28 - Illumination Day

February 3, 2022·47 min·4 clips

Tom Hanks wrote noir under alias and wanted puppets consulting Team America and Jim Henson.

The promised answer has narrowed. After talking with Colin Hanks, the host has momentum, but not much certainty, and the old feeling that the answer may show up more as a mood than a fact. So he goes back to the timeline. In Tom Hanks' credits, he lands on Electric City, then notices the full title carries Tom's name right up front. It is a tiny clue, almost funny, but on this show tiny clues have a way of opening the next door. The interview follows that thread. The guest remembers scratch tracks, producers, and animators, but no casual Tom Hanks sighting in the room. That absence becomes the thing to look at. The host checks whether producers might have meant Tom was nearby. It did not. Instead, the conversation reaches Jason Antoon, another Electric City actor, and the world gets smaller in the way old auditions can make it small. Then the host and guest realize they both read for the same series regular role on NCIS Hawaii. For a minute, the investigation turns into a soft, funny exchange about losing work and watching someone else get it. The guest apologizes with care. The host answers generously, though the bruise is still there. Paradise becomes a little test. For one actor, the role could mean moving somewhere beautiful. The host admits he may not be built to enjoy that kind of luck yet. The episode keeps circling near misses. Tom is absent from the recording session, present in the title, and later visible again in a Biden inaugural committee television spot. Even the subway train gets a look. The host says he is not claiming it means anything, which somehow makes it mean just enough.

As heard by us

A cold trail becomes a humane, patient map of showbiz coincidence.

Dead Eyes turns a cold case into a winding search for connections. After the Colin Hanks conversation, the host circles back through the timeline and lands on Tom Hanks' Electric City, a possessive-title clue that opens onto an animated series released in 2012.

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Why you'd press play

When the Hanks trail stalls, this episode follows a side door into Electric City.

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