Birdhouse

References

• They Might Be Giants
  • Birdhouse in Your Soul
• West Wing
• The Storyteller
  • Hans My Hedgehog
• Monster House
• Corvidae
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Princess Bride
• The Princess Diaries
• Perfect Strangers
• Matthew Broderick
• Ladyhawke
• Margo Martindale
• Cocaine Bear
• Regent
• Jafar
• AncestryDNA
• 23andMe
  • Genetic testing is an inexact science with real consequences
• The Walt Disney Company
• Touchstone Pictures
• How long does DNA last?
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
So how does the magic work for him? Does he always turn into a man at night, or is he turning into a man at night because the magic is wearing off because the woods are being torn down?

[Thomas]
Oh, he has not previously turned into a man at night. She shows up, and the proximity of her magic allows this transformation.

[Shep]
Oh!

[Thomas]
So he’s just like, “Oh, my God, I’m cured.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But then the next morning, he’s back to bird.

[Emily]
Because her powers obviously increased by the moon.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Obviously.

[Shep]
That’s tradition.

[Thomas]
Yeah, perfect.

[Shep]
I’m picturing the scene. She’s like, “Why is there a man in my house?” And he’s like, “I’m a man.” And she’s like, “Yes, that’s the problem.”

[Emily]
“And you’re naked!”

[Shep]
So the clothes don’t transform with him? Okay, so it’s not a Disney movie.

[Emily]
It’s a Touchstone movie.

[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 here to filibuster vigilantly is Emily,

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And the only bee in my bonnet, it’s F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Building a birdhouse is a classic woodworking project for kids in movies. Have either of you ever built a birdhouse?

[Shep]
Yes. I was a Boy Scout, so it was required.

[Thomas]
Same here.

[Emily]
I’ve painted one.

[Shep]
That’s also fun. I think I painted mine.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So yeah. I don’t think the birds were attracted to the smell of paint, and I don’t think any birds ever used my birdhouse.

[Thomas]
I don’t think I ever hung my birdhouse.

[Shep]
I mean, I hung mine, but I also lived in the woods, and there were plenty of other places to nest.

[Thomas]
Much more natural places.

[Emily]
I really thought for a second you were gonna say that you lived in it.

[Shep]
I was quite short as a child.

[Thomas]
All right, well, instead of building birdhouses, we are building a movie about a birdhouse. Shep. Why don’t you pitch first?

[Shep]
Smooth. That was real smooth.

[Thomas]
Thank you.

[Shep]
Okay, couple pitches here.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
Pitch number one: President Bird dealing with a crisis in the Bird White House from the West Wing.

[Thomas]
Hey!

[Shep]
Hey! President Bird’s been newly elected and wants to bring all the different bird species together. But bird citizens are deeply divided. Only birds of a feather flock together.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
There is corruption, environmental disasters, and tensions with the neighboring lizards. Can President Bird unite the birds into a single flock? And it’s about what it means to be a leader.

[Thomas]
All right. Yeah, I like that.

[Emily]
I can see that.

[Shep]
Pitch number two: You got a bunch of smart kids, and they’re planning for their future, and they start a birdhouse making business because they want to save up for a nest egg.

[Thomas]
Hey, I thought you didn’t like puns.

[Shep]
You let me go first. This is what’s going to happen. Okay. But a big corporation threatens to put them out of business. The kids try to come up with a unique design to set their birdhouses apart from the mass-produced corporate birdhouses. And everyone learns a lesson about teamwork and perseverance and the importance of following your dreams and how you can’t win against the man. Sorry. Capitalism.

[Thomas]
The importance of hiring a patent attorney, and-

[Shep]
Yes. So those are my two big pitches.

[Thomas]
Okay. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
I have: A young woman is being followed by a bird and she thinks she’s just noticing that particular species has moved into the area and she’s just seeing them everywhere. Soon she realizes it’s the same bird every time thanks to a unique color pattern on its head. She decides that since this bird is always around, she’ll build a birdhouse. But the bird never uses it. So she tries a different design. Same thing. She begins building gigantic, elaborate birdhouses and none of them seem to satisfy the bird. One night, in frustration, she invites the bird into her house and it transforms into a handsome prince who whisks her away. And they live happily ever after. The end.

[Shep]
But at night, he would transform back into a bird, and he told her, “You, don’t uncover the blanket.” But she couldn’t resist her curiosity, and she pulled off the blanket, and he was still a bird, and he flew out the window. She never saw him again.

[Thomas]
He flew into the window, it was closed.

