This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at mjmunoz.com.
Welcome to Red Panda Report. This is episode 19 where I'm going to be talking about Red Panda Adventures.
Episode 19, The Dream Factory.
Season 2, episode 19 of Red Panda Report. We'll be trying to focus on her.
So here's the copy written by Greg Taylor, the writer and director of Red Panda and the other Dakota Ring shows,
as well as the voice of the Red Panda, which I still think Voice of the Red Panda would be a really cool title for something, but regardless, here we go.
In hard times, people stick together. They help one another as best they can with the little they have,
and always they cling to the one thing that keeps them going, hope.
But there are monsters in the darkness, men-made beasts, who use that hope as a lure to prey upon those who have little else left.
When creatures such as this begin to ply their vile trade in Toronto, they will pay a price for their treachery.
For in this city, justice is served freely, and by the red-gauntleted fistful.
Kind of fell flat on that one, but it's still a good copy, and by the red-gauntleted fistful. I can see that, that works.
Anyway, The Dream Factory, which is episode 19, like I said, of Red Panda Adventures, originally aired March 24, 2007.
Written and directed by Greg Taylor, and yeah, so I made a little card, my little thumbnail for this.
I put, these cowards are not men, as the little quote from the episode, because that was a great line.
Basically, you have these guys, I guess I'll explain the plot in minute detail, or shortly, briefly. That's what I mean.
Anyway, so what happens is you have these guys who are counterfeiting money, and not only are they counterfeiting money,
but they're passing off that money to different criminal organizations, and what these criminal organizations do,
particularly this one that's in this episode focused on, is they get people to do work, real work, real honest work,
and they say, oh, we're a startup company, and we're struggling, and you won't get paid very much at first,
but give us a few weeks, or a few days, or whatever, of turning out product and selling product,
and because it's so hard, we've scraped together money, and we're using things the best we can,
and we're getting things up and running, and you're on the ground floor, honey,
because it's women mostly who are seamstresses who they're using, manipulating, and they pay them very little money,
and then I believe all the money they're paying them is counterfeit, and then finally they pay them a full wage of counterfeit bills,
and then they've been selling the products for actual real money, we can have a debate about that if you want,
but that's for later, I want to focus on the story right now, they sell the products for real money,
they keep the real money, and they keep giving counterfeit money to their employees,
and when the jig is up, when someone's check bounced, or when somebody realizes that they're getting fake bills,
then I guess, I don't know how the guys know that some of the ladies are having trouble with their money,
but they pack up the company while they're gone, while the women are at home or whatever,
dealing with the negative outcome that's been foisted upon them, and then they go, they flee,
they go to another abandoned building, and apparently because things are so hard, this is depression-era Toronto,
it's depression-era Toronto, there are vacant buildings all around, and they talk about that in the body of the episode,
and that enables them to just go from factory to factory, doing this thing over and over again,
where they're using these fake bills to get real money, and to defraud these women into working for them,
well it says at slave wages at some point, and then they get a normal amount of money, I don't know how much that is,
it doesn't go into details, but still, that's interesting, it's pretty nasty, it's a very clever scheme,
but obviously it's super immoral, super wrong, and that's something that the Red Panda will not stand for,
and something I liked about this episode is we've had instances where, where the disparity between the rich and the poor
is talked about before, and we actually didn't get so much of that kind of conversation in this episode,
when it gets to something which I think is more useful, which is the fact that criminals will often prey upon the people who have the least,
who are the most vulnerable to them, and that's bad, like you can be mad all you want about there being rich people and poor people,
someone once said that there will always be poor among you, and we've seen negative outcomes from people trying in the real world,
in very real ways, to eliminate poverty, and it's caused a lot of suffering, does that mean I'm pro poverty?
No, I'm not, I would like things to be as prosperous as possible, I just think the mechanism of doing that might be different,
and might be counterintuitive from what most people think, and that's not something I really want to discuss,
what I do think is more important and more, what I appreciate more being handled here and talked about,
is the fact that these people who are perpetrating these crimes, which they're illegal, they're illegal, they're immoral,
or they're immoral and they're illegal, and they're obviously being done in the dark, in the shadows,
like these guys have a conscience that tells them what they're doing is wrong, and yet they keep doing it because of the benefit that they get from it,
and it's interesting to pause and spend some time looking at the actual victims of these things,
and see how they're affected, not so much why they're affected, they're affected because they're being victimized,
but how they're affected and what it does to them, and I think that's interesting because it's taking this social issue,
and it's putting emphasis on a place where it definitely belongs, which is, yeah, these immoral, illegal acting criminal guys
are actually hurting people with their defrauding money and with their scheme, and they're in a very sneaky way stealing from these women,
and it's awful, and I think there's something in there about how even the fake bills are defrauding the country as well,
and it's almost like an anti-patriotic thing, and I think that was kind of an interesting angle,
I think it's probably very representative of what Red Panda would have thought at the time,
or what the broad thought would have been of the populace at the time in Toronto, and I think that makes a lot of sense.
