Announcing: The Young Old Derf Chronicles!
The crew are here to announce the newest project in the Mission to Zyxx universe: The Young Old Derf Chronicles, coming later this year!
Plus, it's the Max Fun Drive! That's no coincidence: We need your support to make this new prequel series happen in true Zyxx fashion. Meaning, ambitious to the point of absurdity. Join us at maximumfun.org/join !
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ALDEN: Hey everybody, it's Alden here with the cast of Mission to Zyxx!
EVERYONE: [various happy greetings]
ALDEN: Happy MaxFunDrive!
MOUJAN: Yes!
ALDEN: It's that time of year where we remind you about how important your support is, for this show and all of the shows on the network at maximumfun.org/join.
SETH: Yes.
ALDEN: Yeah!
SETH: But it does beg the question, why are we here now for this MaxFunDrive when it's been so long since we've put anything out?
ALDEN: Yes—
SETH: —been a while—
ALDEN: —been a little while since we've gotten on the old feed!
ALLIE: Let's not say exactly how long it's been and we'll just agree it’s been—
SETH: —two years, three months…
MOUJAN: Sixteen hours and thirty-seven seconds!
WINSTON: And we haven't seen each other since that moment.
ALLIE: Not once!
MOUJAN: No.
ALDEN: Well, you know, we… we wouldn't get back on this feed if we didn't have something pretty serious to talk to you guys about.
WINSTON: What is this about, Alden?
ALDEN: Yeah, here's the thing, I've been thinking a lot about, like, what should be next for us? What should be next for Zyxx? You know? And I thought… what if we made like… what if, like, if an NFT was made of audio?
MOUJAN: No.
ALDEN: Like, crypto…
SHANE: I think that's just an NFT… can be that.
ALDEN: Right.
WINSTON: Shane’s right.
JEREMY: Just feels a little late.
ALDEN: Sure, but I'm thinking… now that we're on the other end of the bell curve, I think…
WINSTON: It's time for NFTs is what you're saying?
ALDEN: Yeah again, finally, again. Yeah.
JEREMY: Okay.
WINSTON: Huh.
[notification beeps of another person joining the call]
JUSTIN: You guys could do NFDs!
MOUJAN: Justin!
ALDEN: WHOA!
EVERYONE: [excited for Justin noises]
ALDEN: How’d you get here?
JUSTIN: I hacked the system!
JEREMY: Whoa, this guy's non-fungible right here!
JUSTIN: Can’t funge me!
SETH: Maximum Fun, minimum funge!
ALDEN: Guys, it's Justin! Hi Justin!
JUSTIN: Hello. Thank you for having me here!
SHANE: Wait, Old Derf Justin?
WINSTON: Old Derf!
ALDEN: Justin, I feel like since you're here, you should be the one to announce what we're here to announce!
JUSTIN: Well, that's really nice. We've been talking, we've been working, and we're excited to announce The Young Old Derf Chronicles, a prequel series in the Mission to Zyxx universe where Derf is slightly less old.
ALDEN & ALLIE: [laughter]
WINSTON: Whoa!
JUSTIN: That's what a life is, is sometimes you're young and sometimes you're old.
ALDEN: Oh shit. Yeah.
JUSTIN: You ever thought about that?
WINSTON: Wow. That's the kind of hard-hitting…
JUSTIN: Philosophy!
JEREMY: That's the kind of Zima wisdom you’re gonna hear in The Young Old Derf Chronicles.
JUSTIN: You never thought it'd be possible, but the wisdom has gotten worse and is younger!
ALDEN: He knew even less than he does now! Well, you know in the vein of a Disney Plus anthology series or The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as we are referencing with the title, we thought it'd be fun to do just a limited series. Eight episodes, all of which will be released this year, to just see… see what his life was like, you know, see what Young Derf was up to long before he came across the crew—
SETH: Yeah.
ALDEN: —of the Bargarean Jade.
SETH: And from what we've recorded so far, his life was jucked up!
ALDEN: Pretty jucked up. Yeah, I mean the amount of jucking around Derf does as an old person, just imagine what his life as a Young Old Derf was like.
ALLIE: I did hear though, that when you get older you do do a lot of jucking around. And in fact, you should be afraid of STDs.
ALDEN: Sure sure, right.
MOUJAN: And that's actually why we're here.
