The Lawrence Welk Show, but more importantly, -30ism and its Impacts on Current Day Life

I think I've mentioned the fantastic Lawrence Welk show previously on here. I will now search to bring it up... I know which one it is... it was the one with Macho Man. It's called:

"The Deceased Celebrities that I Miss the Most"

"I went to an old folks home this one time and I was very shocked to see all the oldoes just sitting in the dark and thinking about stuff and being boring. People think old people in these homes are on their last legs and the blood doesn't pump anymore in their veins but you're wrong. In the frail chassis of each elderly person beats the heart of a person who wants to flip out and do flips and do the funky chicken and get fucking crazy. These old motherfuckers just want to hot-diggity-damn set it off but they just can't find the spark that'll spark up their asses and make them lose their shit anymore. They wanna be young again, they wanna turn it up and turn it out to some Myron "Mother Fuckin" Floren like in the olden days. You think these oldoes were always old? No way, they used to fucking flip just like you do but now their brains and their hearts just lack the spark to make 'em kick out the jams and lose it, that's all....but it's still there somewhere....deep down in the bowels of their souls the need to get buck is still there.

Volunteers at old folks homes should do a test and play Macho Man's rap album and see what effect it has on their old brains. I bet you 80% of the time, even if they don't understand it at first, these old fuckers will get up and get down and smash some shit up. These old sons-of-bitches and old hoes'll fucking start launching their rockin' chairs around the crib and just plain power-slamming their pillows onto their beds and just getting fucked up and wild. All of those Oldoes n' Grannies will be back-flippin'."

-Me (5.5 years ago)

Now, 5.5 years ago Me's writin' style was quite different. It was a more youthful joie-de-vivrier time to some extent. I have like joie-de-vivre now... but back then I was more young and vivrier. I haven't swored in like over three years I think in any article here. Swearing is Old Hat, I find. It's not edgy or fun anymore. When the internet first started, or satellite radio went this road too... and it was like "you can say whatever you want"... people wigged at first... but later we noticed that if there's no line in the sand to begin with (like, where the "edge" is).... there's no point to cross the edge because the edge no longer even exists or really means anything anymore.

I first noticed how Old Hat swearing was long before I stopped though. I remember Beetlejuice used to not know any of these words like "F" and "S" and stuff were bad to say on the terrestrial radio Howard Stern Show... and it would be such a big deal when they'd just ask a question like "How are you today, Beet?" and he'd respond with "Me? Oooooooh, I'm pretty f'n good. Pretty f'n good."

...the show would come to a halt and almost stop and everyone would be like, "Beet, no, no, no... please don't say that, Beet." It was a big deal when a line in the sand existed and when they moved to satellite and you could just say "F" and "S" a million times without a care ... it just felt pretty Old Hat and kind of cheap. 

It's kind of cheap now and Old Hat, swearing is. It is.

Reading that Macho Man portion of the article I wrote, I didn't mention Welk there, I mentioned Myron Floren the head Accordionist of the Welk show in that swear-filled joke in 2015. Those familiar with Myron would know that this was a reference to the Lawrence Welk show, though.

Anyways, my first idea to go with this article was the following, my thesis was going to be:

"The Lawrence Welk show is fascinating to me as one of the leading 1900ists of the era, because it was from the 1960s yet somehow managed to feel like it was from the 1930s."

My big hook-line-n'-sinker joke was gonna be this:

"No one had seen such a juggernaut of entertainment that the Lawrence Welk Show was providing... since the days of Lauritz Melchior!"
-Me, thinking about lines for this a coupla days ago

I thought this joke would kill, like, a Lauritz Melchior reference in 2020? Readers would do a double-take! It would be placed in the meatiest and led-into paragraph of my article too. That's like so anti-hip that all the kids are gonna wig at how super lame it actually is. All the cool kids and cats would think I was so anti-hip and thusly more hip for how anti-hip I was for layin' out a Lauritz Melchior reference in 2020... they'd be all like, "damn this guy doesn't care about anything, which is so cool, he's so irrelevant and lame to the times that he's actually relevant and not lame at all... in a weird way!"

...but.... I'd throw the audience a curve-ball at the end because my Conclusion would be.... really out-of-nowhere and good (which would completely floor them by the way)... they'd be sitting there readin' it pretty much like...

"Man, these 1960s people wishing it was still the 1930s sure are lamezoids... but wait... what is 30 years ago from right now? 1990? Oh noooo.... am I, the reader, who's currently aged thirty-to-fifty years old who is currently reading this spellbinding conclusion ... the Lawrence Welk of my era? How can this be happening?"

Then, the reader would stumble from his reading chair and open his dimly lit room's lights until they are but slightly brighter, and face his/or/her mirror... pause... and be frozen in fear by who was now looking back at them... for thanks to their already-paranoid mind due to this weird-ass era of Rampant Global Disease that has made us all slightly mad ... they would not see their own reflection in the mirror before them...

...but they'd see ...

...Lawrence Welk staring at them with his somber eyes peering into their very fragile human souls like an ancient specter!

"Surely it is not me! But it is! I have become what I have dreaded!
Is this what I have become, my sweetest friend??

