Season One, Behind The Scenes: “EMF DECLASSIFIED”
Transcript

Gloria: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. This is agent training Gloria Kovak. The following special episode is a behind the scenes look at Mission Rejected. There are multiple top secret spoilers ahead for all 12 first season episodes. So if you haven't heard them all yet, you might want to catch up first. If you're listening for the first time, start with episode 1, "Duck and Cover." Oh, I was so young then. Anyway, thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed us this year, don't forget to rate us on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, the old rabbit ears you have taped to your chimney, or wherever else you listen. This is Glory Kovak signing off.

Mission Voice [00:00:37] Good evening, Agent Kershner. It has come to our attention that a so-called writer's collective named The Porch Room has been claiming responsibility for the covert work done by the Extraordinary Missions Force. They appear to possess detailed information about otherwise top secret projects and disturbing amounts of insight into our agents's personal lives and psyches. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to gather as much information about this Porch Room and the shadowy figures behind it. It goes without saying that these men should be considered highly suspect. Good luck.

[THEME MUSIC]

Mission Voice [00:01:15] Mission Rejected. The story of the world's most unlikely podcasters, The Porch Room. Tonight's episode: EMF Declassified.

[MUSIC ENDS]

J. Michael [00:01:30] All right. Well, hello, Mission Rejected, listeners. This is J. Michael DeAngelis, and I'm so pleased to be joined today by my co-host from another podcast, A. Mylene Kerscher!

Mylene [00:01:42] Indeed, another podcast! I'm so happy to be here as a big fan myself.

J. Michael [00:01:50] And eagle eared listeners may know Mylene from episodes 2 and 11 as The Angriest Woman. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 11 PLAYS.]

Barista [00:02:00] Lil Stank?

Angriest Woman [00:02:01] It's Lilith Frank.

Barista [00:02:03] Whatevs.

Angriest Woman [00:02:03] Ugh! [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

Mylene [00:02:04] Not just any angry woman, but the angriest, in fact.

J. Michael [00:02:07] Uh, by her request! Here, our first behind the scenes tidbit! Originally in Episode 2, the script just called for Angry Woman 1, 2 and 3, and Mylene said "No. I am the angriest woman." So that is how she is a billed.

Mylene [00:02:22] Not competitive at all. All right. Well, let's jump into it. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves? Tell us a little bit about The Porch Room, how it came about and maybe what else you've done.

Pete [00:02:34] Hi, everybody. I'm Pete Barry. I'm one of the founding member of The Porch Room along with John and Mike. I am the sound designer on the Mission Rejected. I'm a playwright and screenwriter. I am occasionally Kristatos O'Brien, one of the villains of the show.

John [00:02:51] I'm John Dowgin and I'm also a founding member of The Porch Room. Way back then it was us, and also we had another founding member, Adam Kaufman, who doesn't do too much with us anymore, but he still shows up from time to time, he's a big supporter of ours. We started the way any writers do with plays because you can do those on your own with no equipment and relatively little permission.

Pete [00:03:16] We wrote plays we had. We were all actors. We were writers. So we just put up our own stuff where we could. Mike was at school. He was a freshman the year we had graduated. So I met him through summer theater.

J. Michael [00:03:28] So I'm J. MIchael DeAngelis, though these guys call me Mike. They're amongst the very few.

John [00:03:33] Are we really?

J. Michael [00:03:34] And that's that's how close we are.

Mylene [00:03:36] Oh, yeah. He's Michael here for sure.

Pete [00:03:37] He's D to his high school friends.

J. Michael [00:03:40] Yeah, I met these guys. We all went to Muhlenberg. But I was I was just after them. But we met doing summer theater and we got along like a house on fire right away. We were defintely sharing our own writing with each other. I don't think we'd actually...we had tried to write a movie together.

John [00:03:58] So we had been together... we had been doing stage play stuff. Separately, we had been writing screenplays mostly on our own. So we went to the Austin Film Festival one summer because I got a script that had made it through to the finals. And that summer, Pete had also actually sold a script to Sony out in Hollywood. And Mike came with us as the as the triumvirate. But the thing about Austin Film Festival is it's way more than film. They they pride themselves on being a festival for writers in general, not just screenwriters. So they have a screenwriting track, they have a TV writing track. They have a playwriting track now. And also, I think it was the first year they did it, they had a fiction podcasting track. And that's where we began to think about this sort of thing. And in the next year, we went back, 2018, we just went because we had fun. Nobody none of us had anything in the competition. We were able to focus more on the panels and the the learning side of it.

