This interview includes major spoilers for No More Pineapple News.

This interview was recorded on October 25th, 2025 over voice chat using Discord.

Well, it’s been a while

Becca: Well, last month has been quite eventful for you.

Pineapple: It has.

Becca: On September 27th, we released No More Pineapple News. We spoke earlier this year about the series in general, I want to say March.

Pineapple: I believe so.

Becca: And when we talked in March, we were saying it’ll probably come out sometime in June.

Pineapple: (laughs)

Becca: But obviously from all the delays and happenings, No More Pineapple News has been a big project. How long has it been in production?

Pineapple: Well, the script took about 2 or 3 months. And then I was actually taking a scriptwriting class, so I held off a little bit to finalize it and see if my scriptwriting teacher thinks it was good. And then after that I waited a couple months to really start planning out what I think will work, what I think won’t work. And then the actual production started about a month before the release of No More Pineapple News. I would say 3 or 4 weeks, or a month of production, and then post-production took like 2 weeks.

Becca: So the script of it was still done this year, after the Holiday Special.

Pineapple: No, it was mostly done. But it wasn’t as fleshed out as it was in the end.

Becca: I think this is the longest time something we’ve released has ever taken to produce, at least active production. It’s pretty easy to tell, I’d say you’ve thrown a fair bit of money at it.

Pineapple: Yeah fair bit of money is a nice way to put it. It’s actually funny that, the whole final episode releasing so late actually worked out for the promotional material.

Becca: Mm.

Pineapple: Because for the trailer, it’s like “Where is Pineapple?”, in-universe it’s like yeah, he’s been gone for a while. And actually I barely gave any updates until like 2 weeks before, with that shitpost that Kolton* did, and I copied off of him and the only news is “Don’t worry guys, there’s another episode coming!” I think it worked out in the end.

_{*Kolton - Kolton Ramos, creator of Homebrew Tea and content manager.}

Becca: The Silksong* release strategy. In the same month no less.

_{*Silksong - Refers to Hollow Knight: Silksong, a highly anticipated indie game with famously quiet marketing.}

Pineapple: Exactly. Was it the same month?

Becca: It came out September 4th.

Creating with a budget

Becca: You’ve thrown a fair bit of money at the episode. It has an original soundtrack, and I believe you got paid actors to help. What was it like to work with them?

Pineapple: It was very, very new for me. Especially because, I don’t know how this stuff is done. I have a rough idea, but I feel like that way is very expensive. And the process takes a long time, and at this point I’m feeling, “I’m already in the heart of production, I really need people now.” So to get an actor, I literally went to my college Snapchat*.

_{*Snapchat - Online communication platform.}

Becca: (laughs)

Pineapple: And I just said, “Hey, does anyone want to help me with a project?” And I had to throw in money because I know nobody would want to help, so I said I would give 50 bucks. And then 3 people responded, which was more than I thought. For that process, I guess that was the “casting”, but it’s less official with a Snapchat. But it was interesting, and I learned from it. Especially that I do not need to pay people 50 dollars for 3 hours of filming. I could probably do 35, maybe lower. It helps me learn. It was a learning experience.

Becca: Are the people who were paid, were they the new characters specific to that episode? I believe there are two.

Pineapple: There’s only one, and they’re at the very beginning. Everyone else you see is a returning character.*

_{*Technically this is false, as the newscaster was not seen in any previous episode.}

Becca: It also has original music. It technically isn’t the first time it happened, it’s also in the Holiday Special*, but if I remember correctly, there’s a lot more here.

_{*Holiday Special - Pineapple News, episode 4.}

Pineapple: There is. So the different between the Holiday Special and this one is that one had like 2 original tracks, but everything else was music you would find in like, a Scott the Woz* video. And this one, other than one licensed song I used in the beginning, Every other track was originally scored by my friend Koi. She did a really good job with the score. I really think every single piece turned out amazing. I really wish I could say No More Pineapple News has a completely original score, but then I used that licensed song at the beginning so that probably wouldn’t work.

_{*Scott the Woz - Gaming YouTuber with a notable focus on skit humor.}

Becca: We went back in time to release that song and copywrite it.

Pineapple: Exactly. I went back in time and I told them if this guy passes away to license it some random guy on fucking WiiLink.

Becca: (laughs) What is the process of commissioning music for that kind of project like? I think that’s something a lot of people don’t really know how it works.

Pineapple: So for me it’s completely different because it’s from a friend. So it was really just like “hey, I’m working on this project, I think your music would work, do you wanna do it”, they said sure, so that was how I got the music. I know there’s other ways like going on sites to get music. The process is a lot challenging than I thought. I really thought it would just be “okay, I need you to make a song that has this kind of vibe to it”, I would send a song with the same tone, same genre, go. That’s not how it works.

Becca: Mhm.

Pineapple: You really have to be super descriptive, you really have to explain the tone of the song like how you explain a scene. So for example, the scene where Pineapple drunk calls Dean after talking to Manager. You have to basically explain what instruments it should have, and you want it to have the same feeling as the character on screen. I will admit I was very vague when I first asked for music, “just make it sound like this, make it sound like that”. You really gotta be descriptive, because it really helps them out more, because otherwise they’re gonna be clueless, and they’re gonna show what they have and it’s not gonna be what you wanted at all. You really have to describe the song and show them the actual scene you want it to match. I hope I can now share that wisdom so you guys don’t make the same mistake I did.

Becca: I think if you’ve done it once, it’s very easy to tell you have to be descriptive, but I think it’s easy to assume you can just explain the vibe and it’ll work.

