We've got a new way of begining the show now.

The studio is set up like a living room, nice and tidy, modestly decorated in blues and greys. As we fade in, the new theme song starts, which is a full orchestra making a lot of noise on their expensive stringed instruments. Mr. Happy Puppet Head is smashing the collectable plates arranged on the mantle when I walk in the door. I'm carrying my Midnight Mailbag and my flaming Sword of Justice.



While Mr. Happy Puppet Head knocks over the couch, I put out the flaming Sword of Justice in a bucket of justice water. I then change my fancy red and black cape to a fancy indoor plain black cape, and my fancy rubber boots to my indoor rubber boots.

Then me and Mr. Happy Puppet Head will stare directly into the camera and scream from our guts, a scream that has to do with all the pain and suffering in the world.

Cut to black, and begin the show.

Today's episode is all about cooking. Our first recipie is Peanut Butter Butter, which is basically a large stick of butter smeared with peanut butter.

It seems as if there is far too much to do in one day for Howie the little girl to keep up with.

"Wow," says Howie to her pet old man head, "I just want to sit down and relax but there's just so much to do."

She has to draw some pictures and take out the trash and clean the mold from behind Head's ears and avoid her older brother and eat all three meals and try to find the cookies inbetween and make her bed and jump on it as much as possible without her mom seeing her and sharpening that stick in the backyard against the concrete and chasing the roach out of her room and braiding and re-braiding her hair and taking a bath and doing her homework, not to mention going to school which sucks up most of every day.

"When I grow up," says Howie, "I'll live in a cave and kill anyone who tries to make me stop living there. I'll eat their insides for sustenance." Head nods his approval. "And we won't have to do anything we don't want to do," she adds.

The thought of a snuggly little cave in the montains with just her and Head and an assortment of skeletons makes her warm inside. She falls asleep under her bed, pretending they are caved already.

Stting on the porch, I'm pitching a new idea to Mr. Happy Puppet Head. It's for an Educati-FUN video tentatively entitled "Nothing is Forever." It's about a boy who is stranded on a desert island, and he befriends a whale.

"I don't know..." says Mr. Happy Puppet Head as he takes a swig from his hip flask.

"What? What don't you like?"

"You know, it just sounds kind of cheesy and stupid."

"No," I say. "It'd be so beautiful and poetic. See at first the boy is all lonely and scared because he's on this island all by himself, but then the whale brings him some kelp to eat and that starts their friendship."

Mr. Happy Puppet Head nods, eyes squinted as he looks off into the distance.

"So then they start becoming really good friends and they swim around and I have this great idea for this shot where he's riding on the whale's back and he stands up just as the whale jumps into the air and he pumps his fists over his head like he's having a really great time."

"Maybe..." he says as he takes another swig. "How about one night, they're just hanging out in the ocean, sharing stories and the boy is all talking about how much he misses his mom and his friends and stuff, and one thing leads to another... they start fooling around... and the boy starts humping the whale."

"Wow, that's good. I like that." I take off my goggles and wipe off the fog that's collecting. "And then, what about just after that they find the boy and take him away back to civilization and his mom and everything? The final shot can be as he's taking off in the helicopter and he's crying and he presses his face against the window and waves and cries hysterically and the whale does all these jumps and spouts water out the blowhole and makes all those whale sounds."

"Okay," says Mr. Happy Puppet Head. "What about years later he comes back to find the whale and it's all beached on the sand and just about to die and he runs to the whale and hugs it. And as the whale is dying, he starts humping it again. Just for old time's sake?"

"That might be a little much."

"Yeah," he takes another contemplative swig. "But we should still do it anyways. The dead whale-humping."

"Maybe..." I say. "I really think we've got something here. I'm excited."

We'll win awards for this one I think.

That's what I think.

A ROBOCTOPUS CARTOON!
****************************

Roboctopus and his friends Potato, Loraine, and Jimmy are in their secret clubhouse high in the oak tree in Potato's backyard.

"So what's the first order of business in today's Club Roboctopus Meeting?" asks Loraine.

"Oh," says Potato. "We were going to talk about a fundraiser, I think. Roboctopus, tell me what you think of this idea. T-shirts! With your picture on them."

"But," says Jimmy. "Isn't Roboctopus our secret? If anyone else found out about him, they'd probably want to capture him and put him in a zoo or on some dumb tv show and we wouldn't get to have fun with him anymore."

Roboctopus picks up a big kitchen knife from under the carpet and starts waving it around haphazardly.

"Jimmy's right," says Loraine. "Maybe we don't need T-shirts so bad."

"What about tatoos?" asks Potato.

"I think that's the same problem," Jimmy edges away from Roboctopus and the glinting kitchen knife. "Maybe we need to re-prioritize what this club is all about."

Roboctopus lunges at Jimmy and slashes his forhead with the knife. Jimmy screams and falls backwards, out of the clubhouse and tumbles to the ground below. Potato and Loraine lean over the edge and look down to see if their friend is all right.