The reader would then be so taken aback by my constructive satire that they'd enter a self-introspective malaise that would last for days! All those days spent in the 2000s yearning for life to be more like it was in 1989... a year which is now more than 30 years ago... yes, the face looking at them in the looking glass... is a face they no longer recognize anymore... they have become Lawrence Welk... and they didn't even realize it or feel it as it gradually happened.

Frantically scurrying about their abode, the readers would pull themselves away from their own reflections that they no longer recognize, and in a daze, run to their closest family and friends and yell aloud... "What has become of me, cruel world! What has become of me!? Hath I becometh... lame?"

Yes, 1989 was more than 30 years ago. It is so long ago that it's a bygone era. There was no internet in that year. Life was not the same as now. I noticed when I watched the Lawrence Welk show recently... that living 30 years in the past is... odd. Yet, we don't seem to apply that oddness to today's standards. 

But... that's not the article I want to write today. Because I realized something. When I mentioned Myron Floren in that paragraph in 2015 about the "Macho Man" Randy Savage it seems to have been in an intense and positive way. I know it was a joke to sort of poke fun of the past but part of me knows it wasn't. I think I like accordion music. I think that's why Myron was given an honorific nickname in that paragraph.

I notice as I re-read that paragraph from that Randy Savage portion from 2015... that I think Myron Floren is a cool guy. I watched a few Lawrence Welks to refresh my memory for this article and the numbers of the variety show ranged from.... fairly bad, to gaudy, to sort of good, to cool... and I'd say most of the cool numbers were on the accordion.

It's an interesting instrument. It's like somebody had a piano near a fire place and they took that thing that's sometimes near fire places that breathes air when you squeeze it to add air to the fire... and then must've looked at the piano next to the roaring fire... and wondered..."what if I remove the keys from my piano and fasten them to the air thing for the fire place? Would that be very cool? Yes, it would!"

It's a fascinating machine, the accordion, it truly is. I mean it's not an obsolete device. It is still a wondrous piece of music machinery. I don't think because something is old automatically makes it lame. I think my original idea for this article is short sighted. I like Old stuff. I'm a -30ist for the 80s n' 90s... and it's A-Ok. There's stuff from the past that sucks but there's also stuff from the past that rules and is cool... like accordions.

I will not make us aging folks feel all Lawrence Welky in this article because it serves no purpose. Instead here is just a memory from many years ago...

A Lawrence Welk Memory

In my youth, I wasn't as lame as now, I was a wicked cool kid who was fresh and happening with the times. In the nineties, PBS, starting showing reruns of the Lawrence Show at supper time around six'o'clock. I would watch this show, as a thirteen year old, deeply fascinated by it.... it was in color and apparently from the 1960s ... but something was very off. It felt so strange. It wasn't hip and cool like Adam West's Batman or that Hey! Hey! We're the Monkeeees! show that was on sometimes. There was nothing 60s about it. It was deeply strange to me... and I would watch it every day it was on...

My mother told me that it was her least favorite show of all time. If it was on when we ate supper (which is when they showed it) she would NOT watch it. Apparently this was her father's favorite show... and as a kid in the 60s her and brother wanted to watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or maybe The Montreal Canadiens vs. The Boston Bruins or possibly a very special episode of the Brady Bunch... but their father would put the television on the Lawrence Welk show... which by any era's standards was a lame-ass show.

I wanted to watch it...  because it was fantastically fascinating to me just how strange this show was.... I mean, it was completely different than anything else on T.V. and it captivated me like other "bad" shows did. The big bands! The solo singers that seemed to sing for what felt like hours... and of course, the outrageous accordion Polkas that would bring down the house!

I mean... it's almost like...

I would almost venture to say that it's likely that no one from the 1960's had seen such a juggernaut of entertainment that the Lawrence Welk Show was providing... since the days of Lauritz Melchior!

To observe it as a strange relic of the past is one thing... but I tried to put myself into the 1960s and into the place of my mother and uncle... and wondered what it would feel like to actually HAVE TO watch this while I knew that Lost in Space or like Gilligan's Island was on the "other channel" ... it must have been excruciating for a kid in the 60s to watch this show. Simply excruciating to watch this show instead of say Bewitched.

In the era of One T.V. per house at about three channels per T.V. that the sixties was... this show must have been like a jail sentence for kids...but that just made it ever MORE fascinating for me.

At around 24:23 (following a great accordion performance by Mryon) of the above clip... they have some fare for "the kiddies" down at the zoo (or "soo" as Mr. Welk pronounces it here) and it is not something a kid up at night would be into. It's not the sort of thing a young person of the sixties would dig, daddy-o. I don't know for sure...  but maybe this is how young people feel nowadays with the sort of "Old Hat" content of yesteryear that is thrown at them all the time?

Do young people of 2020 think programming aimed at them is lame? I think so. I was reading an article that was saying ratings for Cable T.V. all across the board are way down and going down every year... but is the answer to hire some fresh new forty year old P.R. person who bills themselves as a young-people expert the way to go to try and save a sinking ship?

I think one thing Beef House (from the people who brought us Tim and Eric's Awesome Show) which aired this year, got right, was making fun of that whole thing... the idea that networks think they can save their sinking vessels and gain younger viewers with some "youth expert" who "gets youth culture" ... the parody sitcom world of the Beef Boys works this in well ... some lines in Beef House are read by the actors almost as if they don't even think these lines make any sense in the context they are used as they are saying them .... it is really hitting the nail on the head, that show, in regards to accurately parodying this current situation.