[Emily]
All right, my second pitch is: A neighborhood’s resident creepy house is surrounded by hundreds of birdhouses of varying size and colors. It’s been this way for so long, everyone has forgotten how it started or why. Gemma, a new kid in the neighborhood, is very curious. So she just knocks on the door one summer afternoon to ask the homeowner, “What’s the deal?” A little lady, Maureen, answers and invites Gemma in. Inside, there are even more birdhouses. Maureen reveals that it all started as a project with her father and she’s been building them since she was a child. She tried to sell them, but not too many people were interested. So she kept them in her home and kept building them. Gemma and Maureen become fast friends and Gemma helps her set up an Etsy shop to sell them. Together, they build birdhouses and talk about their lives. It would be a heartwarming story about intergenerational friendship and the bonds we can make with others in our lives.

[Shep and Thomas]
But a big corporation-

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly.

[Emily]
And I would be remiss if I did not include a serial killer.

[Thomas]
Ah, yes.

[Emily]
Birdhouses with body parts in them start showing up around the city. It is soon discovered that the body parts belong to different victims. The police are on the hunt for the birdhouse killer.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
See, I’m thinking animated. They’re all anthropomorphic animals. The police are cats. No, police are dogs. The killer is a cat. All the victims are birds.

[Emily]
Yeah, that makes sense. Make it family fun.

[Shep]
About murder.

[Emily]
Your turn, Thomas.

[Thomas]
Alright. So mine is an animated film. In a suburb of birdhouses, an old rundown mansion is rumored to be haunted. A group of fledglings dare each other to spend a night in the haunted birdhouse. None of them want to admit to being scared, but they’re definitely all apprehensive. They lie to their parents and meet in front of the birdhouse, after dark. They sneak inside and begin to explore. All of them are on edge and their nerves aren’t helped by the noises they swear they can hear and the movements they swear they can see out of the corners of their eyes. What’s actually lurking in the dark is more than any of them bargained for: a snake. Once they realize the danger they’re in, they all agree they need to escape. But getting out ends up being rather more difficult than getting in, especially now that the snake knows they’re there.

[Shep]
It’s a python. It just wants to hug everyone.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, here’s another one. He’s a viper. He’s come to vash and vipe the vindows.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Excellent. Yes.

[Shep]
So which of these are we liking?

[Thomas]
Yeah, is there one of these that we particularly like?

[Emily]
I like yours personally.

[Shep]
The one about the haunted mansion?

[Emily]
Surprise.

[Shep]
Wow. I can’t believe you let him even finish the pitch. It’s more of a bird mansion, though. Is it a bird house?

[Thomas]
I mean, a mansion is a house.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
It doesn’t have to be a mansion. It could just be the spooky house.

[Shep]
That’s big enough to hold snakes and several birds in multiple rooms.

[Thomas]
Yep. Needs to be a mansion. I think of the ones that we’ve pitched, mine is the most exciting if we want something that sort of, like, has some action to it.

[Shep]
See, all I can think of is Monster House, where the kids go into the spooky mansion in their neighborhood and the house is alive.

[Emily]
But this one’s different. Because there’s a snake.

[Shep]
Right. This one’s different because it’s a snake and not the house itself.

[Thomas]
Turns out it’s a snake that has been building birdhouses and needs to set up an Etsy shop.

[Shep]
Why did she keep building birdhouses when they weren’t selling? Is she mentally deranged?

[Emily]
Perhaps, perhaps.

[Shep]
Well, I like the one where a bird is following the woman around.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was just thinking about that one. Like, what is the conflict in that story?

[Emily]
We can change, obviously, lots of it. But as is, I would say, the conflict is she wants to provide a home for the bird. And the bird is displeased with her attempts.

[Shep]
So it’s a rom-com. I’m just picturing, like, she puts out a nice bird house and the bird just comes up and kicks it over, not breaking eye contact with her the whole time.

[Thomas]
So it’s a corvid, then?

[Shep]
Yes, obviously it’s a corvid.

[Thomas]
So this is like a prince who has been turned into a bird. This is like a curse that’s been placed on him, presumably.

[Emily]
Presumably. Yes.

[Shep]
Why does it have to be her?

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s a good question. Maybe this is kind of a rural setting, and so this is like, his house. So she’s living in his house. This house has been empty for a really long time.

[Shep]
It was abandoned, but it wasn’t really abandoned.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
The occupant was transformed into a bird 300 years ago.

[Thomas]
Oh, and it has this royal heritage.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, this is the former prince’s house, and then he just disappeared and didn’t have an heir and the line died off.

[Shep]
It’s a great local mythology story.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It was his hunting lodge.

[Shep]
Right. It wasn’t his main house. It was like some separate house.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Okay. I’m liking the story more and more than-

[Thomas]
Yeah, me too. I’m all in on this story.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
All right.

[Shep]
So it’s Beauty and the Beast rules?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So where does this story take place? Does it take place in America or in another country?

[Thomas]
It’s surely in a European country.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
Small, tiny European country-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That most people don’t even know exists because it’s one town on the coast. What are the countries in Princess Bride? I can’t remember.

