"My name is John David Booter. I'm not a podcaster, I'm a filmmaker, I've never made a podcast, but I've also never made a film."
—John David Booter
Done Disappeared is a satirical podcast which parodies the True Crime genre. The podcast follows John David Booter, a filmmaker from Davistown, Pennsylvania (though he hasn't made a film). He decides to make a podcast where he searches for Clara Pockets, who disappeared in October 1987 at a local Piggly Wiggly, leaving behind only a squashed cake. In the next season, he investigates the case of the Davistown Goose Gankernote and becomes convinced the person who was convicted for the crime was innocent.
Following Season 2, the Done Disappeared feed included a Spin-Off podcast and John David Booter Film titled I Already Knew That, which follows the purported psychic and spiritualist Debbie Dorfman.
Find all this podcast's tropes below. You won't...note
- 555: Exaggerated. John David Booter leaves his number in Episode 2.01, and it's all fives and over thirty numbers long.
- The '80s: Season 2 makes a big deal that the case happened in the 1980s, even though the previous season investigated a case from 1987.
- Affectionate Parody:
- The podcast parodies the True Crime genre and disappearance podcasts like Up & Vanished and Missing Maura Murray.
- Also includes parodies of True Crime podcasts and shows like Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, True Crime Garage, Crime Writers On (Crime Writers Off), My Favorite Murder (My Dearest Disappearance), Up & Vanished, Sword and Scale, and Casefile True Crime Podcast. The writer of Done Disappeared discusses these parodies in an interview
with the Crawlspace podcast. - The podcast Things You Should Think in Episode 2.10 is a parody of Stuff You Should Know.
- The podcast Yore in Episode 3.02 is a parody of Unobscured by Aaron Mahnke.
- Booter appears on Dr. Phil in Episode 3.04, which parodies how Dr. Phil portrays himself as a licensed doctor.
- Becoming the Costume: Booter "becomes" Clara Pockets by dressing up as her.
- Big Damn Reunion: Beth's song in the Season 2 Finale summons the missing geese.
- Breather Episode: In Episode 7, John David Booter throws a candlelit pizza party light show vigil extravaganza.
- Chirping Crickets: J.J. Johannesburg is greeted with crickets after playing his music at a vigil in the Season 2 Finale.
- Crime Reconstruction: In the finale, Booter tries to reconstruct the disappearance of Clara Pockets by becoming Clara Pockets. He runs into his ex-girlfriend Lisa and her boyfriend, and runs over cake while trying to escape. He concludes that Pockets was with him the whole time.
- Department of Redundancy Department: In the first episode of Season 3, Booter says he feels "empty, hopeless, and without hope."
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Season 1's composer J.J. Johannesburg usually plays the opening theme when he appears.J.J. Johannesburg: "Maybe you'll recognize me if I do this!" [plays theme music]
- Disappeared Dad: Booter says his father blew up in the war before he was born. In a special bonus episode, Booter says he thinks he found his deceased father, though it appears to be a Red Herring.
- Easily Forgiven: Booter forgives Bubbles and Bevins Maroney in the Season 2 Finale.
- Eccentric Townsfolk: The people who Booter interviews for his podcast.
- Everytown, America: Davistown, Pennsylvania, and to a lesser extent its neighbor Davistone, Pennsylvania.
- For Inconvenience, Press "1": The automated call system for the Davistown Penitentiary has a hard time recognizing John David Booter's name, and has him set up a 45-digit password.
- Fun with Acronyms: Debbie Dorfman says ASMR stands for "A Sound Makes Relaxation".
- Genre Shift: While the first two seasons spoof the True Crime genre, the third season parodies the Paranormal Investigation genre.
- Harassing Phone Call: Booter sets up a tip-line and panics when somebody tells him to mind his own business.
- Ignored Confession: Bevins Maroney appears to confess to killing Clara Pockets, but Booter is zoning out and only listening for the word "goose".
- It Was with You All Along: Booter concludes at the end of Season 1 that Clara Pockets was within all of us the whole time.
- Hidden Wire: Booter has cameras hidden in his neck brace, allowing him to prove that Bubbles set him up for the murder of Clara Pockets.
- Jenny's Number: The Davistown Penitentiary's automated phone service gives John David Booter the confirmation number "867-5309", and then starts reciting the Tommy Tutone song.
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: Happens when Lorraine asks Booter in the Season 2 Finale about Bart Buchanan, who was actually Booter speaking over the phone with an English accent. Booter dodges the question.Lorraine: Now have you seen a man round here with a real fancy London accent? Goes by the name Bart Buchanan? Mama's looking to make a deep connection, if you know what I mean.
- Miranda Rights: A police officer tries and largely fails to recant this to Booter in Episode 2.11, but the officer says he's just practicing.
- The Missus and the Ex: Booter meets his ex-girlfriend while reconstructing the disappearance of Clara Pockets. His ex-girlfriend recognizes him, but her boyfriend thinks he's Clara Pockets.
- Mood Whiplash: Very dramatic scenes are often interrupted by satirical commercials.
- Paranormal Investigation: Parodied in the third season.
- Parody Commercial:
- Includes parody of podcast commercials for actual products like MeUndies, Blue Apron, Squarespace, Madison Reed, and also fictional products like Big Box of Shit.
- The third season has similar satirical commercials for real products, though the sponsorships are real.
- Parody Episode: "*Bonus Episode*" parodies the true crime review podcast Crime Writers On, poking fun at Flynn's reading advertisements, Bricker's love of cats, and Ball's style of criticism.
- Parody Product Placement: Debbie Dorfman plugs products such as Stitch Fix and Casper Matress during psychic help sessions.
- Running Gag:
- The saying "you will not...be disappointed" at the end of the commercials gets shortened to "you will not" and then just "you won't" or "be disappointed".
- John David Booter's gives discount codes for getting 100% off.
- In Season 3, some of the names are changed or distorted "for privacy reasons", which in practice means adding Wacky Sound Effects in place of some people's names.
- Serial Killer:
- Parodied in Season 2 with the Davistown Goose Ganker, who allegedly gankednote all the geese in Davistown in 1980. After Booter learns that geese hibernate, he concludes that they just flew south for the winter and got lost.
- Played straight with Bevins Maroney, the suspected Goose Ganker, who turns out to be an actual serial killer. Maroney has even figured out how to murder or drive a person to suicide from prison.
- Spin-Off: Debbie Dorfman gets her own podcast titled I Already Knew That.
- The Stoic: Bobby Tall refuses to be spoofed in Crime Writers Off.
- Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: A woman calls the Done Disappeared tip-line and says she actually saw Clara Pockets. John David Booter travels with this woman to see find Clara, but it turns out she actually saw Karina Podgetts.
- Title Drop:
- The detective Michael Wooley says, "We ain't never found Clara, she done disappeared."
- Gert Roberts, the woman who baked Clara Pockets' cake, says, "All's I know is that cake was really pretty...and uh after I went ahead and went out and gave it to her, well she done disappeared."
- Wacky Sound Effect: In Season 3, names are randomly changed or distorted "for privacy reasons."
- Writer Cop Out: Discussed In-Universe. After Booter concludes that Clara Pockets was with him the whole time, some commentators in Season 2 question if this was a cop-out.
- Writer's Block: Booter has this in Season 3, since he can't find a new case where somebody disappeared. Even when he does find his case he has trouble making it into a compelling podcast.
- Thanks for reading this trope page. And please, don't...disappear.
