Shopping Cart

References

• IKEA
  • A Taste of the Times (the history of IKEA meatballs)
• Omega Mart
  • Omega Mart Ad Compilation
• Meow Wolf
• Brazil
• Mall of America
• The Incredible Journey
• The Road
• Survivorship Bias
• Shopping Trolley Racing World Championships
• Kingpin
• Days of Thunder
• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
• Christopher Guest
• The Love Bug
• An American Tail
• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
• Finch
• Terrence Malick
• Song to Song
• The Most Unexpected Gold Medal In History
• Ship of Theseus
• Creeper
• Air Bud
• Richard Dean Anderson
• MacGyver
• Danica Patrick
• Rudy
• Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
• CTE
• Speed Racer
• Hot Shots
• Coxswain
• Cornhole

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
I mean, you both know that I was abandoned as a 12-year-old.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So you’re, what, you’re pitching a movie about a kid that gets abandoned when they’re 12. You’re like, “Hey, what do you think, Shep? Is this- will this be a fun romp?”

[Thomas]
You just bring a level of expertise, that-

[Emily]
Yeah!

[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 just checking my list here. It looks like I’m in need of Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
I’m sorry, that item is out of stock.

[Thomas]
Can I get a rain check, or- We’ll figure it out later. Our theme this episode is Shopping Cart. And it’s time for a little game of Would You Rather? So, would you rather: every shopping cart you use for the rest of your life has a wheel that constantly squeaks? Or every shopping cart you use for the rest of your life has a messed-up wheel preventing it from going in a straight line?

[Emily]
Squeaky wheel.

[Shep]
I do all my shopping online, so none of this will affect me in either way. Also, did you know that in shopping carts, they have devices that lock up the wheels for various things?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like it didn’t go through the checkout line, and then it tried to exit the store.

[Shep]
That will lock up the wheels in some places, or you try to leave the parking lot with it. That will lock up the wheels. And it’s often either the front right wheel or one of the front wheels, one of the back wheels. So that is why like one of the wheels gets caught is because it’s got a little motor in there and the wheel is charging that up. So it’s got a little resistance, an extra resistance on one of the wheels or two of the four. And that’s why there’s always a wonky wheel. There’s a reason it’s like that.

[Emily]
Explain it to me, before that technology was invented, and they had the same complaint.

[Shep]
Okay, so it’s easier to balance things on three legs than on four legs. And so if you have a cheaply made shopping cart, it could be that, you know, one of the legs is not the same length as the other three. So its balance point is a little, you know, too short.

[Emily]
That makes sense.

[Shep]
And so that wheel doesn’t touch the floor all the way. And so it’s just barely touching, just enough to like spin around.

[Thomas]
Just a catch and spin. Yeah.

[Emily]
All right, now that we’ve gotten that cleared up.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Alright, I’m pitching first: a man wakes up in an endless fluorescent-lit megastore with no exits and no windows.

[Shep]
IKEA. I’ve been there.

[Thomas]
The store’s products are nonsensical, but occasionally he’ll see something that triggers a fractured memory.

[Shep]
So nonsensical items. It’s IKEA. Did you write this with IKEA in mind?

[Thomas]
I did not, no.

[Shep]
Okay. Pretty suspicious.

[Thomas]
If later in the pitch he gets some meatballs, then we’ll know. The man is alone in the store, save for some meatballs.

[Shep]
Ha ha.

[Thomas]
No, I’m kidding. The man is alone in the store, save for one companion, a seemingly sentient shopping cart that follows him relentlessly.

[Emily]
Oh, this is clearly Omega Mart.

[Thomas]
Right. Eventually, he starts talking to the cart, at first jokingly, then like a pet, and later like a partner. Eventually, he fears it’s the only thing keeping him alive or even sane. Is the cart his companion? His captor? His conscience? Or something worse?

[Emily]
So, having actually worked in a grocery store at one point in my life, this kind of shit was my work nightmares. These were my stress dreams. This one with the nonsensical endless aisles was one I had a lot. The next most frequent one was the never-ending shopping cart, where the lady just kept putting items.

[Thomas]
Keeps pulling more and more out.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“This is the 10 items or less lane, not the infinity items or less lane.”

[Emily]
No. Hundred percent. That is the dream.

[Thomas]
All right, my other pitch: In a mall turned megacity where shopping carts are status symbols and consumerism is mandatory, a low-level cart technician secretly builds a luxury smart cart from corporate scrap, only to discover it has a mind of its own. As it pulls him up through the rigid class tiers of the mall, he becomes an accidental symbol of rebellion in a society where refusing to shop is the ultimate crime.

[Shep]
So, America.

[Thomas]
It’s like the country of America meets the movie Brazil.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s the Mall of America. It writes itself.

[Thomas]
Those are my pitches. Emily, what do you have?

[Emily]
A young girl is seemingly abandoned in a grocery store parking lot. Knowing where her family was headed, she loads up a grocery cart with supplies and sets out to reunite with them.

[Thomas]
So it’s like The Incredible Journey meets The Road.

[Emily]
Yes. A grocery cart full of body parts is pulled up from the river while it’s being dragged for cleaning.

[Shep]
Oh, geez.

[Emily]
Clearly, these parts are from several victims. A manhunt for the serial killer ensues.

[Shep]
So it’s full of body parts. Are they wrapped like at the butcher with butcher paper and twine?

[Emily]
No, he wasn’t that classy.

[Shep]
How do you keep them all in the shopping cart? In the water? Body parts are kind of buoyant. So it’s like-

[Emily]
Netting and bungee cords. Maybe the butcher paper. That seems like a smarter idea. But then you’re gonna look at all the butchers in town.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Throw people off the scent.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
Unless the serial killer is a butcher, and then you don’t want that.

