Christian Duguay

Christian’s eighth grade yearbook photo

Christian Duguay is the creator of Valley Heat.

Who are you? I mean I know you are the creator of Valley Heat but who are you when you are not doing that?
I have two kids who are sophomores in college (twin boy and girl), and my wife and I live in the Rancho Equestrian District.  When I’m not making the podcast,  I practice guitar, or I work in my little guitar station trying to learn how to make them better, but usually making them worse. I went to Berklee College of Music for 3 years, then left and went to film school at Cal State Northridge. Then I dropped out again after 3 years and went to The Groundlings Theater where I was in the main company for 6 or 7 years. Somewhere along the way I also dropped out of the Groundlings for a while halfway through classes and moved home. I actually drove back and forth across the country 6 times in the 90s, trying to figure out what I wanted to do!

Who is Doug? Introduce him to people who don’t know much about Valley Heat. 
Doug is a (former) freelance insurance agent. He is a suburban dad and husband and friendly neighbor who loves his neighborhood, and generally just likes people.  The most important thing about him is that he always gives people a chance. Sometimes he gives them limitless chances. 

He is doing his best to move away from a job he doesn’t enjoy, to do something he really loves, which is making the podcast. The podcast is fulfilling for him, but it also causes a lot of problems, and amplifies his weak boundaries. So, as he is trying to make his dream come true, his weak boundaries are destabilizing his life.

How is Doug like you and how is he different?
Doug is me, just a little more irresponsible and willing to take things to the edge of disaster. I’m not sure there is anything he has done that I wouldn’t somehow do, under the right circumstances. I guess the difference is that the other characters in the show are also pieces of me in one way or another - Doug, Chuck, Faye, Phil, Gary, Pete, Candice, Jan, Dean, Randy, John Macdonald, Terry Melon, etc…  at different times. Usually we are several crazy people at once, fighting for the steering wheel.

What is your favorite episode of Valley Heat?
I think it’s the final episode of Season 1, but I don’t feel super strong about it being my absolute favorite. I really loved the Candice chase with everyone in it.  I also love the Foosball tournament when John confronts Doug, from the stage.

Who is your favorite neighbor in the Rancho Equestrian District?
Jan Robinson, of course!

Are any of them based on real people?
Jan is based on my mom, who has always been thoroughly impressed by the brand of a thing. Find anything that seems nice in her house and she will tell you, “That is a Penelope Greene vase,”  or, “All of this wallpaper is designed by Lewis Johnston-Wallace.” I rarely have any idea who or what brand she is talking about, but I know she means it’s very good! Last time I was home she offered me some kind of food container for something, and it said “YETI” across the front. I thought, “I bet this is the greatest container made, according to my mom and the Yeti company. One day I realized she could say any name and it would sound like something important. Our whole family became this way in the 80s, and when TJ Maxx and Marshalls appeared, we were there every weekend trying to find those brand names for bargain prices. 

Gary is a little based on one of my neighbors, who really did tell me that someone was going into my garbage can at night and grabbing an item from the top immediately, then leaving  ( I’ll never know why they were going into my garbage can, but I’m glad they did, because it’s what inspired the show). 

Pete is based on my actual pool guy, who really did wash his truck on my curb, with his own hose connected to my spigot.

When did you first realize you were funny? Was there a moment when you were a little kid, maybe, when you made people laugh and thought “oh this is a super power?”
That’s an interesting question! If I answer it I feel like I’m saying I’m funny, which… I don’t know,  I don’t think I get to decide on that. But I can say that I have always wanted to be. I think that started when I saw Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live for the first time. Then I bought Wild and Crazy Guy and Let’s Get Small when I was 7 or 8. Those records changed my life. More than anything, I wanted to be funny the first time I ever made my dad laugh.

How did you get the idea to make Valley Heat?
My neighbor told me that someone was getting into my garbage can late at night and grabbing one item from the top. This is 100% true!  Although I will never know why whoever was doing it was doing it. I said to my neighbor, “That’s got to be a drug drop or something.” And he replied, “Uh, No. What are you talking about?” But I thought it was a funny thing to look into.

What has influenced Valley Heat?
Mostly nostalgia for my childhood… the movies, TV,  music, and overall the way the world felt. It’s a mix of a lot of things I loved in the Late 70s and 80s. I loved that feeling when MTV first started, watching Friday Night Videos, listening to Casey Kasem on American Top 40, and recording songs from the radio onto cassettes. The feeling kids got when American Top 40 came on Saturday mornings is definitely an influence.  It felt like everyone was excited about something back then. Everything was new and video games were blowing everyone’s mind. I try to make the show feel like we’re reliving it a little bit. It’s wild how I was not very happy as a kid, and always worried about everything, but every memory of that time is happy somehow!

