846-Aug19-Tues

comedy4cast #846

"Strange Drive"

Written by

Clinton Alvord

CAST

(in order of appearance, where possible, otherwise by actor)

ID ANNOUNCER.......................COMPUTER
CLINTON............................CLINTON ALVORD

INTRO: COMEDY4CAST STUDIO

MUSIC: COMEDY4CAST NETWORK ID STING

ID ANNOUNCER

The comedy4cast network. Let's dog ear that for now.

MUSIC: ID MUSIC UP AND OUT.

CLINTON

Oh, hi! Clinton here. Welcome to the Dog Days of Pumpkin Spice Season.

MUSIC: OPENING THEME MUSIC IN AND UNDER.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Yes, August got away from me because -- life. So, this is my unofficial extension of Dog Days. For more information on that, go to dogdaysofpodcasting.com.

I always use Dog Days to give you 31 episodes full of some interesting, yet totally useless Odd News. And this year, to celebrate the Platinum Anniversary of comedy4cast, or PAC for short, I'll end each Dog Days episode with part of a classic comedy4cast episode. So, let's get started with "Odd News PAC"!

MUSIC: THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT.

SFX: TRANSITION WHOOSH.

STORY: TICKET TO RIDE

CLINTON

When it comes to traffic violations, they say there's never a cop around when you need one". Of course, the exception to that rule is when YOU happen to make a SLIGHT mistake at a yield sign and then suddenly there's an entire fleet of squad cars parked right across the way, and everyone saw what you did.

SFX: MULTIPLE SHORT POLICE CAR SIREN NOISES.

CLINTON (cont'd)

It's a fair cop.

But, here's a story that flips all of that onto it's head.

Recently, in San Bruno, California, a police...

A SHOW PRODUCER speaks gibberish over a tiny earpiece.

CLINTON (cont'd)

What's that?

A SHOW PRODUCER speaks gibberish over a tiny earpiece.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Well, I just thought that...

A SHOW PRODUCER speaks gibberish over a tiny earpiece.

CLINTON (cont'd)

We're not allowed to talk about San Bruno. No? No. So, I'll just make up a town name. Uh. San Scrit? San Disk? San D'wich.

A SHOW PRODUCER speaks gibberish over a tiny earpiece.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Okay! I'm getting to the story! Sheesh Recently, in San Ity, California, police officers pulled over a vehicle that had made an illegal U-turn. And did it right in front of two officers! Easiest ticket ever! Or was it?

Because when the officers pulled the car over and went to talk to the driver -- there wasn't one!

MUSIC: DRAMATIC CHASE MUSIC.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Had the vehicle's operator abandoned the car over this minor violation? Gone on the lamb to avoid the $200 fine? Was there a high-stakes foot pursuit? An A-P-B? A nationwide alert. Were special news report graphics created?

MUSIC: OUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

No. In fact, the driver had actually never left the vehicle.

MUSIC: DRAMATIC CHASE MUSIC.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Oh! Had they hidden in the back seat? Under the dashboard? In the glove box?

MUSIC: OUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

No, no and why am I asking myself questions? The driver had never left the vehicle because this was a Waymo self-driving car.

CLINTON (cont'd)

I guess they didn't notice the huge spinning LiDAR sensor on the roof of the custom Jaguar I-Pace. Or the 29 cameras mounted all over the vehicle. Or maybe they just thought it was a Google Street-View car and they could get themselves on the map.

SFX: CAMERA SNAPS.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Whatever the reason, the officers DID have a problem. Despite the flagrant violation, there was no one to issue a ticket to.

See? That's why these things should have robot drives, like the Johnny Cabs in "Total Recall". That way they could have handed the ticket to animatronic Robert Picardo.

But, to their frustration, the officers had to let the car go. There truly was "nothing to see here."

SFX: CAR DRIVES AWAY.

CLINTON (cont'd)

The San Bru...San Ity police department said they had spoken to Waymo about the problem. And, for its part, Waymo says it is looking into the situation and that its autonomous driving system has been designed to obey the rules.

Well, let's be honest. One of the unspoken rules of the road IS "do what you can to get out of getting a traffic ticket."

SFX: HORN HONKS.

SFX: TRANSITION WHOOSH.

CLIP: NO TIME TO DO A PODCAST

CLINTON

And now, let's celebrate 20 years of comedy4cast with this classic clip!

This clip is from episode 59, released in March of 2006. Just like these days, sometimes I just don't have time to do a podcast. But here, I go into more details.

SFX: TRANSITION WHOOSH.

SPEAKER

Too many things going on.

And I'm tired. I've been trying to figure out why I keep waking up at three o'clock in the morning, night after night. It's horrible. And I tell you, it doesn't help that the alarm clock is going off every time it happens.

And I keep thinking about that legend where they say, if you die in your dreams, you really die. And I can't figure out how they know that. You're asleep. It's like that ancient riddle. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? Well, yes, it does. it says most boring forest ever. And I don't know how I know that either.

Like I said, too much going on. I can't stay. I only have a minute. I'm working on a product idea over there. You know, I hate those clear plastic shopping bags that all the stores are using now. I don't want people to see my stuff. That's my stuff. Don't look at my stuff. Shh. That's my stuff. So I'm developing an opaque plastic sleeve that you can slide over the clear plastic shopping bag. And if you don't want the opaque sleeve to get all scratched up, you can slide that inside the optional cloth bag, which you can keep clean by putting it inside this custom clear plastic bag. So far, I'm up to about 15 layers and there's no end in sight. Brilliant!

But that's just one more thing. There's far too much going on. My mind is racing. All this talk about sleeves made me think about Netflix, about how you just send back your DVD rental in that postage paid envelope. So I'm wondering, why can't you do that for other rentals? Like apartments.

See, I wish I had time for a podcast, but there's so much to do in so little time. I'm thinking about words. For instance, what if junk email had a name other than spam? I mean, spam is a great name for it. Spam. What if it was fluffy clouds or fuzzy bunnies? Would it sound as bad if you said your email was full of fuzzy bunnies? Or chocolate? Oh no, not more chocolate. Make it stop.

Look, I really wish I had time to do a show, but there are too many things to do, too many mysteries to solve. So I'll leave you with one final thought. When you come across one of those displays that says "Take One", how do you know someone hasn't already beat you to it?

I gotta go.

OUTRO: COMEDY4CAST STUDIO

MUSIC: 'END THEME'

CLINTON

That about wraps it up for today's Odd News PAC. But first, a shout-out to the comedy4cast Patreon patrons, including our producer-level patrons, Paul Barrie, from the A Window to the Magic podcast and Kirby Bartlett-Sloan from the 20 Megabyte Doctor Who podcast. You too can support comedy4cast and get episodes before everyone else for as little as $2 a month. Just search for comedy4cast, all one word with the number 4, on patreon.com.

Talk to you again next time! But for now, that's it. We're done, done, done, done, done. Bye bye!

MUSIC: 'END THEME' UP AND OUT.

-- THE END --