ParodyPod

Portfolio · Product build

A network of AI parody panel shows — performed live, heckled by the audience, kept for $3.

Pick a show and a panel of fictional co-hosts improvises a comedy episode in real time — talking over each other, taking the guest’s typed questions through an in-character producer, and landing a spoken sign-off before the clock runs out. The browser records the whole performance into a finished episode with a transcript, captions, and social clips. Built end to end as a working product — not a demo reel.

2 shows live · 2 in productionOne swappable show engineInterruptions, engineeredRecords in the browserAuto-cut social clipsFree to play · $3 to keep100% fictional casts
In · typed mid-showThe live LONGSHOTS studio with a typed question in the ask bar and a pink Cut in button
Typed into the live show: “Which failed gadget from the last twenty years actually deserved to win?” A host is mid-sentence, so the button reads Cut in — the panel finishes the thought, then yields.
Out · a titled, kept episodeThe finished episode playing on its page, full-color four-host master with the transcript following along below
Minutes later this page exists: the engine titled the episode “The Gadget That Died Too Soon,” recorded the full-color master, stamped a timed transcript (following the playhead below), and put the whole thing on a shareable page.

01 · The show, live

Four characters, one clock, no script.

Every line is generated in character during the show and spoken by a distinct synthesized voice. The hard part isn’t making them talk — it’s making them stop: interruptions cut in only over the tail of a line so the point still lands, a question put to the guest holds the floor open for an answer, and the show lands itself with a real spoken close instead of a timer kill.

Sterling delivering the cold open under a spotlight with a synced caption
The cold open. Captions reveal in sync with the voice — timed against the audio clock, not a word timer — while the speaking host gets the spotlight and everyone else reacts in glances and smirks.
Chip answering the guest's question by name with an interruption-ready caption
The panel answers the guest by name, in character. Interruptions are engineered, not accidental: a host cuts in only over the final ~900 ms of the current line, and the interrupted voice fades under the newcomer instead of stopping mid-word.
The pause overlay teaching that typing any time makes the panel yield
Pause is allowed to be boring. Tapping the stage holds the show — and the overlay teaches the better move: no need to pause to ask, type any time and the panel yields.

02 · Shows are data

A new show is a content drop, not a rebuild.

A show ships as a pack: cast, personas, voice casting, conversational choreography (who interrupts whom, how the sign-off goes), and a rights posture — every cast is fictional by rule, not by disclaimer. The engine supports two stage layouts: a panel grid, and a shared scene where the whole cast lives inside one backdrop. All of it renders on the product’s signature 5-pixel grid, snapped to whole device pixels so the squares stay crisp, with acting done by swapping expression frames — no procedural wobble.

The Set in Stone scene stage: four presidents carved into one mountain, Lincoln mid-line
The scene stage. Set in Stone plays four presidents carved into one mountain — Lincoln is mid-line here, his open mouth a swapped expression frame composited into the same pixel grid as the rock around him.
Set in Stone cast dossiers: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln portrait cards
Every host has a dossier — a role, positions, running bits, and a voice tuned per character. The premise page sells the cast before the guest ever enters the studio.

03 · The episode is real

Recorded in the browser, landed on a page.

While the show plays, the recorder re-rasterizes the same pixel grids the stage draws into a device-independent square master — and edits as it records: it pauses on silence so dead air between turns never reaches the file, and holds a beat after the sign-off so the ending breathes. The transcript is stamped against the recorder’s clock during the show, which makes captions a delivery-layer choice: toggleable on the episode page, burned into social clips, downloadable as files.

The recorded episode playing with the caption track on, transcript below
The recorded master on the episode page, captions on. Chip is answering the guest by name; the transcript below is the same timed data, so the caption track, the downloads, and the clip subtitles all agree with what was said.

04 · Moments cut themselves

Highlights are found, cropped, and captioned automatically.

A language model reads the timed transcript and proposes the funny moments; the clip engine turns each into a vertical cut — cropped to whichever host holds the floor, splicing between cells when an exchange spans speakers, with short burned-in captions. The model’s taste is advisory: the 60-second cap is enforced in code, speaker names are validated against the roster, and a human curates which cuts publish. The three frames below are from the clips the engine cut out of The Gadget That Died Too Soon — the episode at the top of this page — minutes after it wrapped.

Vertical clip frame: Chip mid-line in his own cell with a burned-in caption
One clip, three camera positions. The exchange opens on Chip’s cell…
Vertical clip frame: the same clip later, cut to Miles's cell as he takes the floor
…then cuts to Miles the moment he takes the floor — the splice points come from the timed transcript, not an editor.
Vertical clip frame: Max delivering a tag line in his cell with a burned-in caption
A second clip follows Max in for a one-line tag. Hook titles like “Every failed gadget comes back later ‘wearing a hoodie’” come from the detection, not a human.

05 · Free to play, pay to keep

The business model fits in one sentence.

Playing is free, with a published daily cap — no card, no credits, no meter running while you laugh. If an episode is a keeper, it’s $3, once, at the moment the show ends: a permanent page, downloads forever, re-downloading free. Unkept episodes stay watchable for a grace window instead of vanishing. Typed questions pass moderation before anything becomes public.

The wrap modal offering to keep the just-finished episode for three dollars
The offer lands when it’s earned. The show just ended, the modal quotes the actual question the panel took, and the episode exists exactly once — keep it, or let the grace window run out.
The pricing page: play free, keep for three dollars, five dollar gift pass
The entire catalog. Keeping is the purchase; the one add-on is a $5 gift pass that covers a friend’s night in the studio. No subscription, no token jargon.

06 · The network

One engine, a growing slate of shows.

The front door is a network gallery driven by a show registry — each show owns a premise, a cast, and one hue family that holds across light and dark themes. Two shows are live; two more casts are written, voice-cast, and in portrait production. Adding the fifth means writing characters, not code.

The ParodyPod homepage hero: Set in Stone on air now over the pixelated mountain
The front door. Whichever show is on air takes the hero — and the free-play terms are published right under the CTA, not buried in an FAQ.
The network section with LONGSHOTS and SET IN STONE live show cards and cast thumbnails
Two live shows, one engine. LONGSHOTS (techno-optimist futurists) and Set in Stone (dead presidents, live takes) — different casts, palettes, and choreography, identical machinery underneath.

ParodyPod · a working product · designed & built end to end by Brian Fidler · Phoenix, AZ · All hosts are fictional characters; every screenshot is the real app with real data.

Built end to end by Brian Fidler — fractional CMO & marketing technologist, Phoenix, AZ.