Big Apes: A Fully Improvised Radio Play About Cornophobia, HR, and a Silverback Named Jojo

Do we want to do any kind of the intro song, or we just do our own thing here? What do you think? Do you have music that we could just improvise into in intro? I mean, yeah, here, let me play it for you. Just stop and start so that we have an actual… Well, am I supposed to pick a song right now? Well, yeah, hang on, I'll just…

Yes, this is the one that we have. Okay, I love it. Okay, what else do we got? That's it. Well, let's do that then. If that's the only option we have, why don't we go with that? Those are your options. You're number three, bud. I'm number one, but I'll be number three headphones. Okay, here we go. Here we go, Jason. Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dearing Acting Studio Improvisational Podcast!

Explosions are going off. Fireworks in the background. Sylvester Stallone is walking into frame. Duh. This podcast is going to be dope. All right, we got Mr. Jason Jackson. What's up, Jason Jackson? Not much, you know. Oh, it's Stallone. I didn't know we had Sly on the line. Yeah, you know, you have to use the James Jackson thing if you don't plug my phone all the time, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was curious. So, for real, for real, for real, we got Mr. Matthew Dearing here, Mr. Joey Sweeney, and on the line is Jason Jackson. What's up, boys? How are you guys? Good, good. How are you? It's been a minute. I'm great. It has been a minute. And you know what? It's all in the right timing here. As Joey says, it's all in the timing.

It's all in the timing. Ding. So, um… Still never get that right. We are… What? I never get that right. I always get dinged on that line. What do you mean you always get dinged? It's all in the timing. Ding. See? I don't understand what you're saying. I always get dinged on that line. On what line? What do you… On it's all in the timing? Ding. It's all in the timing.

Ding. It's all in the timing. Ding. It's all in the timing. Ding. All right. So, can we stop doing inside jokes that Jason doesn't know about, nor does anybody else who's listening? Okay, perfect. Here we go. They do if they watch Masterclass. Yeah. So, four people got the joke. That's great. All right. So, here's what we're going to do, everybody. We are going to do a little improvised show for you.

We're going to go about 15, 20 minutes here. You'll have to trust us that everything is made up right on the spot. And we're going to do some character work, maybe dive into some sort of a storyline, maybe an improvised play of sorts, and we'll kind of find out what happens. Sound good to you guys? Sounds great. Sound good to you, Jason? Sounds great. All right. Should we get a title of a play that one of us makes up, or we could try to find the title together?

What's on your mind right now, Jason? I've been watching too many documentaries about… All right. So, we got documentary. Documentary makes you think about what, Joey? Makes me think about Animal Planet. Okay. And Animal Planet makes me think of… Like, apes, I guess. Apes. Big apes. Oh, okay. Big apes. Okay. So, big apes. The title of this play is Big Apes, and we will take it from there.

Here we go. Hey, Jim. Hey, what's going on? Not a whole lot. Just cleaning these traps. Ah. Good, good. Don't forget the one in the corner. You forgot the one in the corner last time. Look, I just don't want you to get in trouble, you know? Last time, you forgot the one in the corner was like a big thing, you know? And there's actually, there is a rat in there right now.

Dead. I don't like corners, man. You got a thing with corners? Yeah. I mean, especially walking in eyes first, all your back is exposed, you know? Yeah. Whoa, I didn't know that. So, you got, this is like a big, this is an actual phobia of yours? The corners of rooms? Yeah, it's called cornophobia. Cornophobia. I haven't heard of that. So, do you go to any kind of therapy, or how are you dealing with your cornophobia?

Well, first thing I do is I avoid that trap. Well, yeah, we know you've been avoiding that trap, but that's not good for our company here. I mean, I could try to move it away from the corner for you. But listen, Michelob, I just didn't know that you had this ailment. If I knew, I mean, we probably would have, you know, potentially either, you know, given you a different position or, you know.

Well, this is why I did this job in the jungle. I figured there wouldn't be any corners out here, and here I am with corners in this hut, you know? Yeah, yeah. No, I get it, Michelob. I'm just thinking, you know, I feel like maybe you should talk to HR about this. I feel like they don't really understand what it's like to be afraid of corners. Have you ever given HR a try?

No. Well, you got to try it. I mean, we, I don't know if you knew this, but we just hired a new guy two weeks ago. Ferry, have you heard of Ferry? No. No, I heard bad things about Scott, but you say there's a new guy there? Yeah, yeah, Scott's gone. Ferry's in there now, and Ferry's way better than Scott. Scott was kind of a jerk, you know?

He was, he was, uh, he was always judgmental of people and their different issues. Ferry, Ferry's a nice guy. He's, he's very accepting. Because I've been laughed at a few times, and it doesn't help. Well, Michelob, that would, I would just flat out say, you know, that that would be inappropriate. As a matter of fact, if anybody's laughing at you, you should definitely bring it up to Ferry.

You know what? I trust you, Jim. I think I'm going to do that. You should. You should. You have a good day, all right? I'm going to get back to my work here. All right. Thank you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you go. Yeah, yeah. Michelob, here, let me grab, let me grab the broom. I'm going to pull that rat out of the corner. Will you mind picking it up if I do that?

