Hot Dog

References

• Balls of Fury
• U.S. Route 66
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
• Wienermobile
• Richard Scarry
• The Cannonball Run
• Cluedo
• Frankenstein
• Cows With Guns
• Almost Plausible: Can Opener
• Mennonites
• Femme Fatale
• Glass Onion
• Murder, She Wrote
• Amish
• Hot dog eating record shattered
• Columbo
• Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest
• Quakers
• Quaker Oats
• Hall & Oates
• Quakers in the abolition movement
• Ironside

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
He knows the Quakers do human trafficking. In fact, the Mennonites even said it at the beginning because he’s implying-

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
He’s implying all these crimes that they’re doing, and he’s like, “Ah, that’s not us. That’s the Quakers.” And you think it’s just a throwaway line until the very end.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And he pulls the trucker hat off, and he’s got a Quaker hat underneath. And the audience goes, “Oh, that’s right. Quakers do human trafficking.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Everybody knows.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
“Everybody knows.”

[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 warming up the grill with me are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Our nations birthday is just a couple of days away and one common way for Americans to celebrate is to invite friends over for a backyard barbecue. And what 4th of July barbecue would be complete without that most american of delicacies, the Hot Dog. That’s right, on this episode of Almost Plausible, we’ll come up with a movie pitch where a humble hot dog takes center stage. But before we do, I’m curious: how do you two feel about hot dogs?

[Emily]
I love them. I could eat my weight in them. In the summertime, I basically live off of them.

[Shep]
Yep. I like the ones with cheese, and I like the kosher ones.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, the kosher ones are so good.

[Shep]
But they don’t have kosher ones with cheese.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I wonder why they don’t have the kosher ones with cheese.

[Shep]
Seems like a missed opportunity.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. What I really want to try are natural hot dogs. I’ve never had a natural hot dog before.

[Emily]
Oh, those are really good.

[Thomas]
That’s what I’ve heard.

[Shep]
What does that mean? A natural… Are they natural-? Do hot dogs just grow in the wild and I didn’t know this?

[Emily]
They don’t have any of the nitrates and stuff in them.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And their casing is usually actually intestines and not whatever synthetic thing they use now.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Boo. Give me the synthetic.

[Thomas]
They’re supposed to taste really good.

[Emily]
They taste- I, when I had money, I used to get those.

[Thomas]
Right. Hmm.

[Emily]
They were so delicious, and just snapped really well, cooked deliciously.

[Thomas]
That’s another characteristic, that’s supposed to have a really good snap. Maybe this summer I’ll splurge and get some. Well, it looks like it’s my turn to get the pitches rolling. My first idea is a movie similar in style to Balls of Fury, but it’s about competitive hot dog eating. That’s it. That’s the idea.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
I had that idea, but I figured one of you two would also have it, so I was like, “I’m not going to mess with this anymore.”

[Thomas]
My next idea: Jordan is a food critic who thinks fast food is for people who don’t care about a quality dining experience. Kim is a second generation Korean chef whose new restaurant, Frankly Delicious, which sells Korean style corndogs, is taking off in a big way. When Jordan’s boss demands a review of the trendy new restaurant, they walk in ready to write a scathing hit piece. However, much to Jordan’s surprise, the flavors are far more complex than expected. Wanting to learn more, Jordan asks to shadow Kim, leading to a world of previously unexplored culinary delights and the foundations of a solid friendship. My final idea? A group of friends on a summer road trip down Route 66 are running low on fuel when they pull into a dusty old gas station. To their dismay, the place appears abandoned. But searching around the convenience store reveals something unexpected. A hot dog roller grill caked in ancient grease that is somehow still running and still has one lonely, shriveled hot dog on it. A dare is thrown down and one of the members of the group takes a tentative bite. The friends are shocked to find themselves transported back in time to the glory days of Route 66.

[Shep]
Oh, no. That friend is dead.

[Thomas]
Is this The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He’s going through this whole experience and then at the last five minutes of the movie is him being put into the ambulance and taken away. Those are my ideas. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
All right, I have a handful. A young man buys an old hot dog mobile and decides to drive it across the country to get to his sister’s graduation or wedding or some important life event.

[Thomas]
Food truck. Right? Hot dog mobile?

[Emily]
No, no, hot dog mobile.

[Shep]
No, that, like-

[Thomas]
Oh, you mean like an Oscar Mayer wienermobile? Ah. Ah. Okay, got it.

[Emily]
Yeah, a wienermobile.

[Thomas]
Now I am picturing the right thing.

[Emily]
But yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He converts it into a camper-

[Thomas]
Obviously.

[Emily]
And then he’s gonna drive it across country to go to his sister’s important life event.

[Thomas]
Emily, thanks to this, you have answered a question that has plagued me, which is: if I won the lottery, what would I spend my money on?

[Emily]
Right. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to turn that into an RV?

[Thomas]
Wienermobile RV! Brilliant.

[Shep]
Yeah, Thomas is like, “If I won the letter, I wouldn’t tell anyone, but there’d be signs.”

[Emily]
So it’s just your typical road trip movie. Silly things happen along the way.

[Thomas]
So, I want to amend my previous statement. I would not make a wienermobile RV. I would buy a whole fleet of Richard Scarry themed vehicles, which we would then all drive around all the time.

[Shep]
It’d be Cannonball Run, but in Richard Scarry food vehicles.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Richard Scarry mobiles. I love it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Dibs on the apple.

[Emily]
All right, so my next one is a single mom in her mid thirties, gets a second job as the hot dog attendant at her local minor league baseball team. She has a rough first day, teens are throwing popcorn at her, men grope her, and a kid ends up puking on her. As she’s leaving for the night, she finds herself locked out of her car and her cell phone’s about to die. Just as she’s given up, one of the players sees her in the parking lot and offers help. They become friends and eventually they fall in love.

[Shep]
And then make a hot dog battery by sticking metal into hot dogs to recharge your phone…

[Emily]
I figured he would pull up and be like, “Do you want a ride home?” And she’s like, “No, I have, I have roadside assistant. My phone’s just gonna die.” And he’s like, “Oh, well, you can charge it in my car.”

[Shep]
I’m picturing he drives up in a truck and drives her home, but she has to ride in the back because she smells like puke.

[Thomas]
I pictured he pulled up in a wienermobile. But I may also still be thinking about that from the last one. So.

