A Cranky Holiday Special, Part Three
Chapter Six through Chapter Eight

CHAPTER SIX: “In Which Elmo will play a Whole New Way!”
CRANKY: “It’s time to see how Crankmas is celebrated all over Crankyland. Let’s drop in on the cutest family on the entire planet, or whatever!”
EXT: “HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS” FORUM – SLOTHROP HOMESTEAD {53}
(Slothrop’s family’s home is up in the top of a big paper maché tree. When we enter, we see Skilly busy cooking in the kitchen as she follows along with “A Dash of Elzar”. Little Slopilly is running around the house like a maniac, and Slothrop is carving things out of wood. Skilly calls her son into the kitchen to take the garbage out.)
SKILLY: “AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAHH HHHHH HHHH! !!!!! !!!”
SLOPILLY: “AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII !!!!! !!!!!”
(Oh yeah. I forgot about this family.
Anyway, Slopilly steals a Crankmas cookie and Skilly makes him give it back and take out the trash first.)
SKILLY: “AAAAA AAAAH HH!!!”
SLOPILLY: (like, “I’m sorry”) “AAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAA-AH!”
SKILLY: (points to the trash, then the door) “AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAII IIIII IIIII II!!! !!!!! !!!!!”
(Slopilly takes out the trash, then he reenters the house and he and Slothrop watch some kind of holographic Cirque du Soleil. Then there is a knock at the door.)
SLOTHROP: “AAAAAH???”
(He answers it and, whaddaya know, it’s Little Round Top!!! When he enters, he is carrying several presents.)
LRT: “Hello, Clan Sloth! I’ve brought presents for my favorite completely messed-up family!”
SKILLY: “Oh, thank you, Little Round Tip!” 54
LRT: “Err, TOP, please.”
SKILLY: “Whatever. Less talk more presents.”
LRT: “These gifts I have for you are all very special. I just got them in my shop this morning. A nice young puce fellow delivered them. Poor, kind gentleman had a nasty epidermal problem. (he brushes some dull, unhealthy-looking scales dotted with tiny red-purple lesions off one of the boxes) Uh, sorry there. Now, first off is little Slopilly. There you go, son.”
SLOPILLY: “Peace on Cwankywand. Gimme mowe pwesents!”
(If the little bastard didn’t vanish over my summer vacation, I’d have had my character adopt “Swopiwwy” in a heartbeat.
Slopilly runs up to his room with his presents. He opens the biggest, shiniest one first. Why, it’s a Tickle My Elmo Surprise!)
ELMO: “Ha ha hee hee hee! Ewmo not tickwish DEWE!”
SLOPILLY: “How ‘bout dewe?”
ELMO: “HA HA HA HEE HEE HEE! Ooh, boy, dat TICKWES! Ewmo has a suwpwise fow you!”
(You don’t wanna know how many directions I could take *that* in. >:)
ELMO: (as his eyes turn red and his head spins around) “You wiw NOT stop Gwundie when he takes ovew Cwankywand!!! You wiw teww you widdwe fwiends not to stop him eidew!!! Gwundie is GOOOOOOD! He is youw FWIEND!!! You wiw obey him!!!”
SLOPILLY: (hypnotized) “I wiw not stop Gwundie! He is my fwiend!!!”
(The Evil Elmos hypnotize all the kids in Crankyland! Oh no! This is going to ruin Crankmas!
Meanwhile, as for Slopilly’s parents…)
LRT: “Now, for Skilly, here’s the latest entry in Oprah’s Book Club!”
(Skilly goes off to read the Tale of Some Woman who Overcame Adversary by Believing in Herself and by NOT Stopping Grundie from Taking over Planet Cranky, or Whatever.) {55}
SKILLY: “Thank you, Little Round Tip!”
LRT: “TOP, DAMMIT! Anyway, here’s your present Slothrop. We need to come over here to the Orgasmatron Thing.”
(They go over to the Orgasmatron Thing, which Skilly has installed right in the middle of her main room for reasons I’m glad I know nothing about. It looks a little like one of those cool industrial dentist-from-Hell chairs in “the Matrix”. Slothrop sits in it.)
LRT: “I’ll insert the disk thing. Now then Slothy, I thought you might like this. It’s one of those… uh… oh, it’s a real… it’s kinda hard to explain… WOW! If you know what I mean. (creepy wink) Happy Crankmas. And I *do* mean, Happy Crankmas!” {56}
(Little Round Top leaves. Good for him, since that means he doesn’t have to be privy to what is about to happen. Unlike us.
