a radio play
by Ben Markewich and Sam Blanchard or Sam Markewich and Ben Blanchard or Markewich Blanchard and Ben Sam or Sam Ben and Blanchard Markewich
CHARACTERS:
Matt
Wentworth
Chief Cottonswabie
Cop
Murgatroid the giant killer robot
Ms. McSilllieputty
Professor Putzengerber
SOUND EFFECTS (in order of appearances):
- auditorium ambiance, mike feedback
- vibes; blender; waves; wind; cash register; elephant; bustling crowd;
bells;
bubbling test tubes; explosion; twitering birds; smoky jazz joint
- footsteps
- cruise ship
- bubbling swamp
- "Take the A Train"
- splash; jaws music; eartquake disaster; rictor scale; peeling, rending
tree
trunks
- flashback music
- seagulls
- rustling woods
- robot
- rocket
- powwow tom toms
- counting paper money and change
- signing things
- cartoon scram
- trinkets being dumped
- Greek Sirens; walkie-talkie
- musket fire
- robot breaking down
- sudden impact
- dinnerware clanking; pouring and sipping of beverages; bubbling swamp;
gators
- toilet flush
1
Matt:[auditorium sound, feedback, etc.] Ah, Wentworth, I have just
walked on
to stage here, yes, I am on stage, Wentworth, right here on stage to say
something concerning all matters thanksgiving.
W:well, theeees yeeeer, I have a leeetle beeet saved up, I'm worth
about......
hey where's my wallet, does aneeeeebodeeeee know where eeeeeet went?
Matt:Yes, That's right, right here on this thus and so and so on and iron
on
and so forth...Uh, Wentworth, d'jou say somthing? Something concerning
all
matters wallet? You know, that remembers me of a story about them there,
well,
even perhaps, yes, I know, those Indians. D'ja' know them tried to get
us
white people of those there past centurians to eat a maze? It's true. I
sewer
it is! Why, it has since become a transmition in many parts of our
worldy
world to have a huge feast on this day of thanksing to give. Why, just
today,
our day of thanksing, I ate my mother'e entire shrub maze of four acres
in
length, width and eggspecially even in heighth. Yum Yum.
W:come awawawan I don't need to bereft as over against theese timely yet
pernicious usages. My wawawallet must needs be around here someplace,
Matt.
It's awawawawalways worth it to look. I'm sawawawawarry, but I went
through
H.E.-double-yarn mallet [a]-in-a-blender
[b]-being-washed-ashore-in-a-tropical-gale-force[c]-tycoon[d]-on-a-raging
-elephat[e]-past-bustling-crowds[f]-of-bell-merchants[g]
-and-bubbling-test-tubes[g]-that-exploded[h]-into-the-shapes-of-t
wittering-hummingbirds[i]-in-a-smoky-jazz-joint[j] to get that thing.
Matt:Now, now, now...Wentworth, it is this story of things gaving
importunate
to your development. I have tell you to listen up and forfeit about
your
walrus, uh, uh, wall, Matt...uh waite, uh that's me, uh, regret about
that of
yours the wallet and come on for a walk [walking sounds]...well ,
actually a
cruise [ocean liner] of sorts guess me. Today not just is it thainks
givng to
eat a maze, what's more, it is too the day to repast on the
holliday-stuffinged
murkey swamp [bubbling swamp sounds]. This is the transition of many
ages far
and wide ago that we now pass on to our childs as the quarter back to the
running back in the game of inventedness by Indians themselves. not from
India,
no, but from the Northern most Americas and below to the south. So,
today,
along with a maze, too did I partake on nibbling the swamp.
[Strayhorn's "Take the A Train" fades up to a deafening dynamic by the
words,
"SHUT UP".]
W: I hope Chest. did'nt have anything toooooo doooooo with it. He might
still
have my wallet. I- SHUT UP!, How can I take the "A" train when I'm on a
crooooooz in the middle of the carob covered meditation sea plus, I'm
tired.
Don't yoooooooooo blighs know anything by Mary Worth- I can't stand these
croooooooooooz ship bands, I'm not even throoooooooo with my salad
fourth.
It's, like, these guys went legally insane or
2
something before we set out from the o-keep-your-fed-exxon-key
swamp[swampsound] last thrsday.