[Emily]
Alright, and this is my last one. Detective Richard Frank and his partner, Harry Johnson set out to solve the murder of Peter Mustard, the beloved hot dog cart owner of Vienna, Illinois. The pair discovered that Peter was a kind man with some dark secrets, and not just those in the hot dogs he sold.

[Shep]
Yeah, he used to be a colonel.

[Thomas]
You changed the name.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What name did she change?

[Thomas]
Harry’s last name.

[Emily]
I went back and forth.

[Thomas]
I thought it was funny.

[Emily]
Okay, see, I thought it was a good joke, but then I was like, well, I gotta keep it dick themed. Um, so originally, Harry’s last name was Stein, so it was Frank and Stein.

[Shep]
(Pained groans)

[Thomas]
All right, Shep, you’re up.

[Shep]
In the afterlife, someone (the main character) has to confront The One Who Killed Them. In this case, the piece of hot dog they choked on.

[Thomas]
Shep, you’ve been pitching a lot of post death ideas lately. Are you okay?

[Shep]
Uh, I mean, well, is this the appropriate time to talk about my cancer or-?

[Emily]
Oh, cancer joke. Have we reached that point in this show?

[Shep]
Uh. All right, my other pitch is: ace star pilot fighter Frankie “Hot Dog” Harrison, who is an anthropomorphic dog, fights on the front lines against an armada of invading aliens who look like anthropomorphic pigs.

[Emily]
Why pigs?

[Shep]
I mean, they could be cows, I guess, but cows aren’t really known for their fury.

[Thomas]
Unless they’re cows with guns.

[Shep]
which these are. Cows with guns and starships and missiles. Those are my pitches.

[Thomas]
Is there one that jumps out at us?

[Emily]
Um.

[Shep]
Apparently, no, because there was a long pause.

[Emily]
Clearly not.

[Thomas]
I mean, we could do another Can Opener style. Bring that character back, our detective character back. And so there’s a hot dog eating contest, and somebody dies, and turns out somehow that it’s murdered, and then the ghost is involved. I don’t know.

[Emily]
I’m down for this. Let’s figure that out.

[Shep]
Okay, so that’s the hot dog eating contest from Thomas.

[Thomas]
Choking on a hot dog and dying, and the ghost, the afterlife from yours.

[Shep]
And then detective.

[Emily]
And the hard boiled detectives.

[Shep]
Yes, hard boiled. Because you boil hot dogs. And the detective is named Frank, right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I mean, in, in Can Opener, was it Frank back then?

[Emily]
I don’t think gave him a name. I think we just called him detective.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
So, just looking at Can Opener, I don’t think we ever did name our detective, so.

[Emily]
I don’t think we need him. So now his name is Detective Frank, and we can change Harry’s name back to Stein. He’s training his new partner, Harry Stein.

[Thomas]
Right. This is years later.

[Shep]
Is he on the police force now?

[Thomas]
No, he’s a private detective.

[Emily]
Got a protégé.

[Shep]
So it’s young Stein.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So who hires our private detective? Is it the hot dog eating contest, or is it the victim’s family?

[Thomas]
I could see the hot dog eating contest because they want to, like-

[Emily]
Well. Cause they’re being sued by the family for negligence.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. They want to prove that they’re not culpable.

[Emily]
Here’s the question: How is the family saying that the hot dog eating contest is liable? Because he ate too fast and he choked? But he knew what he was getting into. He signed the waiver.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
What would their argument be, to show they were negligent in the contest? They didn’t cook them? They were undercooked so that they were too snappy and harder to chew. So you couldn’t get the-

[Shep]
Okay, I’d say have the victim’s family hire the detective.

[Emily]
Okay.

Because we’re already overcomplicating it, trying to come up with a justification for the hot dog eating contest to hire a private detective when they have their legal document, the waiver. So no reason to hire a PI. So the police investigated. They determined the cause to be an accident. End of investigation, case closed. The family is like, “No, there is no way.” Because the victim has a genetic anomaly where instead of his stomach being too big, it’s his throat was extra large or whatever, so he couldn’t choke on a hot dog. It is impossible. That’s why he was so good at the hot dog eating contests. Unless they laced one of the hot dogs with peanut oil or something. So he’s allergic.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So his throat-

[Emily]
Constricted.

[Thomas]
Ah. Closes up.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And so he choked.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that makes sense.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
How is that not something that was caught by the police or in the autopsy.

[Shep]
Because it shrunk his throat down to normal size.

[Thomas]
To normal size, so it didn’t look abnormal.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Wouldn’t they have medical records to show this? Okay, hear me out. He was raised by, like, a cult or Mennonites or people who didn’t believe in going to the doctors. So his girlfriend hires, because she’s aware of this anomaly, but it’s never been documented medically because he had never been to the doctor before.

[Shep]
Are Mennonites allowed to have non Mennonite girlfriends?

[Emily]
Well, he clearly left them because he’s now eating hot dogs on national television.

[Shep]
While I do want to see a shootout at a Mennonite farm, I was thinking it would be simpler where the family is corrupt and the parents insisted on cremation or something immediately. And it’s the sister who hires the detective, because it’s got to be a femme fatale who does the hiring, because that’s tradition.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
So if it were his girlfriend, it would not be appropriate to have sexual tension between her and the detective. But if it were his single sister…

[Thomas]
Makes sense.

[Shep]
So is the murderer his younger brother, who wanted to inherit the riches from the family?

[Thomas]
What if it’s not a murder? What if one of the other contestants was trying to cheat? He had oil in his water to help the hot dogs slide down his own throat, and their waters got accidentally switched somehow. Or their seats got switched or something like that.

[Shep]
One of his hot dogs fell into the other guy’s pile of hot dogs.

[Emily]
He knocked one of his cups over, and it fell on his hot dogs. The other guy’s hot dogs.

[Thomas]
That’s kind of manslaughter, though, in that case, potentially. Like, whereas if our victim dunks his hot dog in the other guy’s water, that’s an act that he did? I mean, I don’t know, but that was my thinking, was like, oh, what if it was? It looks like it’s an accident. Somebody’s convinced that it’s murder, and then it turns out it kind of was an accident, but then there was also-

[Emily]
There was cheating, and there was-

[Thomas]
Like. It’s like, somewhere in between.

[Shep]
A cover up.

[Thomas]
There is more to this story, but it’s not fully murder. But it’s not a total accident.

[Shep]
That’s good, because that’s how these farce mysteries go.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
There’s lots of red herrings and dead ends. So the younger brother attempting to murder his older brother, that’s not what happened. But that could be one of the avenues that gets investigated. How do we get him to the Mennonite farm for the shootout? The idea stuck in my head.