ALDEN: Oh, that's… sorry, Allie. You're right. That's the acronym, we should do a Zyxx STD. That's what I was trying to pitch earlier!
WINSTON: No…
SETH: Wow. Somehow got worse.
JUSTIN: Sexually transmitted Derf.
ALDEN: No, no, no, sonically—
JUSTIN: Sonically!
MOUJAN: There we go.
WINSTON: Hey, are there gonna be all new characters in this podcast?
ALDEN: Yeah, you know what, Winston? There actually are gonna be brand new characters in this podcast.
JEREMY: Wait, wait, wait, wait, but Alden, are there gonna be old characters?
ALDEN: No, there's gonna be young characters and new characters! I'm not sure what your definition of old in this context is—
JEREMY: I’m saying characters we remember from the original series.
ALDEN: I mean, who knows, maybe!
MOUJAN: Hey Alden? Are we in this series or did you replace us with AI?
JEREMY: Boy, that’s a good question.
ALDEN: Oh, I should have mentioned! We are all in this, it is all of us, the original seven plus Justin!
MOUJAN: Just like Zyxx, Justin's been here the entire time.
ALDEN: Yes. Yes, in true Justin fashion.
WINSTON: Hey Alden?
ALDEN: Yeah?
WINSTON: Is there music? Like, new music for this podcast?
ALDEN: Oh, you better believe there's music. In fact, we already have a brand new theme song written by our beloved composer Brendan Ryan featuring bass guitar and acoustic guitar by Shane, and of course his signature amazing sound design. Hey Shane!
SHANE: Hey, what's up?
ALDEN: How's your… how you feeling about all this?
SHANE: I'm scared!
EVERYONE: [laughter]
JUSTIN: That’s a good sign!
ALDEN: You know it's gonna be…
SHANE: I'm very excited that we… had this time away from the show to—
ALDEN: [laughter]
SETH: [laughter] Best two years of your life.
SHANE: —come up with more insane, more difficult to produce ideas… this show is gonna be like nothing you've ever heard!
ALDEN: Yeah! Yeah, we are so excited for everyone to hear more as we get the show ready to roll, but don't worry we will be bringing you lots of fun and insanity between now and when Young Old Derf is ready for action later this year.
SETH: Yes, we are actually going to be releasing cool new stuff every month leading up to Derf, both in the public feed and as bonus content for supporters. So there's just gonna be lots to hear throughout the year.
ALDEN: Yeah, keep your…. uh, audio tuner tuned to this station, of this…
WINSTON: What?
JEREMY: Audio tuner?
ALDEN: I dunno…
JEREMY: How do you think people are listening to this?
ALDEN: Yeah, this is an—
WINSTON: Sonically transmitted, what are you doing?
ALDEN: Sonically transmitted!
JUSTIN: See y'all soon! Backflip!
[the whiff of a crisp backflip]
ALDEN: Whoa!
[The Young Old Derf Chronicles theme kicks in]
JUSTIN: The Young Old Derf Chronicles, coming to this same feed this year. Stay tuned! We can’t wait.
[music fades in and transitions to solely Alden and Seth]
ALDEN: You know, Seth, if you've ever listened to Mission to Zyxx before..
SETH: I've been meaning to.
ALDEN: [laughter] You, you could probably guess two things about the upcoming The Young Old Derf Chronicles, first, that we are going to put every ounce of effort possible into making it ambitious and hilarious and ridiculous and sonically majestic.
SETH: Yes, and I know that for a fact because it's already been happening.
ALDEN: Yeah, it's true. And the second thing that you can probably guess is that we need listener support to make it happen.
SETH: Yes, and to elaborate if you supported Mission to Zyxx before on Maximum Fun, what do we need you to do?
ALDEN: Do it again!
SETH: And if you are still a Maximum Fun member, but obviously not supporting us because the show wasn't in production, what do we need you to do?
ALDEN: Take us back into your selection of shows!
SETH: [laughter] Please take us back! And if you discovered the show since it ended or you just are a richer or more generous person than you were when you listened back then—
ALDEN: [laughter] Whoa, careful!
SETH: —okay. What good news do we have for you?
ALDEN: You have another chance to be a good person! [laughter] That's separate from supporting the show. You can always be a good person, it’s never too late to change your ways. But you also have another chance to support Mission to Zyxx in our new venture here.
SETH: And you can sign up monthly or..
ALDEN: You can prepay for a year!
