stream calls. Either that or the kid at the post office has to have called the cops for some stupid reason. Some very mundane law-breaking that on a technicality you could call the cops to take care of.

[Shep]
He calls his cousin, who is the local cop for this tiny town.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Because there’s two weird girls sitting out in the car across the street watching the post office.

[Shep]
“I think they’re into me.” So, I want to bring the fur coat back.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
So, like, our last mention of it was they went to Shannon’s house. Shannon goes with them, but is wearing the fur coat and won’t give it to Scarlett.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Of course.

[Emily]
I assumed she was wearing it the whole time.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
Right. Because she bought it, it’s hers, or, you know, whatever.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But Scarlett keeps trying to get it. So it, like, goes back and forth between them. Because it’s real hot.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So they keep taking it off, and the other one keeps stealing it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So at the post office, it’s Scarlett who’s wearing it, and that’s why she looks so much like Vivian in that photo.

[Thomas]
Right. She looks exactly like the photo. Yeah. Very good.

[Shep]
Right. But at the end, Shannon and Scarlett are still fighting over it, and they pull it, and it tears. What could be revealed inside the coat?

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s good.

[Emily]
Contract or a script?

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Or an NDA or something like that.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Some… Some legal document that is evidence against someone or explains to the world why Vivian disappeared.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
I mean, this might be a problem for the writers.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Sure, sure.

[Shep]
It’s: a MacGuffin is discovered inside the coat that perhaps the black-market people were really after. They weren’t really after Vivian. They were after the love letters that the old mob boss had sent to Vivian that he was embarrassed about or whatever. So the detective shows up, then the black-market people show up, then the cops show up, and each one wants something else. The detective wants his coat. He wants his coat. The black-market people want the fur coat. What are we missing? Vivian and Scarlett reconcile.

[Thomas]
Mmhm.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
I mean, this is probably the first time Scarlett has ever met Vivian, so-

[Shep]
Right. And of course, Ernest is starstruck.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah, there has to be some sort of a callback to an earlier scene before he’s even gone into the detective’s office. There was some sort of a scene, maybe a clip from a movie that he was imagining himself in.

[Shep]
Right. That’s how it opens.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is why he goes to Hollywood in the first place.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s a big fan of this movie and this scene in this movie that has Vivian, young Vivian in it, of course, played by the actress that plays Scarlett later.

[Thomas]
Naturally.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Naturally.

[Thomas]
And so, yeah, he has- There’s sort of a callback to that moment from the beginning of the film. Yeah. What’s the button? What’s the ending of this? I guess… How much past this point do we see? Is there some sort of a denouement where he’s back at home? Where he’s staying in Hollywood, working?

[Shep]
Now, he would be back at home.

[Emily]
He goes back home.

[Shep]
Because he goes on these adventures, and then he goes back home.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
He’d be back at home and he’d be watching something with Vivian and Scarlett. Like, Scarlett’s giving Vivian makeup tutorials and teaching her how to be an influencer.

[Shep]
What? Scarlett is teaching Vivian makeup? Vivian, the classic Hollywood starlet?

[Emily]
Perhaps the other way around.

[Shep]
Yes. Of course, Vivian’s makeup tutorial is all for, like, old black and white cameras-

[Emily]
It’s like green and-

[Shep]
Where you got to really lay it on really thick and, you know, otherwise it won’t show up on camera.

[Thomas]
So Ernest comes home. Oh, Ernest comes home and he goes over to Vern’s house because Vern has been pet sitting his dog Rimshot. So he goes back to get Rimshot from Vern and he’s like, “Vern, you gotta hear this crazy adventure that I went on.” And he’s like, “Let me tell you all about my vacation.” And he’s like showing him on his phone pictures and stuff. And Vern’s trying to close the door. You get that perspective shot.

[Shep]
He does close the door, but then the window opens, and there he is again.

[Thomas]
Oh, no. The door starts closing and the mechanical hand from the belt comes out. And…

[Shep]
Oh!

[Emily]
Wedges it. Yep.

[Thomas]
I think we’ve got this. I love this.

[Emily]
I think we do.

[Thomas]
I want so badly to see this movie.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
It is a shame that all of this stuff came out after his passing, because this would have been perfect.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. Right.

[Thomas]
And far less problematic than certain other ones in the oeuvre. Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Fur Coat. Will it go a fur piece or was it all fur coat and no knickers?

[Shep]
What?

[Emily]
Yeah. Explain that reference.

[Shep]
Are these real phrases?

[Thomas]
These are real, apparently. I’ve never heard of them.

[Shep]
You always say that. You, you find these obscure, quote, unquote, “real” idioms that I’ve never heard.

[Emily]
What country is that an idiom in?

[Thomas]
I think they’re both British, actually, so-

[Shep]
Ah.

[Emily]
Yeah, I guess the knickers would be British.

[Thomas]
Right. Anyway, if you want to know what they mean, go ahead and Google them. And in the meantime, let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. Hey, do us a favor and tell someone about this podcast, okay? Thanks. Emily, Shep, and I will see you on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
Are there giraffe fur coats? I can’t picture a giraffe fur coat. Giraffes have fur, right?

[Thomas]
Do they?

[Emily]
Yeah. They have, like, a horse hide. It’s like a… hide like a zebra or horse would have.

[Shep]
Are there horse fur coats?

[Emily]
Well, I mean, there. There’s horse hair stuff, so I think-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, there’s pelts that are still with their hair left on it.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Apparently, not only do giraffes have fur, but it has a distinct smell.

[Shep]
Oh. Oh, good. I’m glad that it has a smell. I was worried that this would not be a smelly fur coat. Whew!

[Emily]
Ah, it smells like lavender and lemon. What is your problem, Shep?

[Thomas]
It smells because it has chemicals that help to repel insects and might even have antibacterial properties. So-

[Shep]
All right, maybe I’m back on board for fur coats? Like, I was against it ethically, but this sounds very, very useful.

[Thomas]
I’m thinking, like, old Elvis-style jumpsuit. Giraffe jumpsuit. With the cape and everything.

[Shep]
Ha ha ha.

[Emily]
Yes, we have the horns on the headband.

[Thomas]
The ossicones. Yeah. Emily, did you have some pitches you were gonna-

[Emily]
Yeah, no, we’re good.

[Thomas]
Sorry!

[Emily]
I’m sold. You two pick from yours.