Episodes Season One
OPENING CREDITS
Written & Directed by James Dalessandro
Every episode of Way Cool World opens with this ninety second credit sequence, introducing the main characters - ANTSY McCLAIN, DEBBIE JO, AUNT BEULA, UNCLE LEDFORD and SPOONS. It also shows the content provider, PINE VIEW HEIGHTS PUBLIC TELEVISION, and the sponsors such as STUBBIE’S DISCOUNT FIREWORKS, LEDFORD’S MOBILE MANSIONS, and more.
JAILBIRD BEAUTY
Written & Directed by James Dalessandro
Antsy is arrested for unpaid parking tickets that, with penalties, have broken a state record. Debbie Jo cruises Pine View Heights borrowing bail money from Uncle Ledford, Aunt Beulah, and friends. Ansty and cellmate Johnny, a bad check artist, work in a chain gang picking up trash. Johnny spots an inmate across the highway in a female chain gang picking up trash also. It’s love at first sight! Debbie Jo finally raises Antsy’s bail by selling her pickup truck! Johnny is paroled and heads to the women’s prison with a big bouquet of flowers but she was released an hour ago. In following episodes, Antsy makes wacky failing attempts to replace Debbie Jo’s truck.
WRECK OF THE BOOK MOBILE
Written by Ken Estin, Directed by James Dalessandro
Debbie Jo, still unhappy about selling her pickup truck, sees an ad for a bookmobile driver. Antsy gets the job that has one rule - he cannot use the bookmobile for any personal purpose. He builds a following among bookmobile kids by performing parts of characters in books. His wannabe manager, Uncle Ledford, gets him a singing gig two hundred miles away at a retirement home, Viejo Estates. Antsy can’t find a car to borrow, so he uses the bookmobile. He and his band, The Trailer Park Troubadours, perform a favorite song of his, Prozac Made Me Stay, which upsets oldsters, and the home director stops the show. On the way home, Antsy’s drummer drives the bookmobile and dozes. The vehicle goes off the road and into a lake. Antsy loses his job and fears he could be stuck with replacing the bookmobile.
THE CROQUET KING
Written & Directed by James Dalessandro
Uncle Ledford needs to add recreation areas to his trailer parks, and croquet courts are cheaper than swimming pools. He invites BOBBY JACK (BJ) MILLER, legendary croquet hustler, to put on an exhibition. Bobby is a sight in Bermuda shorts, knee socks and green Crocs. Women flock to him, but he only has eyes for Debbie Jo (DJ). Debbie Jo is the official Prize Girl. Bobby defeats all comers and tries to corner DJ in the utility area near the propane tanks. She knees him in the groin. He sets his cigarette on a propane tank to chase her. The tanks explode, projecting him through a wall and scattering croquet equipment, his Bermuda shorts, and Crocs onto the croquet court.
THE BLAH BLAH SONG
Written & Directed by Joe Comstock
At the Country Fair, Sage the hypnotist turns volunteers into braying donkeys and crowing roosters. Antsy is pushed on stage and appears immune to Sage’s skills. He drives home with DJ, whose chat about issues at school turns to BLAH BLAH BLAH. Soon, every banal statement he hears turns to BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Antsy searches desperately for Sage to reverse the process. When he finally locates Sage, he learns the hypnotist is a thief and conman who hypnotized Ledford into giving him his bank codes. Antsy tricks Sage into de-hypnotizing him and learns where Ledford’s stolen fifty thousand dollars is hidden. Antsy returns the money to Ledford, who rewards him with a twenty-five-dollar Starbucks card.
SKINNY WOMEN AIN’T HIP
Written & Directed by James Dalessandro
Debbie Jo teaches aerobics class twice a week in a nearby town where the buff gals make fun of the chubby ones, driving them out of the gym. DJ wants to do a free outdoor class to encourage the big gals to get healthy. She asks Antsy to write a song just for the big gals. He does it for her with help from his neighbors, SPOONS, DACRON DAVE, and WALTER BLACKHAWK. They turn the class into a dance-a-thon that delights and inspires everyone.