SETH: That's true! You can click the thing that says "prepay twelve months."
ALDEN: And since The Young Old Derf Chronicles is a limited series that might make more sense to you, to say "hey, I'm supporting this one single project and when it's done, that's it, right?"
SETH: But wait, wait, wait, wait, we're also asking people to sign up for a year. Why would they do that for a show that's gonna release for like two months later in the year?
ALDEN: Great question, let's get into that. So, we're doing two things between now and the release of the show: one, we are releasing monthly out-of-character one-off podcast episodes. And these are podcasts suggested by our supporters. So the first one, that's coming out this week on Wednesday—
SETH: These are public, by the way. They’re public episodes that everyone gets.
ALDEN: Everyone can hear, yes!
SETH: But the concepts are suggested by people who support the show.
ALDEN: Yes, over on our Mission to Zyxx discord.
SETH: Yes.
ALDEN: And the one that's coming out this Wednesday, it is an advice column podcast where we answer burning questions from our listeners.
SETH: Rodd help us all.
ALDEN: Oh boy, wow. It's a good one, it's really fun.
SETH: Okay, so that's on the public feed.
ALDEN: Yes.
SETH: What about the actual bonus content for supporters, Alden?
ALDEN: Well the upside-down junior clown version of that, over on the BoCo feed we are going to be releasing episodes recorded in-world by Derf himself! These are not The Young Old Derf Chronicles, these are failed attempts at podcasts that Derf has done over the years, and the first one is on the feed right now. It is appropriately, perhaps ironically—
SETH: Yeah.
ALDEN: —Derf answering, you guessed it, listener-submitted questions for advice. It is an absolute hoot.
SETH: They won't always mirror each other but this time was…
ALDEN: No promises, but this one just seemed too good to pass up. And guess what? Those one-off podcasts by Derf on the BoCo feed, you get to suggest ideas for those as well.
SETH: Wow. So that's it, right? That's everything they'd probably get from supporting…
ALDEN: If only that was it!
SETH: Wait, what else do you—
ALDEN: You also get to join, as mentioned, the Mission to Zyxx Discord, one of the chillest places on the internet.
SETH: The only thing not chill about it is how much Alden is on it. [laughter]
ALDEN: Yeah, I'm sort of too on it. I apologize in advance.
SETH: Yeah, so it's not just fans, it's also us, especially Alden.
ALDEN: Me to a fault. You also, it should be noted, when you support our show you also get access to the entire back catalog of all BoCo for every Maximum Fun show.
SETH: And we will say, though that stuff is… like, all the bonus stuff is great. That doesn't have to be why you support it. You get all that stuff, but the real reason we want you to support is it actually is the only way we can make the show. The Young Old Derf Chronicles, that will come out later this year, is depending on your support. We made the kind of brilliant decision to start making it and start spending lots of money on the assumption that there will be people supporting it? So no presh, but also, we can't finish it and make it without that support. So, um…
ALDEN: Sorry, I do… I do have to say this one more BoCo thing. We made a… we made a pin. We made another pin.
SETH: Oh, everyone who supports the MaxFunDrive at a certain level can choose a pin from any show, we have a new pin.
ALDEN: I think we could say, it might be a little bit Derferent this year.
SETH: Derferent from the other ones.
ALDEN: Previous pins…
SETH: Yeah, yeah.
ALDEN: Sorry, as you were.
SETH: Yes, also, when you support, some of that support goes to Maximum Fun. It goes to all the other shows that you select when you sign up, and this is a worker owned network. It's a worker owned co-op, something that exists almost nowhere else, of creator owned shows. We are so happy to be back… to be back on MaxFun as we watch the media industry crumble in various ways. It is this beacon of goodness glowing in the darkness. It's run ethically, and it supports great art and it allows you to support that art and it's… [emotional] it's just… ah, I'm not gonna cry. I promise! Anyway, so so we need you. It's an incredibly good cause.
ALDEN: Take a minute, go to maximumfun.org/join and then… pat yourself on the back, sit back, enjoy a Derf minisode.
SETH: Yeah, and on Wednesday, you enjoy the first monthly episode of some really good advice as long as you don't use it or take it.
ALDEN: Yeah, certainly don't take it.
SETH: Yeah. Thank you so much, maximumfun.org/join.
ALDEN: Goodbye!
[The Young Old Derf Chronicles theme plays]