J. Michael [00:04:56] So we went to several podcasting panels that that season, I would say it was probably Sarah Werner's panel. Sarah, as many of our listeners know, writes and stars in "Girl in Space" and has an incredible warmth and positivity about her both on the podcast and in real life. So we heard her. We heard Lauren Shippen. We heard Paul Bae, we heard Gabrielle Urbana. We heard a lot of people. And it just seemed like with each one I was getting that feeling like I got when we started doing Porch Room plays, I was like, we can do this. It'll be fun to do this together and it'll be easy. You know, we started doing one. I played there was easier than trying to make your own movie. Doing a podcast is even easier than trying to put up a play.

Pete [00:05:52] [Saracstically] It's the easiest thing you can possibly do.

J. Michael [00:05:55] But I don't think any of us really knew until we went out to Austin and sat in on those panels how many audio dramas were being produced in the podcasting world. And once I knew that, I knew people were doing it. I wanted nothing more than to be a part of it.

Mylene [00:06:11] Yeah. So then from there, how did Mission Rejected specifically come to be? Like talk about that process a bit.

John [00:06:17] Well we were walking from the place we were staying in back to the festival. The Friday morning of that festival and we knew we wanted to do something, but we had no idea what. So I was walking and bouncing ideas and nothing's going anywhere and I'm trying to think of some sort of some sort of hook, some sort of structure, some sort of story where you could have a consistent structure from episode to episode and what were the shows that I used to love when I was a kid? Because the easiest thing to do when you're trying to come up with something like that is to mimic something the world is already familiar with. And I remembered being a kid on a rainy day or if I had nothing to do. I was a huge Mission Impossible fan. If it was a rainy day and I didn't have anything to do, I used to amuse myself by making fake mission tapes on a on a little tape recorder that I would have. And that was it. That would never do anything. Nobody would ever hear them but me. But they amuse the hell out of me. And I related this fact to the other gentleman. They were quiet for a moment.

J. Michael [00:07:21] And then I think I said, well, that's the show. [MUSIC]I just pictured a little John in his room coming up with these ridiculous missions.

John [00:07:34] It's not you're not that far off.

J. Michael [00:07:36] I was like, that's that's the show. And it's "Mission Rejected." We all kind of laughed, but I think by the end of the day, we really were sold on that idea.

Pete [00:07:47] Now, I think I almost ruined it because I had come in, I think, a little more knowledgeable about certain podcasts than you guys had because I've been listen to "The Bright Sessions." And I thought one of the genius things about "The Bright Sessions" is how minimalist it is and how you can get away with that. "The Bright Sessions", if you don't know, is basically a great audio drama about a psychiatrist - a therapist basically who treats people with superpowers. And the whole thing is just them in the doctor's room and the tapes of the doctor interviewing them. So you can get away with very minimalist sound design. And but it's still done brilliantly. And it's. And as that could be a very tedious thing. But Laura Shippen writes it really well. Those characters are really well acted. So you are fascinated by these people. And so I said to them, you know, this could be very simple. It could be just they come in to do the briefing where they learn what the mission is and they set up a plan that it's supposed to be and then come back later and after the mission is done. And you never have to show the mission, you just come in, get the briefing and then come back and say, okay, here's how we screwed it up. And that lasted approximately one script. Did that part? It did. Because it's gotten so much more ambitious and crazy now. I love doing the actual missions because I don't know how long that would have, actually...that joke would have lasted. [BEEP - CLIP FROM EPISODE 1 PLAYS]

Mackenzie [00:09:17] Joe, does this thing. Bowden gives the worst speech of the general's career and we all go home.

Skip [00:09:22] You know, I think this is going to work out just fine. [SWOOSH] That could not have gone worse.

Mackenzie [00:09:28] Oh, sure, it could have. I could be dead.

Bowden [00:09:31] I'm not seeing how that's worse. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

J. Michael [00:09:34] And I remember saying to Pete early on, I was like, you know, I know we said it would be the brief and the debrief, but I feel like I gotta at least set this mission in motion and then we'll kind of cut away. And then I cheated because I cut back to the briefing room and then I had Section Chief Anders play a videotape of the mission. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 1 PLAYS]

Section Chief Anders [00:09:58] Not one word until you explain this.

News Woman [00:10:03] We go now to the Little San Otre Patre neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

J. Michael [00:10:10] And so he was like "Ooookay." But I think we all found that naturally. It was just better to incorporate the missions and and and more fun because that's where the that's where the meat of the show is.

Pete [00:10:25] And I said to you, I was like, it's a pilot. Yeah, you set it up. That's fine. And then I think John came in with his. That was the Orlando one, right?

John [00:10:32] The first one I wrote was Orlando. Yes.

Pete [00:10:33] Right. And I'm like, oh, man, there's like robot video projectors in this. There were like a fight on a plane.

