Category: Blog

Hey, folks. Bill Meeks here, creator of The Fakist, voice of Paul DaFoe and sometimes-actual-character (see One Last Day). I’m been radio silent since The Fakist: One Last Day wrapped up because I’ve been busy building a new universe called Everly Heights. Trivia: The Fakist started as an idea for an animated cartoon, and I’m finally doing one called Very Special, with hopefully more stories set in the Everly Heights universe to come!

To build assets for Everly Heights, I took the assets I made for that original Fakist animated series idea and spent about a year training a variety of Stable Diffusion models to quickly create characters, settings, and props in my art style. The result is the Everly Heights Story Studio. Click that link for all the details, including a free download to the models.

Fakist fans, take note! Paul DaFoe is built into these models, although he looks the most like me when you use the full checkpoint. Just a little Easter egg for fans of my previoous “big idea.” Bring The Fakist to your AI images by prompting “Paul DaFoe man” or “The Fakist” in your images. Enjoy!

Fakist creator Bill Meeks manages to pull up his wife Anne Marie over Skype from her new home in Somewhere West of New York City, where she’s lived since The Fakist took her there through an interdimensional portal last Halloween. Find out the fate of Anne Marie and Mr. Freeze 7-Up in THE FAKIST: ONE LAST DAY #6 – U Drive Me Crazy.

Bill Meeks talks to Gretchen Schneider (Cindy McNeil) about their history of collaboration in live theater and music videos, plus Samuel Lewis (Carl, Bill Gates) talks about improv and what his new character has been up to off-stage for The Fakist: One Last Day.

Bill Meeks talks to Wynn Mercere (Grace Huberstafforford), Bobby Hawke (Birdman Stan, Janitor Jim, Mr. Rogers, Handlebar Van Dyke), and Tony Hooper (Byron Seales) about what it’s like leaning out of their comfort zones by voice acting and improvising for The Fakist: One Last Day.

Listen to Love Is All Around

Greetings!

We’re very excited to start releasing Season 2 in the coming weeks. In advance of the new season, we’re going to be releasing a Best of Season 1 to hook in new listeners, and remind old listeners what happened last season.

We’ve posted a Google poll with stories and fake commercials from Season 1 below. If you have a few moments, please consider running through the list and voting for any pieces that you remember fondly, including your own!

To make this as easy as possible, all actors are listed next to the title. I’ve also organized and uploaded every nominee here if you need a quick reference.
Thanks! Can’t wait for everybody to hear Season 2!

Facebook marketing companies taken to task in special multi-part story.

New York City, NY (KCOM Studios) July 15th, 2018 – A new episode of scripted comedy podcast The Fakist takes aim at the multi-level marketing companies that we’ve all learned to hate on Facebook. Those annoyances are personified in Debra Dawnstar, a “business mommy” and partner for Dawnstar Escential Scent sprays. What starts as an advertisement for her “products” becomes an investigative report on her use of the sprays on her son’s injuries.

Executive Producer Tim Delroy says, “We wanted to tell the whole story of the poor people who get suckered in by these companies. While it’s pretty clear what side The Fakist is coming down on, we tried not to mock people. We want to explore the real dangers of these companies, both to their partners and the people around them.”

The health-centric episode, appropriately titled What The Health? Also features Brian Brushwood (National Geographic’s Hacking The System, Scam School, The Modern Rogue) as Consumer Affairs reporter Martin Zendler, who reports on killer bees at a local Thai restaurant.

To listen to the podcast, visit http://www.thefakist.com or search for it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or where ever you find your podcasts.

About The Fakist

Covering the fake news… For Real. Paul DaFoe, along with the best news team in the business, breaks fake news from the worlds of politics, sports, entertainment, and Neptune. If the news is #BREAKING, it’s probably The Fakist who’s breaking it.

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KCOM Studios announces the release of their new fake news podcast The Fakist, hosted by venerable fake news journalist Paul Dafoe.

NEW YORK CITY, NY (PRUnderground) June 16th, 2018

KCOM Studios announces the addition of a new podcast, beginning Monday, June 18th, on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, and at http://www.thefakist.com. The podcast will feature The Fakist’s own Paul Dafoe, along with the best news team in the business, breaking fake news from the worlds of politics, sports, entertainment, and Neptune.

The first episode reveals the inspiration for Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series, interviews a priest rejected by his congregation due to a “Walking Dead Whoopsie,” and explores how Stephen King’s It has changed things for local clowns. Future episodes will provide satirical coverage of topics like the service industry, healthcare, multi-level marketing, and helicopter crashes.

Podcast host Paul Dafoe says , “Fake news’ greatest asset is its adaptability, its longevity, its place as the first thing we turn to when we need to justify our opinions. As somebody very intelligent (probably me) once said, having the guts to be honest about not telling the truth is as real as it gets. That’s what we’re doing on The Fakist. And we’re looking to get you hooked. We don’t care that you’re a junkie. We just want you to be hooked on our stuff.”

