Creating the intro for 2004 was fun as Captain F. enjoyed celebrating and laughing at upper Midwestern culture. The intro borrowed heavily from several popular films that are quintessentially Mideastern in style and substance. Fargo,Escanaba in Da Moonlight, and American Movie provided a treasure trove of quotes that touched on such themes as cheese, hunting, hockey, food, and dialects as the intro sets some sort of record for the amount of “Yahs” in a 15-second period. The intro also made possible the use of a Slip Twister song, much to Captain F.’s delight.
Coco, who assisted for the first time on the intro, is really into gaming and his interest helped provide the inspiration for one of the Posse’s only on-site productions of 2004. During the production of the intro, Coco shared an animated skit called Summoner Geeks who’s original audio was produced by “The Dead Alewives“. (In keeping with this year’s Midwest theme, they are from Milwaukee.) The short uses characters from the game “Summoner” in conjunction with the original audio skit which gives insight into a typical night of playing Dungeons and Dragons.
In 2004, the Posse still consisted largely of just the four charter members. In recent years, Captain F. would drive up from Wisconsin stopping in the Twin Cities to pick up Wildman and Dude. It was during the 2004 ride, after officially debuting the intro to the other Posse members, that the audio of “Summoner Geeks” was played. It inspired the Posse to write a similar skit, except with Trivia players. The Posse wrote the script forTrivia RPGand it was voice-acted by Wildman, Dude, and Phal. Dude basically played himself, since he owns more role playing games than most small countries. Of course you would never know that about Dude since he was like Michael Phelps in high school and college, except for all the medals.
The other notable production of 2004 was the Posse’s first Stink Rock offering. Dude, who is the creative catalyst for almost all the Stink Rock scripts birthed the idea for Wedding Stink. Inspired by the many DJ train wrecks he has witnessed at weddings over the years, the script was an ode those dubious memories bad songs and worse dance moves. Captain F. lent his professional wedding DJ expertise to song selection and employed emotional editing. Being the first effort, the Posse spent almost an entire day editing the piece. Jump drives were not in wide use in 2004 and the only way to transfer the final cut from Captain F.’s laptop to the studio for playback was to burn it to CD. Captain F. did have a CD burner, but it only worked at 4x speed. The CD was burned just in time as the last minutes of Trivia approached. The Posse was honored to have it played by Historical Trivia Individual, Al Neff, who worked his last year of Trivia before moving out of state. It would also be the last year that Dude would participate until 2009. Werdding Stink became a tour de force for the visceral reactions it caused and the catharsis its spurred in its creators.
The contributions of the challenge line were so uninspiring that none survived to make the Goat Posse archives. While the Posse did create two quality skits with Trivia RPG and Wedding Stink they felt unsatisfied by their effort if it is measured by volume. Despite this feeling of inadequacy, the Trivia Gods felt that The Goat Posse deserved a place in the Trivia Hall of Fame. The honor was a complete surprise highlighted by the fact that they were interviewed by a question writer hours before thinking she was just curious about the goofy name the group went by. It turns out she was gathering info to use in the presentation later that evening. In a bit of political horse trading, the question writers initially wanted to put KVSC Station Manager Jo McMullen in the hall that year. Jo, being the humble soul that she is, refused at first; but relented as long as she could take the Posse with her.
