One of the central conceits of the show is that we’ve gotten the whole band back together, and it’s not true. There are a few members that simply aren’t available, or interested. We are enacting our geek mid-life crises on screen, after all, and I understand why some people wouldn’t be comfortable with that.

One person we absolutely couldn’t do this without is Johnny. In many ways, he’s the glue that holds the team together. He’s not our leader, exactly. More like our spiritual advisor. Our ombudsman. The one who keeps us all honest.

His given name, so far as we know, is Johnny Staggering Elk. Not John; Johnny. His ID says Johnny. He’s an Indian, although we don’t know if he’s Navajo, Zuni, Pueblo, or what. We’ve never asked. We assume he’s from New Mexico, although now that I think about it, there’s some evidence that he might be Canadian. He works putting up drywall, and he’s a hard worker. He also hosted a kids’ TV show, The Best Little Roadhouse In Puppetville, for a while. He’s deeply into heavy metal — the musical genre, not the movie.

In my mind, Johnny is a zen master. When things go wrong, he’ll say “bro, let’s go drywall something”. He understands that simple labor can heal the spirit and calm the mind. His last name, sadly, makes him sound like he’s a bad stereotype drunken Indian, but I’ve never known him to touch a drop. Every single one of us loves Johnny, and all of us continue to quote things he’s said over the years.

Sadly, of course, Johnny isn’t real. We just all behave as if he were.

The origins of Johnny lie with Cameron. He’s based partly on a couple of real people, including a member of an Indian heavy metal band, and a guy who kept leaving messages on Cameron’s answering machine for someone named Johnny who deperately needed drywalling done. I have no idea where his last name came from. I worry that the character might be construed as racist, but as I said before, Johnny’s wiser than all of us and Johnny always wins. We’ve run the character by a few actual indians, and they all love the guy. A couple have offered to play him.

All of us “do” Johnny. The Navajo, in particular, have a distinctive accent. We take turns speaking for Johnny, although Cameron does him the best. It’s odd to outsiders, when suddenly one of us starts channelling him, and the conversation continues with his voice moving around the room from one Patroller to another without losing his train of thought.

In the show, Johnny will be represented by a couple of running jokes (at least, in the current draft of the script; this will be subject to change, but if I have my way as producer, this is how it will go). We’ll talk about him as if he’s a real person, quote him, and explain his continued absence through dialogue. He’ll also appear, somewhere, in each episode, in a picture, as a background character in a crowd scene, something. We’ll never connect the two. We’ll never say “they guy we’re talking about in scene 4? That’s the guy standing next to the bus in scene 5.”

But now you, dear reader, have some inside knowledge. You know some of Johnny’s secrets, and you know what to look for when the show comes out.

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