The program starts. It’s a swirling kaleidoscope of light with vague shapes swimming through the designs. A blurry image of a human woman appears in the middle of the swirling. You recognize her, don’t you?)
SATAN: “I know I may be young… but… I have feelings too… So watch me… and just listen. (starts singing over weird music) Geddit, geddit! Geddit geddit! / WHA??? /Geddit geddit! Geddit geddit! / Really wanna dance / tonight with yo-oo-ou! / Really wanna do / what we’re gonna do-oo-oo!”
(She starts dancing around. Slothrop is getting pretty excited. Happy Holidays, everyone.)
SATAN: “I’m a (dook dook dook) SLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE foyew! I cannot holdit! I can not control it! I’m a (dook dook dook) SSSSSSSSLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVE foyew!”
HER FANS: (horribly betrayed) “But she, like, SO isn’t! Why would she EVER say that???”
SLOTHROP: “Aww-yeah aww-YEE-AH!!!!!”
(We better end this now.)
LRT: (delivering more presents to all the families in Crankyland, not knowing that they are EVIL) “It’s so nice to be able to make people happy!” {57}
(Little does he know…)
INT: “LOST SOULS” FORUM – CRANKYLAND HELL
SATAN AND GRUNDIE: “BWAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHAHA!!! !!!! !!!!! We’ll have control of this stupid planet before breakfast!”
(But little do THEY know…)
INT: “NEXT STOP, WONDERLAND” FORUM – CAVE
(The Director gets all excited because she *finally* gets to slop her N.I.M.H-rodiness all over this Crankyland fanfiction. Wait, what the hell is a “N.I.M.H.-rod”?)
DIRECTOR: (wikkid proud) “Us raging ‘Secret of N.I.M.H.’ fans call ourselves ‘N.I.M.H.-rods’!” {58}
(…Um, yes. What I meant to say was that the Mystery Critter from earlier [although I, for one, think it’s pretty damn obvious who it is] watches all of the preceding action through his Psychic Viewing Device Thingy. He groans sadly and gazes into a medallion of some kind.
We can only see the reflection of his face –still vague and unidentifiable- in the crystal held by thin claws that tip skinny fingers that appear to be covered with… *fuzzy* scales.)
MYSTERY CRITTER: (talking either to the ghost of an old friend or to himself) “Richard, your world is in great danger. Perhaps, then, it is the time to call on your loyal followers. They must now be entrusted to protect this. (he covers the medallion with his hands) The true greatest Power in this land.”
AUDIENCE: “All right! This is actually starting to get Almost-Half-Decent again!”
DIRECTOR: “Well, uh, YEAH! Ha ha! Boy, I bet you kids can’t wait to see what direction I’m going in with this! Ha ha ha! (real quiet) Ha ha, I can’t wait to know what the hell direction I’m going in with this either…”
(The title graphic reappears as the announcer is heard.)
ANNOUNCER: “Coming up on the ‘Crankyland Holiday Special’, a special Animated Crankyland Story, Undead Talking Snowmen, and a performance from Kaminski and the Gang!”



CHAPTER SEVEN: “Slater Snow Goon’s Industrial Crankmas!” {59}
EXT: “SNOW DAY” FORUM – SNOWY HILL
SLATER: “Man, it’s f*ckin’ GREAT to be wandering aimlessly around on this puny space-rock, guided by an illusory construct called a conscience again!”
(Slater the Undead Talking Snowman walks… walks?
Hmm, in “Jack Frost” [the stupid Michael Keaton one that I am trying to take the p*ss out of here, although really it’s not much of a challenge], the Undead Talking Snowman looked like he was moving around by dragging his ass along the ground. Okay then.
Slater drags his ass all over the snowy hill. Eventually, he makes his way to the Halls of Justice. The A.S.S. left the door unlocked, so Slater can drag his ass right in.
Hey, you know what? In the actual movie, Jack spends most of it talking about his [snow] balls. So this is an improvement.)
INT: "MYSTERY MEN" FORUM - YE HALLS OF JUSTICE
(Many strange things greet Slater on his way in. The first is a big pile of empty boxes of oatmeal. This makes him wonder, who would want to eat three boxes of oatmeal? Well, we're going to find out soon. Oh, good God, are we going to find out.
