Zooier Than Thou

Zooier Than Thou

The ZooTT Hiatus continues! This time, the mailbag is overflowing, so three pairs of host (And Aqua twice!) take on as many emails as we could fit into an hour and a half!

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

I went WAAAAY over on my hours for this month. Over 20 hours this time. Ahhhhh! Well, hopefully I can make up for it next month.

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What kind of content do you want to hear when we come back from our break? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
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You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
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The ZooTT Hiatus continues! Toggle hosts as Aqua, Steeeve, Harley, and Mike the Dog riff off of silly scenes pulled out of the rat's hat.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

This was fun to do. It’s been a busy month, so I’m glad I’m still on break. Pushin’ that 10 hour limit this month. I’d like to get more of my own shit done this month, but next month is gonna be kind of labor intensive for the podcast.

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What kind of content do you want to hear when we come back from our break? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
The great ZooTT hiatus begins! Toggle, Steeeve, and Kyon are joined by Gar and Underdog who reminisce about the foundation of Calzoo.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Hiatus is going well, really enjoying myself. Clocking in under 10 hours, so this is working out well!

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What kind of content do you want to hear when we come back from our break? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
The ZooTT Crew celebrates 60 episodes of zoopositivity in this easy-going episode. Answer tough questions with Kynophile and Toggle, take the most awkward flight of your life, then go full goblin mode with the team as they shoot the breeze.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

This will be my last full blog post for a while. Six months to be exact. I’ll still update and let you know a new episode is out, but in the spirit of taking a break, I won’t be getting into the nitty gritty of production or thoughts about the episodes.

This was a good episode to ease me into hiatus. I’ve spent just over 20 hours on it, which was mostly spent recording and producing. Our new writer had sent in a really absurd but touching “Airplane Sketch” a long time ago that I’m glad we were able to work in, because it turned out really well. Also, just got access to a cool new tool: competent AI voice acting. Check out the stewardess. She’s pretty impressive, no? Outside of producing the skit, it was just shooting the shit and going over emails. Nothing taxing or overblown. I hope that you enjoy what we have, as simple as the content may be.

I apologize in advance for the long political discussion during the emails. It seemed as good an episode as any to tackle that kind of email, and I hope you’ll appreciate how significantly I pared down what was originally a 30 minute discussion on the topic.

We’ve already recorded the next episode featuring Underdog and Gar of the original CalZoo from the 1990’s. It was a pleasant conversation, and I’m hoping that the appeal of hearing their stories of zoo history is a good signal that the hiatus doesn’t mean it’s time to tune out.

Beyond that, the goal is less than 10 hours a month, so don’t expect a whole lot of production, but I hope we’ll still be able to entertain in the interim. I really, really hope this hiatus is enough to recharge the batteries and kick into high gear for season 5. I’m nervous it might not be enough time, or that I’ll end up pushing too much with getting an episode out every month that it won’t feel like I took time off. But I’m hopeful. The first thing I’m going to do is clean my friggin’ house from top to bottom so I have a restful space to spend the break in. I also plan to travel and see folks throughout the year, so that will be nice.

We’re also considering a radical format shift, in terms of how we release episodes. No announcements yet, but based on some feedback about what people have enjoyed this year, we wanna make sure we continue providing really high-quality content.

Well, I guess that’s it. I’ll see you in 6 months, my friends! Stay defiant!

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Are you a fan of the easy breezy conversation episodes? What kind of content do you want to hear when we come back from our break? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Travel across the Atlantic Ocean to meet André Toussaint as he battles with an animal rights organization aiming to strengthen anti-bestiality legislation in France.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Usually I write these journals after I’ve posted the episode, but after working for 11 hours straight through the night to finish this beast up, I wanna get as much done as I can before I pass out.

This was an absolute beast of an episode to put together and produce. Planning dates back to March, but we really began in earnest in November, when Aqua and I met with Bojack and hashed out what we wanted to do. This episode focused on a somewhat litigious antagonist, and we wanted to make sure we had all our ducks in a row and worked with some modicum of journalistic integrity — as best as laymen, zoo non-journalists can manage at least. Bojack put in a ton of time and effort gathering up citations, newspaper articles, YouTube videos, and legislative documents, and mapping them out in a mind-mapping tool for us to reference.

Once Aqua translated the mindmaps to English for me, I dove into referencing and pulling quotes and put together an outline. I worked up a script draft and set up interviews with a couple of super awesome French zoos who volunteered their time and voices to the project. We were able to pull together voice actors from all over the western world for this one.

