Fire Extinguisher

References

• Backdraft
• WALL·E
• Hackers
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• H. Jon Benjamin
• Bob’s Burgers
• Archer
• Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
• Home Movies
  • Coach John McGuirk
• Mr. Freeze
• Ursa Major
• Ursa Minor
• Chicken Run
• Over the Moon
• Rocket Raccoon
• Rickey Raccoon
• Brigadoon
• Dune
• Home for a Bunny
• Secret Pizza Party
• The Teddy Bears’ Picnic
• Serenity
• Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
• Sirius
• Racoon Gets Sad when His Cotton Candy Dissolves in Water
• John Mulaney: New in Town
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• The Simpsons
  • Ravenous Ravenous Rhinos
• Capybara with mandarin orange on head

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
They’re put in the foster care system, but the foster care system lets them bring a fire extinguisher with them?

[Emily]
Well, I mean, it’s like their-

[Thomas]
It’s an emotional support fire extinguisher. So… There’s a little vest for it and everything they got on eBay.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, Story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. Joining me on the show are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Our object this week is fire extinguisher. And before we come up with a movie plot for a fire extinguisher, we’ll need to hear some pitches. I’ll pitch first this week. My first idea is pretty simple. A firefighter who is also a pyromaniac.

[Emily]
Backdraft.

[Shep]
So Backdraft. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. It’s a pretty done idea. So that’s why I only wrote the one sentence. My second idea, and perhaps the more serious one, an animated film about an animal in a junkyard that wants to fly to the moon and is building a rocket. It has everything it needs except for a propulsion device. It eventually finds and uses a fire extinguisher.

[Emily]
Now, is the fire extinguisher used or is it charged discarded fire extinguisher?

[Thomas]
It would have to be charged.

[Shep]
So the outer space scene in WALL-E, where he uses a fire extinguisher like a rocket-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Except if you’ve actually used a fire extinguisher, they don’t spray for very long. They spray for a few seconds. So it’s more like a bottle rocket.

[Thomas]
I believe it’s around 30 to 60 seconds, depending on the size of them.

[Shep]
60 seconds?! What fire extinguishers are you-?

[Thomas]
For one of the big ones.

[Shep]
Okay. One of the big industrial ones that they have in, like, apartment complexes that are as big as an eight-year-old child.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Sure.

[Thomas]
Those are mine, Shep, what do you have for us?

[Shep]
So I wasn’t thinking like a fire extinguisher canister, I was thinking like a fire extinguishing system.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Like a fire suppressant system.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That works.

[Shep]
So imagine a hacker is trapped on some floor in a high-rise office building where a fire is spreading, and they have to manipulate the fire suppression systems to extinguish the fire before it reaches their floor, because if they’re caught in the server room where they are, when the extinguisher activates, they’ll die because it’s one of the ones-

[Thomas]
Like a Haylon system.

[Shep]
Yes. So there is a time pressure.

[Emily]
That’s kind of cool.

[Thomas]
And then do they hack in and activate the sprinkler system and then come out and say, “Pool on the roof has a leak.”

[Shep]
Yes, that’s it. Exactly.

[Thomas]
Because that’s how that works.

[Shep]
And the other one is, someone is caught in an activated fire extinguisher, and it doesn’t kill them, but it extinguishes their inner spark. So kind of metaphorical.

[Thomas]
Interesting.

[Shep]
And you can combine these two. You could have someone who’s walking around like a zombie and has no zest for life and then have flashbacks to them trying and failing to stop the fire system from activating in the room they’re in.

[Emily]
Alright. I also have a sort of animated one. I thought it would be a half animated.

[Thomas]
Okay. So it’s like a Roger Rabbit sort of thing.

[Emily]
Yeah. Roger Rabbit style.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
A poor child turned a discarded fire extinguisher into an imaginary friend, and it helps this child overcome a traumatic event. Something like family-

[Shep]
Is the traumatic event a house fire?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Could be. It could be family member dying or they’re putting the foster care system, I don’t know, something nice and cheerful like that.

[Shep]
They’re put in the foster care system, but the foster care system lets them bring a fire extinguisher with them?

[Emily]
Well, I mean, it’s like their-

[Thomas]
It’s an emotional support fire extinguisher. So… There’s a little vest for it and everything they got on eBay.

[Emily]
I imagine that it’s animated when he’s talking to it, he sees a fully animated and alive creature, whereas everybody else just sees an inanimate fire extinguisher.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
So is it fully animated or does it just have an animated face on it?

[Emily]
That could also work.

[Shep]
Because making an animated face on a real fire extinction would be easy to do. Easier to do. Oh, the fire extinguisher is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin.

[Emily]
Yes. And he makes a couple of Bob’s Burgers / Archer jokes.

[Shep]
Why those and not Dr. Katz? Because I imagine the kid that went through this tragedy is going to psychiatrist.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s really good.