[suspiciously]...Something tells me we havent left the swamp yet, then I
fall
over the side, then this hyoooooooge shark comes up and people are
screaming
and there's condominiums everywhere!!! Then there's an earthquake that
measures
Hawaii five o on the erector set, and half of each comdominium bursts
into
flagrant abyoooooooses of property rights!!!! [voices in background:
hey!
that's mine...etc] Then the bark in which we are sailing peels off all
the
trees that are near the shore as we run aground at Harriet Beecher Head,
whence
comes the famous cheese!!!!!
Matt:Drop I into my knees!!!!
W:My knee-eyes, they have seen, aaaaaaaas we went aground land under
against
and through the laaaaaaaand that we saw upon heave-hoing into this spit,
curling about the hull.
Matt:More land ho!!, which reminds me of a story [flashback music]...
[seagulls in background and rustling woods]
W:e
Matt:Uh, Wentworth...?
W:Matt?
Matt:Yeah?
W:Yeah.
Matt:Is that you?
W:Did we go back in time?
Matt:I don't know, what time is it?
W:21:12.
Matt:In what is that on civilian time?
W:One nineteen-legged spider plant, it looks like, but it's hard to make
out in
your parents' car.
Matt:Does that in be coresponding to our time of current now?
3
W:What time is it?
Well, said you, it's one-nineteen-legged...
But, where are we?
Here.
Where's here?
Wellll....it's not there, that's for sure.
So...did we go back in time or not?
When?
Now.
What's now?
Gee...um...Look!!!
Who? What?!
Over yon [over yawn]!!! There cometh Indians!
Best we be to thinketh that -- heavens to mergatroid [sound of robot] --
we
have arrived back in time but to now, where started we us!
So, are we in the past or the present ?
We're in the future president's past particle board.
So true. Thereffffffffore, we must have landed here, now, in the past
that is
presently worth present, the present that is past the point of no deposit
no
return. We have gone back in time to where we were fffffffffffive
minutes ago,
right when we went back in time!
Amazing! Can you blast your nose off your face.... like a
rocket?....Like
this? [rocket blast]
Look here'zzzzzzzzzzz my wallet[sound]. Either it never wazzzzzzz missing
or we
went back in time. I've got a photo of G. Gordon lightfoot in here worth
fifty
grand old party hats, and they fit snugly about the earzzzzzzz.
4
Heavens to murgatroid [sound of a robot]! Here comes one of those them,
these,
how do you might want to say Indians! [sound of Indian approaching. tom
toms
rise in dynamic and then fade and become background for scene]
Matt [slickster voice]: Uh, um, uh, Cottonswabie, uh...hi, um I mean,
How.
Cottonswabie: Huh, What?
W: What?
Cottonswabie: [distant and gets closer] Where?
W: What?
Cott: Where?
Matt: Over here, chief, I'm over here.
C: Oh.
Matt: Um, hi, that is to say uh, How.
C: What?
Matt: How'd you like to...um...[whispered loudly] sell me your land? I
kin'
hand to you over today, if you act now...
C: My Juliet, sweet Juliet...
Matt: Uh, no, not that kind of acting.
C: Oh...
Matt: Act with your gumpshun son. Act with your selling power. Sell me
this
land for...uh...let's see, I've got here...[ sound of counting paper and
change] twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three-fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two,
sixty-seven, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three,
and
seven...that makes twenty-four, twenty-four dollars. That's right, I can
give
you twenty-four dollars for it.
C: What the heck am I gonna do with dollars? [curious voice, lower in
pitch
and volume] What are dollars any way?...let me see tha...
Matt: Why, you can by the Island of Manhattan.
5
C: How?
Matt: Oh, uh, how. I mean, uh, I'll show you.
C: When?
Matt: Now. Here, take a looksy. Just Take this here money, and (watch
this)
if you act now (remember that one) I'll throw in a few beautiful, though
uselessly so, trinkets [sound of trinkets] to boot. You can boot `em
where
ever ya' like. Any way, here, all you need to do is take this here
dollars and
the trinkets and sign here [sound of things being signed], here, here,
there
and everywhere. That's it. See ya! [scrams]
C: Where did that sopping oil slicker go in such an
all-fired-then-rehired-then-fired-again hurry up state?