These story episodes are very front-heavy — recording actually doesn’t take much time at all. But I’ve discovered the biggest time sink for this kind of an episode isn’t the writing, or even the planning stage. It’s finding the right god-damn music. Holy hell, more than half the total time spent on this episode went into the past three days. I’d already started picking out and collecting potential music before starting to save myself time, but sometimes you realize some of the music you picked doesn’t actually work, so you gotta go hunting — blindly, I might add, because there’s no way to know what keywords to search for — and trying things out to see if they fit. It is incredibly time consuming. That, and waiting for audio to process. One of our fancy programs gets rid of room noise and stuff like that, and basically everyone needed it :p

All told, I’m currently sitting at 67 hours into the production of this episode, and that’s just the time *I* put in. Aqua and Bojack put a ton of work into this with me, and it wouldn’t have been possible without all the voice actors who stepped up to help. I think it shows, and I’m pretty happy with how this episode turned out. It’s always rewarding to have a polished end product that you can be proud of. But shit, I haven’t gotten much sleep this week at all, and I’m gonna spend the next week cocooned in a blanket on my soft, soft bed.

So what’s next? Well, we got next month’s episode, and I’ll definitely be taking it easy as we wind down into the hiatus. Can’t do two big episodes like this one in a row. This is exhausting! However, I’ll also be putting together our first hiatus interview this month, and I think it’s going to be a good one. My goal is to convince you that just because we’re on hiatus doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep tuning in every full moon!

I’m really looking forward to the break, though. Knowing it’s coming up has really motivated me to put everything I have into these last couple of episodes. I plan to get really good at Fall Guys and catch up on a ton of extracurricular activities I haven’t had time for over the past four years. Looking back, I have no idea how I juggled two episodes a month with all the other shit I had going on that first year.

Stay defiant, fellow zoos.

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What did you think of this true tale? Do you have an idea for lightweight content you want to hear during our hiatus? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Steeeve and Toggle dust off the old VCR and TV cart to share some solid advice about bringing a new canine partner into your life. Plus, find out the truth behind Santa's love for cookies, cuddle up for a winter nap, and lament lost time with Zipwok.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

Greetings from the other side of MFF! I had such a blast! Met a bunch of new zoos, including ZC’s own Zooby Dooby Doo, and some other folks from Zoo Twitter and the DSI telegram network. You know, for all the bluster and bombastic threats, I gotta say the “antizoo” presence was milquetoast at best. They brought some poorly designed stickers with red text on a red background with difficult-to-read font and referenced a zoo flag most people don’t even use. Our sticker game was on point, and everyone behaved themselves, which made the one or two people posting antizoo stickers look like complete assholes. I’m very pleased with how things went overall.

But I digress. Let’s talk about this episode! A couple of months ago, I took a weekend offline out in the woods and managed to read the entirety of The Other End of the Leash from cover to cover. It’s amazing what you can get done when you don’t have access to electronics or the internet. I definitely recommend unplugging any opportunity you get. It’s a good book, and with the exception of some potentially out-dated references to alpha wolf theory, it’s got a lot of solid advice and thoughts about dogs and how they perceive our behavior. One part I thought was really interesting was about how people tend to go for looks instead of considering what kind of breed of dog would actually be compatible with their lifestyles. I felt that mindset really applied in dog zoo space, as well. I know we all find huskies and GSDs strikingly handsome, and I’m sure many of us have other particular features from different breeds that make us swoon. All of that is really superficial, though, and there’s a lot more to consider, for sure. I brought the idea to Steeeve, and he immediately echoed some of my own sentiments before I even brought them up, so I knew we had something worth discussing.

I had the idea of maybe doing an infomercial or something, a creative way to convey the information rather than just discussing it. I brought our new writer in on it, and we all tossed around ideas until Steeeve shared this old VHS tape with Rue McClanahan and a stiff, uncomfortable English vet who traded awkward flirting back and forth. We laughed over the cheesy Italo Disco music and goofy video tropes, and I tasked our new writer with coming up with a base scenario. Boy, did they deliver! Steeeve and I took the framing and fleshed it out, but the narrator and the hapless zoo protagonist sections make me laugh so hard. I found it unusually difficult to find stock Italo Disco, so I went with that cheesy 80’s aesthetic instead. Steeeve found a video cassette artifact Kontact plug-in, and man, I think we REALLY nailed the aesthetic. So pleased. Steeeve felt it might be one of the best things we’ve written!

