Episode III: The King and Us

The third episode was an attempt at doing a real episode for television. We formulated a full storyline, aimed at the commercial-friendly 22-minute range, and set to work. After the events of the first episode and all the controversy it spurred, President Czar had been rising in popularity as one of our favorite characters, as well as our readers. So instantly he went to the head of the class for a major role in the third episode.

At the same time, the Tri-Lambda fraternity had been rising in popularity and in many ways supplanting the professors as the stars of the comic series. Obviously this had never been the intent, but as their ranks grew, so did their usefulness in strips. So the two elements seemed like a perfect match.

The Making Of

The hardest aspects in the third episode turned out to be balancing the large cast and wrangling in the non-linear storyline. Unlike the two previous episodes, this episode’s storyline jumped around a bit. That made it a little difficult to keep the audience up to speed on exactly what was occurring, and why. Indeed, a criticism laid against the episode is often that people get confused by the end. Whether the ending is too obtuse or not is to be debated I suppose, but we think it’s fairly clear.

The other issue, the large cast, wasn’t entirely distinct from the second episode except for the large number of characters each with their own storylines and large amounts of dialogue. This wasn’t introducing a tight-knit bunch like the Catholics from the previous episode, but instead this required each character introduced and their relationships established somewhat with one another. It also saw the characters in large groups moving about, and not where we could pull back as we did in the second episode. So, a bit on the complicated side, but it also led to the most “complete” episode of the series.

Trivia

The theft of the newspaper by the administration is based upon a real incident committed by the administration of Murray State University.
Shortly after work was completed on this episode, a fraternity at Murray State University stole a large number of student newspapers.
The Big Red character is actually the mascot of Western Kentucky University, but no suitable voice could be decided on for him. Instead, he grunts all of his lines.
The changing of the student center’s name early in the episode is a reference to TV stars who bomb as film stars.
Gabrielle Byrne was the inspiration for both the look and voice of Satan.

Cast and Crew

Barry Cooper