Red State Update

A clip starring Mike Gravel is played on the political program Tucker.

Red State Update is an online satirical political series of short films and podcasts produced in the United States by performers Jonathan Shockley and Travis Harmon.[1]

Characters and recurring segments

Jackie Broyles and Dunlap

Jackie Broyles (played by Travis Harmon), who runs a store that sells barbecue, is the older and more levelheaded of the two main characters. He espouses traditional conservatism, especially a belief in following the Bible and attending church, though he rarely goes himself. Jackie grew up on a farm and loves horses, especially Shetland Ponies. Jackie once held the record for the deepest ride into a cave on horseback with his favorite horse, Mr. Horsepants the horse. This event occurred on the same day as John F. Kennedy's assassination.He enjoys whiskey on occasion, hates curse words, and holds to a consistent work ethic. Jackie's teeth have been reported to be in terrible condition. Dunlap described Jackie's teeth as "varnished corn nibblets" and compared the color of Jackie's teeth to that of a household cabinet. Jackie is also in bad standing with the local Catholic community due to him mumbling under his breath about how he felt that Catholic funerals were stupid.

Dunlap (played by Jonathan Shockley)By contrast, the younger regularly espouses blatant hedonism. He has rarely held a job and lives in his grandmother's basement. Dunlap, whose full name remains a mystery, is consistently focused upon getting high and having sex, and his lack of traditional values, combined with his propensity to swear, regularly makes Jackie mad. Dunlap has successfully swallowed a twinkie whole, much like how a duck would consume a twinkie.

Both characters hail from Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Shimmysham

An early addition to Red State Update, Shimmysham is a ventriloquist's dummy who made his debut in January 2006 as a counterbalance to Jackie and Dunlap's conservative Republican perspective .[2]

Mr. Slaw and "Cooking with Jackie Time"

Jackie Broyles enjoys cooking and tries to teach new recipes to RSU viewers during the occasional segment "Cooking with Jackie Time". Jackie's cooking show is regularly disrupted by visits from his friend Mr. Slaw, a sickly, pessimistic character (really, a disembodied head) who lives in a bowl of coleslaw. "Cooking with Jackie Time" and Mr. Slaw first appeared in the episode "Red State Update Retires".[3] Mr. Slaw also interviewed Ralph Nader during the 2008 presidential campaign and starred in the music video "Too Sick for Christmas."

"Jackie Broyles for President"

Dunlap made a string of commercials for a "Jackie Broyles for President" campaign during the 2008 presidential primaries. Jackie issued a Shermanesque statement denying his intention to run and declared that he had voted for Fred Thompson in the primary, even though Thompson had already left the race.[4]

$120 Campaign Ads

Ahead of the 2010 mid-term elections, Dunlap decided to get Red State Update into the "political advertisement game" and offered to make "any political ad for anybody for $120."[5] Jackie and Dunlap subsequently released 9 campaign ads. The first 8 ads were related to upcoming elections and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The final ad was released after the 2010 election, and promoted a campaign to write in Aleister Crowley for the 2012 campaign for U.S. President.[6][7]

Notability

CNN and the YouTube debate

Red State Update came to national prominence during the primary season for the 2008 presidential election. RSU's first appearance on national television was during the CNN-YouTube Democratic primary debate on July 23, 2007, which posed prerecorded, viewer-submitted questions to the candidates. Of Democrats who were entertaining the idea of former Vice-President Al Gore joining the race, Red State Update asked, "does that hurt y'all's feelings?" [8] Joe Biden made a tongue-in-cheek observation that "I think the people of Tennessee (the home state of both Gore and the RSU pair) had their feelings hurt," prompting a video response entitled "Fightin' Joe Biden". The subsequent publicity generated led to a number of appearances on different news stations and a semi-regular spot on CNN's short-lived program Out in the Open. They gained prominence again in December 2007 when former Senator and long-shot presidential candidate Mike Gravel appeared in one of their clips as Santa Claus.[9]

Red State Update was repeatedly referenced by CNN's offbeat reporter Jeanne Moos.[10]

Popularity and syndication

Red State Update was one of the most widely viewed political satire series on the internet; its channel was, at one time, the 20th "most viewed" and 26th "most subscribed" comedy channel on YouTube.[11] It was also syndicated weekly through the popular online magazine Salon.com.[12]

