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Director’s Notes: Episode 261 - Brought To You By Flakey O's
🕑 Added 2025-02-01 14:27:12 +0000 UTCWhen I think of a Night Vale episode concept, the process that follows goes one of two ways. I either write a bunch of notes (and eventually a script) that follows that original idea pretty faithfully—or, like this ep, by the time I’ve written the script, it has become a completely different concept altogether. My original idea for this episode was an off-format story about someone finding something strange in a box of cereal. It was loosely based on a true story of me finding a cocoon (!) in a package that was shipped from China, and then that cocoon hatching (!!) on the table in front of me after I poked it, and an unidentified buggy guy of some kind (??!) emerging from it in a little blob of green slime.
So I was thinking about that (I think about that a lot), and also about cereal box prizes (I think about that a lot), and also about Night Vale (I think about that a lot), and started writing a Night Vale story about a cereal box prize that was alive. But once I dug into the backstory of Flakey O’s, Night Vale’s signature cereal, and realized they had been acquired in a hostile takeover by Kellogg’s in an episode over six years ago (which I either didn’t know or had forgotten), I became way more interested in the story of a Flakey O’s uprising and liberation and subsequent partying spree. It was so fun to write; I love the story that it became, and I hope you do too.
But if anyone is interested in process-based behind the scenes stuff, here’s the original intro I wrote to an episode that will never be:
In our top story today, Kendra Wetherby has found something in her bowl of cereal. She was pouring her second helping of Honey Nut Frosted Parallelograms when an object fell from the box and landed in the milk with a splash. It is still there now. It floats, kind of. She stares down at it in amazement. She has of course heard stories about the olden days when cereal boxes used to contain prizes. But those are just legends. Things like that don’t exist anymore.
She gives the object a nudge with her spoon. It glides away as if alive. She tries to scoop it up this time, but again, it floats away in the milk.
“What are you doing?” her roommate Jack asks, coming into the kitchen for coffee. Roommate is a generous word. Kendra sleeps on the futon in his basement for free.
“Did you eat all the cereal?” he asks, frowning slightly.
That’s it, that’s as far as I got! Still could be a fun idea, but I lost the momentum on it. So if anyone feels like using it as a prompt, please add more to the story in the comments! 😄
-Brie Williams
February 1, 2025
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Comments
Sherry Michney
I want you to do a Flaky Ohs commercial. I want Robin Virginie as the voice of the Builder Bug.
Brie Williams
RIP giant water bug, what a journey you had
Spydre Rogue
I want to hear more about living things found packed intentionally (or unintentionally) inside of boxes or packages. I'm put in the mind of the sea monkeys I sent away for as a kid, or, later in life, of the giant water bug that must have made it all the way from South Asia in a box of clothing we unpacked in our Michigan Burlington Coat Factory receiving room--apparently it escaped unnoticed, but only made its way as far as the floor drain of the men's bathroom--the holes in the grate were too tiny for it to crawl through. When I found it, it was still trying, though; it still had a bit of motion left in its ferocious looking, giant legs, as it slowly poked at the grate. It reminded me of a tin wind-up toy just moments before its spring had lost all of its potential energy and slowed to a stop. It looked really cool on the bulletin board behind my work desk; once people noticed my trophy, they would stop coming to bother me as much.
Tony Sleva
Amazing weather today. Think I'll go outside.
Sherry Michney
Jack shrugs “Don’t know. Maybe it’s some anniversary. Now, do we have any bread for toast?”
Sherry Michney
Kendra then shakes out of her state of stunned silence. “ The legends were true! You have seen them! They have returned! What can it mean?”
Sherry Michney
Yes, they were!
Brie Williams
things were tough back then 😂
Sherry Michney
Jack then laughs “My dad said oh you kids, when I was young Flakey Ohs just advertised “ Comes with bug parts some assembly required. And I alway got too left legs or right antennae to put together a working bug! Now yours come ready to go right out of the box! You have too easy.”
Sherry Michney
Jack continues “ Their tv commercial was a cartoon bug saying Buy Flakey ohs! Build an empire one parallelogram at a time!”
Jeff B
All I know is you've ruined turducken for me. I hate turnips.
Sherry Michney
Then Jack says “Oh wow! You have a Flakey Ohs official Builder Bug! I had one as a kid! My parents might still have a cereal city in their attic.”
Sherry Michney
It began grabbing parallelograms and sticking them together in a spiral adding more as the tower increased in height as it slid along until the cereal tower reached nearly the ceiling before turning left and then right and disappearing out of a window.
