Exorbitant Porridge, this whole robot radio drama collection, came out of a segment I made for mpls.tv. I had a script, and was figuring out how to shoot it with people, and I decided to a “scratch track,” just to see the timing and to give everyone an idea of what I was thinking. I ended up using that scratch track as the basis for the stop motion animation, and the piece aired on local access cable in the fall of 2009.

What I found was that I had a cast of voice actors who did whatever I told them, except enunciate clearly some times. Then I really had fun.

The line that people really reacted to most in that first drama was the wife’s “I’m not crazy.” It’s true, robots arguing in domestic situations is funny, either because of their flat delivery or our refusal to back robot marriage legislation, but it was on to something and I ran with it. Most of these dramas, especially the early ones, are kitchen sink dramas, told by robots.

You do enough editing with a pair of headphones on and you realize great audio clips have a good sense of interior, they make you feel like you’re in the room with the actors. Like theater vs. television. The challenge was now to put the listener in the room with the robots, to get them to visualize what they were hearing. I think people like to play “name that sound” when they listen to radio. And people always like to win, so you have to keep it simple. (For some great examples of how good sound editing can put you in a scene, I highly recommend Andy Sturdevant’s Mystic Soundscapes).

If I were to just pick my favorites, it’d pretty much be the jokes the still make me laugh. Some of those are in here, but these are ten that I thought were a nice cross section of what to Exorbitant Porridge is all about.

Some are a single joke. Some are a single joke that builds. Some have a twist ending. At least one is a three act structure. Almost all of these owe their structure to sitcoms like “Leave it to Beaver”, that mythical America where the sun shines brightly and everything is clean. After all, in the future, the robots will keep everything immaculate, and probably suffer the same delusions of grandeur as we all do.


Two Robots Having Lunch
This came out of a conversation I had with my wife one morning while I was making my lunch. For some reason I thought a fake English accent was a good idea as an intro. I just didn’t want to sound like myself.

A Family of Robots Having Dinner
Probably my favorite. If this was the only one I made, it would’ve been worth it. I originally wrote this in college, but with a human family that had a 3 year old daughter who wanted to be a drummer, much to the dad’s glee and the rest of the family’s annoyance. It’s also easy to take lame jokes, and put a robot spin on them. If you want to know about my childhood, this is pretty much it.

A Police Chief Solves A Robot Murder
My first three act radio drama. We finally find out what happened to Rachel 7X7787’s son. I like the interstitial music. And the whole man vs. robot struggle at the center of the murder gets existential. Think about it. 

A Robot Buys A VHS Player
The witchcraft line probably reveals everything you need to know about the attitude of robots in the Exorbitant Porridge world.

A Robot Shops for a New Schtick
I wrote this one over a few times. It’s also my first foray into pre-recorded foley sounds. Up until now, most of the ambient audio was done by me and the mic, which was hard to control.

Some Robots At A Party
We’ve all been to a party like this.

Two Robots Go Camping
When I did the sound design for this, I imagined my toddler niece and nephews in a tent. Fits of silence followed by very intent movements. A toddler doesn’t do anything smoothly. Everything is very deliberate, with a lot of force. I imagine robots would be the same way. At least the EP robots are like that. On or off. None of this gentle programming those fancy robots have.

A Robot On the Wrong Side of Town
This was supposed to reflect how absurd “get back on your side of the tracks” thinking is, even though you’ll find it in every city you visit. I like how this spirals out of control.

A Robot Bombs
I really liked this idea. I’m not sure if it was executed as well as it could have been. There was even a sequel that I wrote, “A Robot Bombs Again.” Maybe someday I’ll put it out there.

Two Robots Eat Macaroni
Simple? Yes. Absurd? Yes. A nicely contained example of the world of Exorbitant Porridge? Yes.

Thanks for listening.