[Emily]
You know, it would be good if he was Coach from Home Videos trying to help him get through everything because Coach had some great words there. All right, so my second and final pitch is fire extinguishers are readily available almost everywhere. They’re just laying around in public all the time, making them the perfect murder weapon for a serial killer. In this week’s serial killer installment, we follow a man as he goes on a killing spree throughout the city using fire extinguishers.

[Shep]
So we’re seeing it from the killer’s perspective.

[Thomas]
You might even say he extinguishes lives all over the city.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
I mean, we wouldn’t say that. You would say that.

[Thomas]
I just did.

[Emily]
And imagine there are scenes where he beats them over the head to murder them, and then scenes where he sticks the hose in their mouth and just-

[Thomas]
Sure. Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s two. Now do eight more.

[Thomas]
You got one of the CO2 fire extinguishers and he freezes someone.

[Emily]
Yeah, there’s number three.

[Shep]
Like, Mr. Freeze, “Chill out.”

[Emily]
He could just alternate between the two. It’s still obvious that it’s the same killer.

[Shep]
Gotta be more ways to murder people with fire extinguishers then-

[Emily]
I’m sure there’s lots of other ways.

[Thomas]
You choke them with the hose.

[Shep]
There you go.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
All right, which one of these is jumping out at us?

[Emily]
The animated animal, I imagine he’s a raccoon, obviously. Right?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Or like a bear or he’s got a friend who’s a bear. I think he should be a raccoon.

[Emily]
Yeah, he has to be a raccoon. He’s got a friend who’s a bear.

[Shep]
His friend who’s a bear. That gets him started on astronomy because of Ursa Major.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, of course.

[Thomas]
He’s like bragging about it.

[Emily and Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He’s telling him the story.

[Thomas]
So the raccoon wants to go and put a raccoon on the moon.

[Shep]
Raccoon on The Moon. That’s the title.

[Thomas]
Well, thanks for listening to Almost Plausible I’ve been-

[Emily]
Yes. We’re done. What a good night.

[Thomas]
That’s his goal. He’s going to go to the moon. He’s going to carve a raccoon on the moon because he’s jealous that there are two bears in the sky and no raccoons.

[Emily]
Right. I’m on board. Is there a love interest raccoonette?

[Shep]
Are we making children’s movies with love interests? Is it a child’s rom-com? Like, I know that I’m always turning everything into a romance movie because that’s what I like, but I’m a million years old.

[Emily]
I was going to say all of the cartoons I remember watching as a child, with the exception of a handful, involve some sort of love story because I was programmed to believe that love was real and I would have a partner one day. Okay, no love interest. We got that-

[Shep]
I mean, you could have a love interest. He could be doing it to also impress her. Like she’s not into him. Or she could be like, “Hey, don’t do that. You have stuff here on Earth.”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, right. Because ultimately this can’t work.

[Emily]
Right. The fire extinguisher is not going to get him to the moon.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Is this like Chicken Run where it’s building up to a flight attempt?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, so there have to be failed attempts.

[Emily]
He tries-

[Shep]
He tries a catapult.

[Emily]
Tries a catapult.

[Shep]
Classic.

[Emily]
Well, obviously he starts with a pile to create a ladder or step system.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
That’s the initial attempt.

[Thomas]
So I’m a little bit concerned that this is an awful lot like the 2020 film Over the Moon, where she attempts to build a rocket out of junk.

[Emily]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
Oh, no, I didn’t realize this has been- I guess all ideas have been done, but.

[Thomas]
Right, but she’s not a raccoon and she does make it to space or something. I don’t remember, it’s been two years since I watched it.

[Emily]
Is this the Chinese one where she goes and meets the goddess on the moon?

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
No, it’s different enough because that one has to do with, like, her mom dying and the lunar festival and bringing back the sort of like- It’s different. We’re talking about a trash panda trying to gain glory and fame. This all has to do with family and acceptance. And I say we go with whatever we’re going with. And then if we find out it’s already a movie, then we make our apologies later.

[Shep]
I say we make the children’s book first and then have it adapted into a movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah. That’s basically how Hollywood works now.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
I’m serious about making a children’s novel, Raccoon on the Moon.

[Emily]
We should make the children’s book Raccoon on the Moon. So let’s skip this one and pick a different one.

[Shep]
Or we make the children’s novel in this one and say, “Okay. And then the movie version is the adaptation of that.”

[Emily]
Okay, let’s do that.

[Thomas]
The original premise of this show was that we were not going to be only doing movies, that we could also do other forms of media. So we could just do that for this episode.

[Emily]
Let’s do it.

[Shep]
Let’s take everyday objects and turn them into things.

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into children’s books.

[Shep]
There we go.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I am on board.

[Emily]
That makes my serial killer pitch a little bit different.

