The Mystery Box
This is something I've been scripting in my Notes app and working on for a while now. Well, since The Aftershow was cancelled and I spiraled back into obscurity. It seemed like everyone around me was finding their groove—hosting their own shows, commanding their own sub-ships, and bossing around their own interns. I craved authority. I craved power. I needed to bring The Mystery Box to life.
Around Veterans Day is when I was finally satisfied with the product I created in my head. I thought TMB was almost the perfect game show idea, but I just couldn't for the life of me figure out who I wanted to be in it with me. Until Tuesday morning.
Once I realized that one of my most trusted and hard-working colleagues, Steven Cheah, was also a beautifully chaotic, radioactive cheetah of a human who moonlighted as a villain named "Nitro Z," I knew I finally found the perfect co-host for The Mystery Box. Then, I had an epiphany which caused me to swallow my pride and realize the true meaning of my game show idea: unpredictability. In order to do that, I couldn't have complete control over The Mystery Box. I needed a second co-host who would gladly disregard the entire script I wrote for them and throw the entire show off the rails. A complete wildcard who would create chaos and potentially put me and Nitro in danger: Frank The Tank.
Disclaimer: This will NOT be what it appears to be by any means. It will be very far from the classic "reaching into a mysterious box" and touching something harmless that feels threatening or gross. Don't get me wrong, there will plenty of nerves and anxiety involved with reaching into the MB, but it won't be about physically contacting something scary — it will be about retrieving something (perhaps an abstract idea) that could possibly torment them, mentally, for an entire week.