Friday 27 September 2024

A Carolyn Premish Mystery


The second episode of the Comedy Central run of Futurama, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela", is credited to a writer called Carolyn Premish -- someone who has no other writing credits, in any medium, before or after this episode, or seemingly any kind of presence anywhere in the world. A further layer of interest is added by the fact that this is one of the three episodes of the show for which Matt Groening receives a writing credit, for coming up with the story with Premish.

Obviously in the years since the episode's broadcast, the phantom nature of the author has led to various theories and mutterings that 'Carolyn Premish' is a pseudonym. That mystery remains unsolved; it appears that late last year a member of the animation crew said on the r/futurama subreddit that 'Premish' was long-serving producer and writer Ken Keeler, but they subsequently retracted their claim and deleted the relevant post, saying they'd got some wires crossed.


The most recent episode of the current Hulu/Disney+ run, though, is "The Futurama Mystery Liberry" -- an anthology episode featuring three shorts done in the style of classic children's mystery literature. The first segment parodies Stratemeyer Syndicate stories such as Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift. This segment is credited to David X. Cohen -- and Cohen getting a writing credit isn't nearly as unusual as Groening (he generally has one episode per production season to his name), but it's still notable when it does happen. It'd seem reasonable to assume that nostalgia for those stories runs deep at a high level on the show.

The pseudonym 'Carolyn Keene' was, and is, used for ghostwriters on the various Nancy Drew series and other Stratemeyer series. Using a pen name is a Carolyn Keene style premise. Or a Carolyn premise, if you will.

Look, it's just a theory, don't go putting it on Wikipedia or anything. (I'm not even suggesting that Cohen specifically is the real writer.)

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