Kids can smell a non-kid for miles... just because a super-savvy network exec adds a few "WTFs" and "OMGs" to their show's dialogue isn't gonna help it pass the kid test. Kids know it is ungenuine and tune out faster than you could ever imagine to things like that.

I think it's time in many regards to pass the torch and let the young people decide what they want in the Mainstream World for a change instead of being relegated to the weird parts of the internet. We're Lawrence Welkin' these young folks, I think in some regards, sweet Society... and I don't know 'bout you... but when I look into the mirror lately.... I'm starting to see a little Lawrence lookin' back at ol' me...

...but I'm sorta pretty okay with it. I like accordion music and that's A-Ok... I don't have to stop thinking accordions are cool just because they are not hip anymore. To me they will always be hip. I don't fret when I see my increasingly lame visage lookin' at me in the mirror ... I've grown to be okay with him. There's nothing bad about aging... it's natural and normal.

When Mr. Welk appears in my mirror these days... I don't run and hide or wig out or tumble down the stairs or nothing like that... I just wonder aloud...

 "Oh hey there Lawrence Welk... how's Myron Floren doing?"

Twitter Awards 2020

Alright, let's turn the page on that Light Out story which took me four different portions to finish. It had a fitting ending in the style of Lights Out to conform to the homage material but I had to make a second funner ending because I'm a happy ending sort of person.

That was fun to write that. I was really into the whole Lights Out thing to make that. I listened to all the Lights Outs and captured its essence for that homage story... and that's some heavy material too... If I would have ended my story on the heavy ending it would have been more accurate to the task I assigned myself... but my alternate ending is more fitting to my worldviews, I'd say. I'm a very Ghostbuster-centered individual as some of you might know.

And now for something completely different.

Yes, let's detach ourselves mentally from the World of the fantastic and themes of Halloween spookiness to give the bronze, silver, and gold medals for Twitter as this blog has done a few years in a row, now.

Previous installments:

2019 Twitter Awards

2018 Twitter Awards

2017 Twitter Awards

 

Now, let's remind our readers that there's no methodology to this award. If anyone mentioned finds this through searching and thinks this is some official thing, don't, because it is just the fourth article I've written about Twitter feeds that I find humorous... and the awarding of the medals is based on one person's opinion.

As stated in the 2019 article... I don't want to write the same article twice... so if you were already a winner of a medal... it's unlikely you will be eligible again. If I really just gave my favorite Twitter feeds medals every year then Jose Canseco, Iron Sheik, George Wallace, Norm Macdonald, Gregg Turkington, and a handful of others would just win every year and the articles would get redundant.

I still believe it's either Iron Sheik or George Wallace as being the truly best Twitter Feed of all time.

This year, I'm adding a caveat that will change the article drastically, and that's... it will be Young Celebrities featured here as the bronze, silver, and gold medal recipients. Now, the reason for this, is the following...

...I was thinking, that now that I'm not like a spring chicken anymore, and I'd say of the famous people I know of, 5/10 of those celebrities I've heard of are deceased... and the other 5/10 are all from the 1900s era... knowing this, I came to the realization that in 15 years I will know of ZERO celebrities. The other half of celebrities I've heard of and care about will join the other half outside of the world of the living.

So...

...I feel I need to venture into the Young People World, even though, at times, it frightens me... and I do not understand it very well. If I don't ... I am sure by 2035... I will no longer know of any living celebrity.

The caveat for this year's awards are that the recipients must be "Young" and young is flexible... it just means you can't be like "Old"... you have to be like under 35 to be eligible for these awards. This is the Under-35 Twitter Awards this year!

A running theme in the previous three articles was Jose Canseco finished fourth just out of the medals each time... he doesn't meet the new rule... and cannot be considered this year.

I tried to make the selections diverse... but I had three in mind since last week... and I'm gonna go with the three finalists I had in mind. It's not as diverse a selection as I would have liked it to be but c'est la vie.

I was looking at some areas of the comedy world for a female selection in the finals to try and make it more diverse...

I was looking into the ASMR world, for a female finalist, which has a lot of talented female web creators and some have innate comedic talent that could land them in an article about The Young Guns of Future Celebrity Talent. 

The ASMR world is still filed in the niche and possibly "bizarre" portion of the internet, though still. I mean the shtick varies from light relaxation techniques, to brazen women sucking their expensive microphones like Popsicles (or Iced Lollies if you live over-seas), to creators who create a full-out universe of diverse and interesting characters. In the comedy world, I am more interested in the third area, the diverse universe of interesting humorous characters.

I didn't really settle on one. I think there's a lot of uniquely talented comedy women in this niche genre if you manage to wade through all the popsicle licking and hippie-dippie stuff. I would even suggest, a big show like SNL, who needs to check off diversity entries to create a roster of talent... should be scouting the ASMR world for female talent. One of the pre-requisites for being hired for Saturday Night Live is to have a bevy of bizarre yet original characters that you created and can preform. There's talent in the ASMR world that meets this requirement of creating odd original characters.

I think SNL's main method for scouting for talent is sending people to clubs like Chicago's Second City improv club, which I remember going to once many years ago, but I think there's a lot of talent out there that can't be found through the old scouting methods. I can say with certainty that there's comedically talented females in the ASMR video genre that are much funnier than the standard SNL cast member.