"He's not moving..." says Potato.

"Oh God..." says Loraine. "We need to call an ambulance." Jimmy groans and rolls over, blood covering his face.

"Roboctopus!" the two un-broken children say in unison. The large half-robot, half-octopus shrugs his shoulder and re-hides the knife under the rug.

FANCY TIME CUTE PICNIC!
**********************

The cute rabbit says, "Maybe we should make a decision."

"No," says the gerbil cute. "I'm scared of decisions."

"Yes," all the other cutes agree. "No decisions. More pie and lemonade."

"All right," says the rabbit cute. "What about a game where we bite at each other's faces playfully, and everyone is a winner?"

They all cheer cheerfully for this idea, but still think they should have pie and lemonade first. Which they do.

But as soon as they are done with the lemonade and pie, big drunken Dinosaur Steve comes and kicks them all over the place.



His buddy Dinosaur Jim says, "Thanks, dude. Those things give me a headache."

THE FINAL EPISODE (of this storyline)! check it out.
**************************************************

So me and Handsome Actor made it to the party complex. We found the door wide open, and something we hadn't realized before, but now that awful jazz music had been turned off or broke or something. But it was silent. Completely.


Standing in the middle of the big center plaza, we see that most of all the alchohol in North America has been drunk, bottles of liqour and beer everywhere, and the big bonfire has long since burned out to nothing.

"Mr. Happy Puppet Head?" I call. No answer but my echo.

"Wait here," Handsome Actor tells me. "I'm going to run and see what's in that door over there." He opens it and it's a dark stairwell.

"Do you think it's a good idea to split up?" I ask. But he's already gone down the stairwell. I don't think it's a good idea to split up. That's what happens in horror movies, only the person being killed can usually run away and isn't all tied up like me. Hm.

So I wait and wait for a long time. I try sitting down, but I fall and get another mouthfull of dirt. I'm kind of getting used to that by now.

It seems like hours that I'm lying there on the ground. Finally I hear something. Laughing. Approaching me from another door on the other side of the plaza. Suddenly the three monsters burst out of the door with Mr. Happy Puppet Head following behind. He stares at the floor as they laugh and yell about something I don't understand.

"Mr. Happy Puppet Head!" I yell. "Mr. Happy Puppet Head, hey! Over here!" He looks up and kind of smiles. His eyes are all bloodshot and his fur is all matted and gross.

"Uh oh," says Marty the monster with the tentacles. "Look what we got here. Stupid cape guy. You look really good with dirt on your face and tied up, huh guys?" The other two monsters agreee.


(in case you forgot what the monsters look like)

All of a sudden there's lots of yelling and feet running towards us. The door where Handsome Actor went down flies open and all the celebrities who had been trapped in the basement come running out, brandishing big sticks and broken bottles. They all yell out terrifying war whoops and look really mad. They run straight for the three monsters and begin a big battle. The celbrities are fighting for their lives and freedom, so they're a force to be reckoned with, but the monsters are magic violin monsters and they flip around and beat up celebrities like nothing.

And in the middle of all the fighting and yelling I lie in the dirt and can't even stand up. Mr. Happy Puppet Head seems to be in a daze and hasn 't seemed to notice the battle.

"Hey Midnight." says Mr. Happy Puppet Head. "What's up?"

"You know... stuff." A child-actor lands on my leg, but it doesn't hurt since he's so small. He picks up a jagged piece of wood and runs off.

"Oh. That's good."

"Hey Mr. Happy Puppet Head?" I ask.

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to go back home with me and work on our tv show some more? I've got some ideas for new Educati-FUN videos. And other cartoons."

"I don't know..." he turns back to stare at the ground. "We're kind of in the middle of this party." The battle is definitely going in favor of the monsters. The celbrities have all either been badly wounded, tied up, or torn to little famous pieces by those horrible magic party monsters. The only reason they haven't given up yet is because Handsome Actor keeps rallying them, seemingly never running out of energy or ways to escape their deadly attacks.

"Come on," I say. "This party's done. What do you say? I'll pay for bus fare."

"I got a helicopter now."

"Oh. We can tkae that then if you want. I've never been in a helicopter."

"You guys can't leave now," says Marty with the tentacles. "Yeah," says the one with the claw face. "We still have more booze." All the celebrities have been vanquished. Even Handsome is tied up in the corner. It looks like he's crying silently, his tears collecting in a beautiful puddle in the dirt.

"They're right." Says Mr. Happy Puppet Head. "And drugs. We said we weren't gonna stop partying until all the booze and drugs in North America had been consumed by us. Sorry."

"Hey Mr. Happy Puppet Head," a though crosses my mind. "Do you still have that magic violin?"

"Yeah, how'd you know about that?" he takes it out from one of his secret puppet head pockets and waves it around a little.

"You know," I say. "I've been researching it for years now. I think i'm going to write a book about it or something."

