Directors Notes: 217 - Salmon Burger (Patreon)

I microwaved some leftover fish the other day, and it smelled disgusting. To be fair, it smelled exactly how leftover fish should smell like, which is to say there was nothing wrong with the fish. I don’t eat fish a lot, though, so the aroma is a bit jarring sometimes.

My whole kitchen and living room just got filled with trout and broccoli (the broccoli wasn’t helping matters, no.) and I kind of lost my appetite. I had a bite or two then walked that mess all the way out to the garbage can in the shed. Maybe a local bear will break in and eat it.

All that to be said, smells are so deeply emotional. Good smells and bad smells alike. And I wanted to play with that for a Night Vale episode. The final product isn’t quite an aromatic extravaganza though.

Basically, I started with microwaved salmon, but as I did edits & rewrites, I found it more interesting if the Salmon Burger itself just looked disgusting (slathered with runny cheese and crawling like a spider crab up the wall).

I don’t know if you know this, but podcasting is an audio-only medium. (fun fact!) So describing smells became more difficult than I thought it would be. The biggest issue is that smells are so subjective. Some people love the smell of fish. Some like burned rubber. Some people love damp leaves. Who can even know? Making smells disgusting became an exercise in describing Cecil’s reactions to them, which then got a little TOO gross for what I was trying to do.

I literally had a stage direction in the first draft where Cecil nearly throws up, and I simply couldn’t put that heaving sound in your earbuds. I’m mean, but I’m not heartless.

Anyway, I think it was more fun to possess the salmon burger and make it a symbol of some deeper anxiety. Plus by making the episode less about a cursed smell, I got to catch up with the fictional Joseph Fink here. And then write a very cute scene between him and Deb (voiced by real Joseph’s real wife Meg Bashwiner).

Maybe it’s just the editing process sending me through a long, winding road to a totally different concept. Or maybe I grossed myself out too much thinking about microwaved fish and needed to clear the nasal passages. Either way, enjoy!

-Jeffrey Cranor
November 1, 2022