Fun Science Fact: Oatmeal and coffee are two of the few foods that go back up almost as easily as they go down. Yeah, I learned that [rather vicariously] in college. Anyway...)
SLATER: “Hmm, what’s this?”
(The thing he is inspecting looks like a radio. Curious, Slater decides to turn it on and see what it does.)
SLATER: “Here we go.”
(Fortunately for Slater, the “radio” doesn’t skewer any of his eight eyeballs with its super-sharp antennae, nor does it shoot things out of it’s tape deck at high speeds at his faces. That’s why you shouldn’t play with things that belong to superhero-types when you don’t know what they are. Little public service announcement there.
What the “radio” DOES do is project a little holographic screen thing which shows a stage and a bar somewhere. For some reason, all of this appears to be in the middle of a bright pink lava lamp.)
SLATER: “Ohhhhhh… kaaaayyy…..”
INT: “COYOTE UGLY” FORUM - LAVA LAMP BAR PLACE {60}
(It’s actually the Underground Habitrail Place. They built this bar before everything else. Those Assclowns and their priorities.
For some reason, Violet Beauregarde is the official bartender of the Assclown Stomping Society. The Redundant One walks up to the bar with an Analvice flower in his hand and takes a seat. He places the Analvice on the counter.) {61}
VI: “What’ll it be?”
RED: “Hello, Violet. Um, can we talk?”
VI: “Of course we can talk, honey! As a matter of fact, we *are* talking, in the sense that you’re not ordering, I’m not pouring, and neither of us are drinking.”
RED: “The flower is for you. I wanted to bring you something and that’s all I could think of.”
VI: (smiles sweetly) “You didn’t have to bring me anything.”
RED: “When I left the Headquarters last night, I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I felt ALIVE again! It’s weird how a man can go along thinking nothing matters anymore…”
VI: “Uh, Red?”
RED: “I wasn’t looking for anything really when I joined the Cranky Brigade. Maybe that’s why all this happened. I wasn’t begging, whining, sniveling, or anything! You just said those words…”
(Ken Kaminski and the Frogtowne Goodtime Jug Band enter the Habitrail Bar Place, all smelling vaguely of oatmeal. {62} As the band starts to set up, Ken overhears the ongoing conversation and, amused, sits on one of the stools. Neither Red nor Violet seems to notice.)
RED: “…Those six simple words. And suddenly everything made sense!”
VI: “Uh, Red, honey, listen… You’re kind and sweet and terribly sexy, but what in the blazes are you talking about?”
RED: “Those six simple words. They clarified the Universe for me. And you said them. You are my angel of spiritual enlightenment… (shoots Ken a vicious look) SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH!”
KEN: “Did I say anything?”
RED: “You looked like you were going to.”
KEN: “Ah. Right. Oh, and thanks for the Crankmas card you sent me, Violet.” {63}
(Violet just stares at him.)
VI: “*I* didn’t send YOU a Crankmas card. (she flashes him a hideously bitchy grin… which softens after a minute) Oh… Err, were you being sincere or sarcastic right then?”
(Second “Sixth Sense” moment!)
KEN: (wikkid sad-like hushed whisper) “*I can’t even tell the difference anymore.*”
VI: “Ahh… (pause) Um, you’re on in five.”
RED: “SIX, not five. Those words. I could wait forever to hear you say, once more…”
VI: (to Ken) “Do you want a Pop Tart?”
(Red just stares at her. Then he realizes that this entire scene made absolutely no sense anyway. He shrugs with a shit-eating grin and resumes concentrating on his drink.
Onstage, Violet steps up to HOPEFULLY answer the Audience’s [and Slater’s, come to think of it] questions as to what, exactly, IS the point of this scene. It turns out to still be as clear as granite.)
VI: “This next band will now sing a selection from their new album, “Voice of an Angel”. Ladies and gentlemen, because you have angered the Internet Gods, a performance from Ken Kaminski and Crucial Taunt!!!” {64}
(The Director smacks herself.
The band kicks into their own very special version of Joni Mitchell’s “River”.)
KEN: “It’s comin’ on Crankmas! / Cuttin’ down trees! / Puttin’ up reindeer and singin’ SONGS of Joy and Peace! / Oh, I wish I had a River / I could skate awa-ay on! (brief pause) Oh, by the way, you punks back there suck.” {65}
PUNK 1: “F*ck you! YOU suck! We don’t suck!”