[Thomas]
He just is a guy who really loves breakfast. He’s just eating all that cereal.

[Shep]
Killing it.

[Thomas]
Killing it.

[Emily]
Killing it. All right. Raccoon on The Moon. His name is-

[Thomas]
Well, it can’t be Rocket, can’t it?

[Emily]
Can’t be Rocket. Can’t be Ricky. Let’s come up with a non-alliterative raccoon name and not Steve.

[Thomas]
Damn it.

[Emily]
Does he need a name? Can we just- because it’s a children’s book, we could just call him Raccoon.

[Thomas]
Could just be Raccoon and Bear.

[Shep]
What about the girl raccoon? You can’t call her Raccoon. Her name is June.

[Emily]
How about Edward? I think Edward the Raccoon is a fine, distinguished name.

[Shep]
So we’re not doing names that rhyme with moon. Calhoun? Boone?

[Thomas]
Brigadoon.

[Shep]
His name is Dune and the book is also called Dune. And the movie also called Dune.

[Thomas]
It’s very spicy children’s book.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
If we just call them by what they are. The love interest can come in the adaptation for the film and then-

[Emily]
That’s true. She doesn’t need to be in this one, cause it’s a kid’s book, and kids’ books don’t get love interests, only movies.

[Thomas]
Right. The love interest is there for the adults who have to sit through the kids movie.

[Emily]
That’s true.

[Shep]
Well, what’s the story in the- because I was thinking the story is you have stuff here on Earth, stop dreaming of the moon and start living your life here instead of planning for this unattainable future.

[Emily]
He meets her at the end.

[Thomas]
I was going to say, this is going to be a real deep cut, but there’s a Golden Book called Home for a Bunny.

[Emily]
Oh, I know that one.

[Thomas]
And he goes to all these different places looking for a place to live. And in the end, he meets a lady bunny and finds his home. And so, yeah, that was what I was thinking was we never find out what she’s called because he just meets her at the end. He just sees her and it’s like, “Oh, yeah, there are things here for me that wouldn’t be on the moon.” So does he go around and steal things? He’s got his little bandit mask on.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He should want to have a pizza party. That’s another reference that kids will understand.

[Shep]
So this is a children’s book encouraging stealing. Am I understanding this so far?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
I thought that he lived in a junkyard. He doesn’t need to steal anything.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
Everything’s provided for him.

[Emily]
Okay. He jumps around pile to pile.

[Shep]
He’s reusing and recycling and repurposing stuff.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
He’s very green.

[Emily]
So what is his cockpit made out of?

[Shep]
Is it an enclosed space or is it just like an easy chair with a fire extinguisher strapped to the-

[Thomas]
Yeah, and like a pair of skis.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
What if while he’s building it, he starts out with something like that after he’s tried the tower and it falls.

[Thomas]
Right. So he’s got balloons tied to a lawn chair.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
I don’t know where he’s getting balloons from.

[Shep]
Don’t think about it. The junkyard has everything. So he tries the tower. The moon’s too far. He tries the catapult.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It doesn’t throw him up far enough. He tries the balloons. Why don’t the balloons work?

[Thomas]
Because the wind blows him the wrong direction. He can’t control it. The moon is not perfectly straight up. It’s kind of off.

[Shep]
That’s good. Towards the horizon. So he’s like, I’m picturing him on the chair, like reaching out for the moon, trying to grab it, but he’s going the wrong way.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s very cute.

[Emily]
I think the junkyard dog should, because he’s been inside, he knows people, he’s seen TV. He can be like, “None of this is going to work. The moon doesn’t have any air.”

[Shep]
I’m picturing the junkyard dog as being educated and refined. Not how you normally picture a junkyard dog.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Shep]
But normally he’s wearing glasses and reading the newspaper.

[Emily]
Yes. He’s like, “Well, it’s not going to work. You have to be enclosed. It’s cold in outer space.”

[Shep]
It’s cold in outer space. So he gets a jacket.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
There’s no air. So he finds a fish tank to put over his head.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Like each iteration of his spacecraft, we meet another creature who’s helped him come up with that idea. So Bear has an idea, Fox has an idea, Owl has an idea. Like they all have different ideas.

[Shep]
That’s great. Why does he want to go to the moon? Because he’s lonely. There aren’t any other raccoons.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And if he puts a raccoon on the moon,

[Shep]
He’ll be famous.

[Emily]
People know who he is and they want to be his friend.

[Shep]
That’s- yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
This is great.

[Emily]
This is so adorable.

[Shep]
The treasure is the friends he made along the way.

[Emily]
I mean, this is the one time it works.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And also the lady raccoon he meets at the end who’s got bedroom eyes.

[Thomas]
Right. Does she have- oh, yeah. Okay. The last page, you print it so that the right hand page is where he sees the lady raccoon. You flip it, it’s the last page. The left hand page, you’re in her little- what the fuck do raccoons live in? Dens? Warrens?

