This week, we’re reposting and reflecting on Episode 3: “Remember Me” in a blog written by Julie.
This is the episode that introduces our main supervillain Dr. Rough, his henchman Drums, and their evil organization FANS. So let’s talk villains!
Pretty early in the original 00Carter conversation, our thoughts turned to who would be Nick’s nemesis. I mentioned Brian being a villain so my character Red Jewel could be one of his minions. Rose responded that she would rather make Kevin the villain. I thought Kevin would make a better secret agent, but while 00Kevin rhymes with 007, we decided “Richardson… Kevin Richardson” was way too much of a mouthful compared to “Carter… Nick Carter.” I then suggested Howie as the villain: “You should make Howie a villain, cause he gets jealous of Nick and wishes he could be 00Dorough, but Nick and everyone else just laughs at him… so he turns to the dark side and tries to take over the world.” Everyone thought that was funny, and the idea for Dr. Rough was born!
Dr. Rough is my absolute favorite character in 00Carter. He’s completely different from the Howie we know and love, but that’s what makes him so much fun to write. We do use attributes of the real Howie, such as his short stature (which Dr. Rough is very insecure about) and his winking (which we turn into a tic — his eye twitches more when he’s in a heightened state of emotion). But he’s more a spoof of Bond villains like Blofeld and Dr. No, as well as previous parodies like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers and Dr. Claw in Inspector Gadget. We even gave him a pet, but instead of a cat like the other villains, we thought it would be funnier for him to have a ferret named Dr. Twitches. Although Dr. Twitches is just a normal ferret who sometimes wears cute little costumes, Dr. Rough considers him a high-ranking minion.
Rose came up with the idea for Dr. Rough’s criminal organization, FANS: “Wouldn’t it be funny if Howie recruited all the members of boybands that were never noticed much? One of the boys from Otown who wasn’t named Ashley… lol Justin from 98 degrees, Joey from Nsync… only the ignored ones lol.” I don’t remember who came up with the acronym FANS, which stands for “Forgotten Agents Need Status,” but it followed in the footsteps of the other fictional criminal organizations we were spoofing: SPECTRE from the Bond universe, KAOS from Get Smart, and M.A.D. from Inspector Gadget.
Rose is also the one who suggested Justin Timberlake as another one of Dr. Rough’s henchmen. Although we like his character, we can’t stand him in real life, so our main goal was to make fun of him. We wrote his character as speaking in Ebonics because he (and some of his contemporaries, including Nick at times) used to talk that way, which got spoofed in the old BSB/NSYNC humor stories people used to write. Of course, our take on his dialect is highly exaggerated and perhaps a bit cringey, but we’re committed to it at this point. Justin’s code name Drums comes from the breakdown part in his first solo single “Like I Love You” where he goes, “You know… I used ta dream about dis when I was a lil boy… nevah thought it would end up dis way… drums,” before the drum beat comes back in. I had been mocking that song and calling him “Drums” for years before 00Carter came about, so it became a natural alias for him. The main female minion of FANS, Sexi (Michelle Williams, the most overlooked member of Destiny’s Child), is named for his song “Sexyback,” which was new when we were first planning this story. Her character was created to be the punchline of a future episode we planned called “Bringing Sexi Back.” By the time we get around to writing it, it will probably be like twenty years too late to be relevant. But as we said in our last blog, we hope readers in our age range will remember and appreciate the reference.
In discussing why Justin would join FANS when he was clearly the most popular member of *NSYNC, Rose came up with his back story: “Maybe he’s working with them because… he COULD have been a 00agent but had a horrible injury (which was later mechanically modified by Dr. Rough) and they wouldn’t allow it. So he was forced to watch 00Carter rise to a position that he felt should have been his. It explains why him and Howie get along.” As we were brainstorming what kind of funny injury Justin could have sustained, I suggested maybe his head had swollen to an abnormally large size because of his overinflated ego, forcing him to wear some kind of metal helmet to keep it under control. Rose took that and ran with it, turning the helmet into a headband attached to a red robotic eye that replaced Justin’s real eye, which popped when his head swelled too big on one side.