Why is it an audio project and not something else?
Originally it was just an instagram story I was making. I was doing a somewhat-Doug-like character who was upset about my neighbor running an Air Bnb, across the street. Then the character was upset about cars on his curb. Eventually I stopped doing them because there was something I didn’t like about it. I wanted to keep trying to figure it out, so I wrote a short film, and my wife, Emily Maya Mills directed it. Mike O’Connell (Chuck on Valley Heat) was in it as well, as an entirely different character. Everyone was great, but I just didn’t like what I had written. Eventually I realized I didn’t like my character. He was annoying and always complaining. Who would want to watch that? Then when I started the podcast I realized I could break him into several characters, and Doug could just be nice, which is a lot more fun than a main character who is annoyed all the time. 

But it’s a podcast mostly because that’s what I had the means to make. I think it was also the testing of other ways to tell the story that led to it being audio.

How do you decide what’s going to happen next to Doug? Are you writing things out, like a novel? Are you taking notes all the time?
I take notes all the time whenever something seems funny. Usually it is something that happens in real life, like my neighbor will invite me over to hear his stereo system and ask me to stand on his fireplace for the best listening experience (this happened and still happens). I can’t stress enough how important it is to write down any idea you think might help for what you are working on, even the smallest idea. You will forget it. And you will also always think that you won't forget it. Even as I write this, I will think of something as I lie down to sleep tonight, and tell myself, “No, you’ll remember this one.” But at least now I know to ignore that voice and write it down every, every, every time.

But I don’t write out what is going to happen next. I need to have an idea in my head of the next few events, to keep the story straight, but not an outline. I just don’t have good outlining skills. Whenever I have tried, I just fill in blank spaces because they need words on them and then the story seems completely fake and paint-by-numbers. The stuff happening is just whatever dumb thing I filled the card in with. 

Obviously it is a useful skill and most great writers do it well. Maybe outlines just aren’t good for this story. For me, whatever I write on a card is just whatever I thought of before I actually started living and dealing with the story. I write more stuff from accidents than I do trying to squeeze ideas out. You could even say I don’t really write, I more so recognize lucky thoughts and accidents as often as I can. Maybe that is writing? I bring it up because when you want to be a writer, the first thing you think is, “Why can’t I just know what is in the story now? I guess I’m not a writer.” But you want to be a writer because you recognize good writing. So be patient and recognize it when you accidentally do it, and stop beating yourself up when it isn’t happening. When you roll a die and you're trying to roll a 6, but roll a 4, do you say, “Well, I guess I don’t roll 6s. Nevermind.” No, you just keep rolling.

Good example for anyone who knows this scene - When Randy Poole used the hang up sound effect to make Doug think Randy was hanging the phone up, that was just an accident. I mistakenly placed the hang up sound effect too early in the first cut of the scene, but when I listened back it was hysterical that it just happened in the middle of the conversation. That’s just recognizing a good idea when you find it. I likely never would have thought of that. The Cheers alternate theme song Friends was not originally about friends at all. I was just writing a song that I thought was a funny alternate version of a TV theme song. But then I was singing about friends and thinking about how the show was mostly about friends and started laughing. It was like someone accidentally slipped $100 under the door for the wrong room.

The pool idea started because Beth Stelling (Candace) was just at our house. She and my wife were hanging out by the pool, and I thought maybe we could quickly make a funny scene from it. Very quick. I didn’t want to kill their day so I just asked her to say 5 or 6 lines.  I had just started putting the first episode together.  There was no intention of making it about the pool in any way, until she just happened to be there and happened to be in the pool. 

How are episodes made? Do you explain to people like Billy Wayne Davis the structure and have the actors improvise? Or do you give them more specific notes about what you want them to say? Are they reading from a script?
For the scenes, I mostly know what they are going to say, but the performers don’t  know. Sometimes I’ll write out a script for a scene that I am willing to stray from if something better comes up. I never give anyone a script to read though. I tell them quickly a little about what the scene is, and tell them the lines to say as we go along. But they can change the line if they want, and they can improvise anything that comes to them. So the scenes are usually a mix of a written out script and some improvising. 