One character, a female character, I was thinking of shoeing in this article was not from the ASMR world but just the internet in general.. I remember reading this article going around the British tabloids about this young lady who spoke "Fluent American" and how she thought Britain is "closer to the sun" than America is... I mean... to make a video that gets the Over-Seas all Up-in-Arms and lands yourself in full Heat and gets millions of views and not even really care takes some measure of talent and ability. I don't think this character is active on the internet anymore ... I'm searching for the article... and it seems it was a one-shot character that's inactive now a days.

That young woman from that silly video has more comedic talent at her age than most people will ever achieve throughout their entire lives. It seems to be a character called "Pupinia"... which if that's the name her parents gave her... she was probably destined from day one to be humorous in some fashion. It seems inactive now this character so we can't really shoe it in to this 2020 Young Guns award article.

Okay, so, I couldn't make the article as diverse as possible but what can we do... let's begin.

 

The Finalists for this Year's 2020 Under-35 Twitter Awards are:

-Brendan and Corey
-Conner O'Malley
-Nick Lutsko

 

All of these Twitter stars are under thitry five years old (I think, I'm quite sure anyways)... and are quite famous for their comedy... and are good and I like them.

I am still undecided on who's being awarded the Gold Medal... so let's start with the Bronze... and then I'll make the decision after that. I am torn between two of these for who deserves the Gold more... it's closer than you think... I'm not making it up to build suspense.

 

Bronze
 

Brendan and Corey! The duo from Branchburg, New Jersey pull out the bronze in this year's Young Guns Twitter awards.

I've seen each of their work, but, the video that really made me laugh and everything seems to be a Corey-only one... but... the video showcased in this article doesn't mean I want to take away anything from the duo who are great and have good chemistry as a tag-team. I saw this video the other week or so and I found it to be above the morass as the older fellows used to say back in the day:

"I Suppose My Behavior Has Isolated Me"

This video, is well made. They can get a lot out of very little. It's simple. This video is just a voice-over, a guy filming, and a guy walking around who wants to be ant. I relate to this guy... you know... we laugh at this but... ants get so much done with even way much littler than we can ever imagine. It's an efficient and industrious creature, it is. I know in the Young People world you can be whatever you want now a days... like boys can be girls, and girls can be boys, etc... but why stop at gender? If this guy wants to be an ant then why can't he?

I find a real uniqueness to their stuff.... I wonder who their influences are... but then again with total absurdity as this... the whole point is not to have too many influences. Could it be Jacques Cousteau meets Gary Larson with a touch of Jack Handey? Is that a good comparison? Not really. It's original is what it is so you can't compare it to too much.

This is just one example of their work... they have many videos on their youtube channel. They get the Bronze and as the youngest entry of The Young Guns they will probably be around for a while doing their bits which is nice.

Even though it's absurd ... it's subversively intelligent, I find. There is a theme of young people who feel strange trying to fit into a society that they don't fully understand. I think there's some interesting opinions they have which comes through the comedy they preform. It is dealing with the human condition and real emotions even though at the surface it appears as complete nonsense. I think they are very talented young people.

I don't know their exact ages but it's probably early to mid twenties, I guess. That's some pretty profound stuff for that age. High ceiling here.

 

Silver (is this font visible? It says "silver" in silver)

Nick Lutsko! Damn, I gotta look up his name each time I write this. I wonder if it's pronounced Nick Let's Go! This guy gives me a Let's Go! sort of feeling with his musical numbers. He's got some real edge... like a punk rock edge, I'd say. 

People say Punk is dead but... watching this guy hit a fever pitch with the sweat and the veins popping out of his face... I'm calling it right now society... Punk's NOT dead, okay?

I like a lot of his comedy yet edgy Let's Go! type of songs but the one being showcased here below is "Where Did The Gremlins Go?" which is good enough to win a Grammy award let alone a Blog No One Cares About Award...

 

"Where Did The Gremlins Go?"

All his songs are very catchy and by the middle of them he gets Into It. Like, no joke, he seriously gets in to his song. I've seen like hundreds of rock and roll concerts and it's rare to see someone who gets really this passionate about their material... he trusts his stuff... he knows its good. He knows his words are meaningful and intense. I mean, I say punk is alive, seeing this... and I mean that. It's not just some platitude to eat space in an article... I mean that.

When he does the slow piano version of "The RNC Theme Song" ... he's going from intense to mellow to somber to out-of-control to thoughtful in the span of a few minutes. I mean, this isn't a joke his musical talent... yet he devotes this talent to the Comedy world... which is amazing.

On top it all.... on top of the intense style, the comedy, on top of all of this... everything he's saying in the Gremlins song is TRUE! Every word of it is true! We could have, as a society (if society was normal and not backwards) we COULD have had all these things. We could have had a Jaws-like Gremlin! We could have had a Gremlins 3 where Gizmo isn't into the new branched-off society his Gremlin peers created after the rebellion and had a child with a human woman portrayed by Jennifer Aniston. In a normal world where things made sense... all of these things don't seem far-fetched or fantastical... in fact... they seem totally normal and it is shocking to me... after listening to this song... that there really wasn't a Gremlins 3. Why wasn't there?