Thank God. You at least get me for a few days, man. All right. Here we go. Hold on. Come here. All right. There it is. Okay. It's just there. Oh, God. Can you get that? Yep. Yep. Yep. I can't believe you're not afraid of the rat, but you're afraid of the corner. It's just, ah, God. Things are. I can predict, I can predict what a rat's going to do.

I can't predict what's going to happen in the corner. Sure, buddy. Sure. Well, you have a good day. Oh, touching that. All right. Have a good one, man. Hello? Hey, Jerry. Hey, it's me, Ferry. Ferry. Who are you? My name's Michelob. Oh, Michelob. I work out in the field with Jim. You work out where? In the field. In the field? In the jungle field, you know, but as in the field as in I'm not in the executive office, you know?

Oh, oh, I got you with all the rats. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. That was actually where I started. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You started out in the field? Yeah. Very humble beginnings. Right out in the field. Well, I actually wanted to stay out in the field because I have this problem that I wanted to share with you. Maybe you could help me out with. Well, sure. I've been out in the field.

Maybe I could give you some advice. The reason I chose the field is I figured I would never run into corners because I am desperately afraid of corners. Have you heard of cornophobia? No. No, I've never heard of cornophobia. Well, that's what I've got, and it's real. And, you know, even though we're out in the field, we have to stay in the hut, and I'm responsible for the rat traps, and some of them are in the corners, and it's affecting my work.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, man, this is a tough one. This is one of my harder cases. Let me think on this for a minute. Let's go a little deeper. Let's go a little deeper. Tell me how corners make you feel. It's like a dog is chasing me with rabies. A dog is chasing you with rabies. It's scary. Okay. All right. All right. Has that ever happened to you before?

Have you ever been chased by a dog with rabies? I keep having a dream about it, but I don't think so. So, this is subconscious, then. That's what you're telling me. Because with the subconscious, you know, you see things in your sleep that you're predicting could happen in the future. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Doc. What? Doc. Just tell it to me straight, man. Just tell it to me straight.

Oh, don't be alarmed. Don't be alarmed. That's my sidekick. Yeah. Knuckles, buddy. It hurts. Massicates one of them? It hurts every time. Yeah. That's fascinating. He's a nice guy. Go ahead. Give him a fist bump. Wow. I didn't know how empowering it would feel to stand next to something so massive. Yeah. We call him, uh, we call him big apes. Oh, he liked it when I pet him right under the chin.

Yeah. See, if you can, if you can hang out with big apes, what's, uh… I'll wait. All right. I was just going to say, if you can hang out with big apes, then I mean… Okay. All right. Could you please stop petting big apes? Sorry. He's just trying. I know. I know he's fuzzy. He's really, really fun to snuggle with. Oh, man. Oh, man. What a creature.

This is, uh… This is awkward now, because I was trying to give you advice, and you couldn't focus on me. Well, dude, as long as I'm standing in the door well, I'm good. I'm not scared of the monkey. So you go ahead and finish your advice real quick. All right. Let me tell you something. Just a minute ago… No. No. Sit. Just a minute ago, when you were petting big apes…

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. You know where you were? Where was I? You were in the corner. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. No. And you did just fine, my friend. See? There's nothing to worry about. In fact… Oh, my God. You're right. I don't think that I've ever seen you happier than when you were in the corner petting big apes. Maybe corners are your favorite place.

Cut back to Jim's office. Hey, Michelob. What's going on, man? Nothing, man. Just clearing the trap, man. Dude, you look like you're in a great mood, man. I got over the cornophobia thing, man. You're kidding me. Did you go see Ferry? I did. The guy's amazing. Man, I got to tell you. He's a sweet guy. He really, really knows. He delivers, you know? Is that one of the silverbacks in the field?

Oh, 100%. That's his sidekick. Yeah. Jojo. I had no idea. Yeah, they call him big apes. Oh. No kidding. I was a big apes for my life. Changed my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big apes, man. Big apes. She's a good time, I'll tell you. Well, I'm glad you got over your cornophobia there, bud. Yeah, I mean, dude, now I can go chase my true dream. What's that?

Always wanted to be an underwater cave diver. All right, buddy. You go do that. Don't forget the corner. There's another rat. No problem. Watch this. Woo! You believe that? Wow, man. Still disgusting. Still very gross. Big apes. I love that big apes. All right, man. Have a good one. All right, I'll see you. All righty. That is our improv podcast. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Jason Jackson.

You're very welcome. Joey Sweeney and I am Matthew Dearing. And welcome to Dearing Acting Studio improv podcast. Come and listen to us podcasts about improv whenever we feel like doing that thing. Which is sometimes, occasionally. This is me improvising an outro that I haven't prepared a dead. Here's the thing. A dead. There's one outro that we can always feel safe using, and that is have a Dearing Day, everyone.

Have a Dearing Day, everyone. Jeez Louise. Dearing Day.