Little Mark’s Biodome: An Improvised Scene About a Fourth-Grade Science Project That Gets Out of Hand

Yo, yo, yo! Alright, here we go. We are doing the Dearing Acting Studio Improv Podcast. I am Matthew Dearing. I am Joey Sweeney. What is up, Joey Sweeney? Not much, just 5.50 on a great afternoon. Is it 5.50, really? It is 5.50. Dude, this day is amazing. This day has flown by. Let's do this. Why don't we try, just trust us, this is improv. Alright, just trust us, this is improv.

Hi. Hey, little Mark. What's going on? Um, just hanging out. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm just, uh, working on my nature project. Yeah, I see that. That's, uh, it's pretty extensive. Yeah, I created a biochemistry bubble where I'm working on how plants form in different environments. That's, that's, uh, it's really neat. So, so what are the, uh, what are those popsicle sticks doing in there?

Well, the popsicle sticks, they, they represent the trees because obviously I can't grow life-size trees for my demonstration. Um, so they represent God's green Earth's trees. So this is more of just a demonstration? It's not a real, um, biodome sort of thing? No, it's a real biodome. I'm gonna pour certain chemicals that'll make the, uh, popsicle sticks react like the environment would. You're kidding. Yeah, it's, it's gonna be great.

Wow, that's, that's amazing. I really, really want an A-plus on this project. Well, I, it's, I'm telling you, it's really, really impressive. It's bigger than I would have expected for a fourth grade project, too. Yeah, well, I just, you know, I have a lot of spare time on my hands. I, I don't have a lot of friends. Oh, is that true, little Mark? Yeah. Well, you know what? You always got a friend in your Uncle Joey.

Aw, thanks, Uncle Joey. Well, no problem, little Mark. What, what did you do for your project in fourth science? Honestly, I don't even remember that far back. I did, uh, I did all kinds of stuff, but nothing was, like, as good as this. I mean, this is really, really impressive. You really think I got a good idea here? I, well, yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I, just, just the looks alone is incredible.

I can't believe you guys actually got real, are those ants? Yeah, I, uh, I, I gathered a colony, and I put them into my dome as citizens. Yeah, I see that. They're, they, they've all got little paper figures attached to, how did you attach paper figures to each ant to make them look like people? Uh, tweezers. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, at, uh, tweezers, and I, I had an hourglass on my glasses, like the dentist have, where you can see, uh, ten times.

Did you, did you kill any ants in the process? Uh, there were a few fatalities, but I promised that I buried them very kindly. That's nice. You had a little ceremony or something for the ants? Yeah, I would name them, and then I would say thank you, and, and they went into a graveyard, which is also in the biodome. Oh, I see the graveyard. Wow. Yeah, they even got little gravestones.

That's so, so each one of those is a real gravestone with a real dead ant in it? Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, I mean, a few casualties. That's, what is that, thirty, thirty-seven? Yeah, thirty-seven exactly. Wow. It, it works out, uh, I, I did kill a couple on purpose because I needed the graveyard to take up a certain amount of space in my biodome. So you just murdered some ants?

Yeah, yeah. But only the ones who bit me when I was trying to put the human paper on them. You got bitten? Oh, yeah. I got like thirty bites. Oh, Mark. Little Mark, look at, look at those bites. Oh, buddy. Did you, you haven't had those looked at yet, huh? No, I'm actually allergic to ants. I already know that, so that's why they're so big. Yeah, your, your whole entire arm, I didn't even notice that. It's swelling up.

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be fine. It's worth it. That's, I'm sorry, is, am I looking at England? Uh, yeah, yeah. England is on the other side of the biodome, just like the, across the, the little waterway here, which represents the ocean. And there's a little ship, and the ship brings ants back and forth. Yeah, yeah, just like, just like the colonists coming from Britain to the United States.

That's incredible. Okay, I'm sorry. Is that, is that a real queen ant? Do you have a queen in there? Yeah, yeah, I, I gave a queen a crown because I went into the, the ant hole, and I just plucked her out, and I said, all right, you're gonna, you're gonna be the queen here now. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Little, little Mark, yes, you are gonna get a really good grade on this.