KEN: (incredulous) “Uh, yes, you do. You suck and that’s sad.”
PUNK 2: “Oh, damn. He’s right.”
PUNK 1: “Waaaaaah! (pause) Ooh, let’s go take up crocheting!”
PUNK 2: “Okay!”
(Their lives now no longer devoid of meaning, the punks merrily skip off together.
The scene fades out from the hologram thing Slater discovered. It turns itself off and Slater puts it back down on the table s-l-o-w-l-y.)
SLATER: “Yesssss…. (hears something) Hey, what’s that?”
(Slater drags his ass over to the kitchen. There is a sound coming from inside it.)
VOICE: “I been sittin’ here! / Can’t get you off my min’! / but the troooth reee-maaiiiins yo’ / (agonized falsetto) GONE! / yo’-hor / (agonized falsetto) GONE!”
(I don’t know why but whenever I sing that song and I get to the actual “Gone” part, birds suddenly appear. Geese, to be more specific.
Slater enters the kitchen, and there he sees the Mad-Ness Monster. She stops loading the dishwasher when she hears him come in. She is *very* surprised to meet an Undead Deranged Snow Goon that Talks.) {66}
SLATER: “Mad-Ness? Hi, I think I need help! I can’t feel my legs for some reason!”
NESS: “AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAA!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!”
SLATER: “Um, help?”
NESS: (sprays Slater with hot water using the sink’s spray hose thingy like a squirt gun) “DIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIE DIE DIE YOU FROZEN FREAK OF NATURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
SLATER: (melting) “AAAAAAA AAUUUUU Uuuuuuu uuggggg hhhhbbb blllbbl blbblbl lbbbbll lll…..”
(Our heroine looks at the new puddle on the floor.)
NESS: “Oh well, I guess that does it for the Undead Talking Snow Goon.”
(That makes the children sad!)
KIDS: “Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
NESS: “Oh, but don’t you know? He was made of Yellow Snow! And he’ll be right as rain as soon as he gets cold again!” {67}
SLATER: “Well guess what? It’s freakin’ freezing in this kitchen! I’m back to as-normal-as-a-talking-Snow-Goon-can-get, so get me a coffee-and-Baileys’!”
NESS: “Wow, you’ve adjusted surprisingly fast to being a talking snowman. Now, um, you sure you want to drink that? You don’t want to melt again, do you?”
SLATER: “Less talk, more alcohol! Besides, the one thing all talking snowmen aspire to is to be a Frappucino when they grow up. Now where the heck are my team-mates?”
NESS: “Oh, they’re in the Underground Bar Place with the (violent fidgeting) other Assclowns. We could wait for them here.”
SLATER: “Okay.”
NESS: “Hey, I was going to watch the Crankmas Episode of that terminally cheesy Cranky Brigade cartoon from a few years back. Care to join me? (pause) More importantly, do you really think you ought to sit *Right Next* to the fireplace?”
SLATER: “Shut up and put on the cartoon.”
(She does.)
INT: “WAKING LIFE” FORUM – CARTOON PART {68}
(Very cheesy music begins as the opening sequence of the “Cranky Brigade” cartoon series starts. When the title sequence is over, we see this Title Card.)
TITLE CARD: “Merry, Merry Crankmas!”
SMALLER TITLE CARD: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
(The scene opens on a Badly Drawn Music Studio Place. The first characters we see are Badly Drawn Mendo and Badly Drawn Redundancies. They go inside the Badly Drawn Studio and meet Badly Drawn Mr. Cranky and a Random Cute Dog.)
B.D.MENDO: (voiced by a guy that sounds nothing like Mendo) “Yo, Mr. Cranky! Are we going to meet Boba Fett in this?” {69}
B.D.RED: (voiced by a guy that sounds nothing like Redundancies) “Ballistic! Thank you for this keyboard, Mendo! It is rad!”
DICK CRANKY: (voiced by a… aw, you get the idea by now) “Ha ha ha, no, we won’t meet *anyone* rad OR ballistic in this Obligatory Crankmas Episode. Do you want to know who you *will* meet?”
(The Badly Drawn Red and Mendo exchange goofy looks.)
B.D.MENDO: “From the Y, to the E, to the S, YES!”
CRANKY SCOTT: “You are going to meet a cute little orphan boy!”