[Thomas]
I don’t remember.

[Emily]
Don’t believe I can’t remember.

[Shep]
Wasn’t there another fictional country between two countries in The Princess Diaries or the.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yes, Mulvania.

[Thomas]
Mulvania.

[Emily]
And then there’s Mypos from Perfect Strangers.

[Shep]
Right. That’s a little too backwards. We want it to be set in a modern country so it’s easier to film it in Los Angeles and pretend it’s this foreign country.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
We could just make up a foreign country.

[Shep]
Yeah. Let’s make up a small foreign country somewhere in Europe.

[Emily]
Between Spain and France.

[Shep]
Yes. They’re all between Spain and France. So why are they speaking English?

[Emily]
They were a failed attempt by England to conquer Spain. But they stayed. And now they’re English speakers.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Sure.

[Emily]
So it sort of hit on the idea that the line died out. So who’s in charge of the country now?

[Shep]
Well, the line was already dying out. It was a ceremonial role. That’s why the country didn’t collapse when the prince disappeared, because they had already transitioned to a parliamentary system.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And so the prince going off and living in a hunting lodge is like, that’s fine. Where are his guards? Doesn’t matter, because the royal family doesn’t really matter. And that was 300 years ago. So I want to make him a bird for 300 years.

[Thomas]
Yeah, for sure.

[Shep]
So do we want him to turn into a person at the end of the movie or at the beginning of the movie? Because I want to turn it into a rom-com.

[Thomas and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But he needs to be a man most of the time.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
If it’s Beauty and the Beast rules, we don’t want him to turn back into a bird. We want him to be able to stay a prince.

[Emily]
Okay. So why did he become a bird? Like, what’s the origin of that? What witch cast the spell and for what reason?

[Shep]
Yeah. Someone came to his cabin-

[Emily]
And he was rude.

[Shep]
And he was rude because he was eleven years old.

[Thomas]
What’s the story where the person is- Oh, wait, no. It’s two people. Right? One of them is a human by day, and animal by night, and the other one is an animal by day and a human by night.

[Shep]
Oh, it’s Matthew Broderick, Ladyhawke?

[Thomas]
Yes, that’s it. So maybe it’s one of those kind of things where it’s like, at night he can be a human, but during the day he’s a bird. That way he can be human. And that can be creepy for her. Like, she’s in the house and there’s this dude standing outside looking in the window and she’s freaked out by it.

[Shep]
Matthew Broderick’s character’s name in this movie. Gaston. Just saying.

[Thomas]
Wow.

[Shep]
Just saying.

[Emily]
I was thinking that he could have been transformed or punished, since it’s a hunting lodge, shooting some rare animal in the woods that the witch was, like, the overseer protector of.

[Shep]
Ooh. He shot the witch.

[Emily]
Oh!

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
She was transformed into a deer, and he just shot her, without so much as a ‘how do you do’!

[Emily]
That works.

[Shep]
And she lived because she’s magic.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Obviously.

[Shep]
She was like, “Oh, you want to know what it’s like to be hunted? Now you’re a game animal.”

[Emily]
He’s like a pheasant?

[Shep]
Sure.

[Emily]
That’s big for a birdhouse.

[Shep]
All right. He’s a crow. It doesn’t matter.

[Emily]
Magpie. Make him pretty. Also, if it’s a corvid, then it’s smart.

[Shep]
Right. I want her to have friends in the area that tell her she can’t- because this bird’s always around, and it’s freaking her out. She wants to chase it off, and they’re like, “Oh, you can’t chase it off. They’re smart. It will come back and take revenge.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“You have to please it, so it’ll be nice to you.”

[Emily]
“Just befriend it.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Some people have trained them to collect money, coins and whatever, in return for food or whatever, because they’re smart. They can learn.

[Thomas]
She’s, like, locked the door or something, and it knows to, like, pull back the mat, pick up the key, stick it in the lock, turn. She’s like, “What the hell?”

[Emily]
I was going to say that it brings her treasures because it knows where, like, the chest of family jewels is, and it starts bringing her, like, earrings and rings, necklaces.

[Shep]
Oh, there’s so much potential there, because if she shows up in town with these earrings that turn out to be the missing royal earrings, part of this this treasure that was stolen a long time ago, allegedly stolen.

[Emily]
When the prince was mysteriously disappeared.

[Shep]
Right. And so the rumor is the prince ran off with the treasure.

[Emily]
That creates an extra layer of conflict within the story.

[Thomas]
I bet he’s been living in the house. He probably flies down the chimney.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
He’s living in his house.

[Shep]
Right. Because why would he stop?

[Thomas]
Yeah. She’s trying to shoosh him out of the house.

[Emily]
So she builds a birdhouse to attract him to live outside. It’s like, “Here, have your own house.” Maybe builds one that looks exactly like the house.

