SOMEbody once told me this podcast's gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest ogre in the swamp. Er, we're trying to find out what's under the various layers of the Shrek fandom. Memes? Sincerety? More memes? Is it infinite?

PLUS, we have special guest Alicia Kraft of the Ogrecast to help us out!

## Episode Outline

### Fandom Facts

**History and Origins:**

The Shrek franchise traces its origins back in 1990 with a picture book titled _Shrek!_ by William Steig. It wasn't until 1995 that the first film was put into active development:

> "Every development deal starts with a pitch and my pitch came from my then kindergartner, in collaboration with his pre-school brother. Upon our second reading of Shrek, the kindergartner started quoting large segments of the book pretending he could read them. Even as an adult, I thought Shrek was outrageous, irreverent, iconoclastic, gross, and just a lot of fun. He was a great movie character in search of a movie."> > — [Wikipedia - Shrek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrek#Development)

[// where Bill Murray would play Shrek and Steve Martin would play Donkey... Nicolas Cage, Chris Farley]: #

The Shrek films follow the (mis)adventures of Shrek (played by Mike Myers), Donkey (Eddie Murphy), and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and subversions of fairy tales and pop culture as developed by DreamWorks animation.

The first film was eventually produced and released six years later in 2001. It has since had a re-shrek-table three sequels (with a fifth movie planned for an unscheduled release date), two holiday specials, a spin-off film (with another spin-off in the works), a Netflix series based on the spin-off, several short films, almost thirty video games, _and_ a broadway musical.

**Search Data:**

Using Google Trends as a measuring stick, Shrek's popularity is mostly focused around the releases of the different films and [is otherwise fairly constant](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0g2jql).

The top ten countries for Shrek, by search volume, are: Bulgaria, Moldova, Armenia, Albania, Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, Latvia, Puerto Rico, and Azerbaijan (Canada is 30th; United States is 36th).

**Fanac Fast Facts:**

- There are over three hundred [fan works related to Shrek on Archive Of Our Own](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Shrek%20(Movies)/works)...- About 50% is categorized as M/M (and about 25% as F/M)- Most works stay in universe, but there biggest crossovers are with _Bee Movie_ (20 works), _Sonic the Hedgehog_ (17 works), and _Harry Potter_ (16 works)- The top three characters in works? Shrek (73%), Donkey (16%), and Fiona (8%)- More surprising, the top three relationships? Fiona / Shrek (4%), Donkey / Shrek (3%), Shrek / _Reader_ (2%)

### Main Discussion

**Topics covered in this episode:** TBD

### Spotlight: [Shrek Saber](https://bsaber.com/downloadshreksaber/)

Do you like rhythm games? Do you like VR? What if you were playing a rhythm game that was just 83 minutes of Shrek? Well, that's what this is! You can now download a custom song which is effectively _the entire Shrek movie_ as a beat saber track. Sure. Why not.

### Spotlight: [Shrekfest](http://the3gi.com/shrekfest.html)

> Shrekfest is the ultimate experience for Shrek-heads of all ages, currently gearing up for it's fifth year! Free admission, live music, and an outdoor screening of the 2001 masterpiece. Not to mention the games and prizes, highlighted by our infamous onion eating contest. So come dressed as your favorite Fairy Tale creature, bring a fold-out chair and we'll see you at the swamp!>> — [Shrekfest - About](http://the3gi.com/shrekfest.html#shrekfest_about)

The page looks like it came out of a 2000-era geocities page, complete with Smash Mouth's all start playing (as a MIDI) in the background. I don't know if it will run again in 2019, but if you happen to be near Madison, Wisconsin around Labour day week