There's only so many questions a person can ask... but at some point, a lot of the people being asked about where the Gremlins went have to start responding. Joe Dante, etc. It's not just Nick asking this...many people wonder this... not just him... they really wonder where the Gremlins went... and at some point we deserve answers.

If this builds steam, I hope they don't forget about this song, I hope if there ever is a Gremlins 3 that this fellow gets to be Desmond in the film... the child of Gizmo and Jennifer Aniston. That's got Oscar written all-over-it, that role. All over it.

 

Gold

Conner O'Malley!

It was closer than I thought to choose between N. Lutsko and C. O'Malley... it was down to the wire... but in the end I have to give the Gold to O'Malley.

Look, I don't know how to fully explain what I'm gonna write next... but... in the Comedy World... if you've lived in it long enough... you tend to regard laughing as a reward more than a bodily function.

I have many laughs... I have the "Oh, I see what you did there, that's smart and biting!" reward laugh. I have the "Oh... okay, you tried, it was a good try, I will laugh now" not wanting to make someone feel like they're not funny laugh... I also have the "Oh good one! You got me!" laugh in response to infantile practical jokes or other tomfoolerishness..... as well as the "Wow, that was great comedy! I'm gonna reward you a lot with laughter" in response to observing really top-quality stuff.

I guess what I'm saying is... people who have inserted themselves into a comedy-oriented existence tend to get jaded and used to it at some point... and the laughs, even if genuine, are sort of an auto-pilot function rather than a true primal bodily function.

Now, why I gave him the Gold... is that a character he has on Twitter... made me laugh in the primal non-controllable sense. I wasn't "reward laughing" when I first saw him preform his internet character... I laughed because I had no choice... I couldn't have controlled it even if I wanted to.

The character was Corb... an affable yet somewhat unlucky (though some would argue Corb is lucky) fellow Conner portrays on social media... who finds himself in very specific trouble that is very modern and of the times. Corb is a floundering buffoon, a character template from an older era placed in the troubles of now... and it is something.

The first introduction to Corb was the "Man who Can Communicate with Trains" video. I wouldn't be able to watch that right now... even though I know all the things that are coming in it... without laughing. I wouldn't. It's that good.

Recently, there was a second Corb adventure.... and I gotta say... I really think this character is the Voice of a Generation. Yes, he's "out-there", Corb, and he's not necessarily a role model for young people... but dang it... you can't help but root for the guy.

Now, unlike the other two entries there's no link to the video because it does have some "shlock" elements of "toilet humor" and by that I mean genuine toilet humor. So, if you want look at these Corb videos up ... you should be fairly warned that it is Toilet Humor City. I haven't seen this much total toilet humor since probably Poultrygeist.

I don't really know why it caught me so off guard, with my laugh defenses down, my stone-like exterior cracked and I laughed not as a reward for comedy well-done but because I was unable not to. Corb just hits you from the start and doesn't let up... topping it up and topping it over and getting progressively more-and-more outlandish as the video goes on.

I don't think it's a character you can over-do... like if you get a Corb adventure every week... by the third one you'd be all Corbed-out and grossed-out... but every few months if this guy let's you know what complete whacked-out misadventure he's in.. as detailed in a click-bait news story... this character can live for years.

I wonder if it would work as a show. A Corb show. I'd watch it but I'm not sure how big the audience would be for it. It's beyond the pale in many senses. I like the character... I don't see him as a menace or a buffoon. I think Corb deeply cares about the world but he just has these human urges he has trouble controlling. I see him as a modern day literary character that is really a product of his time. I think it is much more deeper than people think it is. I'm a true believer in Corb and hope he can turn his life around and achieve his dreams!

Conclusion
 

Okay, so congratulations to all of our Young Guns of Future Celebrity Talent for their Twitter Awards... and I am happy that when the other 50% of celebrities I have heard of leave us... at least I have scouted the Young People World and know of a few that will still be around come 2035.

Lights Out: Everybody.......

Yes, Lights Out, Everybody...................................

I was going to write this for Halloween, but I'm feeling the spirit of the season early as the old folks used to say, so let's post it up here as a lead-in to Halloween because 'tis the season!

For the ill informed who has not heard of Lights Out, it was a radio program that began, it would seem, in 1936 that featured radio plays written by Arch Oboler.

I have a weird understanding and history with Lights Out. I don't really remember where I first heard of it but as someone who likes old stuff it's not hard to come across something like this. 

I remember one day, I was looking for shows in the same vein of Twilight Zone and finding things on the same style branch as it... things like Tales of Tomorrow and even a show like Telephone Time is slightly similar though Telephone Time's stories mostly had happy endings to them so it was like the backward positively charged Twilight Zone. There's a lot of Telephone Time episodes that are really good.

Tales of Tomorrow is closer to Zone, it is outlandish stories of intrigue and fright. There's one where Leslie Nielsen, before he was comedy Leslie Nielsen, he's like a drama Leslie... where he is this broke bum of a guy who finds this weird store where they sell you something that you can go back to any time of your life and try to do something different in that situation...

...but every time he does this and the story fast forwards back to present.. he winds up more worser and even more misarabler than before...

