The benefit of the weekly release schedule is that it's giving me time to sort of work on the show in real time, and react to what people are liking or not liking. Hopefully, this'll mean that it gets better as it goes along. Your feedback is very much welcome.
If you're enjoying... please share the video, tell your mates, like it on YouTube, and subscribe to the channel. It's even more important with this episode, which - not having had the benefit of being the series premiere - needs all the boosts it can get. All of that is going to help ensure we do more in a similar vein. Anything you can do to help will be warmly received.
But anyhow. Time for some behind-the-scenes trivia.
SPOILER WARNING: Do not read on unless you have watched Advanced Strangulation!
The Human Orchard replaced another sequence that had originally been in the ep. To be honest, the other sequence - it was called Cheese Holes - was one of the first things we shot and I think I was still searching for the tone of the show.
After showing it at the launch party, I decided it wasn't working as well in this episode as I'd hoped. It also featured Tom and Yiannis, who were in Dream Drawings as a different double act, and that felt odd and confusing two episodes in a row.
So... I've moved Cheese Holes to a later episode, and will be using it in a slightly different way to my original plan.
Therefore, over to this double act instead. I wrote a script for The Human Orchard, but - knowing they probably wouldn't have learned their lines - I let Paul and Iain just riff around it. They're kind of perfect for Found Footage really, because both of them - and I hope they won't mind me saying this - do have a touch of the dark in their souls. Before our eyes the two brothers came to life.
They'll be back. Very soon.
But Stuart's unhinged bellowing here is exactly right, I think. And it's inspired by a really weird vintage Jenga ad I found, where people keep shouting "Jenga!".
Jengo Spores - or Jenga Spores - dates back to a Christmas many years ago, when my mate Anthony was over, and we played Jenga with the kids after a few too many sherries. We came up with an "extreme" version of the game which shot fungal spores into your eyes whenever you removed a brick.
Oddly, we went on holiday to Scotland together with our families a couple of years ago, and there was a Jenga game on a shelf in one of the cabins. On that occasion we came up with another new version of Jenga inspired by the German family in the next cabin, called Das Schtack.
Basically... after Wozniak, I wanted to write a song about a computing genius that was a bit closer to home. Sir Clive is the obvious candidate. And then I tried to think of the most disrespectful thing I could possibly write about him - which is that he invented a machine for sucking other people's solid waste into his own bowels, and - following a malfunction - now has a prosthetic rectum.
Who's the sexy dancer in the video? He shall remain nameless.
Without prompting, he gave me two versions, one that was a bit more upbeat and traditionally advert-y voice... and this weird, worn-down, slightly embarrassed version.
And get this: the same guy did the Jengo Spores voice-over! He so versatile.
THE SLOTH.
We passed this church on the island of Korcula on the first day, and I knew it was perfect. In the slow motion bit where I'm "breakdancing", watch when my foot hits the ground. I was in agony. Also, the weird shuffling/snorting was inspired by a waxwork of Marco Polo's nanny that we saw earlier in the week at a museum in the town of Korcula (named after the island) .
This is here, because part of the purpose of Dream Drawings and Advanced Strangulation was to reintroduce some of the ideas of the show to people who hadn't seen it before - so, Goujon John, Music Chute, Xenoxxx etc.
It's still really surreal that we've become mates with Asperger's Are Us, having watched their Netflix documentary last year without realising they were fans of The Man's Daddy thanks to Chris Bell's Super Page 58 site - the oldest and greatest Digitiser tribute site on the Interwobs.
Right. That's it then. Again, please spread the word. Another episode next week, featuring the return of Sting and Funtron 8! Unless I change the episode between now and then...