John [00:10:41] It's easy to do a robot video projectors on a podcast. You just say, hey, robot video projector.

Pete [00:10:46] Right. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 5 PLAYS.]

Skip [00:10:47] Completely immersive audio experience with the click of a button.

Mackenzie [00:10:53] Holy crap!

Skip [00:10:53] I can drop us in a cattle stampede.

Gloria: [00:10:56] Yee haw!

Bowden [00:10:56] God, not more cows!

Skip [00:10:59] Or atop Everest or in the middle of the Metropolitan Opera. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS]

Pete [00:11:08] And again, it's funny, if you listen to those early episodes, I'm thinking number one. Number three. Number five. There is that element of white for some reason, like five goes: they brief and then the very next scene is Skip and Zelda talking about what went wrong and then you flash.

John [00:11:27] Yes.

Pete [00:11:27] And it works. But it's kind of like why why is that the way it is? Instead of just doing the mission? It's because we were still in this mentality of "Okay do the brief, then do the debrief."

Mylene [00:11:38] It works as a nice frame, though, and it doesn't feel formulaic because you do vary how it is. Each episode has that kind of template, but it doesn't come about in the same way. So it's still, you know, like a frame of reference. But these wonderful super creative and how you're introduced to the mission, which is fantastic.

John [00:11:54] Like I do think for some reason for five it it really works just immediately before you know anything about how the mission went. Just hearing in Anders voice, what a catastrophe it must have been. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 5 PLAYS}

Skip [00:12:07] The Orlando part, it hadn't been rejected. So the mission...

Section Chief Anders [00:12:09] Would you call it a mission or a fiasco that I hesitate to call a dumpster fire because I do not wish to besmirch dumpsters or fires. [BEEP. CLIPS ENDS]

Pete [00:12:20] It still happens from time to time. I mean, I think there's that one that I just wrote. I'm not sure if it can stay this way in the second season, but it's like you've got that moment of, OK, this is gonna work great! Transition music. Well, that completely sucks. So, I mean, it's a classic joke and sometimes it works.

John [00:12:40] Yeah. [MUSIC]

Mylene [00:12:42] And this change from the, you know, a possible concept of something really stripped down like "The Bright Sessions", Pete, since you write the music as well as craft the sound effects.

Pete [00:12:53] Yes, I do.

Mylene [00:12:54] Seems like a lot of work. So what does post-production like for you?

Pete [00:12:57] It is a lot of work! I was like, well, what's Mission Impossible like? The thing that people know is the 5/4. It's in five. [HUMMING THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE THEME] Dun dun dun dun dun. Dunnna dunna dunna dunn. Right. Like that's like it's so iconic that music. So the first thing I did was I was like, well, I'll just invert it. I'll go to seven. I'll do a song that's that's in an off meter. And so it is it's you know, the the song is in seven. So it's got that kind of off action feel. I wanted to kind of a 70s ish trumpet at the end. That's whaaaaa! Like, I wanted to be like the whole game shows, right? It's like yeeeeah! So you're like, this is so jazzy and whatever! And the marimba. You know, the "doo doo" like that. I wanted to evoke those old spy shows. The cheesy spy shows like "this is really like hamming it up in the music." So I you know, in the end, I'm glad I I went from the original. That Mike made me go from the original X Files to the to the new one. [MUSIC] Now that was the original. Like, okay. And then you've got the main theme song. I can just recycle that every single time. But then when John writes the Orlando episode and he's like "And we're just gonna play baby shark." And I'm like, "Well you're not going to do that."

John [00:14:22] I asked first if it was public domain.

Pete [00:14:26] You did.

John [00:14:26] And at the time we saw it. And when I wrote it, I thought, well, remember when I wrote it, we thought it was.

Pete [00:14:32] No, we did not.

John [00:14:33] I thought we said...somebody...who told me it was? All I know is it's a couple of weeks before we're ready to tape it. And all of a sudden this massive lawsuit hits Pink Fong.

Pete [00:14:41] So I wrote again. I wrote two songs. The first one was, "Okay, we need to make it inane, like Baby Shark." So, a parody. We have the right to parody. We are a parody basically. So I'm like, okay, it's got to be somethign close. And I had this song. The original song actually was called "Killer Whale." Which -.

J. Michael [00:14:56] Oh right.

Pete [00:14:56] I actually thought was funnier. But John was right. He's like, that's not a kid's song. It was like the the the joke was killer whales, just the same thing. Killer whales go and run away. And then it's like victim whales. The killer whale has killed somebody, so it's "victim whale" and then it's detective whale. So there was a whole...it was it was more amusing, but clearly not that...It wasn't just innane children's music. So then that's when Baby Whale came around. [BABY WHALE SONG STARTS PLAYING] And like just cranking out that Baby Whale song, just like, all right. That was the first one I was like, "I can't just rely on what we have already."