Musical endeavors

The duo released How Freedom Sounds, an album of comedy and novelty songs, on July 22, 2008.[13] Two years later, the pair released a Christmas album, Santa Is Real, featuring such songs as "Christmas in a Beer Joint" and "I Don't Feel Like Fucking This Christmas." The album title and cover art reference the 1959 gospel album Satan Is Real. The podcast series has also featured the occasional song, most notably the Halloween-themed "I Fingered a Skeleton." In late 2015, they released another Christmas album, Merry Twismas Part Twoo... and other holiday gooduns, a collection of various melodies produced for the podcast. The title is in reference to Conway Twitty's Christmas album, Merry Twismas, which the pair previous explicated in Episode 57.

Podcast Series

On November 21, 2012, the duo released the first episode of "The Ole Timey Country Down Home Red State Update Podcast 'n' 'Em." Episodes are released on a weekly basis, with few exceptions, and tend to last approximately an hour in length. The episodes continues on the themes of the video series, featuring discussions of the major political issues in the news, or notable cultural events, such as the death of George Jones. All episodes are recorded in the bunker underneath Jackie's Market, save when the duo engages in talks elsewhere, as with their appearance at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Sponsors

A notable feature of the podcast series is the inclusion of sponsorships featuring local Murfreesboro businesses who pay $25 to be mentioned on the podcast. Often, mutual dislike or suspicion about each other's sponsorships leads to heated arguments between Jackie and Dunlap. As the podcast progressed, the sponsor segments have consumed an increasing amount of time, leading both characters to lament the amount of time that they are spending on the sponsorships and expressing determination to press on to the important news of the day. However, the sponsor segments constitute the medium by which much of the local goings-on in Murfreesboro were communicated to the listening audience. Occasionally, Red State Update releases a special podcast consisting of the sponsor segments from previous episodes. Among the sponsors of the podcast are the following:

Many of the sponsoring businesses are represented as being located "just off the square" in Murfreesboro. Most of these businesses were destroyed during the McKinley-Sullivan Feud that resulted in the burning of Murfreesboro (see below).

Movie Commentaries

Jackie and Dunlap have also included in their podcast two full-length DVD commentaries for the movies The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel.

Clip of the Week

In 2014, Dunlap began including a "clip of the week" into the podcast. These are usually YouTube clips and originally included snippets from the PTL Club featuring such celebrities as Colonel Sanders. However, the "clip of the week" feature has become less something that Dunlap offers listeners and more something he demands from them, urging listeners to go out and find specific YouTube videos and post them on the Facebook page of Red State Update.

Red State Update Curse

Speculation has arisen among fans as to the existence of a curse upon the series following the deaths of Mickey Rooney, James Garner, and Robin Williams within weeks of each one being mentioned prominently in the podcast. So far, the curse seems limited to individuals working within the entertainment industry. Jackie and Dunlap analyze the seriousness of the curse in Episode 93 of the podcast.

McKinley-Sullivan Feud/Destruction of Murfreesboro/End of the Series?

During the spring of 2014, Jackie and Dunlap announced that they were continuing the podcast only to Episode 100 unless they secured an invitation from the George W. Bush Presidential Library to do a live podcast on the premises. They later expanded their demands for continuing the podcast to include having actor Matthew Broderick accompany them for this special event. These demands were later dropped or forgotten. It should be noted that, despite the duo's insistence that they had set their limit of 100 episodes from the very beginning, they first mentioned the scheduled termination of the series only around Episode 75.

The 100th episode was released on September 22, 2014. Technically, it was only Episode 98, but according to Jackie and Dunlap, they were recording on October 5, 2014. During the intervening two weeks, Dunlap had convinced Jackie that they were recording their weekly podcast, but this was simply playacting in order to keep them occupied while they were hiding out in Jockey's bunker following the destruction of much of Murfreesboro in the wake of the McKinley-Sullivan Feud.