[Emily]
Most of my serial killers are not very good at their jobs.

[Shep]
Most serial killers- I guess I shouldn’t say that. Most serial killers that have been caught are not good at being serial killers.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But of course that’s a tautology.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s, of course, they’re not good at, you know, getting away with murder if they’ve been caught.

[Thomas]
That’s the bullet holes in the airplanes that come back thing.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
All right, Shep, it’s your turn.

[Shep]
Okay, how about this: An underdog story of a poor ragtag racing team versus the heavily sponsored giants. Shopping cart racing, of course.

[Thomas]
Naturally.

[Shep]
Naturally. While our main characters use old recycled parts to rebuild an abandoned trolley, the corporate-sponsored big teams use custom-built carts equipped with the latest technology. And it’s a good thing, too; a nefarious team is cheating using a transmitter to lock the wheels of modern carts. But such a tool doesn’t work on the old classic cart. So now they’re in the finals.

[Thomas]
It’s funny because as you were just starting out your pitch, I was like, “Oh, there should be a scene where someone locks up the wheel on the cart.” And then I was like, “Oh, well, there we go. It’s built right in.” Okay, those are all of our pitches. Is there one that we like the most? Which one do we think we can turn into a story?

[Emily]
I think all of your guys’s have good story elements.

[Shep]
I have no strong opinions.

[Emily]
But I like the shopping cart racing. That’s kind of fun.

[Shep]
If you play it straight, like it’s a serious racing drama.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But the racing is shopping carts. Because it’s teams of four, right? You have- Have you seen trolley cart racing?

[Emily]
I’m… no.

[Shep]
They attach bars through the cart so there’s a person on either side and a person in the back, and then one person sitting in the cart. The person sitting in the cart does nothing. But in ours, that’s the quote, unquote “driver”. Like, that’s the main character. Except, of course, during the race, they’re not actually doing anything. They’re just sitting in the cart as ballast. That, as a setup, is funny to me.

[Thomas]
I imagine he could, like, lean, you know. I mean, we can make up our own trolley league.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Where the rules are different.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Maybe there’s a… There is a steering wheel.

[Shep]
It’s one of those kids’ ones that doesn’t do anything.

[Thomas]
Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak.

[Shep]
All right, I’m trying to figure out which one of these is the least depressing, because some of these are depressing.

[Emily]
Yeah, they are.

[Shep]
And I don’t need that in my life right now.

[Emily]
I like the surreal grocery store Omega Mart thing, but that is depressing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Also, could we get Meow Wolf to get on board with making an Omega Mart movie? That would be awesome.

[Thomas]
That would be very cool.

[Shep]
What is Mega Mart? You both have mentioned it.

[Thomas]
Omega Mart.

[Emily]
Omega Mart, it’s an art installation in Las Vegas that is a grocery store, but it’s, like, really twisted.

[Shep]
Ohhhhh.

[Emily]
And they have the most amazing, amazing commercials on YouTube for it. And it’s got a lot of crazy items and things, but there’s also, like, you walk into the milk cooler, and it takes you into another dimension, and it’s like this tunnel with weird lighting. And it’s just this very surrealist art installation.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
They’re just this art thing. They’re… What do you call it? Co-op? An art-

[Thomas]
Collective?

[Emily]
Collective! That’s the word I was thinking of. There’s just this art collective, and they make these surrealist art installations.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Anyway, that’s Omega Mart.

[Shep]
I’m all caught up now.

[Emily]
All right. What do, what do you like, Thomas? What’s up your alley?

[Shep]
Yeah. What’s squeaking your wheel?

[Thomas]
Well, of mine, I like the one about the technician. Of Emily’s, I like the one about the girl. And of Shep’s, I like the one. So-

[Shep]
Well, I am the opposite of Thomas, because the Mega Mall city one with the social stratification is too real. And so I like more of the surrealistic, you know, man trapped in an endless Omega Mall. And on Emily’s child abandonment, I mean, you both know that I was abandoned as a 12-year-old.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So you’re, what, you’re pitching a movie about a kid that gets abandoned when they’re 12. You’re like, “Hey, what do you think, Shep? Is this- will this be a fun romp?”

[Thomas]
You just bring a level of expertise, that-

[Emily]
Yeah! You’re gonna tell us whether that’s an accurate depiction of the character or not.

[Shep]
Well, she has to be abandoned in the woods and raised by wolves like I was.

[Emily]
I also really like the racing one.

[Thomas]
Alright, Shep, tell us a little bit more about the racing one. What’s the, like, overarching plot that you envision?

[Shep]
I don’t have… I don’t have anything other than what’s written.

[Thomas]
Do they win in the end?

[Shep]
It could be like Kingpin, where spoilers, they don’t win in the end, which I thought was very funny, but that’s a comedy. So-

[Emily]
So are we talking, this is Days of Thunder, not Talladega Nights?

[Thomas]
Those are the two movies I was also thinking of.

[Shep]
Those are the only two racing movies, as we all know.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Well, it’s Talladega Nights, except in universe, they’re playing it completely straight, so they’re taking it very seriously.

[Thomas]
Oh, is this like a mockumentary?

[Shep]
Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that. But that could work as a framing device.

[Emily]
I love a good mockumentary.

[Thomas]
And if you’re going to do like a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary, you don’t need a script. You just need the framework.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
Eh….

[Emily]
Do we want to combine? Do we want to put a sentient shopping cart in a trolley race?

[Shep]
It’s Herbie!

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s Herbie the shopping cart. It’s been done. They’ve all been done.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s what I was going to say: A sentient shopping cart that assists the young girl on her journey across the country.

[Shep]
Where is she going?

[Emily]
I don’t know. Somewhere.