I hope so. The only thing I worry about is my teacher is like one of those, uh, what do you call them? Like the people who like, protest animals, and like, all for animals, you know? Oh, like an animal rights activist type? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm just worried that she's gonna be a little disappointed that I use real animals in my project. Well, maybe just don't tell her about the part where you murdered some of the ants. Well, won't she see the gravestones? Yeah, but she, she might not know that you murdered a few of them on purpose, because that's the only part that sounds a little, you know, bad. Yeah, I guess that's true. The only thing I worry about is I did write that on the gravestones. So if she's very thorough in her observation of my project, then…

Oh my, you have a detail of how each one died on their gravestone. Well, yeah, yeah. Wow. See, like right here, it says, uh, Benjamin Anton III, and he died because he bit my ankle right on the bone, and so I slapped him, and then I put him to rest to his favorite song by Jay-Z. What song was that? Uh, it was on to the next one, uh, to represent the afterlife. Wow. Yeah. Wow. That's, that's a big, that's a big, uh, big deal there, buddy.

Yeah. So, so let me ask you, how did you get the ants to, to like, get into the little cars and stop at the stoplights and stuff? Is there some kind of training you've, you've been doing with the ants? Um, well, it's pretty simple, actually. Like, you think of, um, um, mouse is typically what scientists would use to, to practice training animals, right? Yeah. But that takes up a lot of space, and I can't mass breed mice, you know? You've, you've been breeding the ants? Well, not breed, I mean, they breed themselves, cause they've been in the dome for so long. I see. Yeah. So they've just sort of adapted to life in there, and I've given them the cars and, and things to make it look like they're human, but they're not actually human. No, I know that. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, but they do stop at the stoplight.

I mean, watching them stop, they've been, there's some sort of training happening. Yeah. I mean, I think it, it has to do with adaptation, you know, like Darwinism. So they've been in there about three months now while I've been in the process of completing my biodome. And, uh, and so I think they've just, uh, adapted to life, you know? Does it have anything to do with that electro shock that happens when the red light goes on? Is that stopping the, the ant in the car? Are they getting shocked? Yeah. I mean, that, uh, that could be part of it. Sure. Um, I didn't really think of the electro factor. So. Yeah. Wow. I think you've been, I think you've been shock training the ants potentially. Well, that's an interesting theory. Maybe I have a whole different project on my hands. I don't know. Yeah. Well, okay.

If I could ask one more question. I got all the time in the world, uncle Joey. I've spent the last four hours on this biodome. This only took you four hours? Well, no, like I said, I've been working on it for three months, but I've been working on it currently for four hours. Oh, so this is like a brain break. Yeah. Yeah. This is what I do in my free time.

Okay. I gotta, I gotta ask you about that prison. That's a really extensive. Yeah. The prison is there because, uh, well, I'm trying to train the ants not to bite me when I pick them up to play. Uh huh. So the ones that bite me, if I don't kill them or they're just wounded, then they go into the prison. Right. Okay. And then is that, is that an electric chair I see down there inside the prison? Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I, I can't figure out the logistics of strapping an ant to an electric chair because they're so small and to run that kind of currency through the electric chair. It just doesn't work like it does on a human. So that's one part of my, my biodome that I, I would prefer if we didn't pay attention to it. Okay. But that's something you are working on is, is electrocuting the ants and capital punishment type thing. Yeah. Yeah. Cause if you teach them, then they see their friends die. And then when you see your friends die, you're like, wow, I don't want to do what the friend did to die. Right. I don't want to die.

I think that's part. Yeah. That's, that's part of what we're hoping for in our society as well as having these rules. And some rules are just, you know, if you break them, something really bad happens. So hopefully people don't break the rules. Right. Uh, what are you talking about uncle Joey? I'm talking about people, you know, people, we have rules too. And we have an electric chair that people use to kill other people who break the rules.