J. Michael [00:15:35] And people really find the song! Some somebody wrote the account and was like, "I think you've got a hit because my kid keeps asking me to play it!".

Pete [00:15:45] Play Baby Whale? Oh, get your kids to listen to better music than Baby Whale. [MUSIC]

Mylene [00:15:54] What about casting? How did you decide upon who is going to be your leads? How did that look?

John [00:15:59] Who did we cast first? Was it Nazli?

J. Michael [00:16:01] Well, there were people we knew we wanted. So I would say the person that was cast first was Faith as Chief Anders.

John [00:16:08] That's probably true. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 5 PLAYS]

Section Chief Anders [00:16:09] You caused a woman to have a mental breakdown Skip.

Skip [00:16:14] Mm hmm.

Section Chief Anders [00:16:14] You're pretty close to making me have a mental breakdown.

Skip [00:16:17] Mm hmm. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

J. Michael [00:16:18] So we did come up with the idea that the leader of the team would be this super peppy optimist. We actually thought the model for that would be Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. So we thought it could be a woman. It could be a man. We weren't sure. When we said that, I was like, oh, I might have a guy for this because I had just directed a production of As You Like It, and Chris, who plays Skip, had played Orlando in that who is like the completely dopey, super enthusiastic character. And I was like, I bet Chris could play Skip. [BEEP. CLIP PLAYS FROM EPISODE 3.]

Skip [00:16:58] Get ready for a character study. We're going to infiltrate a cadray of cattle barons!

Mackenzie [00:17:04] Enough with the code phrases, Skip.

Skip [00:17:06] That wasn't a code phrase. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

[00:17:09] So we had some ideas. Nazli is someone that we've worked with a bunch. She was the star of the Antony and Cleopatra show when we did it in New York. I knew that I wanted her to be involved, but I think we weren't sure which part she would play. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 1 PLAYS.]

Skip [00:17:22] Forgive me, doctor. Doctor. Dr. McGrath!

Mackenzie [00:17:29] Hahahaha! God, you're too easy. I barely finished college. I was so bored. Just call me McGrath. We're cool, Skip.

Skip [00:17:36] Actually, I prefer age-.

Mackenzie [00:17:37] So, what's the plan, Skip? [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

J. Michael [00:17:39] We had a friend in mind for Boden and he's out in L.A. and like we were having trouble connecting with him. It was getting very close to record and I think it was Pete who just one day said, What about Dave Stanger? And there was just like this silence. And we all went, Oh, why wasn't that THAT from the beginning [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 1 PLAYS].

Bowden [00:18:02] You know, I heard from my agent that they're interested in me for the 12th angry man at the Don Rickles dinner arena.

Gloria: [00:18:09] In Tampa?

Bowden [00:18:09] The same! And you know, the 12th man is the angriest of the bunch. [BEEP. CLIPS ENDS.]

J. Michael [00:18:16] Of course, Dave Stanger!

Pete [00:18:18] He went to school with Mike. But I don't think he was there when I.

J. Michael [00:18:20] No, no.

Pete [00:18:21] He wasn't here with me. I saw Dave in a show that Mike directed in in at Muhlenberg. And he was unbelievably hilarious.

J. Michael [00:18:29] So I I knew I wanted Nazli to do it. I knew I wanted Page to do it. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 4 PLAYS.]

Skip [00:18:34] How did you hear us from across the room?

Gloria: [00:18:36] Oh, I aced the agency's distance lip reading training. Don't worry about talk of Boden upsetting me. His absence has given me time to work on myself. And now I am completely over...

Bowden [00:18:46] Morning all!

Gloria: [00:18:47] Bowden! Bowden! Bowden! Bowden! [BEEP. CLIP ENDS]

J. Michael [00:18:49] So they both read really well for both Gloria and Makenzie, and we just in the end, we felt like...

Pete [00:18:58] We had a little bit of trouble deciding.

J. Michael [00:19:00] I would say that was the hardest casting decision.

Pete [00:19:02] We were like. These are the two.

J. Michael [00:19:04] Yeah.

Pete [00:19:04] So which way is it going to be?

J. Michael [00:19:05] Like it definitely could've gone either way. They both did really good auditions for both of those parts. [BEEP. CLIP OF NAZLI'S AUDITION FOR GLORIA PLAYS.]

Nazli as Gloria [00:19:12] Absolutely, Mr. Montcrief.

Reader as Bowden [00:19:15] Gloria, come now. We're practically old friends.

Nazli as Gloria [00:19:17] They have me pouring coffee in here, but that's no reason to let my skill slide.

