Annotations

• Nick and Willikins Are Dead was originally produced as an exclusive for donors to our 2012-2013 fundraiser. It was our first attempt at a standalone radio play and, while it contained some of the best jokes we've written, I don't feel like it completely held together as a story the way we'd intended. Still, I don't completely hate it — especially since we've gone back and re-recorded/re-mastered it using our current voice cast and production techniques.

• Honestly, quite a lot of this serves as sort of a polished version of material we'd previously done. Not in a bad way at all — I think we improved on a lot of the earliest Nick and Willikins ideas, from Nick abusing Willikins to Good-Great Aunt Petunia. But it does mean that I don't have quite as much to say, annotations-wise, as it's been covered in previous annotations.

• Nick will finally find his way to The Colonies in The Omce and Future Nick. Sort of.

• Of course Nick Hall has an explosives cellar. Doesn't every great English manor?

• I love using Dave as all-seeing biblical authority figures. He also did a great job with that in this sketch.

• At some point in their development, Matt abbreviated Nick and Willikins as "N+S." I have no idea where this came from, but I can almost certainly assure you this explanation, written by Flonk, is not accurate. Nevertheless, to this day, "N+S" remains the official abbreviation for "Nick and Willikins" for reasons that are clear only to Matt — and possibly not even to him.

• Similarly, Willikins' full name, as spoken by St. Peter, is almost certainly not canon. Unless it is.

• I never tire of having Dave say English things in his quintessentially American accent.

• That's my good-great friend Mark Darin as the uncultured wag on the street. Apparently he sat in his closet (the best recording environment in his home) for some time saying "what about sex, boy?" in a variety of accents and intonations. This mental image delights me.

• I will never tire of Nick's complete lack of knowledge of women or sex.

• I didn't even bother checking if there's such a thing as the Cambridge School of Fish Abortions. Seems pretty obvious to me.

• That's Terry Drosdak as Golizza. She's a Golizza superfan, so it seemed only appropriate.

• Of course the Haunted House Keeper appears in this. How could he not?

• The Composite Fish-Mummy was featured in our Sarcastic Voyage Guide to Monsters and Also Robots.

• The owner of the company that makes the Segway actually died by rolling his Segway off a cliff. To this day, Matt thinks that's hilarious.

• Boy, we were pretty obsessed with Alan Moore for awhile there.

• Brian informs me that Classic Robin Hood's olde English is, in fact, the lyrics to "Call Me Maybe."

• Brian's definitely grinding an axe here with 90s Robin Hood. Grind away, my friend.

• Was "Alan Moore's cave" a euphemism of some kind? Who can say!

• Nick's father would end up being an analog for Rupert Murdoch, so I suppose they both exist in-universe. If that matters to anyone. (It doesn't matter to me, so I can't imagine anyone else cares much.)

• I'm certain I have at least five full minutes of Matt singing the Mario invincibility theme.

• Of course English God sounds like Brian Blessed. Who else would he sound like?

• I love Joe's read on "ooh-da-lay, indeed!"