[Emily]
That could be another movie.

[Shep]
No, I want it in this one because it’s farcical. So the Mennonites made the hot dogs or something. And so the detective goes to investigate the farm, and the Mennonites think that he’s there investigating their grow operation.

[Thomas]
I have this image in my head of the Mennonite hot dog factory, and it’s all hand powered machines, and it’s all made out of wood, and there’s one big block that they push something into it, and all these hot dogs pop out holes in the block, like, formed hot dogs. And there’s a big trough down the middle that the hot dogs are floating down the trough. That’s the conveyor belt. It’s real steamy in there.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
It’s all like little kids and women.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. And it’s just like. It’s like one big, long barn. There’s, like, straw on the floor.

[Shep]
A cow wanders through.

[Thomas]
Oh, there’s, like, you can see in the background there’s a line of cows heading into the abattoir part of the building.

[Shep]
They’re so fresh and snappy.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
All natural. These are the best all natural hot dogs.

[Thomas]
There’s gotta be some bit in there where he finds out how the sausage is made and… Or at least a line about that. I feel like. So is the Mennonite shootout. Is this the climax of the film?

[Shep]
I’d say this is the start of the film.

[Emily]
So, wait, so the guys dies, and then they immediately go to the Mennonite farm?

[Shep]
Well, they investigate. He reads the autopsy report, and nothing seems wrong. But they know that that means that something was wrong because his throat was normal size.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
And he had that genetic anomaly where his throat was-

[Emily]
So they need to go see, what if it was contaminated before or after they received them from the Mennonites.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
That makes sense why they would go there first, then, why the shootout would happen early.

[Thomas]
I mean, the shootout doesn’t have to happen then. We can come back to the Mennonite farm later.

[Shep]
Ah, see, if you do the shootout now, then you can have the Mennonite mafia after him for the rest of the movie.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s brilliant. We got to echo our Can Opener one.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Thomas]
So, yeah, everyone’s got to be after him by the end of the film.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And then Harry Stein is like, “Is this normal?” And he’s like, “Actually, surprisingly, yes.”

[Emily]
“Happens more than you think.”

[Thomas]
Okay, perfect. So how does this movie begin? What is the opening scene? Is it the hot dog eating contest?

[Shep]
It’s gotta be.

[Emily]
Yeah, the hot dog eating contest. And then he dies because we got to be able to Glass Onion it and lay the things out for everyone to see but not see.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But not notice that he dunks his hot dog in the water to his left and not his right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Do we see the other guy slipping the oil into the water? Or. Or maybe he’s colluding with someone. He accidentally spills his water, and he’s like, “Oh,” you know, Sandra, one of the girls that brings the hot dogs around? “Could you go grab me another? I spilled my water.” She’s in on it.

[Shep]
That’s too much- Too much, too noticeable. So three of the contestants asked for water, and a girl comes up with a tray and sets them down. And one of them is in a container that looks a little different than the other two. And it’s not a big deal and no one pays attention to it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So he is colluding with the waitress, which we find out later, but that’s the only sign we see at the beginning. We’re seeing everything that everyone sees, but there’s not a lot to see.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Mm hmm. It starts out as a normal competitive eating movie. You know, you’re watching them eat their hot dogs. The count’s going. It’s a montage.

[Shep]
Oh, we got to see, before this, we have a confrontation between the two brothers.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
To set up the tension.

[Thomas]
So our victim, is he one of the Mennonites?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
No.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
He’s just some rich boy who really likes competitive eating and is good at it, and that’s, you know, his life’s work. And he and his brother are fighting because his brother is like, “I can’t believe you’re going to inherit everything, and this is what you do? You’re a disgrace to our family.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“You’re ruining our name.” You know, “Grow some balls and get some class.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They have an unusual last name. And the other, the younger brother, is a doctor, and so he gets, “Oh, are you related to the hot dog eating guy?”

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah.

[Shep]
And so he has to say, you know, “Yes, I am,” or, “No, it’s a coincidence” or whatever he says. He’s embarrassed every time.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s embarrassed by his brother, who is the face of their family and who will inherit the empire, who doesn’t deserve it. He never went to college. I’m a doctor.

[Emily]
He went to college. He just dropped out of law school.

[Shep]
Is that gonna come back?

[Emily]
I don’t know. Nah, I like it better that he never went to college because he found competitive eating.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s how he found it, was in college.

[Shep]
Right. It was-

[Thomas]
He was in a frat.

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah. Yes.

[Emily]
He was a college dropout.

[Thomas]
Oh. Cause we gotta get the frat guys after our detective too.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, yes!

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Somehow.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Obviously, yes!

[Thomas]
I don’t know how, but-

[Shep]
Yeah, yep, yep.

[Thomas]
I know this is a total coincidence, but I feel like it could work in this movie. Is the detective at the hot dog eating contest?

[Shep]
That’s… You know how I feel about coincidence, Thomas.

[Thomas]
I do.

[Shep]
Why would you even ask?

[Emily]
He’s on vacation after the-

[Shep]
This isn’t Murder, She Wrote.

[Thomas]
It’s a big event in town. He could just be there.

[Emily]
I was gonna say it would be his vacation after the Can Opener thing, and he just needs a break and he’s just enjoying himself.

[Shep]
It’s such an amazing coincidence, though.

[Emily]
Yes, it is.

[Thomas]
Well, I guess keep it in mind if there’s something fun that we can do with it.

[Shep]
So I’m picturing the detective, if he is at the hot dog eating contest and sees the guy choked to death. He goes and examines the body and goes, “It was murder.” And then you see the forensic pathologist go, “Yeah, he choked on hot dog. It was an accident. Case closed.”

[Thomas]
And that’s why the sister hires him, because he said it was murder?

[Shep]
Right. But he didn’t know that it was murder. He’s just a PI, and he’s like, “This could be a murder. Someone should hire me to investigate.”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe as they’re walking away, he’s there with the partner-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And he says, “How did you know it was a murder?” He’s like, “Oh, I have no idea. Just either way, I get paid as long as somebody hires me. I’m just trying to- It’s been slow.”

[Shep]
Right. “I don’t know for sure that it isn’t murder. So…”

[Thomas]
Maybe because he clearly choked on a hot dog, nobody has bothered to do an autopsy. Like, why, that would be a waste of time and money and resources to do that. He obviously choked on a hot dog. We all saw him, like, shoving them down his throat. It’s clear that’s what happened. How could he have been murdered? With what? The hot dog he picked up and put in his mouth himself? Like, why would we bother? But the sister knows that’s not possible.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But again, there are no medical records to back that up.