[Shep]
Somewhere out there.

[Thomas]
Is she going west?

[Shep]
It’s An American Tail. Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, what if we- Without making it too much like The Road, it is in a near future and she is just going elsewhere, like, just somewhere else. She doesn’t… She has nothing tying her down to where she is. And she’s basically an indentured servant. She’s miserable. And what, what does she have to lose by looking for somewhere else?

[Thomas]
In that case, she’s probably heading north.

[Emily]
Yeah. Because it’s not as hot.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
She’s going to Edmonton. Oh. And then she meets the shopping cart, and it’s sentient. Or she makes it sentient.

[Thomas]
Oh, this is just Finch.

[Shep]
What’s Finch?

[Thomas]
That Tom Hanks movie where he’s building a robot.

[Emily]
I don’t know this one.

[Shep]
That’s another depressing one.

[Thomas]
It is, yeah. Well, what would be an upbeat story that could involve a shopping cart?

[Shep]
Well, I don’t want to say the racing one, because that was my pitch.

[Emily]
No, that’s fine. I like the racing one. We talked about doing a mockumentary, and you poo pooed that-

[Shep]
I did not poo poo it. I poo pooed because Thomas went, “Oh, then we don’t need a story. You just need the framework.”

[Thomas]
No, what I meant is all we need is what we do on this show and then you’re done. You don’t have to write a script beyond that. You have the A to B. I mean, that’s not really true. You would need scenes fleshed out a little more, but you don’t need, like, a written script.

[Emily]
It’s all improvised.

[Shep]
I don’t like improv in movies. Don’t waste my time. Come up with something really good and write it down and then act it out and then record that. You guys know how movies are made.

[Thomas]
What movie did I just watch? There was some movie I just watched that was like- I think it was largely improvised. Oh, it was some Terrence Malick film. It was so fucking boring.

[Shep]
Yeah, because it’s improv.

[Thomas]
But see, the thing is, I like Christopher Guest films, and those are mostly improv. But in a Christopher Guest film, there’s a plot, there’s an overarching story.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Every scene has a point A and a point B. And this film, I think, was like, “Okay, we’re in this piazza. Go.”

[Thomas]
And then it was just like the characters doing whatever. “Okay, now we’re at this music festival and you guys are kind of having a fight. Go.” Like, that’s what it felt like-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And it was just like so many scenes were just, like wandering and dull. And it all just seemed very unintentional.

[Emily]
All right, well, we could do a mockumentary-style where we have, you know, this plot point happens. We need the characters to do these- Yeah. Like he said, what we do on the show, we just don’t have to come up with-

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
We still have the lowest low, a turning point, all that good stuff.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
See, I’m not sold on the mockumentary part.

[Emily]
Then let’s drop that framework. This one is the most upbeat unless we take the little girl one and give it some deep, meaningful-

[Thomas]
She’s, she’s traveling across country to enter into the shopping cart race.

[Shep]
Well, see, now it could be that. So it’s an underdog story where they have to get enough press, get enough fans to get individual sponsorships to get them to the next level.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s how they pay for all of their stuff.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Maybe there’s a rule against corporate sponsors or… Or they’re just not proven they can’t. So some of the people are good-looking, they work great as a team. They’re the kind of people that companies want representing them. So they get corporate sponsorships, but then other people are not as well put together.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She was abandoned as a child, so she grew up on the mean streets. So something happens during the first race to get this team-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Attention so that people even know about them. Oh, what if it’s like that Olympic skating race where, like, the lead cars all crash and then their team makes it and it’s just like-

[Thomas]
They just sort of win by default.

[Shep]
They win by default.

[Emily]
And everybody thinks they can’t prove themselves, that it’s, it’s a waste, because they wouldn’t have won otherwise.

[Shep]
Well, the corporations don’t sponsor them.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But it’s the fan favorite because they’re clearly the underdogs. They had a slow start. Look how old their trolley is.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s still got one of the spinny, you know, weak wheels.

[Thomas]
The wonky wheel. Yeah.

[Shep]
The wonky wheel.

[Thomas]
Now, is there some rule about the cart you begin with is the cart you have to end with? So they can’t replace it wholesale. Like they can’t do like a big grassroots campaign, raise $50,000 and buy a whole brand new state-of-the-art shopping cart. But they can Ship of Theseus this one.

[Shep]
Well, I would like it if they could raise $50,000 to buy a very fancy- because normal shopping cart’s $200. What are they adding to this? It’s got-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I was gonna say it’s got, like, Teflon coating so that it cuts through the wind. But, like, regular shopping carts have Teflon coating. Like, that’s an actual thing. So I don’t know.

[Thomas]
It’s actually chromed.

[Emily]
Well, it has wings to help break down the drag.

[Shep]
Airfoils. Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
So they raise the money to buy this fancy shopping cart, and then the seller, who’s corrupted by big business, won’t sell it to them.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
For some arbitrary reason. So you think that’s where this is going. You can have one of those fundraiser thermometers as they’re raising, as they’re getting fans and moving from town to town for all these qualifying races and raising money to buy that new shopping cart, and then they have the money, and then they can’t buy it. So, like, they needed that to do well in the later races. They know that they can’t win with the cart that they have. So then what do they do? I’m asking, what do they do? Because that’s as far as I’ve, I’ve gotten.

[Thomas]
I mean, the only thought that I have, I guess, along those lines is that they buy parts individually.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then they have to build it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So maybe they get somebody new on their team, and this is the person who knows how to build it. This is their mechanic.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. I was thinking that they would have a new technician who can cobble together something possibly better. Because he’s really into it, in the aerodynamics of shopping carts.

[Shep]
Right. But this trolley is so old. Okay. I’m just throwing up problems.