Reader as Bowden [00:19:21] How do you keep yourself sharp?

Nazli as Gloria [00:19:23] Do you see the tiny dots on the coffee cup?

Reader as Bowden [00:19:25] I do.

Nazli as Gloria [00:19:26] It's a ternary code I invented.

Reader as Bowden [00:19:27] No!

Nazli as Gloria [00:19:28] This one's Earl Gray with half and half.

Bowden [00:19:30] My favorite.

Nazli as Gloria [00:19:31] I know I profiled you. [BEEP. CLIP OF PAIGE'S AUDITION FOR MACKENZIE PLAYS.].

Paige as Mackenzie [00:19:34] When you picked me up. I was Khole Kardashian or one of them anyway. Give me one good selfie of anyone and this puppy can download their entire browsing history, including finances and 3D print a perfect latex mask of their face, undetectable to even those closest to them. Just ask Kayne. Or was it Lamar? [BEEP. CLIP ENDS]

J. Michael [00:19:55] Bob Killian I had worked with twice, and I knew he was great at voices. So I was just like, Bob's gonna be like, our Hank Azaria, our Harry Shearer. He's gonna play all these other parts.

Mylene [00:20:08] That's right, yeah. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 1 PLAYS.]

News Man [00:20:09] El Paso looking a little uncomfortable here, Connie. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 2 PLAYS]

Jimmy [00:20:12] Jimmy Serafillio, comic book artist extraordinaire. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 8 PLAYS]

Security Guy [00:20:18] Is that a hacker handle? you sound like a rejected Jetsons character. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 3 PLAYS.]

Cattle Baron [00:20:22] What in tarnation are you doing in that box? [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 8 PLAYS.].

Russian Hacker [00:20:27] Fake news! I am no question new Yorker! Go Starbucks. [BEEP. CLIPS END.]

J. Michael [00:20:30] So for the pilot, he was I was just going to have him be the newscaster and the security guard. And again, we wanted the same friend out in L.A. to be The Admiral and we were having trouble getting in touch with them.

Pete [00:20:43] That guy's cursing his luck right now!

J. Michael [00:20:45] Like the day before the recording. I message Bob and was like, could you also just look at The Admiral? And, you know, here's what I'm going for. Bob came to the first record and he was like, look, can I just do these admiral lines real quick? Because I don't think I've got it right. I was like "Great!" [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 3 PLAYS.]

The Admiral [00:21:00] Afternoon, Mr. Doe!

Chet Phillips [00:21:00] Ah! Jesus!

Ocean Girl [00:21:00] Don't fall there, sweetie.

The Admiral [00:21:04] Nothing like a little exuberant exercise to stiffen the muscles and sharpen the mind, eh Mr. Doe?

Chet Phillips [00:21:11] Are you climbing, Admiral, or you just dangling?

The Admiral [00:21:16] I seem to have confused my carribeaner with my crampon. Help me out, would you, Trixie?

J. Michael [00:21:24] He read them and I was dying. Dying. The Admiral was not supposed to be in every episode.

Pete [00:21:30] No.

J. Michael [00:21:30] And the minute that voice came out of Bob, I was like, We're gonna be fools not to have -

Pete [00:21:35] It's not the only thing that Bob hasn't sort of grown a character that we didn't expect. The other hilarious thing. I wasn't there for the first recording, but there was a security guard in the in El Pato's, you know, entourage.

Mylene [00:21:50] Right.

Pete [00:21:50] And he had just like three lines. And I think you said it was Jill or somebody like after Bob had recorded his lines as Security Guy. Someone's like "Can we all just take a moment to reflect on how dead inside the security was?" And and they'd...and I had written another security guard into something else. I was like, well, maybe it's just the same guy.

Mylene [00:22:12] Okay!

Pete [00:22:12] So then recurring security guard character was born and he is the security guard for every single one of the villains of the season.

Mylene [00:22:19] That's awesome.

[00:22:20] And the same thing with Ashley, you know, had a couple of lines as Ocean Girl, a character that I couldn't even bothered to come up with a name for! And her voice was so funny and she was so sweet. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 2 PLAYS.]

Chet Phillips [00:22:32] Know how it is?

Ocean Girl [00:22:32] I don't know. The ocean is my office. The open water is my cubicle. The currents are my middle managers. And every swimming soul from the blue whale to the narwhal is my coworker. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

J. Michael [00:22:49] But our cast. They're so great. I love working with them. And we've had amazing guest stars. You know, a lot of John's actors from Jersey have stepped in. I have had the amazing luck of roping my coworkers into this. Mylene has been twice as the angriest woman, Natty Leach, our other coworker is Lieutenant Valerian. Leon Malloy, our operations manager was Mr. Hermanklemper in number five. Claire Klieger was Damrow in the latest episode. I've got people lined up for season two. Well, I feel like if I don't have all 27 members of our office on this podcast by the end, I'm going to be in hot water.