[Shep]
Why aren’t there medical records to back that up? He’s not one of the Mennonites.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I don’t know now.

[Shep]
I mean, do you know how large your throat is?

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
This could be just a thing that your doctor doesn’t investigate during your annual physical. So he didn’t know until he was pledging at college. Which he still has, like, he wears the jersey of his frat, even though he dropped out of college immediately.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like, that’s still his identity.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
So how does the sister know that his throat’s-

[Shep]
I mean, he told his sister. He found out, and it’s not a secret.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
The brother knows. Everybody knows.

[Shep]
Everybody knows.

[Thomas]
Like, and actually, maybe it’s just the sister and brother. The parents are dead, the sister cares, the brother does not.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
The brother’s not terribly disappointed that his sort of deadbeat brother, who was tarnishing the family name, died. And now, by the way, I’m gonna collect the inheritance.

[Shep]
So the parents are already gone. So.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, I guess that doesn’t work with inheritance then, huh?

[Shep]
The older brother has all of the money.

[Thomas]
Oh, sure. He’s the executor of the estate, and so if the siblings want money for anything, they have to go through him. Is it just about honor and pride with the brother? Like-

[Emily]
Oh, no. He has a gambling habit. He’s got debts he’s got to pay off to the Mennonite mob.

[Thomas]
I do like that the younger brother’s argument is that the older brother refuses to give him money. He’s stingy with the money. But what we come to find out later is that he’s trying to help him by not giving him the money, he’s not feeding that addiction.

[Shep]
Right, but we don’t know that at the beginning, the first scene, where the younger brother is like, “You got to give me what I’m owed.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And the older brother’s like, “I’m not giving you another cent” because he’s telling him he’s cutting them off so that he stops this gambling addiction.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Right.

[Shep]
But we don’t see that. We only see the older brother appearing to be a dick and wanting to keep all the money.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s a good thing to reveal partway through the movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“Mom and dad made me the executor.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“I get to say who gets what.”

[Shep]
Yeah. The older brother is very cocky, and the younger brother is like, “I’m going to get that money, and you’re not going to be able to stop me.” Very threatening.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But what he really means is he hired a lawyer to sue the estate.

[Thomas]
Right. “Cause we’re not kids anymore. We don’t-“

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“The estate doesn’t need an executor. What it needs is to distribute the funds.” Or maybe there’s, like, an age, and it’s almost at that age. Let’s take a break here, and when we come back, Detective Frank will solve the case in this Hot Dog murder mystery.

[Break]

[Thomas]
Alright, we are back from our break. So what was Detective Frank doing when we left off?

[Shep]
So he’s investigating the incident. He reads the coroner’s report that the sister has that just says that everything was normal, and he choked on a hot dog, but the sister insists that he had an enlarged throat, so he thinks the hot dogs were contaminated. He investigates the Mennonite hot dog factory and inadvertently discovers their grow operation, leading to a shootout, and he flees the farm. For the rest of the movie, the Mennonites are after him. He then investigates the brother, the likely suspect.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
Go ahead.

[Emily]
I was gonna say, who we’ve established that he wants the money, but we know he has- what we know the audience doesn’t know yet, that he has a crippling gambling addiction. That’s where we’re at.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
It’s how the detective discovers that.

[Shep]
Yes. In the gambling den, also run by the Mennonite mafia.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Or do we want a different group?

[Shep]
It’s a different sect of the same Mennonites, and they’re rivals with each other.

[Thomas]
It’s the Amish mafia.

[Shep]
So his assistant, his trainee, Stein, could see the gambling den and see the people running it, and he’s like, “Oh, Mennonites.” And they’re like, “No, obviously these are Amish. Look at all the differences.” And you can point out all the really subtle differences between Mennonites and Amish. Frank knows that they’re wildly different. In fact, when he’s investigating the Mennonite farm, maybe he’s implying, he’s asking about other things that their group might be in on, because he knows the scoop. He knows what’s on the street. So he, like, implies, because he knows there’s a branch of the Mennonite family that’s running drugs to Jersey or whatever.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
How do we get the frat bros in on it? Because the frat bros have to be that third antagonistic force.

[Thomas]
They’re definitely at the event.

[Emily]
Of course. Cheering him on.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Exactly. But, yeah. How is it that they get turned against him?

[Shep]
Because the detective was also in the same frat when he went to college for two weeks?

[Thomas]
He could just be in a rival frat.

[Shep]
That’s the mirror of the Mennonites and the Amish, where it looks like it’s the same thing, but it’s like, oh, they’re totally different.

[Emily]
This is funny.

[Thomas]
Alpha Pi Delta and Alpha Psi Delta or something like that. It’s one character different.

[Shep]
But they’re both called the Deltas.

[Thomas]
Right. Yes. There can only be one.

[Shep]
Then there are the Alphas. There can only be one.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. There you go. I mean, it’s a weird and arbitrary reason for the frat guys to be trying to beat him up.

[Shep]
Why would the detective be investigating the frat guys? He’s got to be investigating them for a reason as well. We need another dead end.

[Thomas]
I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that he’s investigating them. It could be that he’s trying to get information.

[Shep]
So the frat guys still like the hot dog eater.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Even though he’s made their frat his whole identity, and he was only there-

[Thomas]
Oh, he’s their mascot.

[Shep]
Right, but he was only there for a couple weeks before he dropped out.

[Thomas]
It could even be that he was in college for most of his freshman year. But as the year went on, he kind of just dicked around.

[Emily]
Entered more and more food contests, missed classes.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And he’s focused more on greek life than on academic life. And he was like, “You know what? I don’t really care about college anyway. I have this newfound skill.” Maybe the college is in this town. And so this annual hot dog eating contest, they were like, “Bro, you gotta enter.” And he won. And it was easy. Like, it wasn’t- You remember the first time that somebody was, like, dipping their hot dogs in water, and the record was, like, 20 something hot dogs. And then all of a sudden, like, literally one year, the record was like, 50 something hot dogs. Everyone went, “Wait, what?” It was like that. Suddenly the record was much higher because of him. And so it was like, “Oh, you have a gift.” And so that was how he realized, “This is my calling. Forget college. I don’t need it. I can make money with competitive eating because it’s so easy for me.”