...and he keeps going to this store to go back in time and go to places he perceives his life went awry and try again... but each time he just winds up more miserable and more miserable each time he tries to fix his past. It's great to see him in his non-comedy form in Tales of Tomorrow and that episode is relatable-to for any generation who sees it. In life it goes like that a lot... you try and fix something that is perceived as being broken and you tend to make it 10 times worse each try... and if people did actually have time machines I bet so many people would fall in a vacuum looped-up trap like this. 

Tales is a pretty good show in this genre.

There's been more moderner versions of this. There was an 80s Twilight Zone show too. An even more moderner take on this genre is Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories... which I never heard of it at launch, and saw it when they started that "Channel 5" stream. That show is very good. The Odenkirk toe-eater episode is a good one to start at with that show to get a feel for the balance of comedy, horror, and great acting (M. Emmet Walsh is in that one) that is on display there.

Yet...this article is, of course, about Light Outs, which pre-dates all of these shows. Lights Out is from 1936, and although I think a version of it was out prior to that, I am dealing with the Arch Oboler version of the show.

My experience with this show goes back quite a bit even though I only really started listening to most of them recently....

In my first encounter with this show, years ago, I don't think anything salvaged on the internet was of a sound quality where you could really make out what was going on. A few years ago, I looked for it again, and some people had some good recordings of it...

but...

...I didn't listen to it that time, either. I remember the first time I really tried to listen to it and turned my lights out like they tell you to do after the ad for "Ironized Yeast Tablets" ... I really scared myself. It wasn't the show itself that scared me... it was my own mind convinced myself to be wicked scared in the darkness of my night chambers.

I was thinking to myself as the radio voices sombrely echoed through the air and thought to myself,

"These voice actors on this show... they've been dead for quite a few decades now...." I thought.

"...but they are talking to each other, and, to me... like they are right here," I continued to think.

"....wait, wait an actual second, these voices really ARE GHOSTS!" I wigged.

If the most realest description of a "Ghost" is a disembodied voice calling from beyond the grave to the land of the living in hopes of lingering on... these radio voices truly were actual Ghosts! It wasn't the content of the show that made me wig hard... it was my logical mind managing to scare my own self through a series of chillingly-true truths. I ran to the light switch, re-opened the lights, and turned off Lights Out for a second time.

Around 2019, I made a third attempt to listen to Lights Out, and getting through a few episodes... I was surprised at how tame it was and felt silly for wigging out to it all those years ago. It was, honestly, more comedy than anything else. The accents used by the actors were fun. The episodes ranged from lightly scary to complete comedy. The first thing I noticed that I liked was the host, Arch Oboler, who, remember this is from 1936, was even by that era's standards really down-to-earth yet very intelligent. Some of the best parts of these radio plays are Oboler's comments as he introduces them and then later sums up the stories he's written for air.

After one episode about an intergalactic war between Martians and People (or something)... he concludes the episode by saying...

"Yes, when one stops to think what a tiny little grain of sand this world of ours actually is in the dark sea of space and realizes how precarious little mankind's hold is on this earth... the spectacle of man's inhumanity to man becomes a Cosmic Joke."
-Arch Oboler"

That's good stuff, there. Yes. I mean that's speaking my language, Arch. That's good stuff.

I think he's probably an under appreciated writer of the 1900s. His plays on Lights Out and his intros/outros to them are really interesting stuff. I'd have to say he was probably an influence on other writers who came after him. I don't think you really hear anyone talk about him now... but I'm quite confident he was an influence on many.

I think like that George Ade article I did a while ago... where at the end I attempted to write in the emulated method of Ade to honor writers of the human past... I will try and write in the method of Oboler as a Halloween Homage to a great fiction writer...

...but first, we'll have to figure out his main tenets. As far as the horror goes... and since this was radio where very little could be used to describe the horrors the actors found themselves in... the main method was "fear of the unknown".

Fearing the unknown is a million times scarier than fearing the known. If you know what you're scared of... you can act to de-scare yourself... yet.. if you are scared and have no idea what is making you scared... good luck with that. You are gonna go crazy with fear. The fear will eat your brain alive!

Some examples of fearing the unknown are a knock at the door that just wigs the person out, I think, one Lights Out had a forest that ate people and no one knew why the forest was eating people, there's one where someone is throwing gravestones at people's heads from out of nowhere, there's one where a lady is buried alive... etc, etc.

Fearing the unknown is still popular today in the post-radio era... you'll see many movies where the person knows something is wrong and something bad is gonna happen... but they (and the audience) can only feel around in the dark for what it actually is.

Oboler takes it one simple step further. He described true fear as this,

"Someone asked me what's the most frightening thing in the world, my answer? The Familiar.

A common everyday thing which suddenly is no longer commonplace. A shutter banging on a windy night when you're all alone or your house cat suddenly walking up to you and looking at you with eyes full of nameless cruelty.

Yes, the most frightening thing in the world is the Familiar suddenly Unfamiliar."
-Oboler, A.

Good scary movies still do this to this day. The known becomes the unknown... and you suddenly have to fear something that was once known but is now quasi-different. Suspenseful thrillers are usually more scary than monster movies. The monster is known and usually has a presence and some sort of logical means of running from it or defeating it. An unknown entity that is causing fear is far more sinister as you can't run from it or defeat it... because you do not know what it is.

