John and Craig look at four unbelievable stories in the news and ask, How Would This Be a Movie? Stories include a finance journalist who was scammed out of her savings, men who offer dating bounties, a franken-sheep made of cloned animal parts, and how standardized tests changed one woman’s life.

We also reveal which modern classics we’ve never seen (We meant to! We’re sorry!) to decide which – if any – we need to watch. But first, we follow up on D&D for kids, ESL, AI in reality TV, and Tiffany problems before answering listener questions on formats and recommending your spouse.

In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig look at new guidelines for AI and how they might affect our future.

Links:

• Weekend Read 2
• “Creep” post by @davo_arid on Twitter
• Full list of movies we haven’t seen
• The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger by Charlotte Cowles for The Cut
• Wanted: True Love. Reward: $100,000 by Angela Chen for the NYT
• Montana Man Pleads Guilty to Creating Massive Franken-Sheep With Cloned Animal Parts by Matt Novak for Gizmodo
• How the SAT Changed My Life by Emi Nietfeld for the NYT
• D.C. – What It Is
• Fighting Fantasy books
• LA Hero Workshop
• Sodalitas
• OSR’s Oz and Neverland
• Questlings
• Color My Quest
• WyrdScouts
• The Excellents and Nancy Druid
• Hero Kids
• TTRPGkids
• Hide’n’Treat and Snuffle Mat
• Jaina Grey’s reviews for WIRED
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
• John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Tim Brown (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.