Music duo used hardware synthesizers popular in 1984 for an authentic recreation of the sound of the 80s

Wonkybot Studios is headed back to 1984 in the upcoming season 2 finale of the supervillain audio comedy series The Dr Epicopolis & 1102 Show of Shows — and 80s music will, like, totally play a major part in the episode, dude.

In “1984 Or Bust” — which drops Friday, April 21st on wonkybot.com and all major podcast platforms— Dr. Epicopolis must travel back to the past to stop his renegade robot EB3 from ushering in the singularity, but the only way he can get there is through the soundwaves of an 80s-style song he has to sing, compliments of a seven-year-old Indian princess supervillain who controls time.

“It’s a wild episode,” said series creator Stewart St John, who also writes, directs, produces and voices the ‘Dr Epic’ character. “I’m always looking to do things on the show we’ve never done before. An 80s song serving as a time machine was totally new!”

“When Stewart pitched me the idea I thought it was hilarious — and totally in my wheelhouse,” said Plahuta, who heads Wonkybot’s sound division and co-composes all the music for every Wonkybot show with St John. “I’ve always had such a love of the electronic synth sounds of the 80s, so to work with Stewart on ‘Supervillain’ was an immense treat.”

The music duo were excited to take on the challenge but wanted to make sure the music sounded authentic to the 80s.

“We wanted to write and produce a song that felt like it genuinely came out of that time period,” explained Plahuta. “So we made use of hardware synthesizers that were in heavy use in 1984 (where the scene of the show and the song is set), including the legendary LinnDrum LM-2 drum machine, JUNO-106 analog synthesizer and the Oberheim OB-8 to name a few.”

‘Supervillain’ is the name of the duo’s new track and will be featured in the season finale, and also available on a special EP album that will drop on the same day.

“We’ve done a few songs during the run of the show and decided to release them on a single album,” said St John. In addition to ‘Supervillain’ tracks include the Series Main Theme, ‘Robotic’ (Feat. Todd Fisher as EB3), and ‘Milliana [Baby It’s The Truth]’ with Plahuta as 1102.

A music video for “Supervillain” will release later in the week.

“I brought my best 80s music video vibe,” laughed St John, who appears in the video. “I had to sing as my character Dr. Epic which was challenging because he speaks with a certain raspiness and dramatic flair, but I had fun. It’s definitely a tongue-in-cheek performance that I think fans will enjoy.”

St John & Plahuta, who composed and produced 18 songs for the NY concert performance of Tara Tremendous and currently have a movie musical project with Marc Platt Productions (the producer behind the upcoming movie Wicked), love working together on music.

“One of the many wonderful aspects about Stewart is that in addition to his prolific writing and story-telling abilities, he is a masterful composer and songwriter,” said Plahuta. “So working together on the production of ‘Supervillian’ was really rewarding.”

“In addition to being a gifted composer Michael’s musical knowledge is unparalleled,” added St John. “He’s like a walking Wikipedia on music, musical styles, artists… you name it. He’s an absolute genius and it’s always such a thrill to collaborate with him!”