Succession's Tom and Greg Dialogue Generator

Mar 27, 2023

One of the many very fun elements of the very fun television program Succession is the endlessly-generative exchange between Tom and Greg. The above example is, I think, about as good as fake Succession dialogue gets, while also managing to express the basic formula, whereby Greg opens with one of the following:

Having trouble with an everyday element of billionaire high-tech security

The fingerprint/retina scanner in his apartment building has stopped recognizing his biomarkers; starting to worry he’s a ghost
Can’t get off of the wait list for Club 33, the private dining club in Disneyland

A small-scale, money-saving tip Carl Weathers might have said on Arrested Development

“You can just order an extra soft-shell tortilla and eat your hard-shell taco over it, and whatever falls out ends up as your second taco, meaning you’re essentially getting two tacos for the price of one taco and one tortilla. And it’s totally legal.”
“And um. One of the guys from Maintenance showed me this last night, where you can use a pair of restaurant chopsticks as a bag clip, for Doritos or any kind of chip, really.”
“A lot of times at Subway if you just ask for the cheese triangles on their own, they’ll give them to you for free, because there’s no way to ring up just a few triangles of cheese on the cash register.”
“And I’d never thought about it like this, but I guess you’re mostly just paying for ice, in this scenario? And I guess the ice machines are the dirtiest part of any restaurant? So that’s two good reasons to just get your drinks without ice right there.”
[Describing a date he went on the night before] “So it turns out that Panera actually serves the Baked Potato soup every day of the week, even though they only put a sign out for it on certain days. But if you just ask them, they pretty much always have some.”
Just learned about buying cashews in bulk

Untrue or garbled prediction about the future

Believes that by 2035 photosynthesis
“Rubik’s Basilisk”

A Buzzfeed-circa-2015 lifehack he’s inordinately excited about

Just got a magnetic key hook so he always knows where he left his keys
Just learned about aquafaba (“It’s like egg whites in a can”)
Just learned about cutting a cupcake in half and turning it into a sandwich (“So the frosting always stays put”)

To which Tom might reply with something from one of the following categories

Something Bluto would say to Olive Oyl

Something Garfield might say to Nermal (“I’m going to mail you to Abu Dhabi”)

Half-sincere offer of a reward that would normally appeal to a five-year-old

Plastic wings from the cockpit
Choice of toy from plastic treasure chest
Ride in a fire engine

Threatening explanation of a thought experiment

“Have you ever heard of the Library of Babel, Greg?”
“Greg, have you ever seen a cortical homunculus?”
“You’re familiar with the Milgram Experiment?”
“You’ve heard of dog hazing, right?”
“Think of me as the wire mother to your shivering baby chimpanzee, Greg.”

Threatening explanation of ancient ritual

“Have you ever heard about the Doge of Venice and his role in the annual Sposalizio del Mare ceremony? The Serene Republic of Venice controlled the Mediterranean like a puddle in its backyard, and all her wealth and pageantry was his to command – but first he had to marry the sea.”
“Greg, are you familiar with the mystical marriage between Saint Catherine and Christ?”
“Greg, do you know what a horse burial is?”
“Do you know what blood pinning is, Greg? It’s the final initiation rite of the Army Air Assault School.”
“Greg, have you ever heard of the Hieros Gamos? The kings of Sumer and the High Priestesses of Inanna held a festival at the house of heaven in Uruk every year at the autumn Equinox, where they would choose a young man to represent the shepherd Dumuzid. You have a shepherd’s face, Greg.”
“There’s a pre-Christian Finnish practice called the peijaiset that used to take place at the end of every hunting season. The community would never admit to having killed a bear for fear of angering the bear’s spirit, so they put on an elaborate wake and hired mourners to announce that the bear had died by accident. Sometimes they would strap the bear’s pelt to a pole and marry a young male or female virgin to its spirit.”
“Greg, are you familiar with the early 20th-century practice of the womanless wedding?”
“Have you heard of the Skoptsy auto-castration sect from 18th-century Russia? They believed the two halves of the ‘forbidden fruit’ in the Garden of Eden settled on the human body as breasts and genitals, and that the highest possible honor was the removal of both in ‘fiery baptism.’”
“You’ve heard of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Tyrannicides of Athens?”
“Greg, do you know where your vena amoris is?”
“Are you familiar with Ashoka’s Hell? The Mauryan Emperor built a hidden torture palace disguised as a walled garden so beautiful that people broke in just to see it.”