WRITER’S NIGHT
Written by James Dalessandro & Antsy McClain, Directed by James Dalessandro
Debbie Jo pushes Antsy to go to Memphis for the Writers’ Night musical competition. He did that several time but never won. He believes the locals there hate him because they assume his songs make fun of them. Debbie Jo persists until he agrees to go with her but has no idea what to sing. While they wait for his turn on stage, performers compete. One guy’s guitar is out of tune; another songwriter sings a cringe-worthy ballad to his mother; a woman with a high-pitched voice burns out the mic, and a brother/sister pair sing a love duet to each other. Antsy takes notes and at the end of the event performs WRITERS’ NIGHT, a song about the weird stuff he observed, which earns him raucous applause and a T-shirt for third place.
PRIMER GRAY IMPALA
Written & Directed by James Dalessandro
Antsy has a lousy job driving long distances to sell Uncle Ledford’s aluminum patio furniture at trailer parks. He stops at a diner and sees an attractive woman (SHARLA) arrive in a primer gray Impala filled with everything she owns. He wonders what her story is and watches her enter the diner. A BURLY TRUCKER hits on her and Antsy rescues Sharla by pretending to be her husband. He joins Sharla and notices a pale mark on her finger where her wedding was. She tells Antsy about her new job as a manager at the Route 66 Motel, where she is headed with no money, no credit cards, and a dead cell phone. He is going that way and offers to follow in case she needs help. Sharla offers him a free motel room out of gratitude. At the motel, he helps her unload her car. Then he goes to his room and can’t sleep, so he writes the song, Primer Gray Impala, based his observations and suppositions about her. She hears it outside his door and weeps. When he checks out of the motel in the morning, she tells him that his song about her is dead right about her sorry state, except she is pregnant, too, with a baby her husband doesn’t want. Antsy improvises a happy ending to the sad song that makes her laugh.
CHRISTMAS AT THE TRAILER PARK
Written & Directed by Joe Comstock.
The GHOST OF TRAILER PARKS PAST visits Uncle Ledford and forces him to revisit all the rotten deeds he has done as SCROOGE of Pine View Heights, including underpaying help, selling inferior trailers, undervaluing Antsy, and such. By the end of the episode, Ledford scams the Ghost of Trailer Parks Past into accepting that Ledford will make up for his taking advantage of people. He will follow the example of great moguls such as Rockefeller and Carnegie by constructing buildings with his name on them.
A GOOD WISHING SONG
Written & Directed by Joe Comstock
Uncle Ledford announces that his year’s Pine View Heights Grand Prix will have DALE EARNHARDT JR attending to endorse the Ledford Signature Collection of luxury trailers. Dale will be competing in the go-cart race. Antsy won the race the last three years and needs the five-hundred-dollar prize money to put toward buying Debbie Jo a truck, so he is miffed. Ledford announces raising the prize money to five thousand dollars this year to heighten the event’s impact. Antsy and WALTER BLACKHAWK (HAWK) work feverishly to upgrade Antsy’s go-cart. Dale flirts with Debbie Jo, who is flattered by the famous man’s attraction to her. Aunt Beula tells Debbie Jo that she wants to sponsor DJ’s bright pink Barbie go-cart and put signs on it for her Roadkill Fashions Store. Girl Power. Antsy and Dale drive with road rage over hills and through fields, scattering chickens and crops. Debbie Jo putters ahead, using turn signals and beeping her horn politely when she passes. All the drivers are reckless, especially Antsy and Dale who crash into each other near the finish line. DJ creeps along like the fabled tortoise and wins the five thousand dollars. Making matters worse for Antsy, she plans to buy a truck instead of waiting for him to fulfill his promise.
FALLING IN LOVE IN AMERICA
Written & Directed by James Dalessandro
Debbie Jo shows off her new used truck, purchased with her Grand Prix prize money and restored by Hawk. She finds a flyer announcing that Nashville Public School System is paying bonuses and generous salaries to lure experienced teachers to their schools. She puts the flyer in her purse. Antsy gets a call from a company in Atlanta that commissions advertisement jingles and is impressed with It Ain’t Home till You Take the Wheels Off, which Antsy wrote for Uncle Ledford. Antsy finds DJ’s flyer, and she finds his application for a position with the jingle company. In a comedy of errors and suspicion, they assume each is going away for a better career opportunity. He writes her a song, “Falling in Love in America,” and sings it to stop her from leaving him. They realize that neither of them could leave and discover neither intended to do so. Season One ends with a refrain of Falling in Love in America.
FROM THE PREMIER EPISODE OF WAY COOL WORLD
