Happy 5th Anniversary, Alternate Reality Show!
Hard to believe it’s already been five years since Lightbulb and Test Tube built themselves a new reality. It warms my heart to see how much this episode has resonated. I know I often find myself coming back to it, and that’s without the aid of a time machine!
Here’s some fun facts about this episode to celebrate!
Alternate titles included…
Lightbulb’s Curious Venture through Time (and Not Really Space)
Baxter the Future
What Makes You Tick
Back to the Drawing Board
A new time travel adventure is first foreshadowed in S2E1 when Fan asks Marshmallow why she doesn’t ever use her time machine anymore
January 2015 is when I started the earliest rough draft I can find for the episode
The earliest version of the story kickstarted with Fan and Test Tube asking Marshmallow to borrow her time machine so they could research Cobs. Marshmallow wouldn’t give hers away due to concerns about universe-destroying paradoxes… and she also liked how it looked next to her other remotes. This prompts Fan to say…
Fan: *sigh* I guess you’ll have to make your own, Test Tube. And it’s gonna take at least five minutes. Five minutes I can’t ever get back. Test Tube: ONCE I FINISH YOU CAN. Fan and Test Tube: *in unison* AAAAAAAAAAA!
At one point, Taco secretly tagged along on the journey to the past
Another version of Paintbrush was originally going to be in the alternate timeline. This one would act a lot more like Lightbulb! Perfect, right? Alas, no…
Some of the Infinity contestants were voiced by our wonderful Kickstarter backers!
The Just Like Me reprise was nearly cut from the episode, but saved via a last-minute addition to the credits
It originally would have played during the end of the elimination, but there was too much onscreen action and dialogue for it all to blend together!
We didn’t record Michael saying “pfft!” as Lightbulb so that’s actually me
While I do LOVE the title Alternate Reality Show, lemme tell ya, I did fight HARD for the title “Baxter the Future”
it’s neat :)
