Score the Record.
An animated lo-fi web-cartoon in the Homestar-Runner tradition — original characters, cheap on purpose — where the whole bit is checking the record. The face you can’t see is the point.
Video is generated by the curator in Gemini (Nano Banana for the look, Veo for the motion) and dropped in here clip by clip. No video yet; the words come first, always.
The host — “The Curator”
A simple, lo-fi figure at a standing desk (the real one). You never see his face — where his face would be, there’s a glowing gold star. That’s the design and the whole arc: the star comes off later, when he chooses, and the record’s clean enough to earn it. A scheming little gray star floats by his shoulder — a wallet with a sticker on it, begging to be scored gold, never earning it. On the desk: a TRUE stamp, a BULLSHIT stamp (honked on the site cut), a PEEL IT stamp, and a big red ; button.
The format
The Curator checks the record. A claim comes in — from the news, a letter, a politician, a machine — and he scores it in front of you. Not an opinion contest; a reading. Gold if it survives the check, gray if it’s bought, the honk if it’s bullshit, peel it if it’s a citation hiding a hole. Only humans score. Abrupt endings, always.
Episode 1 — “The First Claim”
The pilot, carved into the first episode. A cold open and one scored claim; the half-hour stacks segments like this.
Cold open — black. A single gold star blinks on in the dark, like an eye opening.
Curator (V.O.): You can’t see my face. That’s on purpose. You’ll get it later — the star comes off when the record’s clean enough to earn it. Until then: I’m just the guy who reads the thing out loud.
Smash to: the standing desk. The gold-star face. The gray star floats up, hopeful.
Gray Star: Is it me? Am I gold yet?
Curator: You’re a wallet with a sticker on it.
Gray Star: …I’ll pay you to say gold.
Curator: That’s exactly why you never will be. (to camera) Okay. First claim.
A letter unrolls. Handwriting, lo-fi.
Curator (reading, mangling it): “Deer Curatorr… a corporashun is a person and has rights, becuz the Supreme Court said so.” …Signed, “a guy at a barbecue.”
Gray Star: Sounds true! It’s got a court in it!
Curator: It’s got a court word in it. We don’t score the citation. We score the record.
Quick cut: an old book labeled “1886,” a page labeled “HEADNOTE,” a tiny cartoon clerk sweating.
Curator: The “corporations are people” line? Not in the ruling. It’s in the headnote — the clerk’s summary at the top. The Court decided a tax thing and never touched it. A guy named Davis wrote the personhood part in — and the Court itself later said a headnote “is not the work of the court.” A hundred years cited the summary like it was the thing.
Curator: (picks up a stamp: PEEL IT) It’s a cite you have to peel. Read the opinion, not the headnote.
He stamps the letter: PEEL IT. A tiny gold star lands — not on the claim, on the barbecue guy.
Curator: Gold star’s not for the claim. It’s for sending a real one. You asked instead of assuming. That’s the whole game.
Curator: (hits the big red ; button — the screen doesn’t cut; it keeps going mid-sentence) —because the sentence didn’t end. That’s the joke. Next week I read one from a president and it goes worse. Bring your—
Hard cut to silence. End segment.
The facts in this pilot are the site’s own, already verified — the Santa Clara headnote material is straight off Meta the Cite. The pilot invents no new facts.
Episode 2 — “The President One”
He teased it at the end of Episode 1. The rule holds harder here than anywhere: we score the claim, never the man (records never souls); the verdict is peaceful (score the record, don’t attack the person); and the exact quote and citations are marked VERIFY-BEFORE-AIR — the house doesn’t pin a citation it hasn’t confirmed cold.
Cold open callback. The gold-star face. The gray star is already vibrating.
Curator: Last week I promised you a president. So here he is. Well — here’s a claim. We don’t score the man; the man has a soul and a soul isn’t my jurisdiction. We score the record.
A claim card thunks down: “MEXICO WILL PAY FOR THE WALL.” [verify exact wording + date/citation before air]
Gray Star: Easy one! A wall! Walls are real!
Curator: The wall isn’t the claim. The claim is who pays. That part’s checkable. A promise is just a claim with a necktie on.
Magnifying glass drops. Montage: a giant invoice stamped “TO: MEXICO,” a cartoon hand sliding it right back, the tab drifting down onto a tiny U.S. taxpayer who catches it like a piano.
Curator: Run the record. Did the check come from Mexico? (beat) The record says no. Mexico didn’t pay; the tab came home. That’s not my opinion — that’s a receipt.
Gray Star: (sliding a little cash across the desk) What if I paid you to say it came true?
Curator: Then it’d be gray, and everybody watching would know it. Money can’t buy a verdict here; that’s the whole channel.
He reaches past the BULLSHIT stamp — picks up a plainer one: CHECK THE RECEIPT.
Curator: I’m not stamping the man. I’m stamping the claim: a promise the record shows went unpaid. And the fix isn’t a fight — it’s a ruling. You don’t take the person; you take the claim off the board and hand the gold to whoever bothered to look it up.
A tiny gold star lands on the viewer at home, not on the podium.
Curator: That’s you. You checked. (hits the ; button; the screen won’t cut) —because the record keeps going after the promise stops. Next week: a claim with a number in it, and the number’s doing all the lying. Bring your—
Hard cut to silence. End Episode 2.