[Emily]
Well, also, he’s from that wealthy family, so he doesn’t really need…

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
This is how he gets fame, which is what he wants.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I was trying to think of a reason that the detective might think the frat didn’t want to associate with him for some reason.

[Thomas]
Ooh. It could be the case that the frat guys weren’t there to cheer him on. They were there to protest him. “Take that fucking jersey off. You’re not a member of our frat. You flunked.” He didn’t- It’s not that he dropped out. It’s that he flunked out.

[Shep]
Ooh.

[Thomas]
“You hurt our chapter.”

[Shep]
“You’re not associated with us.”

[Thomas]
And, like, he has these very positive memories. It was a great time in his life. He had a ton of fun. He discovered this skill he has, and he values that time and the people he met. Not realizing that as a result of flunking out, you actually really kind of screwed the chapter over. They were already, like, under scrutiny from the national group because of poor academic performance. They were under maybe restrictions from the university, came down again, poor academic performance. And so it was like, “You didn’t take it seriously. We don’t like you. Take that shirt off. You’re not one of us anymore.” Like, he’s been kicked out.

[Shep]
Now, do we know that at the beginning, or do we just see them there and assume they’re there to cheer him on?

[Emily]
I think we see them there and assume.

[Shep]
Then how do we find out that they are not?

[Thomas]
Do they cheer his death?

[Shep]
Oh, jeez.

[Thomas]
Or is that too far even for them?

[Shep]
That might be too far. They don’t want him to die, necessarily.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Possibly, unless it would be funnier.

[Thomas]
Because the detective could notice that they were there.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Since he’s at the event, and so he thinks, “Oh, well…” I don’t know. I don’t know why he would necessarily talk to them. Maybe they saw something. He’s just trying to get witness statements, perhaps.

[Shep]
And if he’s not at the event, he could see photos and then see the crowd and find them there.

[Thomas]
Right. So he has an excuse to talk to them.

[Emily]
What if they were planning- to throw red herring, they were planning to sabotage him, and he sees something in the photos or the videos of the crowd footage of the event that points towards that sabotage.

[Thomas]
There’s a dude who just has a bag of peanuts because he wanted to eat some peanuts.

[Emily]
Yeah, but, you know, something like that, where they’re like, he’s like, “Perhaps they sabotaged him. But why would they do that? He was in their frat,” and then he finds out about the-

[Shep]
I like the idea that it’s just a guy eating peanuts because-

[Thomas]
Or, like, they all have bags of peanuts. And it’s like, yeah, “Jeff’s dad, who runs the peanut stand, he has for 20 years, we always get free peanuts when we go down to the boardwalk.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Or “The guy who runs the peanut place, he’s a member of our frat.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“He graduated.” You know.

[Emily]
“He’s an alum.”

[Thomas]
“He always gives us a discount on peanuts. He graduated with honors. We like him.”

[Shep]
So it’s a frat, but it’s an academic frat?

[Thomas]
Well, I mean-

[Emily]
They have to have one nerd every few generations.

[Thomas]
Again, what they don’t like about our victim is that he screwed them from an academic standpoint. So the other guy is the opposite of that, I guess.

[Shep]
See, I think it would be funny if they’re all, they look like jocks, but they’re all super nerds.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah, that’s. Yeah, yeah, I like that.

[Shep]
So the victim joined this frat thinking that it was a party frat.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But it wasn’t.

[Thomas]
And it is!

[Shep]
It was this- It was-

[Thomas]
It’s just also a study frat.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
They study hard, they party hard.

[Shep]
Yes. And he only did one of those things.

[Thomas]
Right. Oh, and it caused them to be kicked out of some sort of academic bowl. Or-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Again, it hurt their standings. They were- Oh, maybe every year they won some plaque for their academic acuity, and that year they didn’t, and it was because of him.

[Shep]
So, like, the detective goes to their frat house, and you see on the wall, there’s this line of plaques with the years, and then in one year, there’s just a gap. They didn’t skip a year because the year thing is a separate line, and there’s just no plaque there.

[Thomas]
That’s funny. I like that.

[Shep]
Which, again, could just be a clue that he sees.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And we show the audience, and then he calls attention to it, detective style.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Because he goes to the frat house, and the frat bros are all super friendly because what can they do now? They wanted to get rid of this guy, and he’s dead, so mission accomplished. So they have no animosity now.

[Thomas]
With that in mind, what makes them upset toward Detective Frank?

[Shep]
Well, they have nothing to hide because they didn’t do it.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
But Frank thinks they might have. And he points out all the evidence why they hated him. They all had peanuts. They knew about his peanut allergy.

[Thomas]
Maybe they even threw peanuts in protest, not because he’s allergic, just because that’s what they were holding.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
It could have been popcorn. It could have been garbage, whatever it was.

[Shep]
Right. Whatever it was, they’re-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’re just booing and throwing what’s in their hand, and it happened to be a handful of peanuts.

[Thomas]
So his accusation is what raises their ire?

[Shep]
Yes. Is that enough?

[Thomas]
Doesn’t feel like it, does it?

[Shep]
Doesn’t, no.

[Thomas]
Ah, he is a detective, after all. So while he’s in the frat house, he discovers he uncovers some sort of cheating academic dishonesty that’s been going on.

[Shep]
Ah, yes. Then it’s a mirror of the Mennonite farm where he’s not there to investigate that.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He just inadvertently sees it. He’s not going to report it, but just him seeing it is enough to get them after him.

[Thomas]
I love all of the, like, he’s good at being a detective as long as it’s not the case he’s currently working on. That’s quite funny.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, I like that. So one question that came up in my mind: How does our detective find out about the younger brother’s threatening conversation or seemingly threatening conversation?

[Shep]
He’s got to interview some witnesses.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And one of the witnesses oversaw this confrontation.

[Thomas]
What about the guilty waitress? Because maybe it was a backstage argument-

[Shep]
Ooh.

[Emily]
Yeah, I like that.

[Thomas]
And she’s trying to lead our detective away from her.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Cause she realizes, “Uh oh.”

[Shep]
Now, is he Columbo? Does he know right away?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
No, I don’t think so. In fact, I think we’ve established pretty well in Can Opener that he’s kind of an idiot who bumbles his way into the solution.

[Shep]
Okay, so he goes to investigate. He goes to interview witnesses after the event, and everyone’s gone, and the only witness left is the waitress. That’s why he’s asking her.

