John and Craig are joined by the ghosts of Scriptnotes past and present (Megana and Drew) for a festive competition: discussing the perils of studio bake-offs — pitting writer against writer for one coveted job — while simultaneously judging three of LA’s finest holiday cookies.
We also look at Netflix’s recently released viewership data, follow up on homonyms, AI coverage and voting, and answer a listener question on the definition of a drafts. But first, we investigate the origin of a very useful word that’s new to John and Craig.
In our bonus segment for premium members, we travel to holidays past to discuss the best presents we ever received — and the gifts that got away.
Links:
- Netflix Viewership Data
- The absolutely legitimate, incredibly useful Indian English word you’re not using by Diksha Madhok
- Homographs
- The Very Best Cookie In The Whole Wide World
- DeLuscious Cookies
- Levain Bakery
- Clue Conspiracy
- Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz
- Upright Steamer
- The Kelly Clarkson Connection
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
- John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
- John on Mastodon
- Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
UPDATE 1-19-24: The transcript for this episode can be found here.