To listen to the podcast, visit http://www.thefakist.com or search for it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or where ever you find your podcasts.

About The Fakist

Covering the fake news… For Real. Paul DaFoe, along with the best news team in the business, breaks fake news from the worlds of politics, sports, entertainment, and Neptune. If the news is #BREAKING, it\’s probably The Fakist who\’s breaking it.

“Good night, and good news.”

For nearly a decade, whenever Ted Baxter barked his famous catch phrase to end his nightly newscast, the viewers smiled. To hear him tell it, Baxter was the most beloved newscaster in Minnesota, the icon we depended on to sing the good news with a golden voice.

Of course, none of that actually happened. Ted Baxter was a character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. As far as we know, he never actually existed. But we believed in him. We knew that his Minneapolis was getting the straight dope… The real fake news. When pundits, spin, and optics are the order of the day, we need a parental voice telling us what isn’t happening in a way that makes us feel informed, inspired, and maybe a little wistful. But where is that voice? Where is the CBS sitcom with a fake anchorman that will give us some good news?

For now, we’re shit out of luck. NBC cancelled a show literally called Good News this year. ABC won’t create a news-based sitcom unless Shonda Rhimes gets inspired, and she’s too busy pitching shows to watch the news. CBS? Who knows what the hell is going on over there anymore? Even the self-serious award-winning The Newsroom is only producing new shorts for HBO’s hit new puppet show Sesame Street. The genre seems doomed to die.

Not if I can fucking help it.

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Five years ago, I left my job as a humble stockbroker to partner with KCOM Studios on a bold new project; The Fakist aims to bring authenticity back to the fake news. With my booming voice, restrained by dark liquor, I cover the fake news for real from our headquarters in Somewhere West of New York City, America.

It’s a pretty sweet gig.

I know. I know. Fake news is everywhere, but because it’s everywhere, it’s hard to get the good stuff. The uncut fake news shot straight into your eardrum with an adrenaline chaser. And what’s the alternative? Go outside and see what’s really going on? Doesn’t that sound hard? And boring. I mean, a lot of it just leaves blowing around and stuff. Who has the time? You want the methadone of fake news: Sure, it’s addictive, but it’s not that harmful.

We know you’re a “news junkie,” scrolling through your Facebook feed to find the one video that will help you win that argument with Barb from spin class. Don’t worry. Down at spin class we all know that you’re right and kinda hate Barb anyway, and at The Fakist, we know just the story that will help you shut her down. It’s in our first podcast, available June 18 on iTunes. Seriously. Show Barb what’s up.

As somebody very intelligent (probably me) once said, having the guts to be honest about not telling the truth is as real as it gets. That’s what we’re doing on The Fakist. And we’re looking to get you hooked. We don’t care that you’re a junkie. We just want you to be hooked on our stuff. Unlike literally every media outlet in the world since 1947’s historic Spring Fling, we aim to take a clear position on our fake stories and maintain an aire — air? — heir? — maintain an illusion of objectivity. We’re the liars you can trust.

Fake news’ greatest asset is its adaptability, its longevity, its place as the first thing we turn to when we need to justify our opinions. But that may not be the case for Millenials, for whom the internet is simply a playground, full of Mindcrafts and dabbing and The Floss (which I can only assume is some pervy ecommerce site).

Who has the time for fake news?

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As the information superhighway becomes a bigger and bigger pain in the ass (both to users and newbs), social networks are starting to experiment with new ways to deliver their product. On election night, Facebook offered a service where Facebook employees would call and read you your DMs, doing their best impersonation of the sender. Not to be outdone, Twitter collapsed in the corner, muttering something about wasted potential. They adapted. They’ll probably die.

Don’t change what works.

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Bottom line? You want to know what fake news to believe. That kind of editorial guidance is more important than ever in 2018, when any man rich enough to steal an iPhone can build a Facebook following of a few hundred thousand people for editing Minions faces onto bags of potato chips. The internet isn’t an amplifier, it’s a filter, drowning out the important work we do on The Fakist with everything from memes to leggings to actual facts.

Some days, fake news is the only good news on tap. We don’t need to know what’s happening — Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, and our actual lives distract us from that just fine — but we desperately need to know which of the twelve bajillion fake stories we read every day will make us feel smart, and why. The fake news’s job is to ignore real stories, the non-stories and spin, and the serious stories, and make something up that really matters.

Maybe we need Ted Baxter more than ever. He’s total bullshit, so you’ll have to settle for me. Don’t worry. I’ll give you the good stuff.

My name is Paul Dafoe. This is The Fakist, and it starts now.

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Subscribe to The Fakist on iTunes, and download the first thrilling episode June 18th!