RED AND MENDO: “Ballistic and rad and totally awesome! We will get to show all our fans how sensitive we are!”
RANDOM CUTE DOG: “Arf! Golly, I’m cute!” {70}
(The Badly Drawn Cranky Brigade go to the Orphanage place in their Tour Bus.)
BADLY DRAWN VI: “Helping the homeless is ballistic!”
B.D.RED: “You are ballistic, too!” {71}
B.D.VI: “Awww…”
(They smile sweetly at each other. Meanwhile, outside…)
EXT – MARKETPLACE {72}
(A Little Orphan Kid roams the marketplace pulling something largish on a rope.)
LITTLE ORPHAN KID: “Come on, Small One! I don’t care if you never get sold, you will always be ballistic to me!”
SMALL ONE: “Beep! Beep!”
(It turns out that the Kid is pulling a hot rod along on his rope.
I still haven’t found a real hobby.)
L.O.K.: “Hot rod! Hot rod! Hot rod for sale! / Only a dollar! Hot rod for sale!”
(The Kid and his –uh- Small One end up at the very same Orphanage that the Cranky Brigade does.)
BADLY DRAWN C.F.L.: “There is the Orphanage! It’s right next to the Soylent Green plant!”
(Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
BEWILDERBEAST: “Moo! Baa! Lalala!” {73]
INT – ORPHANAGE
(The Cranky Brigade meet the Orphan Kid and Small One in the Orphanage.)
L.O.K.: “A *miracle* is going to happen tonight!”
B.D.BRIGADE: “That is ballistic! Let’s sing!”
(The producers of the cartoon make the fatal mistake of dubbing in an actual song sung by the Cranky Brigade, so we can pick on how much the voice actors don’t sound like them.)
B.D.RED: “He’s got crazy long hair, and a red guitar, y’all! / I never knew Parca Claus was a rock-n-roll star, y’all! / I asked my mom could I join his band / an’ she just started screamin’. She didn’t understand that…”
ALL: “Last night, I saw Parca Claus! / Sneakin’ out of my back do-o-or! / Last night, I saw Parca Claus! / What’s he got in his great big bag for me? / I wonder what he’s got for me?”
(Meanwhile…)
INT: “MYSTERY MEN” FORUM – HALLS OF JUSTICE
(Slater the Talking Snow Goon gives Mad-Ness the Tragic Dragon a weird look.)
SLATER: “Errr, Nessie, if you don’t mind breaking character a little, can you PLEASE tell us all that you had to look those lyrics up?”
(The look on her face, in response, clearly says that she didn’t.)
NESS: (crying and crying) “Waaaahahhhhhhh……”
INT: “WAKING LIFE” FORUM - CARTOON
RANDOM CUTE DOG: “Arf! I’m the most interesting character in this cartoon!”
B.D.VI: “From the C to the O to the other O to the L, that’s COOL!”
L.O.K.: “There’s gonna be a miracle really soon!”
(Badly Drawn Mr. Cranky arrives dressed like Parca Claus!)
DICK CRANKY: “BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!”
ORPHANS: “Yaaaaaa aaaaaaa aaaaaaa aaaaaaa aaaaaaa aay!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!”
B.D.BRIGADE: “Crankmas is ballistic! It is also rad!”
L.O.K.: (hops into Small One, the hot rod, with some Random Guy) “Yay, let’s blow this popsicle stand!”
SMALL ONE: “Weeee, here we go!”
(Small One blasts off into Outer Space with the Little Orphan Kid and the Random Guy. Um, I guess cause they were angels or something. Anyway, there’s your miracle.)
B.D.BRIGADE: “From the M to the I to the R to the I… (pause) A…? Wait, how do you spell this? Anyway, miracles are Ballistic!!!”
(The Badly Drawn Cranky Brigade and all the orphan kids gather together and sing an Uplifting Song that has also got a Message.)
ALL: “This one’s for the chil-dren! / The chil-dren of the wo-orld! / This one’s for the…”
(We don’t get to here the end because that’s when the Mysterious JabBerwoCk can’t stand it anymore and tosses one of Slater’s weird Snow Goon heads at the TV, breaking it.)
JABBY: “AAAAAAA AAAAAAU UUUUUUU UUUUUUU UGGGGGH HHHHH!! !!!!!!! !!!”
NESS: “Yikes!”