Mylene [00:23:32] (Laughs)

Pete [00:23:33] I mean, we are so lucky to have the generosity of these people who are so incredibly talented and are just, you know, they they're just volunteering their time to do this for us. This show would not be what it is without those people, the chemistry they have and the things they do. Sometimes I'm like, I don't know if this joke is going to go over and then whoever it is reads it. I'm like, "Yep, nailed it." I'm like, I don't even have to worry that I you know, I try not to phone in jokes, but I know that I'm like, "Okay, dave is going to say this and it's going to be hilarious.".

Mylene [00:24:10] "It'll work. I trust it." Yeah.

J. Michael [00:24:12] And they're so generous with their time and their ideas. Everyone has contributed an improv or just a different take. They're very dedicated to getting it right. If I need a retake like a couple of weeks after we do it, every single person is like, just name the time, I'll just I'll come over. Just name the time.

Pete [00:24:28] If you don't need a retake in the session, then Chris Klaniecki will absolutely ask for one.

J. Michael [00:24:32] He does

Pete [00:24:33] That guy is a perfectionist.

J. Michael [00:24:34] Chris will do a whole episode and then Chris will be like, "I just go back to back? Let's go back, I just have a couple ideas." And it's amazing to have that.

Pete [00:24:41] It's fantastic.

J. Michael [00:24:48] It's already it's been announced on the social media, so I can say here, but Page, who plays Gloria, is going to join the writing staff in season two! She has already written a really funny draft for her first episode and we're super excited to have her voice included in the second season as a writer. We're so thrilled.

Mylene [00:25:06] Awesome. Now, I want to talk briefly about merch, the very important part of this whole process.

J. Michael [00:25:13] (Immitating Mel Brooks in Spacebals) Merchansiding!

Mylene [00:25:14] How fun was it designing products related to Mission Rejected? Do you have any favorites? And will I get a new sticker for season two?

John [00:25:24] I'm looking at my and looking at my laptop cover sticker right now. I think that's still my favorite.

J. Michael [00:25:28] Sort of between Pete and I, we came up with the EMF logo.

Mylene [00:25:33] Mm hmm.

J. Michael [00:25:33] It is super fun to put it on a notebook or a stickers or. Now we have magnets and pins!

Mylene [00:25:39] And a coffee mug, don't forget!

J. Michael [00:25:41] I walk around this office with my coffee mug permanently attached to my hand. It's great. I'll just be the guy that makes the plea. You know, every little bit of merch that we sell helps. We get just a couple of bucks off each thing, but that money goes back into the show. And what we would really love to do is to be able to pay our actors who give so much of themselves to the show. So any little bit that you know, can give. We've got great stickers, great T-shirts.

Mylene [00:26:10] Great mugs.

J. Michael [00:26:11] Obviously, we had a bunch of ocean bureau merchandise for season one, but that ship has sunk. So we'll have to see!

Pete [00:26:17] Well, I was gonna say the funny thing is, like the "become one with the ocean" like that was a throwaway joke that I wrote for episode three. I was just like, I need the admiral to be here being an idiot. And so he did that become one with the ocean thing. And then Mike started writing into everything and put it on the logo. I was like, oh, is this Ocean Bureau logo now? All right, I guess that's what is! It's really funny. I've, yeah, I've got my coffee mug with the ocean bureau. "Become one with the ocean." [MUSIC]

Mylene [00:26:47] Any teasers for Season 2?

Pete [00:26:51] Well, what should we...give away?

Mylene [00:26:53] What can you reveal?

Pete [00:26:54] Do we even know what's what's happening in season two is a good question.

J. Michael [00:26:56] Great question. Well, I can guarantee that in the first episode of Season 2, we you will find out who has lived and who has died.

Mylene [00:27:05] Perfect. I was worried.

J. Michael [00:27:07] I think I can also guarantee more mayhem. I mean, just the missions that we have planned just for the first half of the second season are among the most ridiculous.

John [00:27:19] We can we can promise you we'll learn more about these familial backgrounds of some of our heroes.

Mylene [00:27:24] Wonderful.

John [00:27:26] And in Episode 3, I can guarantee you at least 10 pig jokes.

Mylene [00:27:33] Tha's a lot. Tantalizing.

Pete [00:27:35] I can say that as much as I resisted being dragged into the upping of the production values from just brief debrief into full scale action movie, there will be a lot more action sequences.

Mylene [00:27:50] Yes!

