From On Patrol #89: Computers of the Past
March 9th, 2015
At this point the show was well known enough that I was able to bring in more people, including faculty members, to partake in the written material. I served on a financial committee with our Dean of Students, Nancy Truesdell, and she was absolutely hilarious – so I knew she’d be down to come on-air. The idea was basically that the university wanted to “connect” with students, and thus hired a Dean of Party; looking back, it’s truly insane that we got someone so high up to do something this dumb, but Dean Truesdell sells it so well. I also think it’s one of Morgan Ann’s best performances: she’s naturally a very polite person, so one second she’s making small talk with Dean Truesdell in the other room and the next she’s screaming “Fancy Nancy” in her face. I also really like how Dean Partysburg keeps “blurring the line between reality and fiction” – it sort of goes under the radar, but this is clearly a very unstable character who knows a bizarre number of actors in Willow. And I will say, there is something oddly satisfying about having the Dean of Students say that she’s tried numerous times to expel you (and then call you Pastry).
