The internet era is filled with mysterious, indecipherable messages. The comment “firsties” on an article - what could it possibly mean, and what purpose could it serve? An all-caps email forwarded by your grandmother warning of the potential dangers of the ethanol gasoline conspiracy...but only after scrolling past thousands of strange, hieroglyphic “>” symbols. Or a text message like “lolwut gmafb rusrsly X-D”, which, according to the work of our finest crypto-linguists, translates roughly to “Pass the frog-banana, Harold.”

But our new short The Mysterious Message shows that failures in communication happened even back in the ancient period known as Pre-Geocitian! In those days, something called “handwriting” was the culprit. Now used primarily for that one actual check you still have to begrudgingly write each month (ugh, rent) handwriting was once so common that a faux-scary short film with a faux-good Vincent Price impersonating narrator had to be made! From an easily-baffled mailman to a lovelorn secret admirer to a rollerskating waitress, you’ll shudder at the totally avoidable terror!

Since riffing The Mysterious Message, Mike, Kevin, and Bill have taken to writing all tweets and texts in pen. So far they have destroyed 14 cell phone screens and a stranger’s laptop.