J. Michael [00:27:51] Oh yeah I mean, again, this goes back to where we started with one act plays with two people and then we got up to an Egyptian spectacle with 20 people. We started with "There'll be...it'll all take place in a meeting room." And then this year ended with a cruise ship blowing up. And the second season starts with an...here you go..here's a tease. The second season starts with the U.S. Navy coming into the scene.

Mylene [00:28:17] Ooooh!

J. Michael [00:28:18] Umm and yeah. And we've we made the conscious decision to do big action sequences in every episode. So we're not making things easier on ourselves and definitely not making things easier on Pete.

John [00:28:31] Pete, I know, I know. I told you not to read to 203 yet because it's not really ready. But did you happen to peek at the first pitch?

Pete [00:28:39] I obeyed your orders. So.

John [00:28:41] OK. Good. Good, good.

Pete [00:28:43] Listen, we're not giving them any spoilers...

John [00:28:45] I might change...

Pete [00:28:46] And I'm not even getting any spoilers.

John [00:28:47] I might I might change some of the beginning of that. But if I don't, I apologize in advance.

Pete [00:28:54] All right. I mean, I'm ready for it, man. Like, I think the ship exploding was was - it was rough.

Mylene [00:29:02] (Laughing) Rough!

Pete [00:29:02] But forget that! The one before that and even the one before that! The last three episodes were the Halloween episode where Mike and I worked really hard to make a an infinitely tentacled space being.

Mylene [00:29:14] Uh Yeah

J. Michael [00:29:14] Came out great.

Pete [00:29:16] And then the next episode was a a drag race through the streets.

Mylene [00:29:22] Right!

Pete [00:29:23] And then the ship explodes. So it's like. All right. Well, we we were totally abandoned, that two room idea a long time ago.

Mylene [00:29:31] Have you secured the mixing and recording skills of Karen Yang for Season 2? Is that locked in?

Pete [00:29:37] Well, I'll leave that to Mike.

J. Michael [00:29:40] Well, we are. So, yes. So, Karen. So Karen Yang produces CS Radio for Mylene and I and she not only has assisted Pete with the - and - I with the recording of Season 1, she, of course, also appears as Dr. Karol Legrange in several episodes. So we will have Karen back for season two. But only half of it because, of course, she's she's graduating.

Mylene [00:30:04] Exactly.

J. Michael [00:30:04] She's a college student. She's graduating in May and moving off to New York. But I'm going to get her. I guess we'll get her through Episode 5.

Mylene [00:30:11] Keep her roped in.

J. Michael [00:30:12] And, uh, I've just made a request that Legrange be featured in an Episode 4. So she gets a big sendoff. And I'm hoping, you know, if I if I send Karen a couple of lines here and there, she can send them in from New York.

Mylene [00:30:27] Sure, if anyone could.

J. Michael [00:30:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete [00:30:29] I mean, Kirk White, who plays Chet Phillips, has never met any of the others.

J. Michael [00:30:34] I've never met him.

Mylene [00:30:35] (Laughs).

J. Michael [00:30:35] I haven't. [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 2 PLAYS]

Chet Phillips [00:30:36] A comic book convention in Jersey. I'm Chet Phillips. I'm a buff Jason Bourne movie Matt Damon, not a chunky kevin Smith movie matt Damon! Worst mission ever. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

J. Michael [00:30:53] I should have mentioned this earlier, but it's it's worth mentioned here. Talking about casting is, of course, Kevin McGrath as The Mission Voice.

Pete [00:30:59] Oh, right!

J. Michael [00:30:59] It was entirely Pete's idea. Kevin McGrath is one of my best friends from I've known him since I was 10. He is not an actor. He is a very successful programmer and a physicist. And he and Pete have a very great rapport. And I know Pete's a big fan of his. And when we were thinking about who would be the voice on the tape, Pete just went: "It's Kevin McGrath." [BEEP. CLIP FROM EPISODE 1 PLAYS.]

Mission Voice [00:31:31] Good morning, Chet. General Jose Beratta, a.k.a. El Pato, a.k.a. the Duck is the military leader of the South American Nation of San Otre Parte. He is landing on U.S. soil in two days, where he plans on giving a speech to drum up support for his sham presidency among Americans. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to replace the general with one of your extraordinary mission agents and sabotage his speech, which is to be given at a Motel 6 in Toledo, Ohio.

Chet Phillips [00:32:01] Toledo? Ugh. [BEEP. CLIP ENDS.]

Pete [00:32:03] I'm so happy that like in later episodes, we're like, oh, let's see what the mission voice is like. Let's put him in there as an actual human being. In Halloween, he turns in to Ryan Murphy for some reason in the middle of a hallucination.