[Emily]
No, that’s good.

[Shep]
You know, they buy new wheels for the shopping cart, but they buy American wheels.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And for some reason, this is a British trolley, and so the American wheels don’t fit it. It’s just slightly off. And so you need that technician to come in and figure out a way.

[Thomas]
Right. The threading is metric.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
But the new wheels use imperial threading or some-

[Shep]
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Some something.

[Shep]
It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It just-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So they get this technician in who can adjust everything.

[Thomas]
Who stays up all night and builds them a new trolley from parts? There’s the scene where you see all the boxes of parts. They’re like, “How are we going to get this done in time?”

[Shep]
It’s got to be over time… or, doesn’t got to be. But picture if it were over time. And then you can see the race times improving from race to race as they’re replacing individual parts. It gets a little bit better. In the race where the wheels are the wrong size, they don’t need to win, but they have to race or they’ll be disqualified.

[Thomas]
Oh, sure. It’s like NASCAR where there’s a points system. You have to maintain a certain amount of points.

[Shep]
Right. Now, they have a lead because of the race where they are the only finisher.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah. But they’re slowly being overtaken in the points.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Shep]
So in that race, they’ve already taken the old wheels off because they’re old. Maybe one of them breaks in the previous race, so they had to buy new wheels.

[Thomas]
It throws a wheel.

[Shep]
It throws a wheel. It throws a wheel. And, like, they barely finish, but it’s throwing sparks.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s very dramatic.

[Emily]
The poor guy inside is getting some burns.

[Shep]
I thought she was on the inside because she’s our main character.

[Emily]
Okay. She’s getting burned.

[Shep]
She’s got burns on her, on her leg that’s on that side, but as if the sparks are so hot.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yep, yep.

[Shep]
You see her with the doctor after the race. Like, her racing pants are the nylon or whatever, and it’s all burned out in spots. It’s got holes in it from where the sparks hit it. I love the imagery of this because it’s so silly.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s like road rash.

[Shep]
Yeah. “I don’t know if she’ll be able to walk again.” “Yeah. But she, can she race?” “Oh, yeah, she can race fine.” “Okay.”

[Emily]
“As long as you’re sitting down, it’s fine.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Put a pillow in there. It’s good.

[Shep]
She’s got a crutch for that side for the rest of the movie. So they’ve already taken the wheels off and they have no wheels and they’re like, “Oh, maybe we can carry it.” And they try to carry it, and of course, they can’t lift it up. And so they put it on one of those dollies that go under a car just to get it on the track.

[Shep]
And it’s hard to control.

[Thomas]
Oh, like a creeper?

[Shep]
Is that what it’s called?

[Thomas]
Yeah. The thing that you lay on and you go under the car.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s called a creeper.

[Shep]
Okay. So they finish last, but they finished the race and they’re not disqualified.

[Thomas]
Is that a situation where they look at the rules and they find some technicality that allows them to do that?

[Shep]
Yes. In fact, that’s- You’ve raised a great thing. So they, like, find a rule, and it’s like, “Oh, there’s no rule against it.” That kind of, you know, Air Bud world.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Whereas-

[Emily]
I was gonna say.

[Shep]
As long as it’s not disallowed, then it’s allowed, like, wow, whatever. And then towards the final race, like, they come out with a new rule book, because they do this several times where it’s like, “There’s nothing in the rulebook that says they can’t.” It’s like, “Well, here’s a new rulebook that does say they can’t.” And so that’s another. Maybe that’s the lowest low.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Oh, go ahead, Emily.

[Emily]
I was gonna say, yeah, that’s the lowest low. And when they have to start the fundraiser to get the new cart because they’ve been racing with all of these, like, pieces they’ve been shelling together.

[Shep]
Oh, then it’s much earlier.

[Emily]
Okay, well, we can do it, we cannot do that then.

[Shep]
No, I, I’m just saying, like, we could do it whenever, but, like, it would make sense if they do it earlier. I thought that they couldn’t buy the cart, and that’s why they were replacing it piecemeal.

[Emily]
Oh, okay. I just was thinking there were problems with the cart, so they were going to end up replacing it piecemeal, like doing the, the under-the-car thing and, like, a couple of other things to just kind of, “We’re not breaking the rules.” And then they’re like, “Okay, new rules.” And then they go to do the fundraiser, but they don’t get it, because that’s going to be a low, lowest low. And then they start legitimately rebuilding it. Because now they have a competent mechanic who felt bad for them, so he’s going to come help them.

[Thomas]
So you think the mechanic should show up after the lowest low.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Thomas]
Because I like the idea of somebody from a different team, who was previously associated with a different team, and has left or been fired or whatever for whatever reason, they’ve got a chip on their shoulder.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And so they come to this team to help, and so they’re bringing connections or expertise or something. Or it could even be a situation where somebody knows information, and they’re like, “Oh, this other team is cheating,” or “This other team, they always (…). This is their strategy. So here’s how you can get around that strategy,” or something along those lines.

[Emily]
Okay. So then what I’m hearing is we do it the way Shep was talking about, and have that they couldn’t buy the cart earlier come up.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Emily]
And then this guy’s feeding them the information, or helping them with the “it’s not against the rules” thing. So then they build it up, and then the new rules come out just before, and some of the things that they’ve built up have to be removed or can’t be used.

[Shep]
So at this point in the movie, the cart is just barely held together because they’ve tried to jerry rig multiple things to get to the next race to get to be a little bit faster.

