AustinvilleRunningGags

"A Fine Day in Austinville"

Running Gags

Desired Qualities of a Running Gag

• It's city-wide, and it makes sense to add it to any location.
• It does not require extra performers.
• It does not require complicated props.

• It does not detract from the scene it's in.

  • Ideally, it should just 'fly under the radar'.
  • But, if examined closely, it should seem a bit odd and out of place.
• It should be possible to explain the gag very easily later on.1
• Extra points if its explanation relates to the known storylines somehow.
• Also remember that anything that happens in one sketch can be spun out into a running gag.

A Big List of Possible Running Gags

• The moving body

  • A corpse keeps showing up in various scenes.
  • Some disadvantages: (1) it requires an extra performer, (2) its backstory would be complicated, and (3) it is tonally-bleak.

• Utility taggers

  • In the background of many scenes, gangland-looking utilty workers spray-paint symbols on the sidewalk.
  • This is eventually revealed to be part of a gang war between city utilities.
  • Some disadvantages: (1) it requires extra performers, (2) its backstory might be complicated.

• An 8pm city-wide power outage

  • This affects any sketch that includes 8pm
  • This includes a possible retcon at the city power station.
• A popular musician comes to town that night. Posters and T-shirts reflect this throughout the day.

• A computer virus gets loose that sets all computers to show a cheery looped Flash animation.

  • It takes down the local cell-phone networks between 2:13pm and 2:35pm.
• An ambitious Korean-language class spends the afternoon plastering hangul-transliterated fliers everywhere.
• An elephant gets loose from the Austin Zoo. It is never seen, but is occasionally heard trumpeting from afar.

• The weather keeps changing radically throughout the day; this is finally explained in a news8 weather forecast.

  • Advantage: this retcons the vagaries of weather over the course of the show.
• The Statesman has an insert that, when opened, plays an annoying little tune.
• A mime convention comes to town.
• "Austin cops will bet on anything. Absolutely anything."
• Frequent ads for the reality-TV show "I Won't Eat That!"

• A variety of anti-Reginald propaganda.

  • "Reginald? You suck."
  • "Reginald deserves to be beaten with sticks."
  • We see more and more of these pamphlets, and only later find out who Reginald is and who he has wronged.

• Ninjas!

  • They live in small communities in the Hill Country, unseen by average imperceptive folk.

Footnotes

1 And no, we're not doing the Buckaroo Banzai-style "gratuitous watermelon" thing. In this sort of serial narrative, introducing something bizarre and then never explaining it pisses off the audience something awful. (See also: LOST.) Instead, we'll employ stuff that works in the background, and only gets 'explained' later.