#11 Soft fiction [S2E5 with Eden Sher & Nick Cron-DeVico]

Today we review Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction season 2, episode 5. Today we review Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction season 2, episode 6. In this week’s episode we welcome two hilarious guest hosts: The Middle star Eden Sher and Robot Chicken writer Nick Cron-DeVico. Eden and Nick share their own stories of the strange and paranormal before we launch into this week’s stories.

Story #1: The Land—a deal with a mysterious man helps save a family farm.

• The group talks about costume designers getting excited about prepping condescending farm outfits.
• Guest host Nick Cron-Devico summarizes the story.
• Chris thinks the 20-year deal with the devil was far too low and he should have negotiated better terms.
• Eden wonders where this mysterious devil man was found—did he randomly show up to the farm? Did they find him in the yellow pages?
• Jesse ponders—did the dad just fertilize the land and leave on his own terms?
• Eden wonders if the deal was actually done with the mob.

Story #2: Titan—a writer pressured to come up with a fictional story to sell discovers a talent for foresight.

• Guest host Eden Sher shares that this story was her “FAVE” and summarizes it.
• Nick says that this episode structure was very confusing because of the way they wrote the twist. He thought it may be taking place in an insane asylum.
• Nick thinks that it’s true because he’s heard this story before, but Jesse wonders if he’s heard it before and it’s an urban legend.
• The group makes its fair share of Titanic jokes.
• Nick thinks that the reason an author can draw so well was just because “it’s olden times” and people were just more talented back then.
• Kyle: “Do I believe that someone could write a story about a big boat hitting an iceberg? Yeah.”
• Jesse and Nick talk about other stories predicting future events, referencing the premiere of the TV show The Lone Gunman, in which an event very similar to 9/11 is featured.

Story #3: The Diary—a high school outcast’s diary predicts the future.

• Chris summarizes the story.
• Nick points out that after the story ends the host provides some supplemental evidence: “The girls ended up going to the party, but we can’t show you that.” Chris thinks it’s a budget issue; Nick thinks it’s a true story in which the lawyers didn’t want them to show that part of the story on the show.
• Eden loves the characters’ names: Kim Maddox was the main character and the bullies’ names were Daily and Rosha.
• Nick and Eden debate the hero’s journey in this story.
• Chris thinks this feels writery.
• Jesse: “We have to ask this… who told this story?” Kyle: “A very common question…”
• Nick thinks the timing of this story is awkwardly accelerated and unrealistic. Then he adds a few punch ups to make it feel more connected. Kyle: “There was definitely some Game of Thrones style fast-travel.”
• Jesse loves the big floppy disk that says “VIRUS” on it. Nick: “It might as well say, ‘FICTION’.”

Story #4: Town of Remembrance—a drive through a small town jogs the memory of someone with amnesia.

• Eden is fooled by Kyle’s “I forgot” joke in a story about amnesia.
• Kyle summarizes the story.
• Jesse asks again, “Who told this story?”
• The group agrees that this story is very unbelievable, but Nick thinks that this story is actually fact because if it were fiction the writers would have made it more believable.
• This is Eden’s second “fave.”
• Nick has a theory about who told this story: the nurse (judgey Susan) who was with her when she experienced this episode.

Story #5: The House on Barry Avenue—mysterious fires go unexplained until a couple contact a psychic.

• Jesse’s favorite quote: “Well I’ve never seen flames shoot out of an outlet before. Good luck!”
• Jesse summarizes the story.
• Nick boils down this story to the kernel: “Stupid couple continuously fails to commit insurance fraud.”
• Eden wonders why you would keep a scrapbook about a crime you committed. Nick thinks it’s fictiony.
• Nick: “In a show with 5 minute segments—these scripts have to be tight—the detective is like, ‘is there an E in Sloane, miss?'”
• Kyle loves the line, “Huh. A flame usually marks the wall.”
• Nick loves how the discovery of the wife being a pyromaniac doesn’t lead to them realizing that she’s setting the fires… instead, it’s “well the spirit must be following her!”
• The group wants the detective to have his own spin-off show.

Advertisement: This week’s episode is brought to you by Good Deed Seeds.

The story results are revealed.

• To find out which stories are fact and which are fiction… you must listen to the podcast, or check out the full episode below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpIY032jnYY

One of Nick Cron-DeVico’s sketches from Robot Chicken!

• Check out Nick’s sketch below, featuring Eden Sher as one of the voices.