[Shep]
And then when the new rules come out and they, like, slap the side of the cart or whatever, it just shatters and falls to pieces. I want to add a new character. There is a rich rival racer who sponsors them for one race. This is the race after their cart has fallen apart. And he’s like, “I’ve got an extra cart, and you can borrow it because we’re friends for whatever reason.” But of course, this is the race where the other team has the transmitter. And because it’s a newer cart, right before they win, their wheels lock up, and so they lose. So it’s the- because they’re doing extremely well in the race. It’s the new streamlined cart. It’s very fast. The runners on the side could talk about how much easier it is to push. “This is amazing. Like, if we’d been running this the whole time…” They are stronger runners than the other runners because they’ve had that old cart.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Right. Every race is resistance training for them.

[Shep]
Right. And they don’t have money, so they just push the cart from city to city. So. Like, they’re very, very strong. So they are absolutely gonna win by a mile. And of course, their wheels lock up, and so they lose, because their “friend”, their rich rival friend, is not their friend.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s betrayed them. So, like, if they had won this one, they would have been so far ahead that they would have won everything. And now that they’ve lost, they’d have to, like, win the next two or whatever. Do the math, figure it out. So it’s after this one that they have to go back to that old trolley and actually rebuild it with matching parts and get it up to the new spec of the new rules. And that’s for the big final race.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So it sounds like sort of the beginning of the first act is: this team enters into this competition, and they win their race by default.

[Thomas]
And then the end of the first act is they want to get a better cart, but they realize, “Oh, my gosh, they’re crazy expensive,” so they can’t. And then they’re sort of like, the first half of the second act is they’re traveling around, they’re winning races, they’re gaining support, they’re earning money, but they’re still not able to afford a new cart. And then I’m not sure what the mid-second-act turning point is. Maybe it’s that they raise enough money, but no one will sell them a cart.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And maybe that’s also where the wheel gets thrown. And so they’re like, “Oh, how fortuitous. We have enough money. We need a new cart anyway. Let’s just buy it now.” But they can’t. The second half of the second act is what? Losing more? Like, continuing to not do- not win. They’re dropping in points. They’re still getting more followers.

[Shep]
Right. But the cart is getting worse over time.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
As they’re trying to swap out parts.

[Thomas]
Right. They’re doing their best to keep up with swapping out parts. And then the end of the second act is what you just described, Shep, where they, it seems like they have this benevolent ally who turns out to be an enemy. And so that’s the end of the second act. And so what happens in the third act? Do they finally get a new cart? Do they get a new mechanic who builds them a new cart from parts that they can buy? Because if they’re raising grassroots support and they have funds coming in that they can’t spend, they would have this big cache of cash.

[Shep]
This is going to be fun to transcribe later.

[Thomas]
They would have a shopping cart full of cash.

[Shep]
So I thought the end of the second act was the new rule book that said their cart is not up to spec anymore. And so the borrowing the new cart, that’s in the third act.

[Thomas]
Okay, okay.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So that’s the beginning of the third act.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And then they run that race and are betrayed at the end, and it- and they fail. Is there another race, or is that, it’s just, the next race is the final race?

[Thomas]
Or is that all still the same race? Like, they’re doing really well. And so the enemy team decides to lock up their wheels partway through the race, and so they have to switch back. Oh, they can’t switch back to their old cart, though, because it doesn’t meet spec anymore.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. That’s why I want it to happen at the end, at the finish line, so it’s extra tragic because they’re definitely gonna win. And then they, they fail at the very last possible.

[Thomas]
Well, if they’re far enough ahead, they could theoretically try to pick up the cart and run with it.

[Shep]
Right. But we’ve previously established that they can’t pick up the cart for whatever reason. It’s too heavy.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
There’s probably a rule about all four wheels must be touching at all times or-

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, that’s got to be the rule because-

[Emily]
No wheelies.

[Shep]
Maybe you’re right. Maybe they do pick up the cart and go across the finish line. And then it’s the rule that all four wheels must be touching, so they’re disqualified.

[Thomas]
Or like, they’re docked more points.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. Yes. Really twist it there.

[Thomas]
So then there does need to be one more race.

[Shep]
One more race before the final race, or-

[Thomas]
No, no, the final race.

[Shep]
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
So what happens in that final race?

[Shep]
Before the final race, they buy parts that match their original cart, which, it means British parts.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Sure. Yeah. So they, they realized in the rule book, there are all these rules that are hurting them. But one thing they realized, the, I don’t know. Whoever the commissioner of of cart racing overlooked was foreign parts. They didn’t ban foreign parts.

[Shep]
The commissioner of cart racing has to be a character.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh. And it’s like, is it the brother of the guy that gave them the cart? Or there’s, like, some connection there? Because he doesn’t want them to win. He didn’t want the American Idol-style thing to even happen because he’s like, “No, this is diluting the integrity of the sport.” But it was like a PR thing because the shopping cart racing has been waning in popularity, and they were trying to drum up-

[Emily]
Yeah. It was fun and novel in the 80s, but now everyone’s kind of like, “What is this? Why are we doing this?”

[Shep]
I just am picturing a presentation that they’re giving about this, where they talk about how in the 80s, everybody watched cart racing. It was number one. And then these days, nobody watches it, and people can’t even remember that they used to all watch shopping cart racing.

[Thomas]
And so the commissioner of cart racing is one of those guys from the 80s, and he still has big hair, but also male pattern baldness.

[Emily]
Of course.

[Shep]
So in, like, the photos on his wall where he’s with famous cart racing celebrities of the past, he’s got a full head of hair.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yep. He’s still got the same hairstyle and the suit.

[Thomas]
Giant feathered hair. And…

[Shep]
Yep. Mullet.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yep. It’s Richard Dean Anderson at his peak MacGyvering.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Exactly that.

[Thomas]
All right, well, let’s take a break here. When we come back, we’ll learn more about our shopping cart story.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. I want to learn more about our cart racers, because we haven’t really… We know that the girl is the head of the team.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So the girl, is she newer to the sport? How young is she? Is she in her 20s? Is she one of the first women cart drivers?