[Thomas]
Not at first. At first, it’s like a super jank one.

[Emily]
Right. It’s your typical Boy Scout one.

[Shep]
So are the woods still there?

[Emily]
Okay. So the forest is still there, but it is dwindling-

[Shep]
Well, yeah, I was gonna say it’s dwindling.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Because they’re building into it as they’ve run out of room, because it’s a city state, essentially, and she’s a park ranger. It’s a monumental historical site. That’s why nobody lives there. It hasn’t lived there because it was the last known residence of this prince, and she’s now the caretaker of not only the house, but the land as well.

[Shep]
She’s played by esteemed character actress Margo Martindale. Okay, so why is the house going to be occupied by her now when it has been sitting vacant? It must have been so far away from civilization that no one bothered with it, but they are building out and plowing down the woods and building houses, and they get to it. Why are they keeping it on its own plot of land rather than knocking it down and putting a McMansion in its place?

[Thomas]
So maybe that’s the plan. And she is a historical preservation advocate.

[Shep]
Ooh. Ah.

[Thomas]
And she’s like she realizes, no, this is the royal residence.

[Emily]
Oh, that’s good.

[Thomas]
This is a big piece of our country’s history.

[Shep]
This was the prince’s hunting cabin. But she can’t prove it, and if she can’t prove it, they’re gonna knock it down. There’s our ticking clock.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Does he have a clock? He has to fall in love or whatever it is by a certain amount of time. Otherwise, he remains a bird forever.

[Shep]
Well, not fall in love, but I’d say it takes the forest witch to turn him back into a man. Like, he can be a man temporarily, but her magic is running out as they’re plowing down the forest, so he has to convince them to stop and that this is a historical site. Otherwise, he will remain, he’ll turn back into a bird full time and be a bird.

[Emily]
How does he find the witch? Where do they find the witch? Where is she now? What’s she doing?

[Shep]
She’s a park ranger, I thought.

[Thomas]
Actually, I like that idea that like, the witch is long gone and the historical preservation advocate is the descendant of the witch.

[Shep]
Ooh.

[Emily]
Ooh, that is good.

[Shep]
That’s almost enemies to lovers.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I love it because then you could have conflict. You could have the bullshit argument at the end of the movie that breaks them up temporarily-

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
When he discovers that she’s the descendant of the witch that cursed him in the first place. Because every movie’s got to have that bullshit fight that we all know isn’t a real fight.

[Thomas]
Seriously,

[Shep]
I hate it so much.

[Thomas]
“I’m going to storm away without asking any further questions or allowing any conversation to happen.”

[Shep]
“Wait. I can explain. Let me explain.” Okay. I take back what I said about it being 300 years ago because if it’s more recent, then people will have been looking for- oh, well… Here’s the dilemma. Will people know that he’s the prince? Do we want people to know that he’s the prince?

[Emily]
Does it matter if they’ve already become a parliamentary system? And the prince was a figurehead anyway when he disappeared? He could just be a dude.

[Shep]
Right, that’s what I was saying. Do we want them to know?

[Thomas]
What is his goal?

[Shep]
To be a man again!

[Thomas]
Is the reason that they’ve moved on because the royal family disappeared and they’re like, “You know, we kind of wanted to get rid of them anyway.” And so he wants to come back and regain control or is he just all about becoming a man again?

[Emily]
I think he’s just all about becoming a man again. His parliament was already sort of running things.

[Shep]
Well-

[Emily]
He was the last of his line.

[Shep]
I had said that, but I’m not sure because if it were A, more recent, and B, well, I’m hemming and hawing about it because if there’s just what they call it, a proxy, king’s proxy.

[Emily]
Like a regent?

[Shep]
Yeah. That’s ruling in the stead of the royal family that’s missing and he could come back and prove that he is of the royal lineage, then that could be important for some reason.

[Emily]
Could the proxy be evil?

[Shep]
It’s Vizier-

[Thomas]
It’s a Jafar. Yeah.

[Emily]
But it’s been 300 years. Is anyone going to believe that he’s in fact the prince? Does he care anymore that he’s the prince? Is he just really wanting to be a man again? And she wants to save the house, so they figure out how to do that. But he’s never reinstated as that figurehead.

[Shep]
Well, I mean, people do like princes and princesses. They like that fantasy. But then how can he prove that he is of the royal lineage if it’s been 300 years?

[Thomas]
Because he has the royal treasure that’s lost, the seal or-

[Shep]
That just proves that he is the descendant of the thieves of the royal treasury.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He looks just like the dude in the painting. Like just like the guy.

[Shep]
Yes, that’s the standard.

[Emily]
So do they just pass off that he’s a descendant through AncestryDNA, or, like, 23andMe?