W: f
C: Who are you? Anyway?
W: I'm Wentwrrrrrrrrrrrrth.
C: Where did you come? From?
W: No, I certainllllllly did not. I'm caught in a time
lllllllllllloop.
C: How?
W: Well [pause]
C: Uh, we've got to find a giant killer robot to bribe with these hair
useless
trinkets. That's what eye ear tail we did, or do, or well to do.
Howdedoo?
W: Well, as the record states, I would use my giant-killer-robot name
calling
device, or G.K.R.N.C.D.D.- the extra `d' is foooooooor extra muhsheenah
`ree'.
G.K.R.'s are in seasonings this tear, this single tear. But there's
ooooooonly
one of them. O giant killer ROOOOOOOO-bot. O murgatrOOOOOOOOOOid![robot
sounds]. Where could key be. I have noooooo idea where key went. What
did you
say you were worth?
C: Useless trinkets, only useless trinkets. I can hear kizzer now. Here's
Murgatroid.
W: Why the need of such top brass of the fabricated organism
approximation
kingdom?
6
C: What? You ask why? Who do you think you are?! When did you arrive
on the
scene, clever Hans? Where are you coming from, dude?! We quote indians
unquota have been duped!
W: Dupe-ed?
C: No, no, that's a kind of a scooter or something. We have been duped!
Duped
by man-made-from-buffalo-chips! Man-made-from-buffalo-chips must now
partake
again and even then whence forever cometh he and she againist in the
eating of
the stuffed murkey swamp and mashed gators! We must employ murgatroid in
the
propagation of the tradition of Fax Giving, the holiday of phony balogna
where
in the stupid white folk of the world unite to partake.
M: [robotic voice] But what can I do? I'm so full from eating all those
condominia. I'm nearly out of power amps, volts and faraday is so far
away.
W: I Know hhhhhhow you feel. I've recently in the near future consume
hhhhhhhhalf of the mazes in Dr. Putzengerber's experimental rodent
torment
lavatory. Most of them still had their cheese. It was well worth it, and
I got
to them before the cedar chips went bad.
M: Whom do youm thinkm I'm am? Om, Noam, theem "m" malmfumctiom!
C: How did that happen?! Here, help me fix this licentious toy of the
middle-class man-made-of-buffalo-chips! And, I'm not talking Ponch `n
John
here either!...Cops?
Cop:[[[sigma]][[iota]][[rho]][[epsilon]][[nu]][[alpha]][[epsilon]]]
[walkie-talkies] Book `em, Increase.
M: MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!![continue "m" to *]
Cop: How do you unplug this krazy, klanking kolossus? There are
ordinances
about the letter "m" in the o-keep-your-fed-exxon-key swamp.
W: He's pppppppplugged out to this nearby inlet. But the pppppppppowder
went
off [musket fire]. That thing is worth centuries.
C: Oh lord! Soiled again! That blasted robot [sound of blast off]!
Now
we'll need to attend to the starting of the new tradition of the
man-made-of-buffalo-chips called Tanks Grieving without the aid of our
robotic
friends of yesteryore.
Cop:[[[sigma]][[iota]][[rho]][[epsilon]][[nu]][[alpha]][[epsilon]]][walki
e-talki]:Book
`emmmmm...[to*]
7
W: Hey that guy's got a smaller timmmmme[Murgatroid changes pitch of
sustained
"m"] loop than any of us, he probably went and becammmmmmme [cop changes
pitch
of sustained "m"] a Cop in order to increase his feeling of Fort Worth.
Mmmmmmmmy Mmmmmmman, mmmmmmmost mmmmmmmalfunctions mmmmmmmanifest
themmmmmmmsefves in autommmmmmmmmmata, not mmmmmmmmere mmmmmmmmmortal
mmmmmmmmm....[to *]
[Wentworth, Cop, Murgatroid hold "m" and each change pitch
occasionally]
C: Soon the entire O-keep you-fed-exxon-key swamp will be devoured by
these
blundering brigands! We must keep them occupied at least until we can
figure
out a way to knock them out of this time loop! That's the only way a
tradition
can be propagandaed! Hmmm... perhpas We can finally put these mazes we've
been
growing to use. They ceased to be challenging to us centuries ago. Even
in a
good harvest we only see a few intermediates and maybe one or two expert
level
mazes (the trick is to work from the end, but how can you find the end in
a
time loop? he he).