[Thomas]
Right. She’s the Danica Patrick of-

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
What do we feel about her? Let’s start with her. She’s the, the meat of the team. Right?

[Thomas]
I see. You just see a woman as meat.

[Shep]
Yeah. She’s the lead singer. She’s young, but not a teenager.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
So young. Early 20s.

[Emily]
Early 20s, 22, 23.

[Shep]
Right. But small and easy to push in a cart, which is another advantage.

[Thomas]
Is this something her dad used to be a cart racer? And so she has memories of him, like, pushing her around the grocery store? We see a flashback.

[Emily]
He was an aspiring cart racer, but he never, he was never able to go pro.

[Shep]
He tried to. He was in the amateur racing league, and he tried, but there was a terrible accident.

[Emily]
Yeah, Yeah.

[Shep]
He could never race again.

[Thomas]
Is he alive or dead in this story?

[Shep]
Which would be funnier?

[Emily]
I mean, dead would be hilarious, just because we’re gonna make it, you know, the context of the story, but alive is more… You’re more able to make it, make him proud. You’ve got that heartwarming ending. You know, that Rudy ending. “That’s my son!”

[Thomas]
I mean, I imagine there could be someone who’s like, “Dad would be so proud of you.”

[Emily]
Yeah. There’s also that. Maybe one of her older brothers is one of the pushers.

[Shep]
I have Walk Hard in my head where the dad is never approving, and that’s the ending that you go with. So, like, the dad was an aspiring racer and then had an accident and now hates cart racing and does not approve of her racing because it’s dangerous.

[Shep]
And when she gets the burns on her leg, he’s like, “You see? You see what’s happening? You’re going to die one of these times. It’s so dangerous.”

[Emily]
“The carts destroy lives.”

[Shep]
You see, you know, cart racing and then like there’s big explosions and stuff as carts bump into the side rail.

[Thomas]
There’s some sort of, like, CTE thing because carts tip over and people, like, hit their heads on the tarmac and…

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Because they don’t have helmets. Or do they have helmets now, as a result?

[Thomas]
Oh, that was back in the 80s. They didn’t want to ruin their hair.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay.

[Thomas]
Now they have to wear helmets. And so maybe that’s her argument. She’s like, “Dad, it’s so much safer now.”

[Shep]
So he never approves. And she’s winning races and calls her mom to check in, and her mom’s like, “Oh, he’s not ready yet. He did watch your race on TV, but he doesn’t want to talk about it,” that kind of thing. And then after the big race, she calls, and her mom’s like, “Oh, yeah, he had cancer. He didn’t want you to know. But he died.”

[Emily]
He died three months ago.

[Shep]
Well, not three months ago, but like yesterday. So-

[Emily]
She’s been in and out of the hospital this whole time. That’s why he misses some of the races.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s not because he’s not wanting to watch it. It’s because he’s hooked up to machines.

[Shep]
No, he didn’t- Well, see, I think he didn’t want to watch it and he didn’t approve. It’s like, “He died but he left you this letter.” And the letter is, “I hate cart racing. I hope you never race. If you race, you’re not my daughter. You’re out of my will. “

[Thomas]
The other end of that spectrum is the mechanic that they hire early in the film… or maybe the mechanic comes to them because he’s like, “You guys are a underdog team. I believe in you. I totally want to help you out. This is- I’m super into this. You know, I’ve been building carts forever.” And he, like, helps them.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He’s the one who gets them the new cart in the third act, and he’s the one who betrays them. And so halfway through the third act, he’s gone. They’re without a working cart, and so the dad helps rebuild the old cart.

[Shep]
Isn’t this Speed Racer? Isn’t that, the dad was the mechanic?

[Thomas]
Is it? I think you’re right.

[Shep]
And that’s not a deal-breaker. In fact, if you get a big heavyset guy to play the dad, really lean into the Speed Racer, because she kind of looks like Speed Racer if you think about it.

[Thomas]
And then there’s, like, a monkey there somewhere.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh, my god.

[Shep]
That’s probably hard budget-wise.

[Thomas]
Well, she’s got a little monkey plush.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
That’s her good luck charm.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Could we add a romantic element, and the new mechanic after the betrayal is just this hot dude that, that’s been on the circuit for a while? And his team didn’t make it to the qualif- His team was one of the ones that crashed in the first race.

[Shep]
Oh, I want to reverse it. I do like that. But that should be the mechanic that betrays them because then it’s-

[Emily]
Oh, double bad.

[Shep]
It’s not just betraying the team but also- Right.

[Emily]
All right. I’m down with that.

[Shep]
So, who is the new mechanic? They have to have another one to attach all the British parts.

[Thomas]
Is it some guy who’s been, like, following them around and kind of bugging them, and they’ve been dismissing him this whole time? But, like, he has a connection to get the parts they need from England.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
I was thinking he’s (or she) is, like, their number one fan.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You see them interacting earlier because they’re in the fan group, or they started the fan group.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. So it doesn’t matter which sex this person is. He, she, or they. The person loves them so much, they want a replica cart. So that’s a hobby of theirs. They want to build a replica cart.

[Thomas]
So good.

[Emily]
So they have all of the parts because they’ve been buying them off of eBay this whole time out of England, so they have a surplus of these parts to make the cart work for them.

[Shep]
That’s so good. They have everything except the trolley frame.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Which is the only good part that the original team has. And I can see the whole conversation where they’re talking about this project because they’re just such big fans.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
And meanwhile, the team is ignoring them because they’re just so miserable that they don’t have the right stuff to make it to the final race, because they just got screwed over. Or is that too hackneyed? Like, “Wait, say that again.” No, that’s-

[Emily]
No, and I, I, maybe… Well, it might be too hackneyed, but the kid or whatever is like, “Oh, man, I’m just. All I need is the basket and I’m good to go. And I have the, you know, exact same cart.” And they’re like, “Wait a minute? What?”

