This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Welcome to Red Panda Report.
Buckle up for two-fisted pulp action as I talk about the terrific Toospam of Toronto.
The day they carried Sam Merck out of the courtroom, he swore he'd never serve the life sentence they'd given him.
He promised that the judge, the jury, everyone that had put him behind bars would suffer a voodoo curse until he was freed.
Of course, no one took him very seriously until his victims started dropping like flies.
Now the Red Panda may have only hours to crack the mystery of the empty box.
The empty box, which is Red Panda Adventures, episode 34, was written and directed by Greg Taylor.
It originally aired April 19, 2008. You can find it on dakotaringtheatre.com.
That's theatre, spelled the British way, the T-H-E-A-T-R-E. It's also linked in the show notes.
This was a very fun episode. It was very simple. We have Red Panda... well, not very simple.
I take that back. Let me just talk about it instead.
So we have Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel facing off against Professor Hex, which when I heard that name I thought, oh, this is fabulous.
This is absolutely fabulous. And it is a great name. It's a great name for a villain.
And it's a great name for this character who is this witch doctor who is attacking these people.
And it's interesting because the Red Panda definitely believes in the supernatural.
Even if he doesn't call it supernatural, he calls it some sort of mystic energy field or whatever he calls it.
And so when he's challenged at some point in the episode as to whether or not he believes that it's mystical stuff, he says, well, you know, maybe it is.
And it gets a little bit even more geared towards it because, as she said later in the episode,
she had enough magical energy thrown in her head to know that, you know, or to last a lifetime.
So she really knows that something is out there and something exists that causes people problems other than just, you know, guns and criminals and things like that.
So anyway, they go ahead and test this empty box that they find at the victim, the first victim, the judge at his place.
And they don't detect any mystical energies on it. And Red Panda says maybe it's a blind, a purposeful blind.
He says something blind. Anyway, so and what he means by that is it's evidence planted there as evidence, but it's not evidence.
It's just to divert people and throw them off. Eventually, he calls it a red herring.
So, you know, it could be that. And it turns out it's not that.
But it is interesting to explore that idea. And that's something that never occurred to me that a criminal would put something at the scene of the crime in order to push people in a different direction and make them think it was somebody else entirely, which is a fabulous idea.
If you want to be a criminal, maybe it's even a fabulous idea for a hero infiltrating a criminal base or something to do something like that.
That would be interesting. It's like a reverse calling card. This person always leaves something that indicates that somebody else, a cap burglar, could do that too.
That could be kind of cool. Anyway, maybe that's something that exists already. I just don't know about it, but that would be fun.
Anyway, so we had that. We had this flirtation between this judge and his secretary. And at the end of the episode, she and Kit talked to each other because Red Panda's alter ego is actually friends with this judge.
And he mentions and Kit does too that he always seemed, it always seemed like, oh, no, Kit knows it, but Red Panda doesn't really realize it.
I think Red Panda, all he sees is that she cares for him or he's got an assistant. No, he kind of does see it. And here's the thing.
When you have an issue, you can usually see your issue in other people, but you can't see your issue in yourself because typically people are blind to their own flaws and foibles.
Anyway, or just any issues that they have while they can see it blatantly clear in others because I guess we're all just self deceiving a little bit to get through the day.
Anyway, so it turns out that it's a very fun episode. There's something that goes on that happens towards the end, like about in the middle, where Red Panda actually goes into the jail cell of the guy.
What was his name again? Merck, Sam Merck. He goes into his jail cell and he talks to him.
He beats him up and he hypnotizes him to rip the information out of his head about who this Professor Merck is or who this Professor Hex is rather.
And he tells him, you know, it's interesting that I've never come across you. You somehow landed in jail without us crossing paths.
And that's a little strange because you went from having no fear or a lot of fear to no fear.
And I'm going to bring fear back. And he's beaten him. He's beating him pretty badly.
And he's like, I've got rights and you can't do this. And Red Panda says, if you were going to abide by the law and take your punishment just as you know, because you got caught, then I would be the first in line to protect your rights and respect your rights.
But because you're not, I'm going to go outside of the rights or the law as well and do this.
And that's a very interesting way to think about the criminal fighter, you know, a vigilante who seeks justice that as long as everybody's playing by the rules, he will not use his extreme powers against them.
But once somebody steps out of line and starts breaking the rules, then he will come and he'll crack down on them with, you know, his powers and his abilities that go beyond the scope of the law and beyond the scope of the rules.
And that's kind of something I want to think about more and talk about more, but I'm not going to give myself that opportunity right now, but it is something to think about.
I might make a little short about it. Just exploring that idea real quick and having that as something to come back to maybe for my stories as well.
Like what is the, why is the vigilante just when they're breaking the laws? Well, it's because they're breaking the laws against other people who are breaking the laws. They're not breaking the laws against law abiding citizens.
I guess I'll just talk about it now. If this guy is engaging in a criminal enterprise, which is having people murdered or put close to murdered because they're put in this death like state by his, you know, by Professor Hex on his behalf, then yeah, he does.
