In January 2019, Xum Yukinori had recorded most of a planned episode for the second season of his "Done-In-One Wonders Podcast Wonder Show," but he was not happy with the audio quality of the recorded lines of one of the characters and so he decided to rerecord them. But then he was sidetracked by a special anniversary project for the Fire and Water Podcast Network, and afterwards he decided to move on to recording the next episode -- saving the incomplete episode for later in the season when he had a chance to rerecord the lines for that one character and finish recording the rest.
Then Xum received the news about his glioblastoma, and he decided to focus on finishing up the podcast story that he wanted to tell -- essentially dropping that unfinished episode altogether since, to him, it was practically inconsequential.
After Xum passed, my son Isamu came across those old recordings, and, with the help of Adrian Zet, figured out a way to clean up and boost the audio for that one character so he sounded almost as good as he did in other episodes. And once I found Xum's printed scripts in a packing box last October, Isamu had what he needed to string the audio together the way Xum had planned.
But alas, while all of that one character's lines in the 46-page script was recorded -- albeit at a formerly subpar quality -- the other character lines were recorded only up to page 27. So Isamu had to rework a new ending for the podcast, highlighting the recorded lines available from the script and figuring out how he could rearrange and even splice some lines together so the conclusion would make sense.
Isamu was also missing recorded lines for a new character who would be featured in the opening sequence of the episode. Xum planned to ask fellow network podcaster Ryan Daly to voice that character, but never got around to it since he decided to drop the episode, and thus drop that character from his overall podcast story. So, almost four years later, Isamu would make the request in Xum's stead, and Ryan immediately agreed.
Isamu also suggested to the Network podcasters to have this "lost episode" of Done-in-One Wonders launch on April Fool's Day, in order to include additional funny bits from other Fire and Water podcasters, as the Network used to do on that day in the years before COVID. To this, the Network podcasters also immediately agreed, and later provided content for the commercial segments of the podcast. Isamu also pulled together some funny bits as well, using some trial clips from Xum's "Karaoke Wonder Show" as well as some "Blot the Bot" passages Isamu wrote himself.
And so, today, on April 1, 2023, we can all hear one more episode of Xum's brilliant podcast -- almost the way he had envisioned.
While it may not be complete, I know Xum would be very proud of his son.