[Shep]
It could be. I mean, it is the modern world. Well, is this a Disney movie or is this a- Yeah, who’s making this movie? Because if it’s a Disney movie, he’s definitely going to be a prince again by the end. She’s going to marry him and she’s going to be a princess. That’s how it works.

[Emily]
Okay. Yeah, I want it to be a fairy tale.

[Thomas]
So then the government that’s there is like super corrupt and not working for the people. They’re tearing down the forest. They’re not tearing down the forest because they’re running out of room. They’re tearing down the forest to sell the resources to other countries to enrich themselves.

[Shep]
Well, that’s so common, though. I would like it if they weren’t corrupt at all. And it’s just like, look, we’re a tiny country. We don’t have a lot of resources. Our treasury is almost empty.

[Emily]
And they had a big population boom. They need more housing.

[Shep]
I mean, she moved there or is she from there?

[Emily]
She’s from there.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
She’s the witch’s progeny.

[Shep]
That’s right. Yeah. That’s going to be an interesting dynamic, because to the prince, she is a peasant, and so when he’s in his man form, he expects her to serve him because he’s the prince.

[Emily]
Right. And it’s a modern world.

[Thomas]
He expects a level of deference that she is not going to give him.

[Shep]
Right. That doesn’t exist anymore.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Does she know that she’s an ancestor to the witch?

[Shep]
Descendant.

[Emily]
Is there magic or- descendant. Yeah, that’s what I meant. Descendant from the witch. And does she have magic?

[Shep]
Oh, maybe there’s a little bit of magic in her. That’s why when they kiss, at the end, he stays man. So that’s why she doesn’t think much of a weird bird following her around, because weird stuff always kind of happens to her and everyone in her family. That’s normal. That’s normal to her. And her friends are like, “That’s not normal.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And she’s like, “Well, you know how it is.”

[Thomas]
Maybe there’s a law that was passed when they were switching over to the parliamentary system. It’s like, well, if the royal family ever comes back, then we’ll switch back to that and it just was never repealed or anything.

[Shep]
Oh, if the royal family brings back the royal treasury that they think the prince has absconded with,

[Thomas]
Yeah. There you go.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because right now they’re in a crunch, an economic crunch. That’s why they’re mowing down the woods.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So if he brings the treasure back, then he’ll be welcomed back with open arms, which he does, and he is, because that solves their problems.

[Thomas]
And it’s this, like, 300-year-old law that nobody really remembers and all kind of forgot about, but it’s still on the books.

[Shep]
Right. So we need that stuffy librarian character that knows all the obscure laws, that’s friends with the main character girl.

[Thomas]
Right. Because they’re both history buffs.

[Shep]
Yes. Oh, it all fits. I know I’ve said this before. You guys are good at this. Maybe he was her teacher.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, perfect. She goes to ask some questions because the weird guy in the backyard knows some things that he shouldn’t know.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s- we can just bring him into the story early on because she’s like… Plus, her whole thing is trying to find historical evidence to save this building.

[Shep]
So how does the magic work for him? Does he always turn into a man at night, or is he turning into a man at night because the magic is wearing off because the woods are being torn down?

[Thomas]
Oh, he has not previously turned into a man at night. She shows up, and the proximity of her magic allows this transformation.

[Shep]
Oh!

[Thomas]
So he’s just like, “Oh, my God, I’m cured.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But then the next morning, he’s back to bird.

[Emily]
Because her powers obviously increased by the moon.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Obviously.

[Shep]
That’s tradition.

[Thomas]
Yeah, perfect.

[Shep]
I’m picturing the scene. She’s like, “Why is there a man in my house?” And he’s like, “I’m a man.” And she’s like, “Yes, that’s the problem.”

[Emily]
“And you’re naked!”

[Shep]
So the clothes don’t transform with him? Okay, so it’s not a Disney movie.

[Emily]
It’s a Touchstone movie.

[Shep]
Yeah. It’s all tastefully placed stuff blocking the-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And then, like, one good shot of his really nice behind.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, definitely that.

[Shep]
In the moonlight because it’ll be at night.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yep. I can picture it.

[Thomas]
Two moons in this shot.

[Shep]
Okay, so I think we have the general idea.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
How does that first interaction with her go? Why is she staying in the house at night?

[Thomas]
Well, so my initial thought was that it was, you know, like, how somebody will live in a tree to protect it, so she’s living in the house so that it can’t be torn down.

[Shep]
Okay, that makes sense.

[Emily]
Squatter rights type thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Again, maybe there’s some sort of a law about, “Oh, you can’t tear down a residence that somebody is living in. You have to give them 30 days notice” or something like that. And so she’s like, “Well, then I live here now.” And so they want to tear it down, so they have to serve her a notice. And she’s like, “Okay, I bought 30 days.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Now I got to prove that this thing has historical significance, and this is like a long forgotten royal residence or something like that, because otherwise it would be pretty. Everyone be like, “Oh, yeah, that’s the prince’s residence. Of course it has historical significance.”