On top of that, our new writer put together a goofy skit about Santa wanting dog cookies, and I loved how it really felt like a first season skit. I kind of blushed the first time a read it, because we don’t really go there that much anymore, so I’m stoked to really dive back into that original sex-positive, subversive energy from before. I got some of my voice actors to do some really goofy character voices, and I think they really made it shine. Our writer wrote a part for Brad from the phone skit in Dear Non-Zoos, and of course, Lovecat took the material and ad-libbed stuff we could never have put down on paper. He really nails that character, and it made the whole thing, a perfect way to end. There was originally another ending, but we cut it and just ended on Brad, and I think that made for a stronger overall presentation.

I thought this poem was a perfect match for transitioning into Zipwok’s wistful song. It’s one of the many sonnets and poems our writer submitted way back before they formally joined the staff, and it’s very touching and warm. Zipwok had already released the song we used, but he let us use it for the episode, and I think it’s a solid end cap to an otherwise wild episode.

I finally announced the hiatus officially, but I hope you’ll all stick around, because I’ve got some neat things planned for the break. I’m excited to have some of my free time back, though. This next episode is two months in planning and execution, and we’re going to be working long hours to get it done right. I’m clocking in at around 25 hours for this episode, which ain’t bad, but I expect the next one will take as much as the Howloween episode. I’m hoping we’re able to pull it off, because it’s perhaps somewhat ambitious in scope for what we have to do in the background. For now, though, I’m gonna enjoy the rest of my vacation visiting zoos and other friends before diving in for writing week.

Thanks for listening!
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Did you learn anything useful from our feature video presentation? Do you have an idea for lightweight content you want to hear during our hiatus? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Canis Gnosis and Knotty Newfie share their perspectives as Native American zoos. Plus, hear an old tale about two bison bulls, sit with man's best friend by the pond, and get high with Zipwok!

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

I was worried this one wouldn’t come out for a hot second there! We got this done as close to the deadline as was feasibly possible, which is kind of frustrating, but I’m pretty pleased with the result.

Fausty and Canis have wanted to an episode about indigenous Americans in the zoo community since season 1, and each year there’s always too much upheaval to get it done. Last month, I wasn’t sure what we’d be doing for November, and I floated the idea of having Knotty Newfie co-host an episode on the topic, and that was enough to get Canis fired up and excited for the episode.

Thanks to the contributions from multiple different directions, this was the most lightweight episode I’ve had to work on all season. Lovecat and Canis put together a wonderful little zooey skit on theme for the episode, which was short, sweet, and light on foley. We added a new writer to the team permanently — the one who wrote our very successful werewolf skit for Halloween — and I still had some of their poetry to pull from. Zipwok already had a song ready to go two months ago for this episode. All I had to do was write an intro and outro and put everything together. All told, this episode only cost me about 16.5 hours including some project maintenance, which is significant compared to Howloween’s grueling 50 hours.

I also like the lightweight length of the episode, coming in at exactly 80 minutes. I know some folks love those giant 2-3 hour beasts, but I feel like having things streamlined makes them more accessible to people who are more casual listeners. I wasn’t sure what I’d be getting out of the discussion, but as I edited, I found myself taken by some of the more salient points of the discussion. I take that as a good sign that people will get something out of this, even if they aren’t Native Americans themselves.

Shout out to Amoronauts for getting Canis in his feels. I knew that your email would speak directly to him, so I chose it for this episode. I didn’t expect that the therian points would resonate so strongly with both hosts, though, so that was pretty nice to hear.

The episode after the holiday is heavy duty, and there’s no break between this episode and the next due to MFF, so it’s going to be a hectic couple of months. With that in mind, I’d like to announce to readers of this blog first that I have decided to take a 6 month hiatus after the end of this season. That will mark 60 uninterrupted episodes with no break, so I think we’ve earned a sabbatical. This doesn’t mean we’ll halt all content production completely, though, and I’m hoping that what we put out each month keeps people engaged enough to hold on for season 5 halfway through the year. We’ll still be doing things like answering emails, possibly doing interviews, and I’m thinking of doing some retrospectives on some of the older episodes.

The hiatus will also allow us to plan ahead for seasons 5 and 6, with any luck. We’ve never been able to bank work to lighten our load going forward, so I’m hoping we can do a little bit of that, as well. I’m very excited both for a break to do other things and for the chance to get ahead for once. We’ll make the formal announcement on the podcast in the next episode.