SLATER: “You two shut up and help me put my head back on!”
NESS: “Okay fine. (L-O-N-G pause) Hey, wait a minute. Hello, JabBerwoCk! How and when the hell did you get in here?”
JABBY: “Real Answer: Not to make us all break character again, but it happened when you noticed that I wasn’t in this yet.”
(Mad-Ness blinks incredulously.)
JABBY: “But the REAL Real Answer is this: An Evil guy has sort-of enslaved Little Round Top to ruin Crankmas and I am here to sober the Cranky Brigade up enough to stop him.”
NESS: “Why are you here if you want the Cranky Brigade? This is the Crankydestined’s hideout. Furthermore, both teams have combined and we’re now one big supergroup.”
(JabBerwoCk nervously twirls one of his little catfish whiskers.)
JABBY: “Ummmm… Would you believe that *I’m* psychic now, too?”
(Ness looks at Slater the Snow Goon. She looks back up at the JabBerwoCk. She looks at Slater again, who shrugs. She looks at the Audience. She finally looks back up at JabBerwoCk and says…)
NESS: (self-deprecating sarcasm) “Yes.”
JABBY: “Here’s the thing. You see, I needed the Brigadiers mainly to protect… Someone Else.”
(Nessie scratches her head, deep in thought. Which is to say she’s still having a grand old time paddling around in the shallow end.)
NESS: “Someone whose Destiny is to save Crankmas?”
JABBY: “Yes, and that Someone and her Fellowship will have to embark on a perilous Quest of Self-Discovery, during which they will Grasp the Cosmic Meaning of It All, AND save Crankmas. And it must be tonight. (pointed stare) She hasn’t got much time.”
(The dragonette shudders.)
NESS: “Dude, I feel *bad* for whoever has to do all that.”
(JabBerwoCk and Slater look at each other. It almost looks like they’re about to cry…)
NESS: “What?”
(The title graphic reappears as the announcer is heard.)
ANNOUNCER: “Coming up on the ‘Crankyland Holiday Special’, the Fellowship of… Something!”



CHAPTER EIGHT: “In Which the Fellowship is Formed!”
INT: “COYOTE UGLY” FORUM – UNDERGROUND HABITRAIL BAR THINGY
(Animals have remarkable intuition. Dogs can often tell when their masters are in danger. Cats vanish for days before a massive earthquake hits. And a certain Mouse Lemur, amazingly, somehow *knows* that his Obligatory Human Friend is back.) {74}
BOBO: (waking up) “Zzzzzz…. Snff?!? (dramatic pause) *Slater*???”
(He’s up the stairs like a shot.)
INT: “MYSTERY MEN” FORUM – HALLS OF JUSTICE
(The JabBerwoCk has sat the Mad-Ness Monster down and FINALLY got the point across that, of all the crazy things, it is SHE who must save Crankmas on a Quest Towards Deep Spiritual Enlightenment.
Our heroine takes the news rather well.)
NESS: “O_o”
JABBY: “Can you do this?”
NESS: “Ohhhhh… dude! I am, like, so ready RIGHT NOW! Can we go right away?”
JABBY: “Err… Don’t you want some other people to go with us?”
(Mad-Ness thinks about this when, all of a sudden, a furry tan shape streaks across the room from the basement door to the talking Snow Goon.)
SLATER: (still an Undead Talking Snow Goon) “AAAAHHH! What the hell???”
BOBO: “Slater! You’re back! I think I’ll sing!”
(Bobo sings a little song to the tune of the “Dreidel Song”. Honest and no kidding, although I might have some of the lyrics wrong, I’m not making it up.)
BOBO: “Slater! Slater! Slater! / He is a funny guy! / Slater! Slater! Slater! / You’ll laugh so hard you’ll cry!”
SLATER: “…help…?”
BOBO: “Oh Slater! Slater! Slater! / Do not give him a chance! / Or he will make you laugh! / Or even crap your pants! Hey!”
SLATER: “I am officially scared now!”
NESS: “Hey, I’m not going to protect you from that crazy monkey! He bites!”
BOBO: “No I don’t!”
NESS: “You bit Ken and I think you bit Mendo too. I’m too lazy to go back and look.” {75}
BOBO: “Oh…. Yeah. Sorry.”
NESS: “Actually, I’m too preoccupied to go back and look. I have to form the Fellowship of the… um… Something. Say, who’s in the Habitrail right now?”