Verify-before-air (0g): the “Mexico will pay for the wall” promise was a repeated, well-documented 2016 campaign line, and the outcome (Mexico did not fund it) is thoroughly on the record — but the exact wording, dates, and citations get pinned from primary sources before a frame renders. Cite or it doesn’t ship. Ties: the Reply Machine (same selection-and-cite rule) and “Ronald finally retires” (the verdict is peaceful; you score the record, never the soul).
Episode 3 — “The Number One”
The teased one: a claim with a number in it, and the number’s doing all the lying. This episode scores the number’s tricks, not a person — and it uses an illustrative figure (a teaching example, attributed to no one) so nothing here can misquote a real stat; the method works on any real claim, cited before air.
Cold open callback; the ; is still mid-sentence from last week. The gray star is holding a giant foam “#1” finger.
Curator: Last week, a promise. This week, a number — and the number’s doing all the lying.
A claim card thunks: “IT’S UP 400%!!!” (illustrative — no real figure, no real subject).
Gray Star: FOUR HUNDRED?! That’s a lot of hundreds!
Curator: Is it? Up from what? Four hundred percent of one is four. A number with no denominator is a rumor wearing a lab coat.
Magnifying glass drops. The big number struts in flexing like a bodybuilder, sunglasses, tiny cape.
Curator: Every number travels with three neighbors, and a liar leaves them at home. Out of how many? (the denominator.) Compared to what? (the baseline.) Since when? (the start date nobody picked by accident.)
He hands the flexing number its denominator. It deflates like a pool toy with a slow leak, cape drooping.
Curator: There it is. The number didn’t lie by being wrong — it was probably accurate. It lied by showing up alone. No denominator, no baseline, no date. Big isn’t true. Big is just big.
Gray Star: (waving cash) Can I buy a bigger one?
Curator: You can always buy a bigger number. That’s exactly why a big number, by itself, is worth nothing.
He stamps the claim: OUT OF HOW MANY? A tiny gold star lands on the viewer who asked it first.
Curator: Gold’s for the question, not the number. “Out of how many” is the whole game in four words. (hits the ; button; the screen won’t cut) —because a number keeps meaning things after the headline stops. Next week: a quote that was never said, and the man it’s pinned on. Bring your—
Hard cut to silence. End Episode 3.
Illustration, labeled (0g): the “400%” is a teaching example attributed to no real person, event, or dataset — the episode scores a technique, not a claim about anyone. Any real number the show ever scores gets its source, denominator, and date pinned from the primary source before air. Ties: The Tell (the confident number), Spot the Lie, and the civics-test spirit of the Ledger — show your work.
Episode 4 — “The Quote That Was Never Said”
The teased one. The floor is strictest here: a fake-quote bit is exactly where a machine hallucinates, so this episode anchors on a verified historical misattribution (a long-dead figure, well documented) and keeps any modern example generic — it pins no fake quote on a living person, not even to debunk it.
Cold open callback; the ; is still going from last week. The gray star holds a fancy framed quote card.
Curator: Last week, a number. This week, a quote — a good one, a famous one. The only trouble is nobody ever said it.
Gray Star: But it’s got their name on it! In italics! Under a photo!
Curator: A name under a sentence is the easiest thing in the world to make. Here’s the most famous quote in the drawer.
A claim card thunks: “MARIE ANTOINETTE — ‘LET THEM EAT CAKE.’”
Gray Star: Everyone knows that one!
Curator: Everyone does. And the record doesn’t. The line shows up in a book written when she was a little kid in another country — historians find no evidence she ever said it. She’s been blamed for two hundred years for a sentence that isn’t hers. Famous isn’t the same as said.
The magnifying glass drops on the quote; the italic name peels off like a sticker, revealing blank paper underneath.
Curator: “According to” is borrowed authority — the quote does the emotional work the claim can’t do on its own. A quote with no dated source isn’t a quote; it’s a costume. The only question that matters: who wrote it down, and when?
Gray Star: Can I just… make a nicer card?
Curator: You can make the nicest card on earth. So can the machine — and the machine is the champion. It’ll hand you a perfect quote, perfect name, perfect confidence, and no source, because it doesn’t have one. That right there is the whole reason only humans score: a human is the one who asks “where’s it from?”
He stamps the claim: WHO WROTE IT DOWN? A tiny gold star lands on the viewer who asked for the source.
Curator: Gold’s for the question, not the quote. (hits the ; button; the screen won’t cut) —because a real quote keeps its receipt and a fake one runs when you ask. Next week: a claim that’s technically true and completely a lie. Bring your—
Hard cut to silence. End Episode 4.
Verified example, labeled (0g): the “let them eat cake” / Marie Antoinette line is a well-documented misattribution — the phrase predates her and appears in Rousseau’s Confessions when she was a child; historians widely treat the attribution as apocryphal. The exact citation and dates get pinned from primary sources before air. No modern or living-person fake quote appears on this page, by design (records never souls). Ties: The Tell (borrowed authority, “according to X”) and Meta the Cite / the record is the arbiter (who wrote it down decides).
Production notes — the generation prompts
Starting prompts to paste into Gemini (Nano Banana for keyframes, Veo for motion). Confirm against what the tool actually offers; refine live.
The machine drafts the show. Only a human scores the record. ;