[Thomas]
Maybe early on, we see that they’ve made their own, and they have all the parts, but they can’t get the basket for whatever reason.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s too much.

[Thomas]
Shipping costs too much, because it weighs so much. So they’re using an American basket, but they 3D printed connectors so that the threading matches so they can use the British wheels on the American frame.

[Emily]
Which is illegal.

[Thomas]
Right. But-

[Emily]
But.

[Thomas]
Later, somebody remembers, like, “Wait, where’s that kid who has the-“

[Shep]
Oh! I want to change the scene. So they have a 3D printed basket, but it’s very flimsy and weak or whatever, but all the other parts are attached to it and they want the team to sign it.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So it’s there. And so like their cart is on blocks with no other parts on it, and they wheel up theirs so that this team can sign it, and it, like, lines up so you can see the basket and then all the parts.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Thomas]
That’s funny.

[Shep]
Is it funnier if they sign it and then the fan leaves with it, and then they’re still trying to figure out, or no?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or is that taking it too far?

[Emily]
I think that’s taking it too far.

[Shep]
I never know where the line is.

[Emily]
I think if we were doing more of a Hot Shots!-style one, that would be perfect.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I imagine, like, they’ve met the fan. They know the fan has this replica cart. And so they’re like, desperately trying to get the announcers to, like, you know, say something over the PA system, like, “Oh, hey, so-and-so, meet the team in the pits.” Or-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They’re trying to contact them through the website, the fan site that they’ve set up, or something.

[Shep]
You put Hot Shots! in my head, and how all my ideas are dumb.

[Thomas]
Haha.

[Emily]
Sorry.

[Shep]
Okay, so the team is depressed and they’re commiserating, but they’re, like, trying to come up with what they can do. And, like, people are coming in with the solution. Like, various solutions. Like, hey, “We heard a guy that, you know, he sells those parts, and he happens to have a truck full of, you know, sample-” And they’re like, “Not now. We’re in the middle of a meeting.” And, like, there’s several of those. And then the fan comes in, and then it lines up, and then they’re like, “I wish we could just use these parts.”

[Emily]
And then the fan is like, “What? Really? That would make my life so happy.”

[Thomas]
Right. “That’s even better than your autographs.”

[Emily]
“Can I be on the crew?”

[Thomas]
Right. They become an honorary pit member.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They become the honorary mechanic, but then actually have to do all of the. “Yeah, swap all those parts over.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“You’ve got five minutes.”

[Thomas]
Right. There’s a… They throw a jumpsuit at him and they’re like, “Welcome to the team, kid.”

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And then you have the building, the quick building montage.

[Emily]
Do we… Well, it’s, we’re getting closer to the end, and it’s not as important, but I wanted- Are we going to learn a little bit more about the pushers? Are the, it’s four guys? Two guys?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. We were going to talk about the other parts on the team. Thomas brought it up, and then we ignored it and moved on.

[Emily]
Well, we got a mechanic, we got a super fan, and we got a little bit of the girl’s story.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And there are two pushers.

[Emily]
There are two pushers.

[Thomas]
Oh, they gotta be twins, right? Twin brothers.

[Shep]
They’re played by twins, but they’re actually unrelated.

[Emily]
And they get that all the time.

[Shep]
So there’s not a pusher in the back? There’s only two pushers, one on each side?

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. There was going to be three.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s true. You’re right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so there’s two identical twins who go on the left and the right. And then there’s the, like, anchor who’s like a really beefy person who pushes in the middle.

[Shep]
I mean, it’s easier to hire fewer actors and only require one pusher on each side, so-

[Thomas]
I mean. Yeah, we can make up whatever the rules of this world are.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I thought of her purpose in the race now, besides just sitting in the basket for weight or whatever. They’re like the, is it the coxswain or whatever you say in the-

[Thomas]
Oh, right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That just shout things. Encouragement.

[Thomas]
Right. In rowing.

[Emily]
And rowing. “Veer left, veer right.” You know, that’s because she can see.

[Thomas]
Right. They’re just, it’s head down, push, push, push.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Thomas]
And yeah, she’s guiding the team.

[Emily]
She’s the eyes. Yeah.

[Thomas]
“We need to go to the left, go to the right.”

[Shep]
So does she have a steering wheel, or no?

[Thomas]
I mean, it would make it a lot more visual if she did because it would give her something to do rather than just yell left or right or-

[Emily]
Rather than crouching and holding on to the front of the cart, which is what I’ve been envisioning this whole time. She’s just-

[Thomas]
Yeah, same. But.

[Emily]
Now she’s sitting crisscross applesauce with a steering wheel.

[Shep]
It’s got, like, a racing seat.

[Thomas]
Yeah, well, because you got to be strapped in for safety.

[Emily]
Ah, it’s true.

[Thomas]
That’s one of the-

[Emily]
New rules from-

[Thomas]
New rules. Right.

[Emily]
From the 80s. Yeah.

[Thomas]
If it tips over, then you don’t go flying out.

[Shep]
Yeah, but if it flips over and then continues skidding down the-

[Emily]
That’s why you have a helmet-

[Shep]
I don’t know the helmet’s gonna do enough.

[Thomas]
There’s a roll bar.

[Emily]
Roll bar adds weight. You wouldn’t have a roll bar.

[Shep]
Right. Maybe a spoiler. I was thinking of the crash footage of, you know, the dad complaining, maybe even the dad’s accident. He gets flipped over, and then it slides down, and there’s just, like, a big red smear behind it.