"Oh. I didn't know that was this magic violin. That's pretty cool."

"Yeah. Can I see it?"

"Sure." He lays it down on my chest.

"Um," says Marty.

I roll over and the violin falls onto the dirt. I then smash it with the back of my head. I have to do it several times before it feels really smashed good. I turn over to examine it, and see that it now has a big Midnight Mailman head-sized hole in the center of it.

And my ropes fall off and I can move. It feels great. Oh boy. I stand up and flex my arms. I see many of the celebrities stand up, too.

"God dammit!" mutters Marty. "Shit..." says the four legged bird monster. "Well, I guess that's it." says Marty. "Party's over. Good job, dude. Later Puppet Head." And they walk away.

And the party is over. The party complex disappears with a nice shimmery visual effect, and all that's left is me, Mr. Happy Puppet Head, and a lot of bleeding celebrities in the middle of the desert.

Everything's going to be all right.

Hopping along to the party compound, just me and the handsome actor and the not-so-handsome actor. We're getting closer and closer. I'm hot and tired and afraid I'll catch on fire, too.

"Hey," says Handsome Actor. "I found a cactus." We look over and he's got one of those round cacti.

"So what?" asks Non-Handsome Actor, "What can a thorny plant like that do for any of us except prick us? I don't want any, thanks."

"Hold on," I say. "I think Handsome is on to something."

Handsome Actor nods and slices off the top of the cactus with a machete he finds on the ground next to it. Inside is water. The delicious drinking kind of water. We all take turns, Handsome going last.

We all sit and bask in our newly quenched thirst. The sun beats down, but now we're all full of water and can't possibly spontaneously combust. No way. I'll just go ahead and check that off the list of things to be scared of for a little while.

So we resume walking. Or shuffling/hopping in my case. I miss the use of my limbs as independent from each other. Knees and hips, too. I never really appreciated them before now.

Non-Handsome actor begins telling us one of his stories about how he had sex with lots of pretty actresses. He goes on and on, his story machine well oiled from the refreshing water. It isn't an interesting story, really. And he goes into too much detail about how big the various girl's breasts are and what kinds of things he said to get them into bed. We listen politely and nod our heads and say "really?" at the appropriate times.

And then he falls into a pit. One of those hidden kinds that looks like the ground until you step on it and fall into it. And with spikes on the bottom. He lands on the spikes with his chest and stomach, but doesn't die right away. He screams a lot, and we look around for a way to pull him out and save him, but all we have is the rope tied around me and we can't untie it or we would have by now. So we stand there uncomfortably as he screams and screams.

Eventually he stops screaming and dies. Me and Handsome Actor stand there for a while waiting to make sure he is dead. Then Handsome says, "He... was pretty good in that one movie. Where he played the coke addict who was shot in the end. I think he won some award, or maybe he was just nominated. In any case, I'm glad I knew him."

"Amen," I say.

Now I have to add "falling into a hidden pit of spikes" on my list of things to be scared of. Shitty.

We're traveling back to the party complex now. We have kind of a long way to go, espcially since I'm all tied up and I have to hop. But my celebrity companions are really good about taking it slow and helping me up when I trip over desert debris. Like rocks or joshua trees.

We can hear the party jazz music from the distance. I can feel it vibrating the dirt under my feet.

"I'm thirsty..." says the pop singer. "We're all thirsty," says the actor guy. I wish I knew their names, but they're famous and I'm embarassed to ask since I feel like I should know. But the other actor, not the handsome one with the blue eyes.

And that's when the woman catches fire.



It takes her a while to notice that she's on fire. It's just so hot out here it's hard to tell sometimes when one's own flesh is actually on fire or just badly sunburnt. We don't even notice until all of her bautiful hair is burned completely off. The other actor guys says "Hey, I guess you're on fire. Huh." The poor singer girl, with all of her famous singing voice, starts screaming and screaming. She says "I'm on fire! Ow! Ow! Ow!"

The handsome blue-eyed actor rips off his tight muscle shirt and tries to bat the flames out with it. I fall over and wiggle around on the ground desperately.

Much sooner than I would have expected, the woman is burned into nothing, just a pile of dirt on the bigger pile of dirt that is the desert. The handsome actor helps me back to my feet, tears in his eyes.

"Wow." I say.

"Yeah, that's crazy," says the other actor. "I hope I don't catch fire and burn into a pile of dirt like that. Shit."

The handsome blue-eyed actor is too choked up to say anything. He just stands over the ashes and lets his eyes overflow with the pain. I'd pat him on the shoulder, but my arms are all tied up. "She was a great singer." I say. "And a good friend." He nods.

After another few minutes standing over her remains, we turn and somberly continue our journey.

INTERMISSION...

now's the time to dispose of piled up, uneaten snack foods, comb your hair, pet the kitties at your feet, and make sure the kids are shackled firmly to the hot-water heater in the basement.