Pineapple: It was a fun process. There were some times where we had arguments on whether this’ll work or not, but that’s the whole process. Not everything is gonna be smooth, especially if you’re working with people. Coming from someone who’s done everything themselves, and wanting it done a certain way, you’re gonna have debates and arguments about how something should be done or how it should sound or what something should look like. And from what I’ve learned, it doesn’t hurt to try. It’s ok to be wrong, try some other things. See what they have to say, like maybe the music should sound like this. Try it, it’s not gonna hurt ya.

Planned from the beginning

Becca: The episode in general, No More Pineapple News. Because you told me your plans for the series from the beginning, I knew how it would turn out. But I think a lot of people were pretty surprised with the significant tonal shift from the rest of the series. When you came up with the series, at what point did that come in. Was it always meant to turn out exactly like it did?

Pineapple: So I did tell you, way before the first episode was even out in December, I did explain to you the original ending of Pineapple News. And I’m not gonna get into that but I told you this whole plan and went into detail later. But that episode was really gonna focus on characters. So I really felt that we had to shift the tone. Because with the Holiday Special, I was able to focus on characters a little more, but it was really a lot more comedy focused, so it didn’t focus enough on them. It just had like one or two moments. So with this one I really wanted to tell a story and make them feel like real people. It’s not just silly-ass comedy people, like no these are real people, and they actually have other feelings. So I felt that I couldn’t do comedy, so I had to shift somewhere. I also really like doing a tonal shift in a movie or a show, where it starts happy but ends up really depressing or really fucked up.

Becca: I love that.

Pineapple: I think it really worked here. Especially even in the beginning of No More Pineapple News, it’s more lighthearted and more comical. There’s like a couple jokes here and there, and then after that scene, that’s where the shit is real and that’s where that tone shifts. I think I did a good job, and I just like doing things like that. It really surprises the audience, it makes them feel like “Oh, we’re going in this direction now. Let’s see how this goes.”

Becca: Before you were making it, did you go back and forth on how tonally different it should be? Was there a point where you were still considering it would be, even with that ending, it would still be a more comedic episode? Or was it always meant to be very different.

Pineapple: So the original ending was a mix of both, but it would be way longer, like about twice the length of the actual episode ending up being. So it would’ve been easier to have that mix of comedy and darker stuff. But while I loved the story, I didn’t think I have the money for it. So I had to really go in and say alright, there’s been a bunch of episodes where we go more extreme, and the Holiday Special is an example of that, where there’s this robot guy and he threatens to kill Pineapple with a giant sword.

Becca: Yeah. (laughs)

Pineapple: And there’s been episodes where we mix both, but I felt we should keep this episode grounded. If I were to do the original ending, I think a lot of people would say “what is going on, why are we in this setting” and it would’ve been more confusing, and it wouldn’t feel like the same show. Whereas with this ending it still feels like Pineapple News. I would say the overall show is pretty grounded, so I think this ending just works much better with everything else all taking place in a news studio. Like I said, even with the more chaotic stuff, it’s still is a more grounded story, so making it some epic grand buddy road trip adventure wouldn’t have worked.

Becca: You had to be more lean and mean with it.

Pineapple: Exactly.

Extended production

Becca: Compared to the Holiday Special which was made on a very big time constraint, you got a lot more time to make No More Pineapple News. Since the general series was made with a rush, what was it like to get to work on a project with a long schedule.

Pineapple: It’s amazing because you actually have time to do stuff and you’re not spending nights having to stay up and have to worry about deadlines and then miss something, you actually have a good process. You have time to do stuff, and especially with the filming process. The Holiday Special was filmed in I think a day or two. I would say 9 hours total. That’s how long it took.

Becca: I want to say for anyone reading, a full day before release you would go onto the developer Discord and you would just see Pineapple still live and he would still editing the video. I felt guilty for releasing the episode in the first place.

Pineapple: Our first experience with development hell. Knowing that I can actually have time to do full takes now because I had 3 or 4 weeks, I was able to actually review the footage, let’s see if I wanna make any more changes, because now I have time to do reshoots if I want to. I had more time to have scenes where the actors could flesh out their lines and not feel rushed. There were some instances where it was getting late and we had to wrap it up, but that was very small instances. Overall, even with post production, there were sometimes where I was in the developer voice chat, even the day before I still feeling a little rushed. But it was so much better than having to freak out the night before, pulling an all-nighter, and then having exporting issues, and then the thing came out at midnight so it barely made the release window, it was much better. And I got to plan everything out more.

Becca: I believe with the Holiday Special because everything was shot in one day, everyone was there. Was the filming process for No More Pineapple News like that, or was it more segmented?

Pineapple: Yes, it was very segmented. There would be times where we would have two guys available so we would film one scene, and then we would have other people available so we would film other scenes, and we had the paid actor who could only show up at a certain time, so we would schedule around it. Honestly, if I brought everybody there at the same time, a lot of people would feel out of place when they’re not shooting.

Becca: I want to say there were three people filming, so I assume it was based on who was available that day.

Pineapple: Yes.

Final words

Becca: This is the first narrative series we’ve done, and getting to see something like this start in December and gradually transition into the finale was really cool and a special honor. Do you think this kind of scripted material is something you’ll revisit in the future, or are you sailing off into the sunset.

Pineapple: I don’t want to say anything right now other than; these characters might return in the future, there might be a project or two where you get to see them on some kind of adventure, but we’ll have to see.

No More Pineapple News, and the complete series is available now on Wii Room.

Featuring:

Alek Klempert (Pineapple) - The Pineapple Gaming Show on YouTube, @themrpineapple on Twitter