Mr. Happy Puppet Head bursts through the front door and slams it loudly behind him. He is yelling incoherently. He sounds happy and drunk. It's two in the morning and I'm sitting on the couch watching TV.

"Where were you?" I ask.

"Out," he goes into the kitchen and opens the door, checking for food. He finds the big pot of pasta I had made earlier, and I hear him slurp up the cold noodles in the next room. "Where's the beer?" he asks.

"We're out," I tell him. "Why didn't you call? You said you'd be home at nine. I made the pasta you asked for."

"Sure. Sorry." His mouth is full. "But man, tonight was awesome. I was hanging out with The Big Scary Monster and this dude Roboctopus and his friends Potato and Patti. We went over to this big abandoned warehouse and we started setting boxes on fire. Big ol' cardboard boxes."

"I don't like you hanging out with The Big Scary Monster."

"Yeah, so Potato said we shouldn't, and Patti said she'd tell on us, but we said we knew where they lived. Stupid kids. So we set all these boxes on fire and the cops came and so we ran, but Potato fell and I think they got him. He better not tell or I'm gonna beat him up."

There's a brief silence as we look at each other. He wants me to tell him how funny he is.

"Isn't that funny?" he asks.

"What am I doing with my life?" Lem asks the Ocean Wiggle Monster. "I don't think I'm doing anything with my life at all. Just sitting here all the time."

The Wiggle Monster says "Bloooble blooble blooble!"

"I miss it when I was little and things were easy. I would just sit in this boat and not worry about what else I could be doing, but now I just sit here and worry about it. Maybe I should be designing skyscrapers or learning how to cook really well or exercising a lot more than I do."

"Blooble babble blooble!"

"I guess I'll just eat my sandwich." Lem's sandwich is really illegal narcotics, but no one ever taught him the difference.

"Kill You For Fun: The Movie"

Benny says, "Hey, don't."

The Three Shaddowy Figures with Knives disagree. They cut him into pieces and enjoy themselves througoughly.

SCARY MUSIC.

Virginia Derryberry reaches for the doorknob. Slowly.

Still reaching. What's on the other side? she thinks.

Virginia opens the door, slowly, and there is nothing on the other side except for a book. She walks towards the book, SCARY MUSIC, slowly, step, step, step. She picks up the book opens it to somewhere in the middle and begins to read.

"...chop you into pieces and feed you to your grandmother. With delicious You-Gravy made from your innards." REALLY SCARY MUSIC.

She drops the book and runs away. We zoom in close to see the cover of the book. it reads "Kill You for Fun by Virginia Derryberry"

Body parts are removed. A puppy is put in a blender. Horror is strewn about haphazardly.

"You're the Killer, Virginia!" yells her boyfriend and confidante, King Thackston. They both stand on the edge of a spectacular cliff. There is a semi-truck on fire not too far away and a huge pile of mutilated bodies stacked high, also on fire.

"But the Killer is three Shaddowy Figures. You saw them yourselves."

"Look." King holds up a mirror for Virginia. She screams.

She IS three Shaddowy Figures.

SCARY MUSIC. Virginia Screams.

Roll credits.

The End?

Howie the little girl is playing in the front yard with her pet Old Man Head.

"Where have you been, Head?" asks Howie. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

Head doesn't answer.

"Is that smoke over there?" Thick smoke billows up from the woods behind their neighborhood. "Do you know anything about that?"

Head rolls over onto his back.

"Don't ignore me. The last time you got me in a lot of trouble. If you keep setting large fires, I'm gonna have to not let you play outside by yourself anymore."

Head stares at the sky.

"Fine. It's time for Gorilla Party Shake-Down anyways." She hoists her best friend in the whole world under her arm and totes him inside for the best game in the entire world.

(instructions: 1)invite imaginary Gorillas to bedroom party 2)yell at them until they tell you where they hid the bodies and the treasure 3)locate treasure and boides, return them to the proper authorities)

At Captain Picklewhiskers School for Goons, Creeps, Lowlifes, Monsters, Mutants, Villains, Criminals, Crooks, and the All-Around Bad, Jennifer tells Sarah and Manny a secret.