[Shep]
I was thinking that the city has built another residence elsewhere that they are pretending was the prince’s in a more commercially strategic location so that it could be a tourist attraction, because this one was just in the woods, and they’d have to build stuff to roads and things to get to it. No.

[Thomas]
It was so far away and undeveloped up to that point when they built this other one.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And it was because that’s where he would go to hunt.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
You don’t hunt near- Why would people be fooled that his hunting cabin was downtown?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I like that.

[Emily]
So their first interaction, how do we see him turn into the man from the bird?

[Shep]
She has to witness him transform. Otherwise, he’s just a naked man in the house.

[Thomas]
I think that’s how it starts. She turns around, and there’s a naked man in the house, and they both freak out.

[Emily]
Have we established that the bird has moved into the house, or is he just sneaking in through the fireplace? Has he snuck in and she doesn’t know it’s in there?

[Shep]
So she keeps the flu closed in the fireplace so that he can’t come down the chimney anymore. But one night, she builds a fire for warmth and goes to sleep, and the fire goes out, and so he can get back in. Why does he need to be in the house?

[Thomas]
That’s where he lives. It’s his house.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. All of his treasures are hidden under the floorboards. Does he know that it’s been 300 years, or is that his time as a bird sort of a blur?

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think he wouldn’t know how long it’s been exactly. He just knows it’s been a really long time.

[Emily]
And things have changed a lot just outside. He doesn’t know anything else about anything, other changes. He just knows that there are buildings that weren’t there before.

[Shep]
Well, if he’s a corvid, if he’s smart and he can go into town, then wouldn’t he be up to date on things?

[Emily]
I don’t mind if he would be up to date on things being that smart and going in and out.

[Shep]
Then we lose a lot of that fish out of water, man out of time.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
I’m not saying that we need it because, again, this story has been done a lot. In fact, you can even have a scene where she’s trying to explain to him what stuff is, and he’s like, “Yeah, I know, I’m aware.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I like that. I want him to be that smart. Yeah.

[Thomas]
At some point he’s like, “Give me your iPhone.” And she’s like “Huh?”

[Emily]
He’s like, “I’m a man now. Let’s order a pizza.”

[Shep]
I want him to play chess in the park with a homeless guy in exchange for French fries.

[Emily]
Perfect.

[Shep]
Like, that’s their tradition.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Everyone thinks the homeless guy’s crazy. He’s playing chess against a bird.

[Thomas]
And losing.

[Emily]
And then at the end of the movie, the old guy could be sad because the bird hasn’t been- didn’t show up.

[Shep]
No. Maybe when he gets kicked out of the cabin for being a naked guy, he goes downtown where he knows the homes guy is and asks him for help because that’s his friend.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Does the magic continue to work if he moves that far away from her?

[Shep]
Ah.

[Emily]
Yes. It’s magic. We can establish anything we want. Oh, no. Because then her existence yeah, okay, I get it.

[Thomas]
Plus it’s so far for him to go, it’s easy as a bird. He can fly straight there, but-

[Shep]
Yeah. That’s as the crow flies. It’s-

[Thomas]
Exactly. Whereas as a guy, he has to figure out how to get there naked. But I do like, at the end of the movie, him rewarding the man, him coming to the guy and helping him out.

[Shep]
Because he’s a prince and he’s rich now.

[Thomas]
Right. He hires the guy to do something for him.

[Shep]
Or he’s no longer he gives him a mansion. And so you see him at the end, the two of them playing chess in the park.

[Thomas]
This seems like a good time to take a break. And when we come back, the rest of our movie about a birdhouse.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back.

[Emily]
All right, so we need to establish-

[Shep]
How the magic works.

[Emily]
How the magic works.

[Thomas]
And how do they discover each other’s true identities.

[Emily]
Well, if the magic works with the vicinity thing, obviously he’ll piece it together when he gets further away from her and turns it back into a bird. So she doesn’t come home one night. He doesn’t turn into a man.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He flies to find her, turns into a man-

[Thomas]
Drops out of the sky.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Into a backyard with clothes lines.

[Shep]
I was also thinking, I kind of want a scene where he transforms in front of people. Like at the end, the big dramatic transformation. And if he’s naked, it’s going to throw things off.

[Emily]
I’m fine with clothes. Transforming with him. Disney rules. That’s fine.

[Shep]
Or it could just be funny that he transforms in the Parliament room into a naked man and just goes right to the podium.

[Thomas]
It’s Europe. It doesn’t faze them.

[Shep]
Especially tasteful nudity where the microphones are blocking his crotch.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah. I’m convinced he’s naked when he transforms.

[Emily]
Okay. So he’s naked. I was going to say, because if it’s that he has clothes… So the first time he transforms, obviously he’s in his princely hunting garb from 300 years ago.