I just think it's interesting how the issue was addressed, and yeah, I thought it was interesting how the issue was addressed,
and what it focuses on, which is like, look how horrible it is for this poor woman who's in this awful situation,
she's desperate, so she takes whatever she can get, and that is something that criminals, scoundrels prey upon,
and that's good to know. I mean, what's the solution, what's the take away from that? Don't ever let yourself be vulnerable?
I don't know, I don't know, maybe you need a strong network of friends and family, or there needs to be some sort of support structure
to help people in situations like this, but that's not exciting to talk about, that's not very exciting to talk about.
What I'll switch into talking about instead is the fact that I really like how this episode started with a lady who was desperate to get work,
and it turns out that she's one of the Red Panda's agents, and she sounds so meek and so mild, and she's got a very soft voice, very feminine voice,
and she's talking to these scammers, and then I really like the sound design. I think you hear her, you leave the meeting or whatever,
and then you're like, you know, totally fully designed, right, her shoes against the, her heels against the concrete, right?
And then she goes in, and then she dials on her old rotary phone, you can hear her dialing, and it's all seven numbers or whatever it was going to be at the time,
but it took a long time, and it was just like radio silence, and it was really using the format well, because these are mundane, common sounds that somebody would know,
especially of that time, and they're nostalgic for us now. Like I grew up with my grandpa having a rotary phone that he didn't have plugged in that I would play with,
and it was just so fun. So good. But anyway, it was cool, because it's very of the time, it's very accurate of the time,
and it's also just like an exciting thing to hear, and like this meek, mild-mannered lady is an agent of the Red Panda,
and because of that, she is engaged in this spy craft and this subterfuge, and it's all for the sake of hurting and stopping these criminal actors, which is fantastic.
And one of the things I talked about a while ago when I started Red Panda Report, when I was listening to, at first, the shadow radio dramas,
maybe even when I watched some of them, not all of them, and I think even when I watched the shadow movie from 1994,
it really was remarkable to me that you have these ordinary men who are engaged in this network as the shadows agents, and it's similar with the Red Panda,
who are able to do these extraordinary things, they're marshalled to do these extraordinary things, they're taught how to do these extraordinary things,
and it's really cool, because while you're never going to be the shadow, you're never going to melt into darkness or disappear or have whatever powers,
and you're not the Red Panda where you're going to be able to use hypnosis or have static shoes that allow you to propel yourself from one building
and cling to the next building to pull yourself over to jump across rooftops above the cityscape, you still can be like an agent of the shadow,
you still can be like an agent of the Red Panda, when you see injustice being done, you can address it, and you can take action to do something about it,
to stop evil, to stop people from committing crimes, from hurting the most vulnerable among us, and that's really cool.
It's kind of a... I don't want to say it's an empowering message, because I don't like that phrase.
I would say to some degree it's inspiring and it's instructive, it's a good reminder, and it's something that stirs within me this idea,
this thought that like, hey yeah, of course, this little lady's doing her part to help stop this awful criminal act,
and I don't necessarily know her backstory, I don't know her backstory because it's not explored at all,
but it's just interesting to think like this normal lady who looked like prey turns out to be a spy,
and turns out that she's going to betray the trust of this criminal in order to see him brought to justice, and I think that's really cool.
I think there's like a neat little concept of duality in there.
There's a neat concept of duality in there, and there's also like a neat idea that like things aren't what they seem,
and things can be more than what they are, and that works on a lot of different levels,
and maybe it's a reminder that you shouldn't take people for granted either, because if you're a bad actor,
the little lady, or the old guy, or whoever it is, they're going to see justice done, potentially.
Like, someone's watching, someone's out there, someone knows what you're doing,
and you are going to pay for the evil that you put into the world, and I think that's good.
Now, of course, if you're a nerdy person like me listening to this radio show, it's not because you're evil,
but still the idea is out there. It's in the ether because of this sort of story being shared,
and I think that's the value and the power in stories. So that's about all I have to say.
I did like this episode a lot. It feels different from the other episodes,
and I noticed that this one was in March, the last one was in, I think, December,
so it must have been the, like, it was the last one where we saw The Secret Origins was like the middle of the season finale type of thing
that I think Taylor kind of structures things to have, and leaves you on high, and then you go into something new,
so I'm wondering what the rest of the season's going to be like, and if it's going to be a little more grounded,
or if we're going to see a lot of super villains or what.
Anyway, I just don't remember at the moment, and it will be interesting to see how that all plays out.
So until now, or no, until next time, take care, be well, and look forward to the next Red Panda Report coming on a weekly basis.
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Until next time, be well. This is MJ signing out.
This has been a Story Over Everything production.
Thank you.