"Jeremy's going to clean all the bathrooms tonight," she says. "Him and some guys. Don't tell anyone I told you."

"That's nice of him," says Sarah. "The bathrooms are disgusting here."

"Yeah! They're the worst!" Jennifer wiggles her tentacles in excitement. "But don't tell. Jeremy's my friend and I don't want him to get in trouble." She squiggles away.

"I don't understand..." says Manny, adjusting his already straight tie.

"Me niether. This place is crazy. Let's go home."

They try to leave, but they can't figure out how to get over the pit of Razor Spikes blocking their way.

“We’re going to renovate the kitchen!” Yells the roach. Her eyes dart around the room, imagining the potentials and possibilities. “It’s going to be so much more than perfect!” She skitters around in a happy circle.

“I like how it is now,” says Mallory, the slug. “I know where everything is.”

“I think the refrigerator should go over in that corner,” says Lemmy, the human boy.

So they all push the large appliance to the specified corner.

“No… that isn’t it at all.” Says roach. “No no no no no no no no.”

“I’m far too delusional to understand what’s going on,” says the Cute with a smile. “I’m completely useless.”

“Let’s put it on top of the stove, then there’ll be more space,” says Roach.

“Room for what? I’m not sure about how much I like open space.”

“I like the on-top-of-the-stove idea,” says Lemmy. “I like that idea lot.”

“My dementia is far too exaggerated for me to be expected to help in any way at all,” explains the Cute. “I simply can’t get over my phobias, inconsistencies, hallucinations, nightmares, or eating disorders.”

“A complicated system of pullies and levers,” explains Roach. “Easy.”

Roach goes into a humorous and super-catchy song and dance number about rigging up all the pullies and levers. You clap along with a big smile on your face, charmed out your pants.

“Wait,” Lemmy points at the refigerator which is now sitting upside-down on top of the stove. “How did that happen? You didn’t actually do anything ‘cept sing.”

“The power of song, I guess.” Roach skitters in a little circle. “I have powerful songs.”

“I don’t like musical numbers,” explains Mallory. “When I get excited, my slime glands act up and I kind of like, squirt a little. Hold on… one’s coming… hold on…”

Everyone waits for a slime squirt, but nothing happens.

“So I, for one, really enjoy an upside-down refrigerator.” Roach climbs up the surface of the appliance and back down, then back up again.

Mallory squirts a small glob of slime into the air. “See? Did you see? That’s what exciting, hand-clapping musical numbers do to me. How am I supposed to feel attractive when I’m sliming all over the place?”

“I want pizza,” says Lemmy. “Let’s make a pizza.”

“No thanks,” Mallory squirts again. “I don’t eat those.”

“I’ll eat thirteen,” says the Cute as she hides behind the stove. “I’ll eat thirteen.”

Lemmy and the Roach make a pizza, but it is upside-down and no matter how many times they flip it over, it remains inverted.

And their juice spills all over the table with no way to stop it from doing so.

This is a story about a funny owl and

Some Wonderful Things.

1) Page 13 of the Atlanta Creative Loafing has a big picture of Roboctopus on it promoting the Atlanta Underground Film Festival.

2) I just recieved an e-mail from one of my all time favorite cartoonists, Matt Chapman from homestarrunner.com. He saw Roboctopus and said "I really, really dig your style. It's super moody feeling and makes me uneasy in a really good way. Like I know something bad is gonna happen to the cute things. You make me really wanna learn After Effects. If you gimme an address I can send you some of our dvds. Definitely keep me in the loop on future stuff you do."

3)I'm on my way to finally finish recording the dialogue for the next Roboctopus episode. Then we can start animating.


A request.

1)Anyone willing to be my benefactor? I just need my rent and some credit card bills paid. I'm pretty affordable, as artists go.

It seems that my network is inexplicably and irrevocably down. That's why this all looks so stupid. I'll try to get it fixed.

But the ROBOCTOPUS pilot is done. If you want me to send you a dvd, e-mail your street address to MIDNIGHTMAILMAN@GMAIL.COM.

I think you'll like it.