What if Penny Met a Dinosaur?

From “The Flop House” podcast episode, “The Third Annual Academy Awards Floptacular”, featuring the regulars, Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, and Stuart Wellington:

DAN
So, normally now we would do some recommendations, but I had an off-topic story I wanted to tell-

ELLIOTT
Well, I’m sold.

DAN
Did one of you have an off-topic story you wanted to tell?

STUART
I’d like to hear more.

DAN
I feel like one of you had a story you wanted to tell.

ELLIOTT
Stuart, you wanted to talk about previews?

STUART
Yeah, I feel like I’ve already burnt myself out.

ELLIOTT
Basically came down to complaining about Sucker Punch.

STUART
Yeah. I will not Sucker that Punch.

DAN
I wanted to tell you guys a story about the Internet.

STUART
O-kay.

DAN
So…

STUART
You discovered internet pornography again?

ELLIOTT
Again.

DAN
I have that Memento disease.

STUART
He had Men in Black-itis.

ELLIOTT
I call it Memento’s disease. The same disease Memento had.

DAN
I’ve tattooed on my body, “Porn: try the Internet.” I’m excited every time I see it…I was chatting with my brother on gmail chat. And the subject of Inspector Gadget came up.

ELLIOTT
This is off-topic.

DAN
Because my brother is as obsessed with childish things as I am. And he’s older than I am.

ELLIOTT
So you figure as long as he’s doing it, it’s okay for you to keep doing it too?

DAN
Yeah. As long as we maintain the same relationship between our ages, it’s fine.

ELLIOTT
One of you better not go into space.

DAN
But my brother brought up how much he always liked the score to Inspector Gadget, and I had waves of nostalgia come over me, I go to youtube, I look at some Inspector Gadget related videos on youtube-

ELLIOTT
Porn.

DAN
And I scroll down to the comments section, and one comment on one of the Inspector Gadget videos catches my eye. And it says simply, “what if penny met a dinosaur?” All in small letters. There was something sort of plaintive about it, caught my eye, I found it particularly beguiling…

STUART
“Is there anybody listening to me here?”

DAN
“what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
My message in a bottle.

DAN
My question will never be answered, by canonical Inspector Gadget.

ELLIOTT
Certainly not by DiC…the animation studio that did Inspector Gadget.

DAN
So…I actually posted about this on Facebook. I posted about the “what if penny met a dinosaur?” comment on Facebook. A firestorm of Inspector Gadget commentary erupts. My friend Kelly says, she thinks if you plug the phrase “what if penny met a dinosaur?” into the internet, you would reach the end of the internet. And so I actually googled this; I googled “what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
Your job, really, absorbs you. You get full satisfaction from it.

STUART
Well, there comes a point when a job becomes a career, Elliott. It’s called the terminus-ess, if you will.

DAN
So…following this train, it’s like All the President’s Men, I’m following the money, but I’m following-

ELLIOTT
You’re following the Penny.

STUART
The Money Train.

DAN
I click on another link google coughs up for me, and it appears to be some sort of bondage inflected illustration of an older Penny. What’s the rule, if it exists, there’s pornography related to it? It’s like Rule #34.

ELLIOTT
Yeah, I think Socrates came up with that.

DAN
No, this is like an internet meme. If it exists, there’s pornography – But there’s a bondage themed photo, and I scroll down wondering why –

STUART
It’s now a photo?

DAN
Not a photo. Sorry. It’s an illustration.

ELLIOTT
What drawing style, Ashcan school?

DAN
I don’t know. It’s an older Penny, tied up. I scroll down to the comments section of this…

ELLIOTT
Because of course this has comments as well.

DAN
And in the comments, someone says, “what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
So, what you thought was an adorable, plaintive cry, turns out was a request for bondage themed bestiality porn.

DAN
Possibly. I go back to the google search. I click on the next one down. Same site. A less disturbing picture, illustration of Penny…

ELLIOTT
Thank goodness. She’s doing better.

DAN
I scroll down the comments. Again: “what if penny met a dinosaur?” So, now I’m intrigued by this guy. I click on this guy’s user-

ELLIOTT
You are bordering dangerously close to an obsession that will lead you to a web of deceit. And seduction.

DAN
It’s gonna lead me to Fear dot com.

STUART
Nah, I like the seduction angle.

DAN
I click on this guy’s user name, and I find-

STUART
Love Games. Starring Dan.

DAN
I click on this guy’s username, and I get this message that says: “This user has been permanently banned from this site.”

ELLIOTT
Wow.

DAN
For, I’m guessing, asking too much about Penny and this fucking dinosaur.

ELLIOTT
“You asked the wrong questions.” “You made some powerful enemies on the Penny bondage site.”

STUART
He followed the money trail.

ELLIOTT
I guess what you’re saying is, don’t go chasing water falls.

DAN
What I liked about this whole experience was peeling back the layers of the onion. There’s always something new to discover.

STUART
So, are you plugging being a fucking kid detective?

ELLIOTT
Let’s look at what you discovered: there’s an Inspector Gadget themed bondage porn site; and that someone has irritated the moderator of this site.

STUART
Fucking congratulations, dude.

ELLIOTT
You cracked it.

STUART
Super-sleuth McCoy.

ELLIOTT
A regular Encyclopedia Brown.

STUART
You get the fucking key to the city. Key to the internet.

ELLIOTT
It’s too bad your dad the police chief can’t tell anyone about his genius detective son.

DAN
You guys just don’t understand the beauty of what I’ve discovered.

STUART
You know when you start turning over rocks, you’re gonna find some snails.

ELLIOTT
It was a fitting story for this bad movie podcast.

DAN
But guys, seriously, I guess what I’m ultimately asking is: “what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
Because that commenter…WAS ME! Bap bap baaaaaaam.

STUART
Yeah. I don’t know what would happen.

DAN
She’d probably get eaten by the dinosaur.

STUART
Well, a brontosaurus wouldn’t eat her.

DAN
Yeah. It would eat vegetables.

STUART
Unless she and fucking Brain were dressed up as, like, a tree or something.

ELLIOTT
Who knows? Maybe one of Inspector Gadget’s employees might have made that happen. Brain always had to hide in costumes. The sight of a dog would destroy him.

DAN
And then Inspector Gadget would say, “IT’S A MAD AGENT.” And then wacky hijinks would ensue.

ELLIOTT
And then Don Adams would deposit the check. At his bank account. And then go on to do some Wendy’s commercials.

DAN
Anyway. So that’s my story.

ELLIOTT
Well, it’s not really your story.

STUART
It’s part of humanity’s grander story.

ELLIOTT
That was like an H.P. Lovecraft story where someone’s reading through journal entries left behind, except instead of a monster, it was the dumbest question ever asked.