This episode explores the story of how that happened, told through a series of flashbacks from the perspective of the various people involved: Nick, Jay, Red Jewel, Pearl, K, and Drums himself. It was a fun but challenging episode to plan and write, as we had to figure out a way to piece all the different parts of the story together around the continuation of the Global Idol plot from the previous episode. We used Episode 2 to create suspense and slowly build up to the reveal of Justin and Howie as our villains in Episode 3. This episode completes the three-episode arc that I consider to be the introduction of 00Carter. Once we established our heroes and our villains, the real fun could begin!
Let’s settle the debate once and for all: how is Dr. Rough’s name pronounced?
Dee: So I know it’s a play on “Dorough” and there’s the Bond villain Dr. No, but I’ve always pronounced it “Dr. /ruff/.” Especially after we named one of his minion subclasses “Rough Riders.” It’s for sure /ruff/!
Rose: I used to apparently say it was “ro” in old conversations since that’s how Howie’s name goes, but I’ve never read it that way. I’ve always said “ruff” so…Oops lol. But yeah, “ruff” it is!
Julie: Good to know! I, too, have always read it like the word “rough,” even though that’s not how the last syllable of Dorough is pronounced. It’s a clever name because it works on multiple levels: a play on Howie’s last name, a spoof of Dr. No (if you do pronounce it Dr. “Ro”), and a spoof of other spoof villain names like Dr. Evil and Dr. Claw (if you pronounce it Dr. “Ruff”). Kudos for coming up with it, Rose!
Rose: Thank you! Though admittedly I didn’t think of all those levels lol.
We filled FANS with the less popular members of various boybands. How do our old boyband references hold up?
Dee: We vaguely introduce FANS last episode with DC. How forgotten are these boybands? Does anyone remember Youngstown?
Rose: I do! Lol. We really should throw in references to The Wanted, One Direction, and Big Time Rush someday. Obviously BTS too lol. Keep evolving the boyband mocking. And like outside of Timberlake the mocking is all with love. I met Lance and Joey from NSYNC this year, both are pretty cool. Oh and Jeff from 98 Degrees. Love him. I saw 98 Degrees live, and plan to go see Otown in December. Basically it’s only Justin I can’t stand.
Dee: Speaking of Drums, we’re not subtle about that at all. I always love that Julie suggested his injury is from a swollen head, lol. At this point, I don’t know if we pick FANS members because we actually think they’re forgotten or because it’s more funny that way. Take us putting most of NKOTB in FANS for instance… Does this hold up as well after NKOTBSB was a thing?
Julie: Hehe, I love what we did to Justin. I find him much more likeable as Drums than as his real life self. At this point, I’m not sure if I remember most of these other boybands because of this story or not. I know I can’t name a song by Youngstown off the top of my head. NKOTB is an interesting one because the only New Kids I knew by name going into this story were Jordan Knight and Joey McIntire because they both had solo careers (I remember their singles and videos from TRL), as well as Donnie Wahlberg because of Mark Wahlberg and The Sixth Sense. It wasn’t until NKOTBSB that I realized Donnie was actually one of the more popular members of the group and also completely different from his Sixth Sense character, which is what we based our portrayal of him in this story on. I stand by Danny and Jon belonging in FANS though. Do those two even sing?
Dee: They definitely don’t dance! A true tragedy to boybands everywhere! But yeah, rereading this, I had a moment of pause, like “Y’all know Donnie is in Blue Bloods, right?” lol
Julie: Yes, but Blue Bloods didn’t exist yet when we started this story LOL.
Dee: True. I just always assumed he was more popular because “Wahlberg,” and what not. I think of the three of us, Rose is the most up on the business of what non-BSB boybands were/are up to.
Rose: Youngstown did the Inspector Gadget movie song! I think. It wasn’t Soul Decision, they did “Faded.” Also I knew nothing about NKOTB when they started this lol. Beyond Joey cause I liked his song “I Love You Came Too Late.”