The next big tenet of Oboler is the comedy. I think he had to tone down these shows at some point and make them less scary because people were legit wigging in the 1930s to these plays.... so the ones you listen to about frat boys, chicken hearts growing out of control, and insane cackling crazy women turning people inside-out... probably came later and after the show was toned down... but these episodes are good too.

Intelligent commentary is the third tenet.... as stated above... he really knew how to introduce and close out these stories. I think some of the most interesting things said on this show are the "final thoughts" on these tales of the fantastical.

So, we have:

1) Fear of the Unknown (or moreso Fear of the Known becoming the Unknown)
2) Comedy
3) Intelligent Intro and Outro

Like that article which was a homage to the writing style of George Ade in the tune of The Ramones... I now present to you my own take on this...

So....

For previous Emulation of Author exercises in this blog, hmmm... I think there was only two, but after a decade of writing in here... even I don't really remember all of them anymore.

George Ade Style Story:
"The New Fable of the Brother Who Took A Sniff of The Air Plane Glue."

Weekly World News Style Story:
"Small Child Swallowed by the Encroaching Abyss of Deadly Ice whilst Spelunking in Near-By Cave .... Can he Survive???" 

I'm re-reading that Ramones/George Ade concoction... that was a strange mix of things there. That's something that thing.

Alright, let's write a nice radio play now you guys. This is my short radio play!


Writing on Subjects Presents: Turn your Screen Brightness Down

Okay....

Turn Your Screen Brightness Down..... Everyboooooooooooooody:

New Writings on Subjects II: Stronger now presents a story so horrifying you will freak (and wig)... so if you are light of human heart and are taken to fright easily... please close your browser tab now... for this next tale will ruin your entire mind with endless and endless fear.

Firstly, a word from our esteemed sponsor, 

Pitchman: Hello there, do you feel cooped-up? Do you feel lackluster and lame like a run-down goat? Are you getting enough sun light? Are you very worried that people simply do not like you what so ever? Are you wallowing in a pit of your most dire distresses night-in and night-out? Are you scared that a hand will creep out from under your bed and grab you? Grab you and drag you into unending suffering for eternity? When you look in the mirror do you see a person who looks bad? Do you ever really wonder why you have absolutely no friends?

....well, have you ever thought about buying a small compact humidifier for your bedroom? It'll make the air that you inhale into yourself have more moisture in it... and your breathing will be cleaner and better. Your brain will get more wetter air and it'll stop obsessing about abject horrible fear and going out-of-its-skull over how troubling life is.

 

Announcer: Thank you. Now, let us witness the first half of tonight's play, entitled: The Gigantic Ever-Growing Deceased Head. 

In the first half of my play, we will see a doctor who studies the brain. He brings one of his specimens, a small skull filled with a brain of a deceased cadaver, home with him to continue his experiments... much to the dismay of his beautiful wife.

The man's name is Hector Zorloff and his wife is named Violet Zorloff.

The human brain is a marvelous thing isn't it? It's tiny when you think of it. It's only the size of a small football or a hunk of farm-fresh cauliflower... yet why in the loneliness of our minds does our brain tend to feel like it weighs one thousand tons at times? It almost seems as if we can barely walk around with this brain in our heads when it feels as though it weighs more than it ever possibly could. How much does a worry weigh? Nothing, I'd assume. What about of a fear? How much does fear weigh? About zero pounds and zero ounces, one would have to estimate.

What if worries weighed something? What if fears actually were tangible things that existed outside of our minds? What if they were real... as real as an egg or as real as a pretzel? This entity that can spiral out of control in size for no particular reason. Something that can fester and fester upon itself endlessly would surely be problematic if it were a real tangible thing. That's the scoop for tonight's play... a skull with a brain that just won't stop bulging with fear.

 

Student: Mr Zorloff...

Hector: Why that's DOCTOR Zorloff, young man.

Student: Oh yes, Doctor Zorloff, yes. I was wondering if I could ask you about that.... head.

Hector: What of it? You've been studying in this institute for months... it is not like you've never seen a dead man's head before.

Student: Well, it's just that... I've never seen a head of a dead man quite so peculiar before, Doctor. The eyes for instance... they... seem to look back at you as you peer into them... and the more I peer into them the more they appear as though they know I am looking at them.

Hector: Oh spare me of these trite musings, young man. You really believe you are the first student of this institute that gets an eerie feeling after looking at a dead head? You'll get used to it in time... and if you cannot get used to the cold stare of a dead's man head than maybe you should find another line of study... perhaps studying bugs or a lesser field of boobery!

Student: I've seen plenty dead heads, Doctor! I shall not give up my dream of medicine and renounce myself to a field of lesser boobery! I...I...I... just feel this one can hear my thoughts.

Hector: You've been looking at too many penny features about cat women from outer space and ape martians from the outer worlds! A dead man's head simply cannot hear your thoughts. Do your thoughts exist? How can a dead man's head even hear something that cannot be seen!? How can a dead man's head hear ANYTHING to being with!?

Student: It's just... when I look at its eyes and think about things... they get bigger. The pupils of the dead man's head grow in size... I swear of it!

Hector: Let me tell you something, Mr., what is it? Who cares. Listen now, your hogwash and booby babble are not welcome in an institute as fine as this! Begone with yourself and think about joining the war effort or volunteering at the Christmas house.

