
A few carryovers from the previous thread:
@MyWy 's Google sheet is currently the master version, and the best one to use. Click on his name and message him to gain access.
He’s even gone so far as to insert bits of dialogue next to the time codes, just in case you’re watching from a slightly different cut of the movie (I’m using the archive.org print, which is cleaner and doesn’t get interrupted by commercials every time I try to rewind and go back and rewatch a previous bit, but does appear to be a few seconds off from the YouTube cut.)
MyWy’s spreadsheet is broken up by theater segments and commercial breaks, each of which appears as a separate tab down at the bottom of the spreadsheet (1a, 2b, 2a, 2b, etc.)

For those who want to write on their own separately, or are mainly interested in skits, the breaks we decided on in the previous thread are as follows:
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Intro segment/Commercial sign/Invention exchange
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**Movie segment 1A (00:01-08:14)** (Intro and Matheny bits)
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Commercial sign 1
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**Movie segment 1B (08:15-15:59)** (The first time we see the ship; the bell’s accident; Mallard talking to the press)
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Host segment 1
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**Movie segment 2A (16:00-24:07)** (The divers survive and make it to the cave; Mallard tells the press there’s no hope)
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Commercial sign 2
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**Movie segment 2B (24:08-31:49)** (The survivors explore; radar detects something)
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Host segment 2
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**Movie segment 3A (31:50-42:09)** (The survivors look for an exit, and find cave Torgo)
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Commercial sign 3
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**Movie segment 3B (42:10-51:01)** (The survivors check the volcano; Mallard flies to California)
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Host segment 3
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Movie segment 4A (51:02-58:56) (Mallards and Matheny get ready for another dive)
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Commercial sign 4
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Movie segment 4B (58:57-67:14) (The exciting climax!)
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Host/end segment 4
If you’re sitting down to write a skit, keep these breaks in mind so that any movie events you’re thinking of referencing have already occur prior to the placement of your host segment. (Gotta maintain the illusion that the bots are watching the movie at the same time as the audience… even though they broke this rule on occasion during the first couple of Joel seasons)
Yes, I have come up with my own pitch for the Intro Segment and both Invention Exchanges, which you can view here, but WE HAVE NOT VOTED TO GO WITH ANY PARTICULAR PERSON’S IDEA(S) YET.
ALL INVENTION EXCHANGE AND HOST SEGMENT SLOTS ARE STILL OPEN AND ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS.
If you have an idea for a skit or invention exchange… post it.
I went pretty deep down the rabbit hole when it came to making storyboards for mine. You don’t have to get quite that crazy, but if you have the artistic skill to provide storyboards, concept sketches, or any other sort of visual reference to go along with your skit, I highly recommend it. A picture is worth 1000 words, and that especially go for things like the invention exchanges which typically involve physical props of some kind that might be hard to visualize otherwise. (If you aren’t a natural artist, then go the 1000 words route, and try your best to describe in detail what you envision happening on screen.)
The more complete and fleshed out your skit ideas are the better. Simply saying “the bots do something funny involving sharks and finger sandwiches” isn’t helpful. Explaining (or better yet, showing) exactly how Crow is wearing one of those goofy shark costumes intended for small dogs and locked in a life and death struggle with a multi-tubed GPC octopus, while Tom and Jonah (or whoever you imagine as host) stand around oblivious to his peril while munching loudly on finger sandwiches and arguing in minute detail about the various differences between a diving bell and a bathosphere… See, you can actually picture that in your mind.
Providing at least some rudimentary rough draft dialogue to show how the skit and it’s various gags play out and fit together will give everyone a better idea of whether they think your concept will work, and has enough going for it that it’s worth the effort of developing into a final script.
WE DO NOT HAVE A SET TIME FRAME FOR THIS PROJECT, but are currently in the “freestyle” riffing phase. This will probably take us at least a few more weeks, but if you want to participate, I recommend wading in now, as this sort of comedy writing takes a lot longer than you might think (it only looks easy and spontaneous when Joel and the bots do it).
Once it looks like we’ve got a fairly full spreadsheet the next stage will be anonymous voting on the assembled riff and sketch ideas to decide upon the basic framework that the episode with be built upon. Even if you don’t feel up to contributing jokes or host segments of your own, you can still assist at this stage to help judge the submissions of other and decide what’s “comedy gold” enough to make it into the rough draft script.
But wait. The experiment’s only just begun! After that, we’ll be looking to polish and plug gaps in the draft script to tie all the various bits together into a (mostly) coherent product that feels like a real episode. If you missed the first round of riff-writing, you can still make suggestions at this stage, but it will mainly be restricted to suggesting slight tweaks to improve the existing voted upon host segments (ex: “Maybe when Max says Hamdingers, he can do it in a posh London accent”?) or helping to shore up sections of the theater riffing that have been identified as being a little weak (ex: We’ve got a 3 minute segment about 2/3 of the way through the movie where the cast are just sort of milling about aimlessly in the cave system and nothing happens. We’re looking for jokes or joke suggestions that can be used at these timecodes to keep the riffs flowing.)
After that, we’ll be figuring out production. What that’s going looks like? We’ve got no friggin’ clue! You’ll have to help us when we get to that stage. At minimum though, we should be able to pull off a caption-only text overlay over a print of the movie that gets uploaded to YouTube or someplace similar. And if you feel like you joined too late, other people have beaten you to all the good jokes, or don’t like this particular movie and want to sit this one out and wait for the next one, I suspect this is going to go well enough that we’ll be able to make at least a couple of these Fanficisodes each year.
NOTE: Edited to remove some production discussion stuff that should probably wait until we get closer to actual production, so it it doesn’t interfere with riff and skit discussion