As was revealed in Episode 96, Mayor Tee-Tee Slott attempted to bring peace to Murfreesboro by the convening of a peace summit at the city fair, located near the Pepsi machine that has the llama tied up next to it. She managed to convince Sullivan and McKinley to set aside their grievances, and the outlook for the future seemed bright, especially when Mayor Slott announced free popcorn to the assembled crowds, wheeling out the popcorn machine from the Murfreesboro Museum. However, the popcorn machine proved broken, and the mood of the crowd quickly soured. Riots broke out. At the fair, Coley's Snack Foods had hosted a dunking booth using prisoners from their private prison complex—some dressed as demons, with others dressed in regular prison garb. Because the crowds had objected to so many hundreds of prisoners roaming around, the show cows had been released from their pens so that the prisoners could be locked up. These cows created a great deal of confusion as the crowds became angry, inflaming the situation. In addition, the poor security around the cow pens allowed the prisoners to escape. Though the girl from Gun Sonic managed to shoot a few, hundreds still fled to the woods around Murfreesboro, led by Don Jeckyll Jr., who had become a Marxist during his latest round in prison. (As it happens, the popcorn machine had been damaged by Doctor Birdman and Johnny Greenstreet when they, assisted by Jackie Broyles, broke into the Murfreesboro Museum to follow up rumors that Hurt Bird was being kept in the basement.)

Episode 98 reveals what happened following this outbreak of violence, including the repeated changeover in the mayoral position. Tee-Tee Slott declared martial law, using her own Slott Cops as well as assuming command of the Peanut Pockets Patrol from the Peanut Pockets Steakhouse. However, she put in charge of her security the Gun Sonic girl, who had previously dated one of the McElroy boys. This allowed for a coup d'etat whereby Reo McElroy was able to assume political control of Murfreesboro, driving Tee-Tee Slott away to McMinnville, Tennessee and renaming the city Hoseboro. He quickly proved unpopular, as his only signature policy was to give everyone in town a hose. Meanwhile, riots continued, and everything off the square was burned. Only the town mosque, the square, and Jackie's Market were left standing, the latter preserved by the efforts of the Hosewater crew and Wetbreads. Then occurred the "Three Great Speeches," as they were later called. In the first, Lynette revealed that the picture of her with the man holding her breast was taken with the full knowledge of her husband, who was into cuckold fetishism. In the second, the Cobbler Guy, whose name nobody will reveal, cussed at the entirety of Murfreesboro's citizenry. As people were absorbing this, Don Jeckyll Jr., now wearing a Bane mask and calling himself Bane Jeckyll Jr., climbed atop the Peanut Pockets tank and said simply, "Get him." People were more than happy to chase down the Cobbler Guy, pursuing him to the McMinnville city limits. In a popular upswell, Bane Jeckyll Jr. took over the reins of the mayor's office, banishing Reo McElroy to McMinnville and ordering the immediate execution of his former fellow prisoners.

During the violence, Dunlap managed to drag Jackie into the bunker underneath Jockey's Market, his most hated competitor. They spent much of their time eating the voluminous provisions of the bunker, though Dunlap also masturbated repeatedly in the bunker's chapel. When e-mail comes back online, Dunlap, from the safety of the bunker, is able to reveal what has gone on during their prolonged absence underground. Noteworthy is the disappearance of all the major figures of the Hurt Bird saga. Doctor Birdman's truck was found wrecked, with the word "Squawk" written in blood on the windshield and feathers lying around. In similar circumstances did his henchman, Jimmy, and the manager of the Big Lots parking lot, where Doctor Birdman regularly appeared, also disappear. Dunlap remarks to Jackie that, as someone who regularly hosted Doctor Birdman, Jackie should be afraid for his life. Jackie dismisses this, though he does receive a phone call to the bunker that consists of nothing more than demonic squawking and other bird noises. At the end of the podcast, as Dunlap happens to mention that he was the one who took those fetish pictures of Lynette (and thus had known all along that it was not Sullivan's hand on her boob and could have prevented all the violence that resulted), there is a fevered knocking on the bunker door. The door breaks open, and all that can be heard are Jackie and Dunlap screaming amid fearsome bird noises. With that, the episode ends.