[Emily]
Yeah, hole-

[Thomas]
Whatever they live in.

[Shep]
High rise condos. I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Yeah, but there’s like a little picture of a moon and there’s like little stars and stuff like that. Because she likes space.

[Shep]
Aww. What an amazing coincidence.

[Thomas]
Or maybe they’ve decorated it together. Whatever you want it to be.

[Shep]
So I like it if there is both in there because then it’s not sure.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Is this how her place always was? Or did they decorate it because they moved in together? Leave it ambiguous.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Leave it an open-ended children’s book that has multiple interpretations.

[Thomas]
Get them started thinking early.

[Emily]
This is right.

[Shep]
Well, I think we got it.

[Emily]
I mean-

[Thomas]
So how does the fire extinguisher play into this? How is it the critical piece?

[Shep]
It’s the last piece. It’s the final piece.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. The dog or whoever-

[Thomas]
Is the one who says “You need a rocket. You need something that’s going to shoot you up into space.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And so they look around and they find the fire extinguisher. Is that the one that works the best? It gets him the furthest?

[Emily]
Yeah. He tests it and it propels him far enough, so he knows-

[Shep]
If he uses up the fire extinguisher… So I say the final attempt is the easy chair on skis and the extinguishers on the back.

[Thomas]
It goes up a big ramp.

[Shep]
Yes. It goes on a ramp. It goes down a thing and then up a ramp to fly into the air. And it uses the extinguisher on the back like a rocket to propel it forward. So down and then up. So that’s the final attempt. Maybe he’s got wings on it at that point as well.

[Thomas]
And then does he have a little parachute so he can glide back down and not die?

[Emily]
Yeah, let’s teach some safety.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. His plan all along has been- because again, they’re animals. They don’t understand how it works. His plan is he’s just going to jump off of the moon to come back to Earth, and so he’ll need a parachute. So he knows from the beginning he knows he needs a parachute. So each failure he has to redeploy the parachute and float back down. So what is his plan once he gets there? Is he going to plant a flag? Is he going to do some exploration? Is he going to write a note on the moon or carve a raccoon face on it?

[Shep]
I like the flag one. If you just have a cute raccoon flag.

[Emily]
It’s a little stick drawing of him.

[Thomas]
It could just be a black and white striped flag. It could be the little, like, raccoon bandit mask thing on just like a white field.

[Shep]
I like that it’s just the child’s drawing of a raccoon.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s good. He’s in the junkyard.

[Emily]
Maybe that’s how he gets the idea of, like-

[Thomas]
He reads a book called Raccoon on the Moon.

[Shep]
It’s very self-referential.

[Thomas]
So how does he get the idea?

[Shep]
I thought that he talked to Bear.

[Emily]
Yeah. He’s sitting down talking to Bear.

[Thomas]
Okay. How does that connect with him being lonely or malcontent with the way things are?

[Emily]
Maybe they’re in the junkyard and Raccoon is like, “Hey, Bear, there are no other bears around here. And you always seem pretty happy. Aren’t you lonely?”

[Thomas]
“Do you ever wish there were other bears?” And he’s like, “There are other bears.”

[Emily]
Yeah. And then he tells them that Ursa Major consolation. “They’re always with me.”

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s cute. And then he says, “Where are the raccoons?” He’s like, “Oh, I don’t think there are any.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That sounds good to me.

[Emily]
That works.

[Thomas]
So I think there definitely needs to be a scene in our book where they’ve, like, done a few different attempts, and then they stop and have lunch. So you see them all, like, having a little picnic lunch.

[Emily]
And then they I like that, because then you can get back to like, a teddy bear picnic or-

[Shep]
I can see all of this. Don’t explain anything about where they’re getting all of this food, but they just have this board of-

[Emily]
They have their own charcuterie.

[Thomas]
Well, I imagine the story begins with Raccoon and Bear looking through the garbage bags for food.

[Emily]
Yeah. This is their friendship. They’re not really good friends.

[Thomas]
Right. Like, they never talk about what they’re doing. You just see that they’re like, pulling food out and putting it in a basket or something like that.

[Shep]
A grocery basket.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So you see what they’re doing until later when they’re eating their whole little picnic and having a grand old time. It should be right before the rocket launch, too. Like they have this big picnic and then-

[Emily]
It’s the going away party.

[Thomas]
Right, exactly.

[Shep]
The launch party.

[Emily]
The launch party. The animals come together and throw it for him.

[Thomas]
Because you can’t go to the moon on an empty stomach.

[Emily]
And that’s one of the lines.

[Shep]
Well, why not? It’s full of cheese, is that not-? And the junkyard dog is just shaking his head. So he has, like, a little lunch sack and all of his stuff, his jacket and his fish ball helmet and his parachute and a little baggy lunch.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So these are all things that you can see flying off of him as he’s tumbling back down.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So is the flag attached to the outside of the rocket and then the plan is to take it off and leave it on the moon?

