Director's Notes: 246 - A Story about Him (Patreon)

The creative team actually discussed whether or not it was appropriate to put cuss words in this episode. It's strange because if you've listened to Night Vale even a few times, you've probably heard a few shits and goddamns in the Weather songs before. So it's not like we're prudes or that we make this show for kids or anything. Or even that we think we have an audience of people with sensitive ears. It was simply a question of authenticity to the writing.

I think in an early episode, the character of Cecil uses the word "asshole." What it was in reference to, I don't recall, but I do think there was one FCC-banned word in the text of Night Vale back in year one, back when we were still finding the voice of the show. But basically, we got away from swear words because it didn't make sense for someone with a terrestrial American radio show to cuss. It's actually illegal to do so. You can get fined or suspended from broadcasting for that shit. So Cecil doesn't cuss.

Then there's the meta elements of our audience. While we've never written this show toward any specific demographic, we're certainly aware that Night Vale has garnered a kind of all-ages vibe. Parents bring their kids to our live shows. 11-year-olds write us emails. While we want to continue to tell adult stories/themes, we can't just ignore the kids in the room.

And you're probably thinking: "Jeez, Jeffrey. I just listened to the latest episode, and I didn't really even notice the cussing. What was the big deal?"

The answer is idk. First time for everything I guess. It seemed super unusual to have such a "real" episode of Night Vale one in which someone casually drops an F-bomb. Plus the disclaimer was the first time we've nudged listeners to listen to previous episodes. I don't know how much of that I want to have to do moving forward, but I think it's good to think about.

Anyway, back to "authenticity." The internal debate about using 2 very minor casual swear words in this episode was way more about the dramatic shift of tone with the character Abby from our usual Cecil-driven episodes. Abby is about as real-world a character as we've ever featured on the show. And save for the Night Vale-y bits about Taylor Swift and Scrabble, her monologue could have been in just about any ghost story or vaguely-supernatural family drama.

So while Joseph, Brie, and I asked ourselves "are we allowed to cuss on this show?" I think we were really thinking "is it okay to get a little bit real for an episode?" We all agreed it was better than okay to do so. It was fucking great.

Jeffrey Cranor
April 15, 2024