Thanks for listening!
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Did you learn anything you didn’t know about Native Americans from the hosts’ zooey perspective? Do you have an idea for lightweight content you want to hear during our hiatus? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
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Howloween comes early this year as the Full Moon Society gathers 'round the campfire to share tales of the untamed night. Return to the hazy realm between light and darkness in The Eigen Ground. Get frisky with werewolves -- 14 of them! Finally, travel across the veil in our annual Samhain ritual in which we honor our lost loves ones.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

I’m a couple days late with my journal entry, and that’s partly because this has been a pretty hellish episode cycle for me. Things were just not coming together in a timely manner, and I felt like I was running around like a chicken with his head cut off the whole time. By the time I finish this journal and upload it, I’ll have spent close to 50 hours on this production cycle, but at the very least, the results speak for themselves. This episode turned out very well, and I’m extremely pleased with the end result.

The werewolf skit was given to us a couple of months ahead of time, so I had a lot of time to prepare how I wanted that to come out, and I think it came out pretty immaculately. I don’t suppose there’s a lot left to say, except that I’m extremely pleased with the performances on display, particularly from Arlo. The timing was good, and with all the foley and auditory detail, the absurdist humor just worked!

The second Eigen Ground was submitted, trying to take heed from some of the criticism and feedback from the prior year. They asked the team to proof it and give feedback, but I wasn’t able to collect anything meaningful before their editing deadline. Still, I think it came out pretty well and made a nice contrast with the much sillier werewolf skit that came before it, allowing us to transition to a much more somber tone for the Samhain ritual. I think we got some really good performances out of this one, too — it’s not easy to get people to yell and scream! Arlo stole the show here again, I think. Just a fantastic job all around.

I’m not sure what it was about this year’s ritual, but it seems to have been pretty effective in terms of cathartic emotional response in a way previous years haven’t been. I don’t know why that would be, but I do know that I was tearing up at some of the submissions even while sorting through them and then editing them together. It ended up being very powerful, and I think it was a great way to honor our lost loved ones this year.

And of course, I’m obsessed with the remake of 14 Werewolves. Ever since we first made it, I knew we could do better, and over time I’ve been able to release my inhibitions and just produce music the way I want to. I’ve wanted to remake this one since day one, and I’m so glad we were finally able to. Arlo gave me some fresh performances, and at certain parts of the song, there’s one guitar for every werewolf pounding Arlo’s ass. Got a nice, thick wall of sound out of them. Just before production wrapped up, I sent it to another zoo friend who’s also a music producer, and he helped me completely re-evaluate the EQ, and holy shit, it made a huge difference in the quality of the remake. You can hear all the stuff that got drowned out in the original! It’s nice and clear and it doesn’t feel crowded. I feel like this one’s good enough to ship off to Spotify, so I’m thinking I’ll work on polishing up a few of our other favorites and put something together at long last.

Originally, Canis and Lovecat were going to host together, but day after day there were things that kept popping up, until by production week they had lost power and still hadn’t been able to record anything. Thankfully, Steeeve and Flora stepped up to host at the extreme last minute. Steeeve has been volunteering to take things on and helping out a lot in the last few months, and I’m very appreciative. I had to have them record a lot of stuff throughout the whole two weeks of recording, and they were both very patient and accommodating, which was a relief.

I’m also happy with the length. Steeeve and Flora blew through 10 emails, and we still managed to come out under an hour and half when it was all said and done. I think I prefer the shorter episodes that are more to the point, and that might really start to be a focus going forward.

Honestly, though, the burnout was starting to get real this episode, so I’m gonna have to figure something out. We may need to take a break for a while soon. We’re almost 60 episodes in, and we haven’t missed a single month in the past 4 years. That’s starting to wear on me a little bit. We’ll see what we can work out.

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What were your thoughts on the skits? Did you find our Samhain ritual cathartic this year? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
Tune into WZOO college radio, with DJs Akito and Brass Bulldog spinning brand new music from your favorite zoo bands. Plus, Aqua vents some frustration and provides solid advice in their recurring segment Dear Non-Zoos. Featuring music from Shiv, Zoo'd, Zipwok, and Kiss Me Kabar.

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

I’m very pleased with how this episode came together, though we really were right up to the wire with getting it out on time.