[Shep]
Yeah. He could have, like, some princely seal or something that he was carrying with him. Then if he transformed back, he’d have it and he could prove “Look, I still have the-” Although if they just watched him transform from a bird to a man-

[Emily]
Pretty sure that’s convincing enough.

[Shep]
It’s very convincing.

[Thomas]
How is he able to prove that he’s the prince?

[Emily]
I still like the 23andMe thing where he’s like, “I’m the prince. We have DNA technology.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“Here’s some things from my past that have my DNA on it. Here’s my current DNA.”

[Thomas]
How long does DNA last?

[Shep]
Well, you just need a descendant from the royal line.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s the whole point, is there isn’t one.

[Emily]
DNA can last hundreds of years-

[Shep]
Can it? Internet, please tell me. “A study of DNA extracted from the leg bones of extinct Moa birds in New Zealand found that the half-life of DNA is 521 years.”

[Thomas]
Oh, wow.

[Shep]
So every 1000 years, 75% of the genetic information is lost. So 300 years? No problem.

[Emily]
Within the time frame.

[Shep]
Scientifically accurate.

[Emily]
See, and then we can educate people. They will have learned something new from this movie when they go, “Hey, that’s not real,” and then they’ll Google it and be like, “Wow, that’s real.”

[Thomas]
But if we’re going to educate people, I would say that a good education is: don’t rely too heavily on the results you get from 23andMe which are famously problematic.

[Shep]
Right. We don’t mention 23andMe unless they are sponsoring the movie as product placement-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
In which case we don’t mention anything negative about them at all.

[Emily]
But DNA testing could be the solution.

[Thomas]
Sure. He’s like, “Look, I know I’m 300 years old, but I’ve watched CSI.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They’re like “How do you know that?” And he’s like, “I’m 300 years old.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“I know a lot.”

[Emily]
“I’ve been around.”

[Shep]
He goes outside the little university and just perches and listens to the lectures.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
What would need convincing there as to why they would run the DNA for this random naked dude.

[Shep]
Because he transformed.

[Emily]
I guess if he transforms from a bird into a naked man before their eyes and he’s like, “Run the DNA” and they run the DNA, I think that to me, works.

[Thomas]
It does feel somewhat overly complicated, though. Like, if it was a typical Hollywood movie, they would all just sort of believe him because of one thing that would be tidy in a speech.

[Emily]
True.

[Shep]
He knows the code to the royal vault, that’s there’s a thousand dials and you needed to get it exactly right and no one can crack it.

[Emily]
It’s funny because to me that seems more complicated than “Swab my cheek.”

[Thomas]
I guess the difference is that that is an action he is taking to prove it, as opposed to, like, passively waiting for someone else to do something.

[Emily]
I understand. Because it’s more visually palpable to have it be something like that rather than-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. Because movies are a visual medium. But he can even complain that a DNA test would be more accurate because he’s smart. As he’s doing the dials, he’s like, “This is stupid.”

[Emily]
Yeah, maybe he does. And then they’re like, “We’ll run the DNA after. We’re not going to waste time and money now.”

[Thomas]
Right, because anyone could just walk up and claim… How many DNA tests are we supposed to run?

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Well, see, I’m thinking more Disney movie lines now, and I think Thomas was right that either the government is corrupt or the current Regent is corrupt because we need that villain.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We need that villain that knows that the magic is- oh, is the magic tied to the woods or is it just to her?

[Emily]
To her.

[Shep]
So it’s not tied to the woods at all. I thought that he could go and plow down-

[Emily]
The woods are tied to her mus-, her magic, but his proximity to her is what affects his ability to change. The woods are what affect her power.

[Thomas]
So what if there’s a special rune stone that the witch had and he was like, “This will make a great stone to build my hunting lodge.” And so it’s not that he shot the witch, it’s that he took this special stone.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
He stole from her.

[Thomas]
Right. And so she curses him. And so when the descendant is at the house, the proximity to the runestone gives her her power.

[Shep]
So it’s the house and her simultaneously at night. Am I understanding this correctly? This is a lot of rules to establish.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Shep]
I think that we may be overthinking it.

[Emily]
We might be.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So the evil Regent, he’s got to figure it out, right? He knows she is the key, so he has to block her.

[Shep]
Oh, it’s two separate things. The runestone is what’s keeping him alive for 300 years, so that he can suffer longer. So the Regent plows down the cabin illegally at the end as revenge, because that’s what villains do. And so he collapses.

[Thomas]
It cracks the runestone, destroying it.

[Shep]
Right. So the prince collapses because now he’s going to die because he’s been alive for 300 years. And that’s when she kisses him and he stops dying and he’s fine. Beauty and the Beast.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because then you can have the villain be hauled off by the cops because he illegally tore down this cabin.