Julie: I also love the video for “I Love You Came Too Late” – and the song “Faded,” though I don’t think we’ve had anyone from Soul Decision join FANS. I had to look up Youngstown’s Inspector Gadget song because I couldn’t remember it, and LMAO! It’s not as good as the original cartoon theme song, but the music video is pretty great in all its late ‘90s boyband glory. Forgotten boybands are da bomb dot com!
Dee: I think all boybands are bomb dot com whether they’re forgotten or not. Maybe it’s on us to make sure they’re not forgotten. At least we still have them in a fanfic a decade later… unless we killed them off… RIP Chris?
Julie: Poor Chris… gone too soon!
Rose: Outside of NSYNC who I wrote off after their debut album due to my heavy dislike of Justin I have appreciation for the lesser boybands lol. My favorite outside of BSB was 98 Degrees but I also just really loved LFO. I’ll never forget the minor boybands! Lol.
Remember when we had so many writers, we divided everyone into two teams, Heroes and Villains, for the sake of divvying out parts? Which team were you on then, and which characters do you prefer writing now?
Rose: I always wrote more of a mix at the beginning. My main three then were Drums, Pearl and Nick. But I actually really loved writing this episode cause I’m always about shades of grey in a character and with this one you can see the psyche of Drums and what it’s done to him to face his HimTak past before he goes completely over the edge. Cause I don’t think he was a hundred percent there yet, just really close. You see that later on in “It’s A Small World” too. And if you give me an angsty character’s mind to dive into, I’m a happy girl. That’s still true but I’ve drifted away from writing Drums’ parts and tend to take whatever feels like a solid deep dive for me. Like Brian or even Jay. Characterization is my favorite part of writing.
Dee: I think I was probably Team Hero… Frick & Frack, Carter Girls, all the goodness that is Nick and K… I don’t think I wrote a lot of Jay back then because I thought I wasn’t good at writing AJ? I don’t know if I’ve gotten any better, lol. I’m normally pretty big on strong characters, so I could see myself gravitating towards the villains that we’ve created in general. However, when we started this, I was deep into the darker parts of PBox and I think I just needed something lighthearted, so Team Hero makes more sense.
Julie: I feel you on that! I am usually writing something depressing outside of 00Carter, so this story has always been a nice break from that. I was and am Team Villains all the way! It’s funny because I used to say I sucked at writing villains, but the villains in this story are perfect for me because they’re supposed to be cliched. They don’t have to be totally believable, and they’re definitely not meant to be scary. I’m better at writing ridiculous, over the top villains than realistic and terrifying ones. And Dr. Rough, Drums, and the rest of the minions are definitely ridiculous and over the top in different ways.
Dee: I don’t think I really have a preference now? Other than trying to get Diamond back to my original vision, lol. I think of the parts I’ve chosen in our newer episodes, it’s been the ones that seemed most entertaining to me regardless of the characters involved. Sometimes they’re funny ones and sometimes they’re dark and dramatic. I think overall, the three of us have a good handle on characterization across the story, so it’s more about the plot of each scene more than the characters themselves. In the beginning, we talked about writing certain characters though and I volunteered for Diamond and Lancy (though I think we ultimately didn’t end up divvying things out that way on purpose, though it happens sometimes). How can you not love Lancy? Of all the decisions we’ve made in the revival, bumping him to main character status was the best one.
Rose: I love Lancy so much. I know he’s a walking cliché but he’s the perfect comic relief. And he’s a great example of characters taking on lives of their own.
Julie: Rereading and editing these old episodes, it’s fun to see how the characters have evolved. One thing we edited in this episode was Drums’ dialogue. He sounded a lot less “ghetto” in this episode than he does later in the story. We decided his dialect, while occasionally cringey, adds to his character and is a nice contrast from Dr. Rough’s rather formal manner of speaking, so we opted to keep it and play it up more in this episode. Google Docs and Grammarly hate us for it, but we love our villains!