[Murgatroid breaks down noisily]
C: So much for the great Murgatroid-- Oh, my balanced, anthopomorphic
conception of a cyclical universe! The're eating the mazes! That won't
take
nearly as long as doing them would have done to do. This tradition is
getting
out of hand, and there's no way to knock it out of the loop.[rocket
sound]...Wha?... it..it looks like a..a nose[honking tissue sound],
coming from
the future, or is it the past?, I can never--
[impact!]
[forks clinking, dinnerware, beverages being poured and sipped, murkey
swamp,
gators]
W: Mm mm, [*] Ms. McSillyputty...
Ms. Mc: That's McSillieputty (with an ie, not a y), Frank...
W: That's Hank, with an F, not an H...
Ms. Mc: Sorry...
W: No, by any means necessary Ms. McSillyputty...
Ms. Mc: That's with three L's, not two...
W: Oh, right, wrong, half a dozen of one is worth two in the bush...
8
Ms. Mc: George Bush?
W: No no no, by no means at our disposal! Oh confounded Hoover Dam!
Ms. Mc: You think so, really? Thanks Hank.
Matt: Oh, not a word out of ya' Ms. McSilllieputty. It's his pleasure.
I
always said, even two days ago and before that, nothin' better than the
Tangy
Grooving repast, what with the holliday spirit and all.
Ms. Mc: That's Holloway spirit.
Matt: Wrong you are, and how. Ya' know, I remember my dad's Tangy
Grooving
repasts of the days gone past and his brother's before him and his first
cousin
twice removed's before him and his sister's before her uncle's nephew's
and her
grandmother's grandmother's composition teacher's leach-pushing,
blood-letting
physician's before him , when used to we would have a fine meal of
Confounded
Dam, the murkey swamp with stuffing, a couple or few hedge mazes of no
unconsiderable challenge, and mashed `gators. Nothin' trapp-ed...
Ms. Mc: The motor scooter?
Matt: No...no, the past-tense verb.
Ms. Mc: Oh...
Matt: Yes indeed, nothin' trapped in the yummy clecnches of the Bermeuda
Non-Euclidian Geometric Configuration ever tasted so good!
Ms. Mc: Well, how are you enjoying your murkey swamp, Hank...?
W: Aaaaaaaaaaactually, it's Wentworth, Mam. Haaaaaaaank's my long name.
It's
Wentworth for short.
Ms. Mc: Not for Hank?
W: No, for Short.
Ms. Mc: Well, your friend here, what is it...?
W: Matt.
Ms. Mc: Yes, yes, that's wrong, Matt. Matt, you seem to be enjoying
Your
Tangy Grooving meal quite in bits.
9
Matt: Well, Ms. Gollyliscious! Sillieputty, that's if your name is
that! Do
I sometimes I do enjoy the meal of giving faxes in lots.
Ms. Mc: Isn't it a lovely tradition?!
Matt: Is sure it is truely.
Ms. Mc: Now where in reincarnations is that Professor Putzengerber!? He
does
not pay me a dime enough as his lav. assistant to make me wait so long
for the
communal sit down for the Banks Taking holliday. `Must be in the middle
of one
of those four way ANOVA's again.
W: The one-hit rock group from the eighties?
Ms. Mc: No, the statistic. Ah, ta' heavens ta' Trotsky with it all!
He's
probably reading another book on Blanket-Flake Theory and letting a bowel
again.
[toilet flushes and Professor Putzengerber comes out of his Lavatory]
Prof. P: Half a fangs gibbons, everyoney! Don't anyone go into the
lavatory for
a while, The0re are things in there too ripe for discovery. Say, any of
you
know the possible whereaboutses of my rat mazes? I was storing my gouda
in
them, and--
W: Uh... I'm sure we'll find them, P.P., there's no way they went very
far.
Let'ssssssssssay we milk this holiday for all it'sssssss worth. Get up on
sssssssssstage, Matt, and tell ussssssss what it'ssssssss all about.
[auditorium, feedback]
FIN