Aqua had the idea to do something along the lines of the radio show in Dear White People. For the uninitiated, Dear White People is a fantastic movie and television series that deals with the subject of race in an incredibly nuanced way. The main protagonist of the series has a radio show called Dear White People, in which she delivers scathing criticism and snappy comebacks to students who call in. Obviously, we wanted to make sure that in modeling an episode after this premise, we did so respectfully, so we did our due diligence in that regard. I think the end product is useful and ultimately productive without undermining the inspirational material. As always, we made sure to end on something constructive and positive.

As always, in season 4, we’re trying out different things, and we had the idea of actually doing the whole episode like a college radio broadcast. I reached out to ZipWok and Shiv to see if they could provide some new material for the episode, and I was already sitting on a song from Zoo’d I hadn’t featured yet. I hadn’t gotten to work with Kynophile really all season long, so I asked him if he had any ideas floating around, as well. I sketched out what the broadcast would look like, and I estimated it would be between 1 and 1.5 hours long all told. Turned out to clock in JUST under an hour, which honestly I’m pretty happy with.

Aqua put together a fairly long list of non-zoo categories of people we’ve run into, and we narrowed it down to five groups we felt we could speak to more easily. We have more if we want to revisit the concept, but some of them are more delicate to address than others. Once we had our five, we split the work and got to writing. Unfortunately, writing was happening right up until the day before release, but we managed to get everything shipped out on time.

We got a number of suggestions to replace Non-Zoo from listeners, so thanks for sending in your thoughts. Ultimately, though, they ended up being more clunky, or just derisive, so we ended up just sticking with the old, familiar non-zoo designation.

Kynophile and I started working on a new song for the episode, inspired by songs like Have Mercy on the Criminal by Elton John, and You Won’t Be Mine by Matchbox 20. Unfortunately, it wasn’t coming together in time, and I didn’t want to put something out that was rushed. So, I did an informal poll in various zoo telegram groups to see what songs people liked. King of the Pride is the one that popped up consistently, but frankly, I’ve never been perfectly happy with how that one came out. I felt like it ended up being a little too slow, and there were flaws in the background music that bugged me. I’d been toying with the idea of speeding it up and rerecording it for a future release, and this seemed like the time to try. Turns out 10 bpm makes a huge difference! I got Kyno to rerecord his vocals, and I added some of my own to the ending. A little polish, some rerecorded guitar lines, and I’m very pleased with the outcome of this little revamp.

All of my musician friends came through, as well. I felt like Astronauts really fit the college radio aesthetic, and I loved that ZipWok had such a cool inspiration for Oh My Dog to share. I worried a bit about Zoo’d’s song, because it borrows a lot of lines from the source material, which could be problematic in the future. It’s a bit too close for comfort, but in the end, I felt it was a good idea to add it. Filk and parody are definitely in our wheelhouse, after all.

The problem of who to get to host remained, and frankly, most of us are in our 30’s and 40’s. I wanted to get some actual college-aged folks to host the college radio. I had the idea to get the duo from Zoo and Me to take care of it, since I knew they were the right age, had all the right equipment, and weren’t afraid to get in front of a mic. I also thought it would be a great way to promote their podcast. Even if scripted material ended up not being their forte, college radio allows some leeway for delivery in that regard. Honestly, though, I think they did a pretty good job. I wasn’t able to be there for the recording to act as a guide, so I’m very happy with their ability to take the script and run with it without much direction.

And of course, I can’t forget to shout out to Lovecat for his brilliant ad-lib performance as Brad from Computer Science. I gave him this source of inspiration for who the character in the script was modeled after, and he ran with it miles further than I could have scripted. Fucking hilarious!


You may notice that the music is mixed a lot higher this time. After listening to a few college radio programs, I noted that the music is MUCH higher in the mix than we typically mix. I originally had the music a lot louder, but I got some complaints that it was tough to understand what people were saying. I’d really like to know if anyone had any trouble in that regard. Otherwise, I feel really good about the flow between different segments, and I took time to line up downbeats in the music to make it feel more seamless. LC commented that he liked the way we did sponsors in this epsode more than our normal schtick, which itself is a parody of public radio sponsors. Maybe that’s something that changes in the future.

Also, I went for a more alternative/old-school hip hop vibe, rather than the old-time radio/variety show vibe. I kinda dig it, tbh. Maybe that’s something that should change in the future, too? Let me know what you think!