Episode 99 finds Dunlap attempting to comfort a dying Jackie. As Jackie seems on the verge of passing away, Dunlap confesses that he is actually a virgin, that he had performed a number of sexual acts with various women, including anal and facials with multiple partners, but had never engaged in vaginal penetration with his own penis. Meanwhile, Jackie dies and goes to heaven, where he encounters God, who looks like Dunlap and informs him that this is not People Heaven but rather Goat Heaven. Jackie's job is to build a pen to contain all the departed goats that have ever lived, and he spends hundreds of years doing this, followed by hundreds of years caring for the goats when they finally arrive. Then, Dunlap God comes and rounds up all the goats for a big barbecue in People Heaven, giving Jackie the option of staying there in empty Goat Heaven or returning to his earthly form. Thus, he comes back to life at the very moment he had died and informs Dunlap that he now knows how precious each moment is, adding, "I'm never doing another parkast again!"

Episode 100 is set in the 2030s, with the duo recording their 1,000th podcast at the George W. Bush Memorial Library in New Murfreesboro. Dunlap is an old and grizzled man, having reportedly served as a mercenary for many years, and while Jackie is no longer alive, his consciousness has been downloaded into a mechanism Dunlap dubs the "Jackietron." Unfortunately, Jackie cannot remember any of the time between 2014 and the future-present, losing his memory each time he is turned off, and so Dunlap has to inform him of events that occurred in the intervening years. For example, Tee-Tee Slott is now president and regularly issues They Live-like decrees, such as "Obey, Consume, Fear, Report." Dunlap promises a special event at the end of the podcast, which ends up being sending Jackie back in time to October 5, 2014 (the time period of Episodes 98 and 99), right after he had returned to life, to convince his living self not to stop podcasting (thus engaging in a predestination paradox). Only the Jackietron can go, as time travel in the 2030s has not progressed to the point of sending living matter through time. Upon arriving in the bunker underneath Jockey's Market, the Jackietron attempts to kill Jackie so as to prevent ever ending up in a robot body in the first place. However, Jackie is able to kill the robot with a broom handle, and the Jackietron's last words are a garbled, "Thank you." In response to the appearance of the robot, Dunlap is able to convince Jackie that he must assume the mantle of the leader in the resistance against the robot uprising, and as the podcast ends, with the score from The Terminator playing in the background, a narrator informs listeners that Jackie continued podcasting anti-robot messages, though no one ever paid him any attention.

Continuation of the Podcast

The podcast has continued on past Episode 100 with mostly new sponsors and no mention yet of the duo's previous plan to abandon the series. Among the new sponsors of the series are the following:

Two Horse Podcast

The end of Episode 168 featured Travis and Jonathan talking in the characters of two horses. The YouTube version of the podcast featured only a picture of two horses and the words "Two Horse Podcast." The characters talked about the travails of being talking horses. Many listeners felt that the two actors behind the podcast had produced this segment in a drug-induced state; coincidentally, the title of the episode was "On Something."

2016 Kickstarter Project

On June 29, 2015, Jackie and Dunlap launched a Kickstarter project in order to raise money for the necessary equipment and booze needed for them to provide YouTube video commentaries relating to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. If funded, they promised to provide a weekly video up through 2016, as well as film their podcast for YouTube. Not only did the pair manage to raise $8,723 for producing the videos, they also met their stretch goal of $11,723, money to be used for visiting one of the early primary states, such as Iowa or New Hampshire. They have since then been producing weekly videos, ostensibly filmed in the kitchen of Jackie Broyles.

The first politics-related outing of Red State Update for the 2016 election was to the September 16, 2016, Republican Party presidential debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. There, Jackie Broyles managed to interview Rick Santorum and get yelled at by Mike Huckabee. The duo also sampled the menu at the presidential library cafe, including the pulled-pork sandwich. They next attended the October 10, 2015, Politicon conference in Los Angeles, California, where they interviewed Ann Coulter, James Carville, and Paul Begala. From there, they traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada for the first Democratic presidential debate of 2015, held on October 13, 2015. In February 2016, they traveled to New Hampshire to cover that state's primary. There, Jackie briefly exchanged words with Ben Carson and interviewed Jim Gilmore at a Puppy Bowl party. In addition, Jackie also spent a great deal of time conversing with yogi and mystic Baba Steve, author of a book on "conditioned unconsciousness," who was in the state to present his ideas to the various presidential candidates. Because Baba Steve presented Jackie with a copy of his book, Jackie presented him as a sponsor of Episode 170 of the podcast, which covered part of their time in the state.

See also

References

External links

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