[Thomas]
Right. Because the restaurant sponsored it, and she works at the restaurant, so she’s still there.

[Shep]
Right. Right. And, yeah, if she had just said, “I don’t know,” the investigation would have ended and he wouldn’t catch her.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s- It’s Columbo, I’m telling you.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So she instead tries to point him the wrong direction, and that sends him to investigate the brother.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Is that the first thing, or is the hot dogs are the first thing? Hot dogs are the first thing.

[Emily]
Hot dogs are the first thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The brother is next.

[Thomas]
I like that. Because now they have to go talk to the Amish. They just had this whole literal blowout with the Mennonites, and now they have to go interview the Amish. And he’s like, “Oh, god, not again.” You know. Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they don’t need to see the Amish because he finds out the truth that, oh, I guess they would want to verify the brother’s claims that he’s, owes them a bunch of money. But I would say a phone call could clear this all up. But it’s the Amish, so, you know.

[Shep]
So why would the brother claim that he owes a lot of money? He would want to hide that. That’s his motivation for killing his older brother.

[Thomas]
But I think that he has nothing to hide. He’s like, “Yeah, we had an argument about that. And…” Yeah, I don’t know. Like-

[Shep]
I think the sister tips him off, tips the detective off that the brother has this gambling debt. He’s always gambling at this one place. And so he goes to that gambling den to find the brother. He’s not going there to investigate the Amish.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
He’s just going to find the brother.

[Shep]
He’s going to find the brother who’s dodging his calls.

[Thomas]
Right. So he gets the tip off from the waitress, can’t get in touch with the brother, goes to the sister for help. She says, “Well, he, I know he gambles a lot. Oh, it’s Saturday. Every Saturday. He’s always at the Amish gambling hall,” or whatever.

[Shep]
Right. We got to find a pun name to put there.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s a problem for the writers.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The writers have to come up with a pun named.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so that’s where he’ll be. So then he goes there and they go in. They go in and the partner’s like, “Oh, no!” Because he thinks it’s the Mennonites. And he’s like, “No, no, no, it’s a totally different group.” Oh, we get a callback to that. Because the partner, when they go to the Mennonites, the partner thinks it’s the Amish. And he’s like, no, no, these are Mennonites. So they walk into the Amish gambling den. He’s like, “Oh, the Mennonites.” He’s like, “No, no, these are Amish.” “How can you tell?”

[Shep]
I want the partner to be the one that keeps discovering the stuff that gets them in trouble.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s good.

[Shep]
I want Frank to know, don’t open that door. But Stein doesn’t know because he’s younger and inexperienced, and so he’s like, “What’s behind this door?” And he opens it, and it’s all the Mennonites, you know, harvesting the rows and rows of cannabis, and that sets them all off on them immediately, like a hive of angry bees with Tommy guns. With hand cranked Tommy guns.

[Thomas]
I mean, Mennonites are allowed to use modern stuff, so.

[Emily]
Yeah. They have technology.

[Shep]
Oh, well, then that’s the Amish later.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. How does he ultimately figure out that there was this cheating happening in the contest and there was peanut oil involved?

[Shep]
Yeah, we got to get to that. That’s, like, the last thing.

[Thomas]
We do eventually need to get there.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He has to figure out that the waitress and the person next to him were in cahoots. Were, like, a couple or something. Are they a couple? Is he just paying her? Is he coming to pay her off because she demands extra hush money? Because she knows what happened for real, and she’ll reveal that he was trying to cheat, and that’s how that guy died. So she needs more. She’s blackmailing him for more.

[Shep]
Oh, she’s got to get murdered then, because that’s how it happens. If a blackmailer blackmails during a murder investigation, they get subsequently murdered.

[Emily]
Okay, well, how does she get murdered?

[Thomas]
Chokes on a hot dog! I don’t know. I don’t know.

[Shep]
See, that’s almost- Yeah, and again, that’s what set the detective off on that guy. Because if he had just let her live and somehow convinced her not to tell anyone, the investigation would have ended. But because he murders her, that keeps the door open.

[Thomas]
Oh, there’s gotta be, because there are hot dogs, there’s gotta be a scene where somebody thinks they’re bleeding, but it’s just ketchup.

[Shep]
Yes. It’s got to be after one of the shootouts.

[Thomas]
Right. “Ah, I’m bleeding.” “It’s awfully bright red.” “It must be arterial blood!”

[Shep]
That’s younger guy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So he investigates the hot dogs, reveals the pot farm, investigates the brother, reveals the Amish casino. Why does he go to the frat house?

[Emily]
Because they had the peanuts and-

[Thomas]
Yeah, they had the peanuts.

[Shep]
Okay, so he’s got to get footage of the event at some point.

[Thomas]
Right. That makes sense.

[Shep]
And that’s when he sees the frat guys with the peanuts, and then he sees the different containers of water, which leads him back to the waitress. So, hot dogs, casino, frat house, then back to the waitress, but she gets murdered.

[Thomas]
So does he discover her body? He must, right?

[Shep]
He must. That’s noir classic.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So now the police are after him.

[Thomas]
Or-

[Shep]
Oh, go ahead.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay. No, I do like that. And I think that’s the direction we should go. The thought that I just had in my head is they show up at her apartment as her body is being wheeled away and she’s covered in a sheet. And he stops to talk to the cops and they pull the sheet back and she’s there with just a hot dog sticking up out of her mouth. But I do like the idea that the police think that he’s murdered her for some reason. Well, I don’t know why they would think that.

[Shep]
He’s always there at the scene. There was a shootout, and he was there.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
The cops have all these incidents all over town, and he’s always on the scene.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah. Cause he’s just drumming up business, showing he can solve all the murders. So he can solve more murders.

[Shep]
So the police don’t think he committed the murder to create business?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
That’s how he’s drumming that business. He’s murdering people.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what I was trying to imply.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Alright, we need to solve this crime or this case.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Okay. So do the police catch him, or does he get away? Because if they catch him, then you have the police interview scene where he’s being interrogated, and that’s where you- That’s your framing device, where he’s flashing back to all the events that we’ve seen in the movie. Or does he just get away?

[Thomas]
Yeah, I mean, the interview scene, is that where he puts it all together? Is that what you’re saying? Like through those flashbacks, he notices new details or like recontextualizes things that he’s seen.

[Shep]
Oh, yes, because the police also have photos of the event, but they’re in color. So he had- He had- One of the photos he went off of was the one in the newspaper, and it’s in black and white.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And the little colored lines on the water container, one of them is different. And that’s when he puts it together. That that container was marked different for a reason. Let’s investigate that guy. How does he get away from the police? He just explains himself and let him go?