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What was your favorite featured song in this episode? Do you have any other categories of non-zoos you run into? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

_________________________

You can subscribe to our RSS feed using your favorite podcast application: rss.zoo.wtf
Don't forget to subscribe to our Bonus Content feed: bonus.zoo.wtf
You can subscribe to us on Twitter @ZooierThanThou, @OneBigGrumpyRat, @ACatWhoLovesYou
You can contact us using the anonymous web form at zoo.wtf
S4E6. Dog Days

This episode marks the official end of 2022's Dog Days of Summer. Grab a cold one and relax with the ZooTT crew! Plus, enjoy some new zoo poetry, attend a solitaire tournament, and check in with Tarro of Zooey.pub magazine!

Listen @ zoo.wtf
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Thoughts About the Episode

The last episode was a bit hardcore — really long, a little stuffy, a lot to chew on. This month, we opted for something lighter, both for your sake and for ours. Stuff like that takes a lot of preparation, and plenty of work in the follow-through. I also spent a lot of time this month preparing a new project management tool for the ZooTT crew, so having some time and energy to dedicate to that was definitely necessary. Fortunately, a certain zoo writer has sent us a wealth of useful content, which we happily drew from this month to give ourselves a little bit of downtime, and we opted for another “ZooTTing the Bull” style of episode, since it was so well-received the first time around. A lot of the same voices come back, but I wanted to get one or two new people to join. One of them couldn’t make it, but Kynophile stepped in to join us in Mike’s place.

As soon as I read the Solitaire skit, I knew exactly who to ask to voice those characters. There’s been a recent influx of Australian zoos in my network, which has been really cool. These two blokes are wicked talented, and they did a fantastic job with the material. I don’t think it was intentional that the script explicitly called for Australian voices, but it worked our really well!

I felt like we don’t have a lot of content lately that explicitly celebrates the sexual aspect of our zoosexuality, so I felt like the poem I chose was light-hearted, sexy, and relatable. It was a good choice for an easy-going episode, and Kyon did a splendid reading, as I knew he would. I get a sense there’s a little bit of a puritanical edge building up, and I want to fight that back. Our sexuality should be celebrated. The sex part, explicitly. We shouldn’t be uncomfortable when we see people embracing that aspect of who we are. All the romance and love and platonic aspects of our sexuality are certainly worth discussing and celebrating, but if we don’t also embrace the sex part, we’re forgetting a crucial part of ourselves that is completely valid and not something to shy away from. Anyway, it’s a funny poem, and I like it a lot.

As I mentioned, this episode was the first using our new project management tool, and I’m happy to say it seems to have helped keep things timely. Everything came together with time to spare, so I’m really happy about that. Surprisingly, our informal conversation was actually a bit of a hassle to edit because of all the cross-talk. I wanted to preserve some of it, but I also wanted to make sure the main points were heard, so it was a lot of moving things around manually and stuff. Still, not too many hours were lost doing that, even though it felt like forever, and everything got done better than on time.

I really enjoy doing this style of episode. It’s fun to just sit around and talk. But boy did our conversations go to some dark places. Most of it I cut out because I needed to edit about half of it out anyway and I wasn’t sure what came from it was productive, but suffice it to say, there’s a lot on everyone’s mind as things get tense on our side of the pond. I might do a bonus episode with some of that stuff, if I have time.

Honestly, my favorite part was the silly, unrelated shit at the end about what animal we wanted to reincarnate into. It’s not substantive, so to speak, but it’s entertaining and hilarious to listen to, and I kind of prefer it, to be honest. I loved everyone’s answers. Most of them I wouldn’t have expected at all! It’s fun to just… I dunno, goof around. I don’t wanna have the whole show be like that, but it’s definitely a format to be visited multiple times a season. I just need to make sure to get some new voices in the mix. I’m starting to get tired of hearing my own voice.

And let’s not forget Tarro from Zooey.pub! They gave a fantastic interview, and they have a great voice for audio work to boot. Mike wanted to put together a spotlight which features the projects that zoos are doing as they come out. Last month, we did Epiphiny Pipeworks — who remains our sponsor! — so this month, we wanted to highlight the magazine. They’re looking for your writing, so feel free to submit! If you haven’t read any of it, I definitely recommend it.

I think that’s about it. I’m excited about next month’s episode, but it’s a bit daunting. I hope you enjoy it! Until then~~

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What topics do you want us to talk about? Do you have a project you’re working on that you want to highlight? Let us know in the comments, or e-mail us!

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