Twenty years ago, they met and fell in love while tracking a lake monster in the wilds of Southern Quebec. Their every day since has been filled with mystery and adventure, portable recorders in hand, accompanied by LeRoy, their loyal pot-bellied pig. Whether it’s Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, or their own backyard, one thing is always certain – their world will be filled with wonders.
Matilde Whimsey. Lifelong adventurer-at-large, true believer, storyteller, pop culture junkie.
(cis female, pronouns she/her)
“We’ve changed our surnames for the program. Some achieve whimsey, some have whimsey thrust upon them.”
“My parents raised me a child of the world, never stopping in one place for long, always seeking the next, the next, the next. The more remote a village, the harder a river to navigate or a mountain to ascend, that was their afternoon tea. I grew with pyramids as my playground, with yeti and grootslang as my imaginary friends.”
Wilehelmina Whiffle. Lifelong educator, keenly scientific, keenly physical, direct to a fault.
(cis female, pronouns she/her)
“Quebecois born and bred. Two mothers, two sisters, two dogs, Nan and Flossie. A home very much on theme.”
“I have a doctorate on my wall, and a few others I’ve taken in debates. Education is quite different in the wild.”
“We went on a shark-punching expedition – they’ve only done it once or twice that I know of, you dive in and simply slug it out with the brutes.”
LeRoy Whimsey-Whiffle. Faithful companion, snuffler of snacks, some pig.
*poignant snuffles and whining*
Episodes
- Introduction. In which we meet our adventurers and learn a bit of their history; listen to a recording from their very first meeting complete with lake monsters and schoolchildren; and LeRoy makes his own introduction.
- Ask Not For Whom the Big Foot Stomps. In which our hosts’ search for the Sasquatch takes them from gift shop to provincial park to the depths of the wild; we meet a cryptozoologist / short order cook who makes a mean ‘Harry and the Hash Browns’ (cis male, pronouns he/him); footprints are found and scat is … what it is.
- Home Is Where the Haunt Is. In which Whimsey and Whiffle have an early adventure in cohabitation and explore a haunted … basement apartment; Wil grapples with the very concept of ghosts, and is surprised to find the ghost feeling the same; and Tilde makes the inevitable Haunted Mansion reference, naming the ghost Leota. (Leota is nonbinary, pronouns they/them.)
- LeRoy’s Big Day Out. In which there is a contemporary excursion into the Toronto Ravines; both our humans are on the trail of their own particular mysteries, with LeRoy enthusiastically bouncing between the two; an encounter with a dog and owner goes awry; LeRoy makes the most interesting damn discovery of all.
- Circles. In which our duo receive mysterious word of a small town suffering an epidemic of crop circles; Tilde wants to believe and Wil is the eternal skeptic; you can practically hear the Mark Snow music in between every scene; and we learn the origin story of a familiar friend.
- Should Not Have Been Forgotten. In which we meet Phyl (genderfluid, pronouns vary), a young friend who will become quite important to the team and who leads them to the mystery of the week: Parvati (cis female, pronouns she/her), who has lost a small porcelain dog with unexpected abilities; the chase takes them from the Royal Ontario Museum to downtown tenements to a dusty thrift store before coming to an end.
Whimsey and Whiffle’s World of Wonders is written by D.J. Sylvis and produced by Monkeyman Productions. All graphics by ECMazur Art.