[Emily]
Do they have any evidence other than he was there?

[Shep]
I mean, yeah, maybe it was just they were questioning him for 24 hours or whatever.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
It could just be that they’re holding him, yeah, for 24 hours to get him off the street. Because in the last 8 hours he’s caused two shootouts and yeah, he could have an alibi. Well, yeah, he was at the Amish shootout when she was murdered. And you know, maybe the coroner’s like, “Ah, she’s been dead-” Like puts, you know, gives her a time of death. And he’s like, “Ah, I can prove I wasn’t here.”

[Shep]
“I was at the other incident that you’re investigating.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I’m trying to think of a funny thing to do to him while he’s in holding. Like, one of the Mennonites comes after him somehow, or one of the Amish, and they have a bomb, but it’s a wind up-

[Emily]
Little-

[Shep]
Clock.

[Thomas]
Clockwork?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So if he is only discovering the color photograph in custody, why did he go back to the waitress in the first place?

[Shep]
Why did he go back to the waitress? Oh, okay.

[Thomas]
He went and talked to her the first time because he was just doing witness interviews.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But why would he want to talk to her again?

[Shep]
So she sent him to the casino. Right? Or-

[Thomas]
She sent him toward the brother.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right, and that led him to the casino and the fight with the Amish.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But then he does interview the brother, and the brother reveals that his plan to get the money was to hire a lawyer. And you can investigate that. Like, here’s my lawyer.

[Thomas]
He would presumably want to talk to the other competitors. There’s a financial incentive to win. It’s a $50,000 prize or something like that.

[Shep]
Oh, geez.

[Thomas]
And so-

[Shep]
Is that what the-

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
I need to enter some eating contests.

[Emily]
They are pretty high.

[Thomas]
So he would want to talk to the other competitors.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Who probably have left town to go to other contests or go back home. Are we envisioning this as essentially, this is a generic version of the Nathan’s contest, but it’s a big national event.

[Emily]
Of course.

[Shep]
Then how does he catch the one competitor who oiled his water if he’s already left? Or does he follow the guy to the other town? He’s not a cop. He’s not- Doesn’t have jurisdiction limited to the city.

[Emily]
He doesn’t care.

[Thomas]
It’s true.

[Shep]
That’s your finale, I guess.

[Thomas]
Well, he doesn’t have to catch the guy. The guy cheated. It’s up to whatever the hot dog company is to pursue him now to get the money back.

[Shep]
He murdered the waitress.

[Thomas]
Oh, he murdered the waitress.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. Well, but leave that up to the cops.

[Shep]
He’s got a double dip on his fees. He got hired by the sister and also, he’s getting the reward money for the murder.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that does make sense.

[Shep]
And, of course, he’s explaining all of these tropes to his assistant.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like, “Yeah, often when there’s a murder, there’s gonna be a second murder.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“They were probably blackmailing the perpetrator.”

[Thomas]
Oh, you set that up early too. He’s like, “Well, it’s a murder case, so there’ll probably be another murder at some point.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And just the partner or the trainee, he assumes it’ll be him? So he’s all nervous the whole time?

[Shep]
That’s why he’s so afraid. Anytime they’re investigating and he panics at the Mennonites, panics at the casino.

[Emily]
Okay, so he goes back to talk to her because he knows she might know some other staff, so he’s gonna go ask her “What other staff was there. Who can I talk to about, you know, who could have tampered with the hot dogs? Who would have been in charge of plating or drinks,” et cetera.

[Thomas]
It’s possible along those same lines that he asked her for contact information for the other contestants and she says, “Oh, well, I can get that for you.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
She’s willing to do anything to throw suspicion off of her. So he says, “I see there were these other people, but do you have phone numbers for them or how can I get in touch with them.” She says, “Oh, yeah, I can get that for you.” So he goes back after the brother is a dead end, he goes back to her to get that list so that he can talk to them.

[Emily]
Or if we want to go the farce route-

[Thomas]
We do.

[Emily]
Because we, the audience doesn’t know that she’s in on it. We haven’t established that.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So how about young Stein has the hots for her? So he’s pushing him to go back and talk to her because they were flirting a little bit the first time they were asking.

[Shep]
So the detective has his assistant interview her, and she keeps flirting with him and distracting him. So he keeps getting off track by the waitress because she’s intentionally leading him astray.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But it seems like she’s just flirting with him. Yeah, that’s the earlier scene, so it makes sense that he wants to go back and see her again.

[Thomas]
Is there a moment where it’s Stein who finds the body? And then Frank comes in, and he’s like, “What did you do?” It’s like “You said there would be another murder, and you were right.” He’s like, “Well, you didn’t have to kill her.” Like, “No, I didn’t kill her.”

[Shep]
And of course, Frank is just messing with him. Right?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Oh. He’s like, “When would you have? We’ve been together this whole time.”

[Shep]
Right. Okay, so she’s been murdered. The cops show up, take the two detectives into custody.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s when he sees the color photograph and suspects the one contestant. How does he catch him?

[Thomas]
How does he-

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s the end.

[Thomas]
Yeah, how does he solve the case?

[Shep]
Do we want it like the previous one, where all forces converge?

[Thomas]
I think we need to. Right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s tradition.

[Thomas]
If this is a sequel and we have to amp it up for the sequel, is there a shootout at the police station?

[Shep]
Wow. Well, this is only the second one. Do we want to pull that trigger now? Because how are you going to escalate it for the third one?

[Thomas]
In space?

[Shep]
Oh, god. You joke, but I’m immediately thinking of possibilities.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because it’s a farce. You can do whatever you want.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
So the contestant accidentally killed the victim, then intentionally murdered the waitress to get out of the blackmail. Now he’s fleeing the city, but he can’t take a bus or a train or a plane. He’s being smuggled out by the Mennonites. We established their smuggling operation much earlier. Like Frank is hinting at it when they’re investigating the hot dog factory.

[Thomas]
Is there some other religion that we can do? So we have the triad, the New Jersey triad, and it’s the Mennonites, the Amish, and this other-

[Shep]
The Quakers.

[Thomas]
The Quakers. Right.

[Emily]
But the Quakers are just normal people. They don’t have those hats anymore.

[Shep]
That’s what they want you to think.

[Thomas]
They’ve got a big distribution system on account of their oat factories.

