Episode 10 – We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Broomstick

For our tenth episode it's back to the Discworld - and Ankh-Morpork - as academic, writer and broadcaster Dr Dan Golding joins us for Moving Pictures. The tenth Discworld novel, Moving Pictures was published in Pratchett's most prolific year: Good Omens, Eric and both sequels to Truckers also came out in 1990!
Student wizard Victor Tugelbend has been happily failing exams at Unseen University for years...but when alchemists suddenly invent "moving pictures", Victor finds himself drawn to Holy Wood, the mysterious coastal home of this new entertainment industry. He's not the only one: hopeful actors, ambitious producers and even talking animals have all been caught up in the glamour of the "clicks". It's not magic in the wizard sense, but there's definitely something unnatural going on - and it'll take Victor, fellow star Theda "Ginger" Withel, Gaspode the Wonder Dog and the faculty of Unseen University - including new Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully - to solve the mystery of Holy Wood.
Bringing modern world concepts to the Disc had always been a feature of the series, but Moving Pictures really kicks off the tradition of "X comes to the Discworld" main plots. Pratchett takes broad aim at Hollywood in a mix of homage and parody, referencing everything from the pre-talkie era to the Golden Age and 1980s blockbusters. It also features first major roles for Detritus and Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler (both introduced in Guards! Guards!), and is the first appearance of Gaspode the Wonder Dog (who returns in Men at Arms) and the stable, ongoing cast of Unseen University wizards. There's so much happening in Moving Pictures, and we'd love to hear what you thought of it! Use the hashtag #Pratchat10 on social media to join the conversation.

In our next episode we'll be joined by television captioner and Discworld mega-fan Sarah Pearson as we reunite with Death for the eleventh Discworld novel, Reaper Man! If you have questions you want answered on the podcast, send them in by  via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat11.
Show Notes and Errata:

Dan Golding is on Twitter at @dangolding. His next book Star Wars After Lucas will be released on May the 4th, 2019, but you can see his ABC series What is Music? with co-host Linda Marigliano right now! Check it out on ABC iView or the triple j YouTube channel.
You can find all the info about Dan's excellent podcast Art of the Score with Andrew Pogson and Nicholas Buc at artofthescore.com.au. They also have a Twitter account at @ArtoftheScore.
To hear Dan talk about Star Wars music, check out the five Star Wars episodes of Art of the Score (the original film actually gets three episodes!), or watch the video he made for the ABC explaining why the theme is so great.
The previous book that kicked off with Death overseeing the passing of a previously unmet character was Sourcery, in which Ipslore the Red dies but tricks Death, passing his soul into his staff. We almost get this sort of beginning in Pyramids, but Pteppic's father only dies after the school days flashback section of the book, and again in Guards! Guards!, though Gaskin dies before the book starts and we instead join Vimes after the funeral.
In the real world, cellulose is an organic compound vital to the structure of cells in green plants, while celluloid (eventually a trademark name) was the first kind of thermoplastic, made from cellulose nitrate, used to replace ivory in billiard balls (as discussed in episode one) and widely as a filmstock before the development of safer, cheaper and easier to make acetate film in the 1950s.
Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in which multiple (fictional) plots to kill nazi leaders during World War II converge on a Paris cinema at the premiere of a new propaganda film.
Liz refers to the 1903 film Electrocuting an Elephant, produced by the Edison Film Company, in which Topsy the circus elephant, who had killed several people,