[Emily]
Yes. And it should land right onto his head. Leaf on the wind.

[Shep]
Too soon.

[Thomas]
So do all the animals come together to help him build the ramp?

[Emily]
Yeah. Because I think he’s been collecting friends as he’s been collecting items, and so they’re all helping him get to it.

[Thomas]
Right. Maybe the first time is without the fire extinguisher. Like they push him off the edge and he goes down the big ramp and he comes up to the end and then just sort of plops off.

[Shep]
Yeah, I figured only the last attempt has the fire extinguisher.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. And that’s when Dog comes and is like, “You need a rocket, you need something to shoot you up into space.” Alright, well, this seems like a good time to take a break. And when we come back, we’ll continue with our story about a fire extinguisher.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back.

[Shep]
So what are the animals that help him?

[Thomas]
Fox and Owl. Bear. Trying to think of other typical nocturnal creatures.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Maybe, is there like a mouse or a vole or something?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, we got to have a mouse.

[Thomas]
Would it be a mouse or would it be a rat? This is a junkyard.

[Emily]
Junkyard rat.

[Shep]
So the bear gives them the idea. The dog-

[Thomas]
The dog suggests the fire extinguisher.

[Shep]
That’s the end though.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah. So maybe the fox is like, “The moon’s only out at night. It’s cold at night.” And the mouse-

[Thomas]
The rat.

[Shep]
The rat.

[Emily]
The rat gives him the idea about breathing?

[Shep]
Okay. I mean, rats are smart, so that tracks.

[Thomas]
Okay, so Fox has a fur coat on, so that’s why he knows about that. Why does Rat know about breathing?

[Shep]
Because he was a lab rat. He was raised by scientists.

[Emily]
And now he lives at a rose bush.

[Shep]
I’m just picturing him with a little lab coat on and you never explain it.

[Emily]
That would be really cute. I like that.

[Thomas]
Okay, works for me. So Owl has to give him some idea about flight.

[Emily]
The wings.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, the wings.

[Emily]
He has to give him the idea about the wings.

[Thomas]
Exactly.

[Emily]
“I use my wings to give me height and help with direction.”

[Thomas]
So which animal could give him an idea about the balloon? Or is that his own idea? That’s the first idea that doesn’t work.

[Shep]
I thought the first idea that doesn’t work is just piling up a bunch of stuff.

[Emily]
Pile-

[Thomas]
Oh, right.

[Emily]
I think the first day that doesn’t work is just piling things up. Yeah.

[Thomas]
And that’s Raccoon’s own idea. Okay.

[Emily]
He just thinks of that on his- because that’s how he gets into the dumpster.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
That’s how he reaches things. He knows that works.

[Thomas]
So who would give him an idea about a balloon? We already have one bird. Is there like a gecko or something? A nocturnal lizard.

[Emily]
Maybe a frog or toad?

[Shep]
That’s really good.

[Thomas]
Yes, a toad. Oh, that’s perfect.

[Emily]
Because he inflates to go up.

[Thomas]
Exactly. Yeah. So good.

[Shep]
So what order does that happen in?

[Thomas]
So Bear gives him the idea. Raccoon first tries to pile things up.

[Emily]
So then he meets Toad about the balloon? Do we want to just do the balloons or did we want to do the catapult in between?

[Thomas]
Well, he meets kangaroo who tells him to jump and no. Does he try the balloons…? The thing is, if he goes up and it’s windy, he might reasonably be cold.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So maybe Fox comes along, he sees the tower, he’s like, “What are you guys doing?” And so they explain it, he’s like, “Oh, well, you’re going to need to wear a coat because it’s cold up there.” And so he’s like, “That’s a good idea.” Is there an attempt there, though?

[Emily]
Because we had talked about there being like a catapult attempt or like a slingshot even.

[Thomas]
Oh, right, yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, either of those.

[Thomas]
So actually, that could be Bear’s contribution. So, like, them talking gives Raccoon the idea to do it. Raccoon says, “Oh, I’ll just pile stuff up” and that doesn’t work. And so then Bear has an idea.

[Emily]
Yeah. The Bear comes back and is like, “What are you doing?” “I’m gonna go to the moon.”

[Shep]
So what idea does Bear give him?

[Emily]
The slingshot / catapult? Trebuchet?

[Thomas]
I feel like slingshot is more realistic for a raccoon to build using junk.

[Emily]
Because Bear knows about slingshots because the junkyard owner’s kid shoots him with rocks all the time.

[Shep]
Or Bear uses a slingshot to get beehives out of trees.

[Emily]
Oh, also that.

[Thomas]
He has one tucked in his back pocket.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Just Bear wear overalls?