Mylene [00:32:15] (Laughs)

J. Michael [00:32:16] One of the things that has been like a very unexpected joy - it's extra work, but if you support us on Patreon at the 5 dollar level, you're getting a couple of things every month. One is a PDA dossier of the mission and whoever wrote the episode writes the dossier. And there's some really funny additional information in those dossiers, including some really funny pictures of our guest villains that most people don't get to see. But the other thing is every episode, there's a bonus audio as well. So for episode, I think it was eight, was this monologue from the mission voice where he couldn't get through the take and he starts losing it. But we did some...there...there are some really, really, really funny bonus audios. And I know Pete and I both and like, we wish more people heard these, but they're exclusive to our Patreon. And youn know, it's tough. I think at some point, you know, maybe in the second season, we'll release the first season ones so people can...

Pete [00:33:13] Right.

J. Michael [00:33:14] We don't want to withhold content, but it is a nice bonus for our supporters. But my, at the time, nine year old nephew, wrote an episode of Mission Rejected and we recorded it as a bonus episode.

Mackenzie [00:33:28] That's amazing.

J. Michael [00:33:28] And it's hysterically funny.

Mylene [00:33:32] Are there ny other unexpected joys maybe to go out on, Pete and John?

John [00:33:37] It's it's gotten me back in the habit of finishing drafts. I was on a bad multi-year run of starting projects and then letting them wither on the vine and leaving them unfinished. And you can't do that when there's 12 actors waiting for an actual PDF that they're actually going to gather together to read. It's reminded me and it's gotten me back on the stick and in more ways than one with all sorts of writing projects.

J. Michael [00:34:07] The Audio Drama community is amazing. Whether it's on Twitter or Reddit or Discord, I made like real online friendships with some of our fans and other creators. I loved going back to Austin in 2019 now as a podcast creator and meeting some people whose shows we liked and having Sarah Werner say, "Oh my God, you guys are Mission Rejected. I love you guys.".

Mylene [00:34:39] That's awesome.

J. Michael [00:34:40] Oh, my God, the cloud nine.

Mylene [00:34:43] Yeah.

Pete [00:34:44] And on the heels of that, Mike, like not just seeing people who had podcasts, but people showing up to Orson who were where we were in the beginning.

Mylene [00:34:51] Yeah.

Pete [00:34:52] Who did not have a podcast, came in, said, hey, this is interesting. I don't know if I can do this. And just being able say you can do this.

J. Michael [00:35:02] I just kept saying less, thinking more doing.

Mylene [00:35:04] Yeah. Totally.

J. Michael [00:35:04] Let's not...If we got I think with Pete who really kept saying if we get too precious about it, we'll kill it. So let's just go and we'll learn as we go. And that's exactly what happened. And they got better and better. But man, we produced twelve episodes of a show, it was really like running a real show. And we're already like...The show's on hiatus, but we basically have not taken a break. We're deep into writing Season 2. We went to Austin and we planned out season two and we started writing season two. And, you know, in two weekends from now we're recording the first episode. And so it's like a nonstop train, which is exhausting, but it's great. And I love having everyone in my apartment once a month. It strengthened the friendships that I had with these people. I love that it's gotten so many people from so many aspects of my life involved my coworkers, my high school friends, college friends, my actor friends, my Austin friends. I mean, I'm a connector, and that makes me really happy.

Mylene [00:36:10] Well, I can't wait to hear who lives, who dies,.

Pete [00:36:13] Who tells your story.

Mylene [00:36:14] Who comes back next year.

J. Michael [00:36:15] Good thing the angriest woman wasn't on the cruise ship.

Mylene [00:36:18] Yeah, right?

J. Michael [00:36:19] She lives to be angry another day.

Mylene [00:36:21] Well, thank you guys so much. This has been so interesting for me. And I'm like I said, I'm really looking forward to hearing what's next.

John [00:36:25] Thank you for having us.

Pete [00:36:27] Thanks, Mylene. [MUSIC]

Mission Voice [00:36:33] Mission Rejectedd was created by Pete Barry J. Michael DeAngelis and John Dowgin. Music, sound mixing and editing by Pete Barry. Special Material Written and directed by J. Michael DeAngelis. Your host was A. Mylene Kershcner and it featured Kevin McGrath as The Mission Voice.

Mission Voice [00:36:49] Be sure to check out Mylene's podcast, C.S. Radio, a weekly discussion about career development on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this behind the scenes episode. Why not join us on Patreon for an extended peek behind the curtain. Patreon supporters received an extended version of this episode, as well as an ongoing look at the development of season to offer as little as one dollar amount month. Visit www.patreon.com/missionrejected for details. This has been a Porch Room production. Copyright 2020. Extraordinary Misisons Limited. [MUSIC]