That's a little cruel. I mean, this is just, this is just a bio room. Yeah. I, I, I thought you, I figured you knew that based on, I was, I was seeing all the action that was happening in there. I figured you got inspired by, by life. No, I just, I just watch a lot of movies. I actually didn't know that that was real. Um, yeah, no, that, yeah, that really happens. You're, you're telling me as a fourth grader that people get electrocuted every day in prison? I don't know about every day, but they do get electrocuted. Yeah. And I don't know, uh, not fourth graders by the way. Is it like a nationally televised event? I know, no, it's not. Ah, so they don't like tell people about it. They just kind of electrocute people when they want to. Well, no, they tell them about it. I mean, it's usually on the newspapers and things like that. Um, so yeah, I mean, it, it is a big deal, I guess. Yeah. I, I, I'm sorry. We shouldn't have gone there a little Mark. I, I didn't mean, I, I thought, I thought you knew cause of the, I saw the electric chair and, and yeah, it kind of got me depressed. I'll go Joey. I don't know if I can finish my project anymore. Hmm. Oh, uh, boy, buddy. I'm, I'm so sorry. How, how, how is your mental health these days? Well, it was great until about two minutes ago. Um, are, are, are you still, I see the ants there. They have got, they've got a psychotherapy ward. What, what's your psychotherapy ward? Right down there next to the prison. Oh yeah, yeah. That's for the ones who, you know, like one leg doesn't work or they're going crazy and they're running in circles, you know, I'm trying to rehabilitate them to go back to the regular ant society. Yeah. Yeah. But I will say I'm pretty proud of my work because I have about a 93% success rate for the ants adapting to life in the dome. Oh, that's really good. Little Mark. That's way better than real life. Cause the, in the, in the real insane asylums, a lot of people just stay in there forever. And why are you telling me that? Oh, I'm sorry. You did know that there were real insane asylums, right? Like that? No, I got that from Batman. Oh. Batman's not real. No, he's not buddy. But, but, but yeah, the psychotherapy places, they, they are real. They're, that's a real, oh buddy. I'm sorry. I thought cause it was in there, that was something that you knew about. Would you like to point out something else in my biodome that's somehow connected to real life and how terrible people are? No, no. I mean, I, I wasn't trying to do that, but I, I, I promise I was just, I was literally just looking at the, at the project and I was trying to, oh buddy, I'm sorry. Little Mark.

Yeah. Well, well the ships are cool. The ships. Oh, the ones that go to England. Yeah. Yeah. Those are, those are really cool. Yeah. Some of the ants die on the way over cause of like a plague or something. I don't know. Seasickness. You, a plague happens on, on the ships? Yeah. I don't know. Something like that. Sickness. There's something you inject into the, into the biodome? No, I would not. How would I even get a plague to inject into the biodome, Uncle Joey? That's a ridiculous idea. I'm sorry. I didn't, I didn't know. I thought maybe you were trying to do experiments like infecting people with infectious diseases or something like, you know, that's happened. Why do you keep comparing this back to people, Uncle Joey? You're really creeping me out. Well, buddy, you, you're the one that attached little people to all the little ants. Yeah. Because it was supposed to be my science experiment.

Well, that's the idea of science experiments, little Mark. You're supposed to, you're supposed to learn something about real life. No, you're not supposed to learn something about real life. You're supposed to figure out what the world is like. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's what you're doing. The, the, the world, the real, the real world. Yeah. The real world and my biodome. Right. You're creating something that represents the real world, which helps us learn about the real world. Yeah. Well, I never thought about it that way. I just really like science and I have a lot of time on my hands. Well, it's really good, buddy. It's really good. I, I think you're going to get a good grade. I hope so. All right. Well, hey, you know what? Uh, Uncle Joey's got to go. All right. I gotta, I gotta, you know, get back to my house. Okay. Have fun though. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll, uh, see you around, Uncle Joey. Hey, don't be too sad. All right. Um, uh, um, if you need something, you can always call me. All right. I'll, I'll keep that in mind, Uncle Joey. All right. Try to, try to keep it to the weekends if you could. Okay. Anytime on the weekends. Yeah. Yeah. Probably, probably not early though in the morning. Maybe like afternoon time would be good. Anytime on the weekends in the afternoon. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. For, I mean, we could probably talk for five, five, six minutes. Anytime on the weekends in the afternoon for five or six minutes.

Yeah. All right, buddy. All right. You know, I love you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. And singing. That was our improv for the day. That was cool. Thank you all for listening to the Dearing Acting Studio Improv Podcast. This is Matthew Dearing and Joey Sweeney. And you got to trust us. This was improv.