BOBO: “Well, all the A.S.S. except you are down there, and so’s all the rest of the Slater Force. They’re all asleep though. It was the damndest thing, there was a little hissing sound, and then I saw some really cool swirley colors, and the next thing I know I wake up six hours later.” {76}
NESS: “Holy Shiz-tsu! Somebody Colorformed the Habitrail!”
SLATER: “Gaping Plot Hole Alert: If everyone down there’s been asleep for hours, does that mean I wasn’t watching a live broadcast?”
(Everyone ignores this. *ahem* EVEN THE AUDIENCE.)
NESS: “Damn, that sucks. See who you can wake up down there.”
BOBO: “Okay!”
(He does this. Meanwhile…)
EXT: “THE CELL” FORUM – SURREAL LANDSCAPE {77}
(The dreams are getting more intense every night.
It’s the same strange landscape. It is *probably* an alien planet; another message board, far far away. It’s very desolate, as if there have been no creatures living in it for years. It looks a little like a coral reef except that it’s a dull shade of red-orange. Also, it’s in the middle of a desert.
Close-up on a human eye. It’s closed. We can discern some muscles twitching around the brow ridge and the bridge of the nose.
The lids squeeze together for a half-second before parting. The pupil rolls around, then shrinks back from the intense light.
The desert…
A figure, the owner of the aforementioned eye, stands alone on the strange, transparent bottom of a small crater. The figure’s head turns, looking about, as thousands of perfectly rendered individual hairs cascade over the shoulders.
A voice…?)
VOICE: “!!!”
(…can’t find my way out of…)
VOICE: “…ûûû…mmmh?”
(…what are they trying to…)
VOICE: “…Pseuuuu-weeeeee?…”
(!!!???!!!)
INT: “COYOTE UGLY” FORUM – HABITRAIL BAR PLACE
PSEU: “*snfff*? Wha?”
BOBO: (very quiet) “Good morning. I'm *hee-eer*!!!”
(Pseudonym stares at the tiny prosimian for a minute, then rubs her eyes. When she looks again, there’s Bobo, Whack Chick, and Bad Gwendle. They are all standing in a room full of…
…dead Crankizens?!?)
PSEU: “NOOO…mmph?”
WHACK: (has her hand clamped on Pseu’s face) “Shhh… everyone’s asleep.”
GWEN: “Weird. It’s almost like somebody chloroformed the place.”
PSEU: “Oh… man…”
BOBO: “Hmm, this isn’t much of a Fellowship. Everyone else in here either wouldn’t wake up or didn’t have a pulse. (pause) Um, you didn’t hear that last thing from me.”
WHACK: “Well, I’m going to try and wake Ken up so he can hook us up with the (cringes slightly) Great Holy Hot Rod and thus lend significance to the title of this Episode.”
(Heh.
She goes over to the Obligatory Pool Table, of which every Habitrail Bar Place must have one, upon which Whack Chick finds Ken sprawled out and drooling peacefully.
As a matter of fact, he is channeling what the Director is like at around seven-thirty in the morning.) {78}
WHACK: “Ssssst?”
KEN: “…guuurk…”
WHACK: “You wanna save Crankmas with us, hmmmm?”
KEN: (not in the affirmative) “….rrrrnnnszlzzrrrrnpht….”
WHACK: (goes in for the kill) “But Ca-ee-in-nee?!? We can’t do it without you…”
KEN: “…urrrnphtsz?”
(He rolls over on his back doing a servicable imitation of my cat when he LOOKS like he's inviting you to rub his tummy. Of course, if you did, then Pike would take that opportunity to sink fang and claw into your forearm.
I am not for a millisecond implying that Ken wouldn't do the same thing.)
WHACK: “But, just think. All through the Quest, you can tell us all how saving Crankmas is pointless because the spiritual meaning of the holiday has been lost in an orgy of consumerism, hmm?”
(He looks right at her.)
KEN: “Doll, I can do worse than that. Did you know that the whole ‘ooh, let’s gather the whole family and hang out with all our friends’ B.S. is a cover for raging million-year-old biological urges?” {79}
WHACK: “Uhh...”
KEN: “The prehistoric human mating season was in winter, and even today we release more sexual attraction pheromones than at any other time of the year. Pheromones get you high. Thus you’re able to tolerate the company of all these insane relatives you subtly try to avoid at all other times during the year.”
