Fan art by Tumblr user onateabreak.

“The weather” is, like “traffic” and “the news,” a standard feature of WTNV episodes… except there isn’t even a pretense of fulfilling its titular promise. Instead, the weather is music, mostly folk but with occasional rock and hip-hop appearances. And it’s awesome.

Fan headcanons have suggested that maybe the weather is music because the weather is music in Night Vale… intense!

You can listen to an 8tracks mix with most of the The Weather songs here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaAfjKojqhc

Joseph Fink, one of the Night Vale writers, provides the first song for the ubiquitous “weather” section. Later sections would branch out and include songs by other artists, even fairly high-profile indie-rock artists like Two Gallants.

Check out the lyrics right here on Rock Genius!

The news is the first of several sections that appear in most episodes of the podcast, others including the traffic and the weather.

Usually, a few of the stories are ridiculous or inconsequential; one of them will be a brief comment on an ongoing character or story (like The Apache Tracker or John Peters—you know, the farmer?); and one of them will provide the basis for the stand-alone plot of the episode (for example, in this episode, Carlos and his team).

This opening paragraph, much like the intro, sets up a lot of the tropes that provide humour and tension in later Night Vale episodes.

There’s irony (the dog park won’t allow dogs); there’s the way that the city council (or any government body) simply drops the information on Night Vale’s citizens, without any sort of explanation of the contradictory ideas being said; and above all, there’s the Orwellian concepts of doublespeak, saying one thing and meaning another, and doublethink, believing in something you know to be false.

The citizens will still refer to it as a dog park, even though it’s entirely ungraced by the presence of dogs; and even though they could be killed by the electric fence, or even gazing at the mysterious hooded figures (much more on these later!), they will believe that it “will not harm” them.

Ralphs is a real-life grocery chain existing in Southern California. There’s a Ralph’s in Night Vale, but that doesn’t necessarily pinpoint it to Cali: Night Vale is a lot like The Simpsons‘ Springfield in that it can only be located in a regional sense (Midwest for Springfield, Southwest for Night Vale).

Later in the series, we learn that the vacant lot behind the Ralphs is the site of… well, you’ll get to it.

Fan art by Hannah Holloway. DeviantART username: Labyrinthine.

The show is narrated by the actor Cecil Baldwin, but his character, the host of Night Vale Community radio, is also named Cecil (albeit with the last name Palmer). You’ll learn more about this dude in due time. There are no canon descriptions of him except that he isn’t too tall or too short, too fat or too thin.

Headcanon and fanart descriptions, on the other hand, have arrived at a near-universal depiction: white with blonde hair, a preppy dresser (think Chandler on Friends with more purple involved), a third eye in the middle of his forehead, and bright, enchanted tentacle tattoos running over his torso and arms.

But who knows? Cecil is yours to imagine, as the numerous different cosplays of the character attest!

This brilliantly simple introduction uses imagery that Americans are familiar with through shared cultural experiences. The desert evokes the conspiracies associated with Roswell, NM and Area 51, as well as the more othodoxly historical top-secret goings-on at White Sands. In addition, decades of conspiracy- and paranormal-related pop culture, like television’s The X-Files and Twin Peaks, have further ingrained the association of deserts and UFOs, strange lights, etc.

Also present is the juxtaposition of Night Vale’s darker side with its status as a “friendly community,” and tension between these two aspects of the town is the basis for most of the show’s later humour.

Fan art by DeviantART user hahasauce.

The piece of music used as the main theme for Welcome to Night Vale is called “The Ballad of Fiedler and Mundt,” from the album Neukrk by New York electronic musician Jon Bernstein, a.k.a. Disparition. The composition employs a jazzy drum loop, and its piano and synth are evocative of Mark Snow’s equally creeptastic intro music for The X-Files.

Other pieces of music by Disparition form the background music for the podcast, and have been conveniently compiled by the artist himself here.