[Thomas]
Oh.

[Emily]
It never grew hair back in that spot.

[Shep]
I was looking like his whole head got rubbed off. See, I’m still in Hot Shots! mode. You ruined my brain.

[Emily]
I’m sorry.

[Shep]
All I have is ridiculous thoughts now. Like, full farce.

[Emily]
Well, let’s start over.

[Shep]
Okay, which one of these do we like?

[Thomas]
We have a decent amount for the story. I think the one big thing we’re missing is: how does it end?

[Shep]
Well, you guys have convinced me that they have to win.

[Emily]
Well, I think they have to win because that’s the kind of movie this is. And if they lose, it’s a little like, why did I watch this?

[Shep]
I mean, I enjoyed Kingpin.

[Emily]
Yeah, but that was farcical funny.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
And I think it’s easier for that to pass.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I think if this is played seriously, then.

[Shep]
Didn’t he lose in Talladega Nights? Didn’t you use that as an example?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, he won in-

[Emily]
But he wins-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
In Days of Thunder.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
All right, all right.

[Emily]
We have both Will Ferrell and Tom Cruise have cameos in it.

[Thomas]
That’d be great.

[Shep]
There goes our budget.

[Thomas]
So they win.

[Shep]
They win.

[Emily]
Yeah, they win.

[Thomas]
Is, it’s got to be a close race.

[Emily]
Yes. And they gotta beat the douchey mechanic guy’s team or whatever.

[Shep]
Right. The-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
What is it that nudges them over the line?

[Shep]
Well, they’re faster. They’ve been faster.

[Thomas]
I mean, that’s why I kind of like the idea of the whole third act is the final race, because then they’re falling behind, going, “What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?” And that’s when the fan or whatever, they get all the parts off of the fan’s thing. They’re able to rebuild it, but they have to make it up. But they’re so fast, they’re just lapping people like crazy.

[Shep]
Well, the evil team still has that transmitter, so they’re stopping the carts in front of our team. So-

[Emily]
To slow them down more.

[Shep]
To slow them down just temporarily, just for a second. And then the team’s like, “What happened? What?” And then they go again.

[Emily]
Okay, so when they win, the other team is it found out that they have this transmitter and were sabotaging and therefore are now disqualified from the league at all?

[Thomas]
Do they come in second place? And so it feels like, it’s a false ending. It feels like, oh, they didn’t win. But then it’s discovered the winning team was cheating, so they’re disqualified.

[Shep]
Ah, our team came in second place.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
When you said that, I was thinking of the enemy team came in second place.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, no, sorry.

[Shep]
And… And then it’s a false win. I’m like, “Oh, okay.” So our team comes in second place, and then it’s like, yeah, that loss, like, “Oh, we were so close, but you had to be first place to win it.”

[Shep]
And then it’s revealed.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Why is it revealed? How did the authorities find out? I mean, all of the other teams had their carts stopped temporarily, so everybody suspects something.

[Thomas]
There’s got to be something that happens early on in the film where somebody tries to push a cart off of a parking lot and the wheels lock up. But some other thing happens so that later, when that happens again, they’re like, “Oh, the joint in my knee locked up because of the EMF frequency from the…” Something like that, where it’s like a callback to a thing they established earlier.

[Emily]
I am enjoying that. Their knee is affected by an EMF.

[Thomas]
This is the first thing I thought of.

[Emily]
No, I love this. I want this to be a thing.

[Shep]
So if we change it from a knee to a pacemaker.

[Thomas]
Oh! That’s how the dad dies?

[Shep]
I was thinking it’s, you know, someone on the team or someone that we’ve, some other character that we’ve established. Now, when is this set? Is this set in modern-day or is it-?

[Thomas]
This is modern-day. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, modern-day.

[Shep]
Okay, well, then everybody would have cell phones, and every inch of the track would have been recorded. So they have, like, “The audience recorded you pointing the transmitter at all the cars that stopped. We have hundreds of images of it. It’s been blowing up online.”

[Shep]
“Everybody has known the whole race that you are doing this. Obviously, you’re, you’re disqualified.”

[Thomas]
Has the commissioner been trying to suppress this somehow?

[Shep]
The commissioner of cart racing?

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Yes. Because he got paid off. He got paid off earlier-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
By that rich douche during a golf game, or whatever rich game that we say that-

[Emily]
Golf. I’m fine with that. Keeping that stereotype.

[Thomas]
Oh, cornhole.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Also another good stereotype.

[Shep]
Are we setting up a sequel, or is at the end it’s the, you know, freeze frame text on the screen that says what happens to this person in the future?

[Emily]
I mean, it would be hard to come up with a sequel to this. Not impossible, as we have proven, but hard.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Shopping Cart. Were we on a roll, or were we off our trolleys? 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. We don’t yet have a Patreon you can sign up for, or a way to donate to the show, but we do accept five stars everywhere podcast ratings exist.

[Shep]
Ha.

[Thomas]
And as a bonus, if you leave a written review along with your five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, we’ll read it on a future episode. That’s it for now. And remember, you don’t need a receipt for Emily, Shep, and I to accept your return. So be sure to join us on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Thomas]
Well, with the education out of the way, I’ll pitch first.

[Shep]
Oh, no, let’s not include any of that.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
I thought I was just talking amongst friends. I always forget that you’re recording these.

[Emily]
Nope. It’s going in. We need material, sir.

[Shep]
No. Okay, I’ll just have to add more story to the movie pitch so there’s no room for this nonsense.

[Thomas]
I see. I think. Yeah, this has to get cut. I see.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
No, this will be the back end or the forward.

[Shep]
No!

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, damn it.