KIDS: (wikkid sad, in the same manner as Kilnstar) “I don’t understaaaaaaaaaaaaaand??????”
KEN: “Yeah, and the whole giving kids toys thing was to shut the little brats up. Also the kids would have something to drive their attention away from all the adults heading off to f*…”
EVERYONE: “OKAY THAT’S ENOUGH!!!!!”
DIRECTOR: “Actually, as for toys being available so that the kids’ll shut up, I found that Santa’s Helpers’ Magical Enchanted Duct Tape works even bette…”
EVERYONE: “W.T.F. IS *WRONG* WITH YOU PEOPLE???”
DIRECTOR: “Gawr, I’m JUST KIDDING!!! Sort of. Look, I'm in charge of entertaining the kids at the family party later this week, so a LITTLE resentment is going to poke through.”
(Anyway, Ken gets up and joins the Fellowship of… Something. {80}
His nausea will wake up and catch up with him twenty minutes later.
His skull-cracking headache, on the other hand, curls up and shoves a few more cocktail napkins under its spiky head, not to awaken until later the next afternoon. When it does, it’ll say, “hell with it” and wander off and eventually settle down with a pretty abdominal discomfort and father a litter of kawii little baby muscle cramps.
What the hell is in this Egg Nogg?)
GWEN: “Oh brother! To the upstairs part!”
(The Fellowship of… Something all go upstairs. After they leave, the little rats return to chew on the Crankizens who inhaled a little too much of the chloroform. {81} I won’t say who, just in case they suddenly start posting again and read this part and get sad.
Empathy sucks.)
INT: “MYSTERY MEN” FORUM – HALLS O’JUSTICE
(The Fellowship of… Something trots up the stairs to meet a barely sapient dragon, a talking mutant snowman, and a Lewis Carrol fever dream.)
ALL: “Ooooooo-kay….”
BOBO: “Hey, Pseudonym! (singin’) Pseu-do-NIMH! Pseu-do-NIMH! NIIIIIIIIIIIMH! / What WOULD we do without Pseu-DO-O-nimh?!? / See, this song is a-BOUT Pseu-DO-O-nimh!!! / She’s sweet as can be! Be!!! BEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! / She’s sweet as ho-NEE from a-a BEE! / Our dear Pseu-DO-O-nimh!!!!!!!!!!!” {82}
(I found my rhyming dictionary.)
PSEU: “Err, thanks.”
NESS: “Wahhhhh… you wouldn’t write a song about meeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!”
(Bobo thinks for a good long while.)
BOBO: “Um….. WAIT A MINUTE… no. WAIT A MINUTE… no. WAIT A MINUTE!!! (long, heartbreaking pause) Uhhhh… OOH! (singin’ again) Ken, yer selfish genes will tell me whaaaaaaat / Yooooou think of this song, don’t be a BUUUUUUUTT / HEAD! / Yer head it is bright RED! / Hey, look, there’s a tool-SHED! / A seal’s a PinniPED!!!”.
(Just so you know, I wrote that song in under two minutes in the shower, and I didn’t think it was possible to laugh so hard that I’d *drown* in the shower but I almost did.)
KEN: “It bites and it writes dumb little songs.”
SLATER: “Can we get going now?”
NESS: “Dammit, I’M the LEADER!!!!! (pause) Uh, Jabby, can we get going now?”
JABBY: “Yeah, sure. (pause) Are you *frightened*?” {83}
(Mad-Ness swallows hard.)
NESS: “Yes…”
JABBY: (pointed stare) “You’re not nearly frightened *enough*.”
(Ominous music starts playing… no, wait, that’s the Knack. What the hell?)
BOBO: (to the tune of “My Sharona”) “Du-na-NA-na-nunt-nunt! JA-ber-WOCKY! Da-NA-na-NA-na-nunt-nunt…”
JABBY: “Yeah, that’s enough.”
(Everybody gets in the Holy Hot Rod and heads off in the direction of a Convenient Sign.)
CONVENIENT SIGN: “To Where You Need to Go In Order to Catch Up With Little Round Top, Make him be a Good Guy, and Stop him from Ruining Crankymas ----->”
(The title graphic reappears as the announcer is heard.)
ANNOUNCER: “Coming up on the ‘Crankyland Holiday Special’, Parca Claus’ Midnight Ride of Darkness!!!”

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