Jordan Morris Created a Satirical Comedy Audio Drama about Monsters

June 12, 2018 8:06 am

Podcasts have come a long way from the “two white guys talk about random stuff” format that dominated feeds in podcasts infancy. Though those relics still exist, each day creative folks continue to experiment and now a more diverse set of podcasts exists compared to even just a few years ago. Comedians and veteran podcasters, Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn, have grown with the medium, as well. Their hit comedy podcast Jordan, Jesse, Go! recently surpassed 530 episodes but now they’re trying their hands at something new with their scripted sci-fi comedy podcast, Bubble.

From the Maximum Fun studios who brought you The Adventure Zone, Judge John Hodgman, and My Brother My Brother and Me, Bubble is an 8-episode scripted narrative podcast that’s hard to properly confine inside a particular genre. It’s part comedy, part sci-fi, part horror, and part cultural statement. Complete with an all-star comedy cast, Bubble is narrated by Tavi Gevinson and stars Alison Becker (Parks and Recreation), Keith Powell (30 Rock), Cristela Alonzo (Cristela), Eliza Skinner (The Late Late Show) and Mike Mitchell (Love). Sprinkled throughout the season is a loaded bench including Judy Greer, John Hodgman, Rob Corddry, Paul F. Tompkins, the McElroy brothers, Aparna Nancherla, Martin Starr and others.

Bubble takes place in the fictitious town of Fairhaven, a place where health-conscious hipsters are quick to tell you of the latest food trends but just outside their quaint neighborhood are human-eating monsters. Nobody seems all that concerned about the monsters, but the story follows a group tasked with hunting them via their gig economy app, Huntr.

Morris, who along with co-creating JJGO, was also a writer on the Comedy Central show @midnight. He originally wrote Bubble in hopes of expanding his TV resume. Morris tells me, “to help promote and get it out there, I decided to do a staged reading of it.” After performing the reading, and subsequent recording, there was minimal buzz and interest from his initial target audience. Studios, as Morris recalls, “really liked it but said it’s really weird and would be expensive to make.”

But then the recorded pilot amassed a cult-like following and fans continued to voice their interest. Morris remembers, “people kept asking. A few times a week I’d get requests for more.”

Unsurprisingly, the TV pilot Morris wrote needed a few tweaks for the podcast adaptation. “One of the big things is taking the clinical stage directions and giving them more life and personality.” The “life” and “personality” didn’t only manifest itself in the sound editing and production, but ultimately became an integral element of the podcast format: a narrator would walk listeners through the story. It’s worth pointing out, the narrator (Gevinson) isn’t merely there for stage-setting, she has a full personality and often acts as comic relief calling back old references.

Bubble is yet another example of the ever-expanding diversity of podcasts. Audio dramas and fiction podcasts aren’t necessarily new, but they continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible on the podcasting medium. Adding in a heavy comedy element — with this level of production, no less — is much less common. Asked about these changes in podcasting, Morris predicts, “chatty talk shows will always be a part of podcasting, but people are going to experiment and use podcasting as an artistic outlet. People are going to mess around with what people think of as a podcast. People are going to get more daring.”

Bubble premieres with the first episode of the 8-episode series on June 13th.

Images courtesy of Ibarionex Perello for MaximumFun.org