A took classes at Playhouse West for a few years, a long time ago. It’s a Meisner technique theater in North Hollywood. There is this beginning exercise which seems absurd at first, but I think it’s one of the smartest acting exercises. You and another person sit down across from each other and stare into each others’ eyes. No one speaks until one of you speaks without thinking, out of reaction to something. You might suddenly notice the other person’s hand twitch, or you notice the color of their eyes - something like that. And maybe you blurt out, “Your eyes are greener than I thought.” And then the job of the other person is to repeat that. The other person says, “My eyes are greener than you thought.” And then you repeat it back again, “Your eyes are greener than I thought.” This goes on until someone has a new, hopefully completely involuntary, response. Maybe the other person suddenly feels self-conscious and says, “I feel weird.” Then that becomes the phrase, “You feel weird,”... “I feel weird,” and then again it’s this repetition until someone accidentally responds. You watch it and think it is nonsense at first, but then you realize that it is an emotional conversation separated from the words. You are observing and responding from a deeper place and it’s a way of practicing patience for realness to happen. You hope for a little of that with the scenes. I tell someone to say a line and sometimes they will misinterpret it and say it differently, but better, or accidentally send us in a new direction. And then sometimes they will just have a better idea, or a worse one. So the scenes come from a mix of that stuff.

I write all that because it is improv, but it’s not like a Groundlings informationally-based type of improvisation where everyone is trying to add funny information. That works great for live performances but when you shoot that stuff it’s not good. It feels forced and exhausting. For this it’s more like, how can we make this seem actually real as often as possible, and make the feeling of realness be what’s funny instead of the information. I was in the main company at Groundlings Theater for 6 or 7 years, and studied there for 4 years prior to that. But I was never fantastic at improv!

Are you a big reader? The show feels really literary.
I’m not as well read as I would like to be. I think my favorites are Hemingway, Vonnegut, Bukowsk, Austen. Everything a 19 year old college kid likes. More than books, I read a lot of plays. Reading good plays is a great learning tool for writers. I love efficiency. Action lines are short and for utility. Stories move forward quickly. Reading them keeps you efficient and disciplined.

Talk about Cephalopods Are People. Who are they?
They are the Poole brothers who live in Toluca Lake, inside a castle once owned by Frank Sinatra. The youngest brother, Randy who is their lead singer and composer is a bit of a shut-in, and lives in the basement, writing all the songs, mostly surviving on jingle writing for local businesses, which are really excuses for him to release his music somehow. So the jingles often turn out to be regular length singles.. And they’re also me. I record and perform all of the music here in my garage.

How do you work with them on the ads?
Sometimes I will write and start recording a song and that will reveal some new business the music is meant for. Since the ads are more about the people who run the businesses than the businesses themselves, it opens up the subject and theme of the song. It can be a lot more personal and unique that way,

Do you have any fun stories about your fans? Who are these people?
Well, I obviously love them! They are die hard fans who are very patient with me about the sporadic schedule of episode releases. Hearing from them and knowing there are people who feel personally connected to the show has made a huge difference in my life. When I first made the show I thought it would connect mostly with people from my generation, but it’s actually a really diverse mix of ages. I get emails from people who listen with their whole family, or sometimes someone will say that they listen with their son or daughter in high school or college. 

I also hear a lot from people who are going through a traumatic time, or went through one. The show became like a type of self-administered therapy for me, and it is very cool to hear that it has had that effect on some other people too.  I don’t know why, but maybe it’s nice to know someone else is struggling with messes in their own life. Doug is mostly at peace with everything. Doug is better at handling anxiety than I am, for sure. He never loses his temper and he never loses hope. He is pretty much fine with knowing that both he and everyone else in the world is delusional and mostly crazy.

If you had $1M to spend on Valley Heat, how would you use it?
I would hire a staff! Since I’m making it on my own (with the exception of some very skilled volunteers who help when they can, as well as some production assistance at MaxFun ) the editing, scene recording, music production, etc. takes far too long, and the episode schedule suffers for it.

If you had $1M to make a brand new show, what would it be? (Don’t worry about whether or not anyone would like it or how feasible it is. You can time/space travel.)
I think it would be something on video. I’ve been wanting to do a video podcast where I fix 8 track tapes and discuss the album I’m repairing as I’m doing it. That sounds really terrible but it might be funny if you could make something out of it. It would be like a tutorial on old stereo stuff (that I know almost nothing about), but also a narrative of some kind. Probably hosted by Doug as well. I think I just decided I’m not going to do this.

What’s a podcast you love that everyone already knows about?
Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast and The Dollop

What’s a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
Mike O’Connell (who plays Chuck) has a great, one of a kind podcast called Life in the Human Zoo where he reads poems from his live shows and sings songs. I love it and I love that guy.

What did I not ask you about that I should have?
I don’t know! The scenes are all cut on Pro Tools and the music is all produced in Logic.

Thanks, Christian!