[Shep]
Absolutely.

[Emily]
So he teaches him about the slingshot and they build that.

[Shep]
Wait, when does Fox, give him the jacket?

[Emily]
I think maybe Fox should come along after the slingshot. So it’s just Raccoon on his own making the pile, then Raccoon and Bear making the slingshot. Then Fox comes along and is like, “What are you doing?” And he explains, and he’s like, “Oh, well, don’t forget the moon’s only out at night. It’s always cold at night, so you’re going to need a jacket.”

[Shep]
Okay, but what is his attempt at that point? Because he tried to pile things up and he tried the slingshot, the next is balloon, which is Toad.

[Thomas]
Actually, it should be before the slingshot because Bear is already there.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
And so Fox sees the big pile of stuff, or maybe he hears a big crash when- or just comes along and he sees, like, “What are you guys up to?” Maybe they’re building the slingshot or something like that. And then he sees… I don’t know.

[Shep]
It’s got to be before the slingshot, though.

[Thomas]
Right. They haven’t used it yet, but he sees they’re building it.

[Shep]
I think that he sees the tower of stuff they built up, and so he goes, “Hey, what is this tower that has appeared?”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And then he says, “It’s cold on the moon because it’s night, so take a jacket with you.” And he does. Tower fails.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Then Bear suggests the slingshot, which fails.

[Thomas]
It works a little bit better.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Each thing works a little bit better, but consistently fails.

[Shep]
The toad suggests balloons, the rat in the lab coat suggests the fish ball, and the owl suggest wings. This is one attempt?

[Emily]
Yeah. I think at this point he’s gotten, like a chair. Oh, no. Because the chair is used with the balloons. Right?

[Thomas]
Initially. Yeah.

[Emily]
So then the next attempt would be Owl saying, “Oh, I just use my wings.”

[Thomas]
So that’s when they build the ramp and they have the chair with the wings attached to it, and so they’re going to go flying off, but that doesn’t work. And then that’s when Dog shows up and talks to them about the fire extinguisher?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
We just have to figure out how Rat gets involved. Like, why does he suggest the fishbowl? Does he come along with…! So Owl has caught a rat. Oh, my God.

[Emily]
That’s where Rat comes from?

[Shep]
I think that’s great. Especially if you just see Owl holding the rat in his mouth when he first flies up. But then later, when they’re having the launch party, they’re each eating from the tray of stuff, and the rat and the owl are eating together.

[Emily]
Just friends now.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Thomas]
It doesn’t even need to be a rat in a lab coat. It could even be a mouse. It could just say “It’s hard to breathe up there.”

[Shep]
Yes, this all works.

[Thomas]
Where does the parachute come from?

[Emily]
Well, when he falls the first time from the tower, he gets a little hurt and he’s like, “Oh, that’s kind of high.”

[Thomas]
I was going to say maybe Dog could be their answer to a bunch of these things.

[Emily]
I like the idea of them getting a little bit stumped, and Dog being like “(Sigh)…”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
See, I like if Dog is there every time saying, “This won’t work because (whatever),” and then the other animal comes up with what they think is the solution.

[Thomas]
That’s good. I like that. Yeah. So Raccoon, Bear, and Dog are all friends. They’re all just hanging out to begin with, and he has astronomical stuff related to him. So both the dog and the bear have that and Raccoon doesn’t. So it adds more for Raccoon.

[Shep]
In that first conversation.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Does Dog get two contributions, then? He has the early one, where he suggests a parachute.

[Shep]
Does Dog suggest the parachute, or do you want to have another animal for that? Because I like the idea that dog isn’t giving any suggestions until the very end. Because he just keeps saying, “This is not gonna work, because (this). This is not gonna work because (that).” And then at the very end, he’s like, “Okay, fine. Here’s what you need.”

[Emily]
I do like the idea of maybe after he falls, the cat comes up and is like, “That’s a pretty steep fall there.”

[Shep]
“Yeah, you got to spread yourself out to catch the air.” And he’s like, “I can’t spread myself out.” “Well, then you need something.”

[Thomas]
He’s like, “I’m a hairy bowling ball.”

[Emily]
They find an old sheet.

[Thomas]
Yeah, sure. So then cat comes after… yeah.

[Emily]
So cats one of the earlier ones.

[Shep]
That would be after the fox.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, put it after the slingshot. Cat comes after the slingshot. So the tower, he doesn’t fall off the tower. He just can’t reach the moon.

[Shep]
Oh, he just can’t reach the moon.

[Thomas]
And so he climbs back down.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So the slingshot is the first time where he falls, and maybe he lands near where Cat is and startles Cat, and he’s like, “What the heck?” And so then they come back. And so Raccoon is like, “Cat has a great idea.”

[Emily]
Because then he has the parachute for when he’s in the balloons.