He's not playing fair. He's not playing by the rules. He has stepped out of, he's crossed over the line and is therefore no longer worthy of the protection of the system and of laws and just laws and government.
But he is still susceptible to justice. It's just that for now, justice will have to come to him at the hands of the red panda. And that's pretty cool.
It's an interesting way to view vigilante justice and kind of under like slow down and think about and understand why it makes sense and why it feels so good to us as an audience as an audience of a piece of fiction that has vigilante justice in it.
That's why, because it is just. What do you think of it that way? But it can appear unjust as well. So something interesting.
Of course, red panda could, you know, just go, he could become a vigilante himself. And if he were to violate the rights of somebody who, yeah, you could say, well, he's beating him up.
He's taking them from his mind as violating its rights. It's yeah, you could say that, but it's in a special case to stop him from, you know, hurting, harming others, violating the rights of other people.
People have the, even though it's Canada, people have the right to life, liberty and property. And this guy threatening them for doing their duty as citizens and participating in the court and then going after them like that to kill them all, to get himself off, to get himself, his sentence commuted and get, you know, sprung from jail.
That's not okay. That's a violent coercion and it's proper to take whatever steps need to be taken in this instance in the fictional world for sure for red panda to beat him and take information from his mind in order to do it.
And then we get this cool thing where red panda and flying squirrel have all these agents who work at the university and they point them to a person, to the person who can be responsible for this.
And we get a cool fake out at the end and then we find out that this particular professor is Professor Hex and why he's doing what he's doing.
And they make a great play on his own fears and his own weakness and lack of power, you could say, to get him to confess basically. And it's really good.
He doesn't even have like a violent or mean villain montage dialogue or montage monologue or anything. It's just like his goose is cooked and that's it. And then we have the little scene at the end where the ladies are talking about their bosses who are smart men but idiots somehow because they don't recognize that these women are in love with them and throwing themselves at them.
I forgot, there's a voodoo priestess or voodoo lady, Marie is supposedly her name but it's not really her name, who the flying squirrel goes and talks to the stranger telephones Marie and tells her that I guess they call it they must have contacted stranger, and then he contacted Marie and said you can go meet her here and goes there and she knows who she is she like tries to invade her mind a little bit with her voodoo magic or whatever.
And it's a really interesting conversation about like, white people, like kind of colonial stuff, how white people frame voodoo and black magic not magic not black people but like black magic and like the kinds of like, like earthy, like local magics that people have like from the ancient world or whatever.
Indigenous people's magic, I don't know how you call it. I'm just gonna call it black magic. And it's like a really interesting fun conversation.
But then like obviously this lady like trained the stranger who's a white guy, so she doesn't have a problem with that. And she says something interesting at the end of the their encounter. She tells her, I'll see you next time like until next time I see you.
And I'm 90% sure that she does see her again and it's like this great callback. Again, you have a single storyteller who's telling their story, and they're keeping their own continuity in mind because they don't want to violate it and they're making really cool things happen and it's a really cool fun thing that happens later on in the show, I'm pretty sure like four seasons later or so.
So it's like season three. Anyway, but it's a great callback and I'm pretty sure it's being seeded right here right now, which is even better. But yeah, it was a great fun episode, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'd like to know what you thought about it and what you think about kind of the politics that were brought up here because you have like kind of proposing you like very conservative politics and kind of progressive politics mushing together, but still tells a great story. And that's the point. Until next time, see you later.
Please check the show notes in order to find links to all the Dakota Ring stuff and also to find the link to my new website that I have going out for my new book that's coming out that I'm working on growbugs.com. If you go to grobugs.com, you will find an email list that you can sign up to to be become aware of when my book is ready. It's about magical bugs battling monsters. I've got a whole series planned. I've got one finished book and I have a sister book to it that are going to be coming out soonish and you can go to grobugs.com to find out more about that.
Sign up for the newsletter and get notified when the book is ready to be out. It's a lot of fun. It's not as violent as Red Panda because it's more made for kids and all ages. I think Red Panda is also made for all ages, but this is geared towards, you know, it's like middle grade specifically, but also good for families. I don't have a bunch of dumb stuff in there. I've been reading a lot of middle grade books and a lot of them are wanting. I'm making classic style old school type of middle grade book that will appeal to will appeal to a lot of people.
It will appeal or can appeal to all ages and definitely will appeal to kids and it's talking to them, not at them. And it's cool adventure stuff going on with magical bugs and the monsters they fight and the kids they have encounters with as well. So anyway, check that out. Look forward to that. I'm not going to say it's pulp action, but it's definitely good, solid quality stuff. So anyway, again, growbugs.com check that out and you know where to find the rest of my stuff. The links are in the show notes as always.
I invite you to comment, ask questions and share your thoughts with me. It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation. Until next time, be well and hold high the lamp of justice. Visit MJMunoZ.com for more of my work and help me build up the fortress fiction.