#if i had a nickel for every time a linda cardinelli character went hitchhiking because jack kerouac did it and she thought it was cool... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

divorcedfiddleford · 5 months

Text

ok last thing i SWEAR im gonna shut up after this but i just wanted to post michael rianda's outline for the jack kerouac wendy episode that i mentioned. it definitely needed a lot of work but i do like it in concept. image ID/transcript below the cut (warning it's LONG)

[image 1 ID: a screenshot of a tweet from michael rianda. it reads: "I Found a Lost Wendy Episode of Gravity Falls! We were always trying to crack a Wendy episode. This was my favorite. I love the teenage feel of wanderlust + getting excited about reading "On the Road." I love the backstory and flaw. It didn't work but I always liked it." end image 1 ID.]

[image 2 ID: a screenshot of michael rianda's outline. from here i will simply transcribe what he has written, only fixing typos that interrupt screen readers.

Episode 3. Wendy's "On the Road" This is the first in a series I did where I wanted to get to know a character better, and I started with that desire, and followed it through.

Cold Open: A woman answers a phone at a Wal-Mart type superstore place. Wendy's on the other end with Dipper and Mabel. She asks to be transferred to extension 234. Extension 234 connects them to the stores loudspeaker speakerphone. Wendy starts making joke announcements over the loudspeaker: Wendy: "Clean up to aisle 6, customers seem to be projectile vomiting all over eachother." Mabel and Dipper are laughing hysterically. The woman can't hang up on Wendy so she calls the cops. Wendy's still going. Soos asks if she could get in trouble for it. Wendy brushes him off. Then the cops show up. Stan sees Wendy arrested and swells with pride- "she HAS been learning from me (quietly weeps) I'm so proud."

Act One: Open on Manly Dan... by his age it must be the past- he teaches his boys to chop wood and they're all struggling. A huge tree drops in the distance. When the dust clears... it's little Wendy. He tells her to climb aboard his shoulders my little axechild! They happily gallop off. They love each other. It's very sweet. Cut to present day: A confrontational Manly Dan is bawling Wendy out for getting in trouble for the prank phone call. He tells her not to be so impulsive and do the first thing that pops into her head. Wendy insists Manly Dan is the most impulsive person she knows, besides the cops left her off with a warning. She brushes it off by saying she has to go to work.

B story. (Not sure what)

Wendy's reading On the Road at work. She's getting progressively more pumped about this book. Mabel asks what it's about. She explains it all and the kids are pumped. They're swept up in this romanticized teenage vision of hitchhiking on the open road. Stan has to leave for some secret portal reason and Wendy's like: "Let's do this right now!" (Secretly she just doesn't want to go home and deal with her dad.) "Let's do it let's just hitch hike. Leave town! Start a new life! Like Jack Kerouac!" Mabel is enamored.

End image 2 ID.]

[Image 3 ID: picking up from the transcript of the previous image:

Soos is wary of leaving the shop at first. But Wendy talks them into it. A couple of her friends come. Lee, Nate, Thompson, and Tambry. They get on the road and are immediately having fun. Things are looking up. Soos is worried. Wendy: "Easy Soos, we're in Oregon... it's just going to be a bunch of nice hippies..." Cut to a terrifying crazy red eyed driver without a face driving towards them. Act break.

Act Two: Wendy and Co are having fun just like you should on a road trip/vagabond adventure. They're stopping at mini-marts and getting lame snow globes- and making fun of them. Things are looking good. It's like a road movie. They all relate to each other about problems with their parents. Wendy doesn't say much but she has a flashback to her and her dad drifting apart.

Stan B Story.

The scary faceless driver comes by and offers them a ride. (they can't see his ghoulish faceless self) Wendy immediately says yes before anyone else can decide. People are like "I don't want to go hitch-hiking." "Wendy: It'll be fine! Come on- this is the adventure of our lives. People in those stories never said, no I'm scared." She makes them all go in. It's creepy and tense in the car. Eventually the guy reveals himself to be a horrifying ghoul face and locks the doors. They all go screaming into the distance.

Act Three: He takes them to the "End of the Road" Diner. Or you hang a lampshade on it and have it be Bob's Big Boy but with a David Lynch head on the outside. There are other people that get taken there and stay forever and are sort of these lost souls that are stuck there. From all different eras. It's like this terrifying Lynch-ian dark version of an idyllic road trip stop. Basically it's a Lynch parody fest with Soos and Mabel. Like these little creepy old couple are walking in fast motion out of a wall and Soos is pushing them back in. "Whadda you doin grandma and grandpa... get outta that mouse hole. Get back in that mouse hole you goofs." (Probably too insane) Anyway, everyone wants them to have "the special" and after you eat the special, you stay there forever. Wendy's really guilty that all this is her fault.

End image 3 ID.]

[Image 4 ID: the last of the transcript:

Wendy wants to impulsively react, but remembers her dad. She thinks carefully what to do and comes up with a plan- and chops down a tree on the driver. They all come home- relieved to be back in Gravity Falls, and her dad is chopping wood in the back- he's still mad at Wendy.

Wendy: Hey... Dad? Manly Dan: (grunts) Wendy: Can I chop some wood with you? Manly Dan just nods and waves her off. They fell the tree. Manly Dan: Haha! That's my little axechild! Wendy smiles and keeps chopping.

Something like that- obviously a lot of variables to be figured out- but I love the teenage feeling of this and love that it gives Wendy a story and a flaw. Still needs work to make her better but it's a start.

End image ID.]

#gravity falls #tales of the wild zeep #like it's not perfect but it's at least SOMETHING. god #anyway going to be bitter forever that this couldve been our road trip episode and instead we got fucking roadside attraction #also... dan calling her 'my little axechild'... trans wendy is so fucking real you guys #if i had a nickel for every time a linda cardinelli character went hitchhiking because jack kerouac did it and she thought it was cool...#...i'd have one nickel. which is a shame because if they made this episode i could've had two

34 notes · View notes