[Thomas]
And then he can just jump out of the chair. Oh, so they need a second chair because that chair just floats away. Because he jumps out of the chair.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
This is the lawn chair.

[Thomas]
That’s the lawn chair. And then the other one’s like a La-Z-Boy.

[Shep]
So Bear and Dog and Raccoon are hanging out, and Bear talks about his constellations. Dog talks about his star. And Raccoon’s like, “What about my needs?” And decides to go to the moon. Raccoon on the moon. He builds a big tower. Fox comes by, attracted by the tower and is like, “Oh, you need a jacket. It’s cold.” But as high as Raccoon builds the tower, he still can’t reach the moon. Bear suggests the slingshot because he has that slingshot. And they build a big giant slingshot and it fails, he falls down, lands near Cat. Cat suggests the parachute, comes back, Toad’s there, who suggests the balloons. They attach balloons to a lawn chair. He rides it up, and the wind blows him the wrong way away from the moon. So he jumps off and uses the parachute. Back at the junkyard, Owl flies up with a rat in his mouth and says, “You need wings.” And rat’s like, “It’s hard to breathe up there, so you need something to hold air.” And that’s where they attach wings to the lounge chair and put that on a big ramp. And Raccoon now wears a fishbowl on his head. Does he try this and it fails?

[Thomas]
I believe so, yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
I think he gets one attempt before the propeller.

[Shep]
Propeller?

[Emily]
Propellant. Sorry.

[Shep]
(Panicked) I thought I missed a step. I’m like “Who suggested…?”

[Emily]
No, no. Propellant.

[Shep]
Octopus suggested the propeller. Why is Octopus at the- Oh it’s one of the tree-dwelling northwestern-

[Emily]
The Northwest-

[Thomas]
He’s just like in a puddle.

[Shep]
Yes. So Owl suggests wings on the lounge chair and the ramp, and Rat says fishbowl, and they try that, and he just comes down and then falls immediately. And Dog has been saying that “This won’t work. This won’t work. This won’t work,” the whole time. And then he’s like, “This won’t work. You won’t go fast enough.” And they’re like, “Okay, you come up with a suggestion,” and he’s like, “Okay, here’s the fire extinguisher.” They attach that to the back of the chair with the wings and they do it again. And he gets a little bit further and lands near girl raccoon. End of book. Am I understanding it correctly? Oh, I missed the launch party.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
There’s a launch party.

[Thomas]
So that comes after the suggestion of fire extinguisher, but before the use of the fire extinguisher. Okay.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Because they’re convinced this is going to work. Dog has said every time it won’t work. And he’s been correct. He said this is the solution. So they just assume that that’s going to work.

[Emily]
Right. Do they get into the existential nature of “Why are you doing this, Raccoon?”

[Thomas]
I mean, I think that gets established at the very beginning, doesn’t it?

[Emily]
Okay. Yeah.

[Shep]
So it gets established at the very beginning and then at the end he says goodbye to all of his friends.

[Emily]
Yup.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. Because he hasn’t realized he made the friendships because he got his eye on the moon.

[Thomas]
He’s too focused.

[Emily]
Yeah. His eye is on the prize. He’s got ADHD, and this is his hyper focus moment.

[Thomas]
Is there a little scene where at lunch he’s like washing the food before he eats it?

[Emily]
Of course.

[Thomas]
And then the cotton candy disappears and he’s just so confused.

[Shep]
It’s a tragedy.

[Thomas]
That’s like the saddest little video clip, like, oh, that poor raccoon is just so like, “Where did it go?”

[Emily]
I haven’t seen this yet.

[Thomas]
Oh, you haven’t? Oh…

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
Well, it’ll be in the show notes.

[Emily]
Okay. I’ll find it.

[Thomas]
It is so crushing, this poor raccoon. He just wanted some cotton candy. It’s adorable and sad. At the very end, does he land near the girl raccoon or does he come back and have a conversation with his friends? And then she shows up somehow? She comes parachuting in. “I’ve just come from the moon.” She was a raccoon on the moon the whole time.

[Shep]
The book was really about her.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah. I think that he should come back and have a conversation with his friends, most of whom have not heard what his goal in this is.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right. Most of them are like, “We’re just helping a raccoon get to the moon.” Like, that’s all they know.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They don’t know why he wants to do the moon. Does maybe like Mouse or Fox say, you know, when he says, “I thought for sure this time it would work,” is one of them be like, “Why do you want to go to the moon?”

[Thomas]
Somehow that conversation from the beginning of him feeling like he’s missing something has to be brought up again.

[Emily]
Well he should definitely be dejected because this was the time that was supposed to work.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And maybe Dog, because Dog’s kind of the wise-

[Thomas]
I mean, he’s perhaps the most knowledgeable of how people do things, but I don’t think he’s necessarily any smarter than the other characters. He just knows things that they don’t know because he’s been exposed to television or something. So he comes back and he gives up. He says, “Forget it. That didn’t work.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
None of them have another idea.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
No other animals show up. They’re like, “I don’t know, I don’t know. We tried everything.” And so someone says, maybe Bear is the one who brings it up again.

