Lost Art
In New Chonk City every story is stolen from humans, and everyone knows chonks "can't direct." Chonksy is the city's most famous actor, a war veteran and an Investigotter Academy dropout who raids the surface for content. Then he finds proof that chonks once made their own stories, and that someone burned them.
Can Chonksy, who has only ever performed other people's words, make one thing that's his, and what will it cost him?
The World →Stakes & Laughs →Edge & Heart →Showrunner Pass →
On the Current
Every episode cuts away to the finished remakes and to the city living with them: diners, living rooms, a barbershop, a veterans' bar, store windows full of TVs. The remakes are cheap and beloved (Breaking Badd, a ship romance where they both fit on the door, The Soapranos, Sad Men, SPACESHARKS). The city works as a chorus: everyone mouths the lines, nobody has seen the originals, and in the last image of the season one small TV in a store window is showing something new.
Episodes
The road ahead
Lost Art
Chonks can't make their own stories. Chonksy finds out they used to, and the state burns what he makes.
Then · via the alt finaleBlack Holes in the Brain S1
A rake to the face (or a bat and a trunk) opens a black hole. Chonksy lands at The Barnacle as the narrator: "I'll be narrating this one. Apologies in advance."
New Chonk Studios
Chonksy comes back with something they can't burn and founds the first studio in sixty years that makes originals. The intergalactic sharks want the rights.
New designs
Running gags
- "How do you afford your apartment?" Ep 1 through Ep 9 (the photo).
- Chumpy's mom always calls. She always knows. Ep 10: he answers.
- "I should get in shape." Ep 9: the vest closes.
- "Chonks can't direct." The city's favorite joke, and a cover story.
- "Above my pay grade. Arf." Ep 9: Navy Seal answers, brilliantly.
- Gotter asleep mid-salute. He was awake for thirty years.
- Seabear's Arctic Shelf proverbs. "Is mostly bear."
- "Structurally speaking…" Seaver's first original build.
- The Sharl: "[PAUSE FOR LAUGH]." The sharks are real.
- Platrick: "cool cool cool." Ketchup hearts dissolve.
- Raymond the doorman. Chumpy calls him Gerald.
- The pufferfish anchor inflates. Every episode.
- Old Seacow's smoothie. Ep 10: she puts it down.
- Balance the ball. Every time he's in public, someone tosses Chonksy a ball. Ep 10: he lets it drop.
- Dolphins can't stop smiling. Which is why everyone is terrified of the Sea SI.
- "Is Gary awake?" "Half." Every institution has a Gary.
- The pastry. Ep 6: pocketed. Ep 8: toasted. Ep 9: everybody finds it.