[Emily]
Well, they find some corruption in the thing, and then, like, he was doing something that Parliament wouldn’t approve of. And while he had some power, parliament had the real power, and he was abusing his limited regent power.

[Shep]
Right. He knew that the tourist cabin was fake because the regents are the ones that set it up and that the regent line has been passing that down as secret knowledge. So her coming back with proof that this cabin in the woods is the actual hunting cabin ruins his plans and he can’t let that happen.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So it comes out that he’s been lying about everything this whole time. He has been corrupt, his corruption is exposed.

[Emily]
Tries to kill the prince.

[Shep]
Tries to kill the prince.

[Emily]
But he’s arrested for the corruption part.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I like that you get that sort of false ending of like he’s like reinstated to the throne and everybody knows he’s the prince and everything’s great, but yeah. Then the Regent destroys the cabin, destroys the stone, and suddenly there’s a life-or-death conflict right at the very end.

[Emily]
So as he lays dying, she’s like, “I loved you all along.”

[Thomas]
Does she know that that’s going to save him?

[Shep]
No, she’s kissing him goodbye.

[Emily]
No, she’s just kissing him goodbye.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And then how do they fall in love, I think is kind of the only thing we’re-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We’ve skipped over the rom.

[Thomas]
But I feel like it’s probably pretty standard, right?

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like there’s nothing too wild here to figure out.

[Shep]
Thomas, they are both attractive and in a movie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, well.

[Shep]
What part are you not understanding? And they’re forced to spend time together.

[Thomas]
They’re forced to work together.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Even though they don’t get along at the beginning. How does he find out that she is the descendant of the witch? Or maybe she already knows that. Maybe she always knows that. That’s why she talks about magical reality, because she comes from a magical family. That’s why she moved back to this country, because her ancestor came from this country and she was a witch that had to flee to America. That’s why she has an American accent, not because we’re paying cheap actors and filming locally. How can we not afford to make these movies? We can really squeeze the budget on these. I’m just saying we can logic our way around dollars.

[Thomas]
So yeah. She’s looking for her ancestral cabin and stumbles upon-

[Emily]
Right. And then maybe he talks about, “Oh, this witch turned me into a bird.” And she’s like, “Yeah, I know. Was my grandma.”

[Shep]
“And you deserved it.”

[Emily]
“From what I understand.”

[Shep]
So does he steal from the witch or does he shoot the witch? Because I kind of want the witch to place the stone on the cabin to mark it and kind of curse him to this unending life. That’s why she- She recognizes the stone because it has her family mark on it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Hmmm.

[Emily]
That’s how she knows it’s the cabin.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
That’s how she knows for sure it’s the cabin.

[Shep]
She thinks it’s her family’s cabin because it’s got this mark on it, but he knows it was his cabin. And so they argue over whose cabin it was.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
He was there. He knows, but she thinks he’s lying.

[Emily]
And she’s like, “But it’s my family- It’s got my family mark on it.” And he’s like, “You’re the one.”

[Shep]
That’s great. If that’s at the very beginning. Because then we don’t have to have the bullshit fight at the end.

[Emily]
Right. Yes.

[Shep]
Let’s have it right away and have them be true enemies to lovers.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yeah, this is better.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Stop doing the bullshit fight at the end.

[Thomas]
Well, it’s because the thing at the end is not conflict between them.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
There’s other greater conflict that they have to.

[Shep]
Yes. We don’t need a conflict between them. By then, they’ve been working together most of the movie.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’re on the same team.

[Emily]
And gotten to know each other. Realized they are attractive and attracted to their attractiveness.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
They’ve just never expressed those feelings yet. And then when it comes down to literally the last moment, that’s when-

[Shep]
That’s when they realize-

[Thomas]
It’s now or never.

[Shep]
It’s now or never.

[Thomas]
So I think we have it, huh?

[Emily]
I think we do.

[Thomas]
Sounds like it. I like this story.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I think this one’s cute. I think it was good.

[Shep]
I think that it came together.

[Thomas]
Well. We would love to hear your thoughts on today’s show about a Birdhouse. Did we feather our nests or are we all bird brained? 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, where you can also find complete transcripts for every episode, as well as links to the many references we make. Emily, Shep, and I will hatch more great ideas on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Emily]
There’s a lot of sideways glances because there’s something there that wasn’t ever there before.

[Shep]
Right. She’s got a friend that she can talk to about this.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s got his friend in the park that he can talk to about, he hasn’t had these feelings before, but he’s been a bird for a very long time.

[Emily]
I might keep that to myself.

[Shep]
No, you got to spill it-

[Emily]
No, it’s because I’m like does the guy ever ask him, like, “So you were a bird for 300 years?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And he’s like, “You ever…. you know?”

[Shep]
“With another bird?”

[Emily]
“With another bird?”

[Thomas]
“I don’t peck and tell.”