[Shep]
By the time he gets back, Rat is just missing and then no one says why.

[Thomas]
So, yeah, I like the idea that Bear is the one who brings it back up and says, he basically has his little one sentence thing about, “Oh, I’m sorry that this is going to be the way things are.” And then all the other animals are like, “Wait, what? We’re all your friends, aren’t we?” And that’s when he realizes. He realizes that but that’s only half of what he’s interested in. Because the original thing was, Bear always has a companion. Dog always has a companion. So he says something about, “Oh, I’m really happy I have a bunch of friends, but none of you guys are raccoons. I want a raccoon friend,” or something like that. And then how does she show up?

[Shep]
Dog just puts on a raccoon mask.

[Thomas]
And lipstick.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And a red dress.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So Lady Raccoon shows up with a suitcase. She’s new in town.

[Shep]
She’s gay, she has AIDS.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
She’s new in town.

[Shep]
Why do we need a girl raccoon anymore?

[Emily]
Maybe we don’t need their girl record anymore. We were just trying to hammer that in because I had suggested there be a romance if it was going to be a movie. And we can leave that up to whoever options of this book.

[Shep]
Right. If it’s in a movie, yes, definitely add the girl character. But if it’s just the kids book.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So it’s just about him getting the friends then, or realizing that he has these friends.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I think that works.

[Shep]
Do they talk about how he has friends now, or does he not even realize it?

[Emily]
At the end, end?

[Shep]
At the end.

[Thomas]
Why would they not talk about it?

[Emily]
We need to talk about that he has friends because it’s sort of the point. They are children.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s a kid’s book. You kind of have to spell it out.

[Emily]
Just a little bit.

[Shep]
I say, don’t spell it out. I say, he continues to plan his next thing to make friends, and all of his friends are there going, “Okay, we’ll help you.”

[Emily]
Yeah. I do also like that idea. Maybe he picks a different project instead of going to the moon. “Well, I didn’t make it to the moon, but I could be a chef.” And he pulls out some knives in a spatula and a chef’s hat.

[Thomas]
That would be very funny. Puts on a little blue chef’s hat.

[Shep]
So the sequel book would be Raccoon in a Restaurant.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So going back to the whole last page, there’s no text. It’s just a picture of something. It’s him at a teppanyaki restaurant, and there are a bunch of animals sitting around the thing.

[Emily]
Just doing teppanyaki for the animals.

[Thomas]
And he’s just doing teppanyaki at the animal restaurant.

[Shep]
I love it.

[Thomas]
That’s more like Raccoon Can’t Decide What He Wants to Do for A Living and He Thinks He’s Going to Be an Astronaut and Then Gives up And Becomes a Chef.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh. Cause he makes lunch for all of his friends as a thank you for helping, because he’s collected all this food at the beginning.

[Emily]
For the launch party.

[Thomas]
So he makes lunch for everybody and they’re like, “This is really good.” And so he decides to open a restaurant.

[Emily]
He made friends and he learned about himself. He’s adulting better than I do.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. So his whole thing is he wants to be known, right?

[Shep]
He wants to be known. This is where you have the final animal show up because “I heard that there’s really good food here.”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
What’s the final animal?

[Thomas]
Well, the octopus, obviously.

[Emily]
What’s something that’s always hungry?

[Thomas]
Yeah. What’s, always hungry?

[Shep]
Caterpillars?

[Emily]
Oh, caterpillar. I think a caterpillar would be good.

[Thomas]
Or is it like a bunch of something like a bunch of caterpillars or a swarm of locusts?

[Emily]
Just a bunch of ravenous ravenous rhinos.

[Thomas]
Excellent reference. I love the idea that it’s like, these are all like typical North American creatures, and then a hippopotamus shows up at the end.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Like, what?

[Emily]
It’s a capybara.

[Thomas]
Actually, I was thinking earlier, how do we get a capybara in there?

[Emily]
Because they’re friends with everyone.

[Thomas]
I would say the capybara would be the wise one. He’s just there steaming in his little pool with this mandarin orange on his head. That’s like, the best thing on the Internet. So it’s not that raccoon wants to be famous. He wants to be known for something, or he wants something named after him.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s the constellation that’s named after the bear. There’s the star that’s named after the dog, but there’s nothing that’s named after him. He’s going to go claim the moon.

[Shep]
I think we have it.

[Emily]
I think we do, too. I think it’s a good one.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show. Was it fire or were you put out by it?

[Shep]
I always try not to groan and it always just comes out.

[Thomas]
Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com We hope you enjoyed the show. Emily, Shep, and I will get together again on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]