[Emily]
Smuggle them out in the oats,

[Shep]
Right. He catches a guy, and he’s wearing a baseball cap, and he pulls the baseball cap, and it’s the Quaker hat underneath.

[Thomas]
It unfurls.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
That’s funny. It’s the driver. It’s a big semi truck, and they haul him down, and they pull his trucker hat off, and the Quaker hat unfurls. And, yeah, like what you were about to say. They yank his t-shirt off, and he’s got the little bow tie thing.

[Shep]
Cravat or whatever it is.

[Thomas]
Whatever it is.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, whatever it is.

[Emily]
And then you see that he’s hauling oats.

[Shep]
He’s hauling oats.

[Thomas]
Yep, yep.

[Shep]
That was your joke.

[Thomas]
It just hit me also. Uh. Amazing.

[Emily]
It’s two jokes in one, really.

[Shep]
That’s great.

[Thomas]
It is.

[Shep]
It’s a subtle one that you can put in and don’t expect the audience to get it.

[Thomas]
No, you gotta have, like, the, the slogan has to be some lyric from some Hall & Oates song that’s written on the side of the container that he’s hauling.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Like, something that, if you get it-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s funny, but if you don’t, it doesn’t detract from anything because it’s just writing on the side of a truck.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right. Yep. Okay, so. Sorry. Was there more that you had on how he catches this guy and solves everything?

[Shep]
Well, he’s being smuggled out in the oats.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
I think that we have it. But it’s not just him. It’s, they’re human trafficking, whoever else. And this guy’s just one of the people in the container. I don’t know what else you could put in there, but the writers could come up with something funny. Are the police with him? They’ve gotta be, because they have to arrest the guy. If it’s like the previous one, if this is a sequel to Can Opener, then he has to arrange all the forces to converge-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
On the Quaker truck to cause enough of a disturbance to stop traffic to stop the guy from being able to leave town.

[Thomas]
How does he know that he’s in the Quaker truck?

[Shep]
He knows the Quakers do human trafficking. In fact, the Mennonites even said it at the beginning because he’s implying-

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
He’s implying all these crimes that they’re doing, and he’s like, “Ah, that’s not us. That’s the Quakers.” And you think it’s just a throwaway line until the very end.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And he pulls the trucker hat off, and he’s got a Quaker hat underneath. And the audience goes, “Oh, that’s right. Quakers do human trafficking.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Everybody knows.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
“Everybody knows.”

[Emily]
Well, I mean, they were instrumental in the underground railroad, so-

[Thomas]
It’s true. We definitely need to have the nail polish remover salesman make an appearance again at some point. I don’t know why.

[Shep]
Who was that? You’ve got to remind me. I haven’t-

[Emily]
I don’t remember that.

[Thomas]
So there’s a scene where he’s escaping the mayor’s daughter’s room, and the panties are stuck to his hands, but he uses it to zipline out of her room.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Oh, yes.

[Thomas]
And he’s like, “Now how am I gonna get these off?” And there’s a guy who’s, like, got, like, an ice cream cart, but he’s selling nail polish remover.

[Emily]
That’s right. Yeah.

[Thomas]
So that guy’s gotta come back or something along, like, just that joke of somebody selling a weird thing in that format that is perfect for that moment and would never be a thing that actually happened.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That’s a funny joke to me. That would be a nice callback to the first film, so.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Somewhere in there the writers can work out where that should go.

[Shep]
One of the times when he’s possibly fleeing one of the groups.

[Thomas]
Right. Yep. Are there any other details we feel like we need to spend a little bit of extra time on before we wrap it up?

[Shep]
I mean, there’s so many things that we could-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
We could just spend weeks going over this and adding more stuff.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s the whole point of a farce, is that you can be constantly adding little jokes, throw away gags, stuff going on in the background. I mean, in good farces, that’s a thing that the writers have done.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But this is just a pitch. So, we have the bones of it.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
We have the beginning and middle and end. We have our mystery, and we’ve solved it.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And I love that we brought our detective back from our Can Opener episode.

[Shep]
Yeah. What are the odds?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That Hot Dog would be a sequel to Can Opener? I did not see this coming.

[Thomas]
There’s gotta be a Vienna sausage reference in there at some point too.

[Emily]
Oh, yes. Can’t open the can.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that would be funny. “If only I had a can opener.”

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And then he has a flashback and the music from Ironside plays. So the partner is trying to open the can and Frank has a flashback.

[Emily]
Traumatic flashback.

[Thomas]
Yeah, “I don’t like can openers.”

[Shep]
That would, if you didn’t see the previous one, you would be so lost on why that happened.

[Thomas]
Look, I firmly believe not every audience member needs to understand every joke. So-

[Emily]
I agree.

[Thomas]
You put things in there, you put in rewards for certain people. Not everyone needs to get it.

[Shep]
Right, but it’s just a reference. It’s not a joke.

[Thomas]
That’s true, I suppose.

[Shep]
The joke has to be, he’s afraid of can openers. Cause they’re dangerous. So instead, he gets out a knife and a hammer and he’s hammering.

[Thomas]
Oh, it’s a hammer and a chisel. Obviously.

[Shep]
Right, right.

[Thomas]
It’s going old school with it.

[Shep]
Something far more dangerous than a can opener would have been, because that’s how he feels safe.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“Get that dangerous thing away from me.”

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Hot Dog.

[Shep]
That’s right. That’s what the episode was about.

[Thomas]
Is this one hot off the grill or are we in the doghouse?

[Shep]
That’s pretty good.

[Emily]
I don’t like that one.

[Shep]
No, I liked it.

[Thomas]
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. Emily, Shep, and I want to wish you a safe and happy 4th of July. And if you’re not American, then I guess just have a nice Thursday. Either way, we want you to join us again on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
I’m still picturing large schools of hot dogs swimming through the ocean.

[Emily]
Just netting them.

[Shep]
Trawlers scooping up nets of hot dogs as they wiggle in the net.

[Thomas]
They’re like, you always see those fish that are jumping to get away from the net.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
You’ve got hot dogs jumping out of the water.

[Shep]
Yep. Hot dogs are very aqua-dynamic?

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Hydrodynamic.

[Thomas]
Hydrodynamic.

[Shep]
Oh, thank you.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Emily]
Look at me. I knew a word. I corrected you.

[Shep]
You also have a master’s degree in English. Was it worth it, Emily?

[Emily]
Yes, for that moment right there. 100%.

[Shep]
Thank you for the correction.