Less Is Morgue

Less Is Morgue is comedy fiction that borrows the shape of a talk show and hands the hosting to the undead. Its hosts, in character, are Riley, who signs on as 'your best ghoul friend', and Evelyn, the 'ghost host with the jokes'. The pairing drives everything. Riley runs on appetite and bad impulses: a whole iguana eaten before dinner, a stranger's cat carried home, a tag reading Fugly swapped for the grander Morton 2, Heir to the Moon. Evelyn plays the conscience, threatening possession if the cat gets eaten and flatly rejecting Riley's claim that the theft counts as civil asset forfeiture. Being dead supplies its own gags. Riley cannot feel a ghost elbow, and a dog fetched back from dog heaven is declared totally incorporeal, and therefore safe from Riley. The cheer can be generous to a fault: in 'The Less Is Morgue Halloween Special', the ghost host issues content warnings before each spooky sound effect and gives a sinister laugh the benefit of the doubt. The show rarely stays put. Parody commercials cut in, and they are pitch-black: Killer Joe selling Psycho's, a cereal packed with PCP, and a shoe shop whose soft-focus beach memory turns into parents lost in an accident. A news bulletin follows the cereal into a run of murders around Tallahassee. The guests bring fresh trouble. Doctor Rich draws more of Riley's blood than seems wise, and the sample behaves so badly under the microscope that someone suggests a flamethrower. Evapero, evaporator of worlds, arrives with a ward who will not stay silent and leaves a swivel chair evaporated. Riley's showbiz dreams get airtime too, when a filmmaker's interest in adapting Riley's fantasy novel prompts a morning of Oscar speech rehearsal. The 'Less Is Morgue Holiday Bonus Episode: Tales from The Sea' moves to a tavern of sailors trading tales, where a boorish, bigoted sea dog ends up thrown out. The titles keep the joke going, bending familiar phrases into 'Episode 206: Whose Whine Is It Anyway?' and 'Episode 207: Lights, Camera, Putrefaction!'. Behind the scenes, Scott Thomas introduces himself as the outro man and credits Jasper Taylor, the in-house artist turned writer, as the primary writer of 'Episode 204: Insane In The Medbrain'. The language is strong, and the humour reaches for gore, drugs and death. The warmth between the two leads keeps it from turning sour, and one line from Evelyn holds it: 'I love you, Riley. But sometimes you make it hard.' At one point a host protests that 'This isn't a comedy podcast.' Everything around that line says otherwise.