Student: I understand, I'm sure it was just my fatigue creeping up on me... I think I need some sleep. I'll excuse myself and be on my way. Apologies, Doctor Zorloff.

Hector: Yes yes. Get some rest, young man. Tomorrow is a new day and we must finish our experiments on this man's dead brain as within his skull may lay wondrous secrets of nature!

Student: So, you agree it's an interesting specimen that is unlike others?

Hector: Why of course, this man's dead brain is great and boisterous. I can only imagine what he must have been like as an alive man with such a brain as this! I bet he was magnificent and quite interesting to converse with. His lateral pre-core in this region is so well defined... it's almost as if its... beating like a heart.

Student: ...yes. I must be going, Doctor. 

Hector: This brain is so fascinating, the experiments cannot wait another moment... I shall take it home with me and continue my research there. Time is fleeting, you see, Mr. uuuuh.....

Student: Smith.

Hector: Yes, Smith. Yes. Good evening Smith.

Smith: Good evening, Doctor Zorloff....

Violet: Oh you're home! How was work, today?

Hector: Work!? You call solving the mysteries of the human condition, work!? You should ask me... how did your thrilling and exhaustive research at the institute go today, Doctor Zorloff?

Violet: Oh get off your high horse commandant catbird! What's with the rigamarole all of a sudden? 

Hector: Ooooh, just a strange day. One of the students, uhhh Smythe or something, he was speaking about the strangest things. Eyes that peered into his soul and ate his thoughts like pudding or some-such clap trappery!  

Violet: Can't they figure out a way to limit the nuts that find their way into the institute? That one sounds like they should give him his marching orders straight to the booby hatch!

Hector: Oh yes. If I ever become Dean... I will send him first thing to the booby hatch! There, he can let a dead man's head eat his thoughts all night for as long as he ever so pleases!

Violet: Hector... what is.... that?

Hector: What is what?

Violet: That!

Hector: Oh this! Why this is a specimen from the....

Violet: It's a dead man's head!?

Hector: Why yes... what do you suppose I do all throughout the day at the brain institute? Pick flowers and dance the charleston? I am a man of science... I study dead men's brains all throughout the day. You know that!

Violet: Yes I KNOW that's what you do all day at your dead brain school! You play with dead brains but this is the first time you've brought your work home with you! Where should I put it? On the mantle next to the photograph of my dearly departed grandmother? Maybe when you become Dean you can send YOURSELF to the booby hatch!

Hector: Better yet! When I become DEAN... I shall send Smythe, Myself... AND YOU... to the booby hatch! Straight to the hatch!

Violet: ...at least there wouldn't be any dead eyes staring at me from my mantle there! Bringing these grotesque things home like this... this home might as well BE a BOOBY HATCH!

Hector: Yes. Yes. What is for dinner? Meat loaf, I wonder or... oh... maybe it's another of your stunning culinary creations, eh? Meatloaf a la PEA SAUCE. I just can't ever get enough meat loaf with creamy pea sauce gunked all over it....

Violet: ...I want that head out of here, Hector.

Hector: Please stop calling that wonderful specimen a "Head"... it is not a head. It is a brain. The skull and the decaying skin are just remnants of that interesting living man's life... but it is not a head. It is a brain.

Violet: I want that brain out of here. It's.... it's looking at me. Into my eyes. It's almost as if it is asking me.... asking me....

Hector: ???

Violet: ... how I feel? I feel scared. Did you see that? It's eyes. It's eyes are getting..... bigger.

Hector: No, they are not. Many first time students such as Mr. Smythe experience what you're experiencing. It's common. You are just scared of that dead man's head. That's all. It's natural and normal and familiar to be afraid of a dead man's normal old head. It's okay.

Violet: Yes, I suppose you're right. It's just a dead man's head ....it is.... it's like any other object now that this man isn't alive any longer. It's like a candle stick or a vase or a ... IT'S EYES JUST GOT EVEN BIGGER!

Hector: No they did not! I shall take it to my study and away from where you can become distressed of it. I shall bring it back to the institute tomorrow... now relax and forget you ever saw it.

Violet: Okay, Hector. If you run out of sauce there's plenty more pea sauce for the meat loaf in the frigidaire. 

Hector: Splendid! Wonderful! I can't wait......

Violet: Good night, Hector.

Hector: ....

 

Smith: Welcome, good morn to you, Doctor Zorloff. The institute lights are wondrously bright and the sciences are awaiting for us to discover their natural wonders!

Hector: Yes, yes, Smythe.

Smith: Smith.

Hector: Smith? Not Smythe?

Smith: Yes, Smith, not Smythe. My parents are the Smith family, a good family, from Buffalo and...

Hector: Yes, well, I do not care.

Smith: It's the head. He's back. Is he alright?

Hector: He is NOT a He. It is a dead man's head! It's an object as dead as the door nails or the stones of the walk way! It is not a man! It's a dead man's head!

Smith: I named this specimen after ....

Hector: I don't want to hear it. I don't. I suppose you'd like to say hello to the head, is that it? Fine... knock yourself out talking to a dead man's head, Smith.

Smith: Hahaha, well alright. I did indeed miss him, you see. Let me just look into his large eyes and just...

Hector: Smith... I was merely jesting with you. Do not say "hello" to the "head"!

Smith: It's looking at me as if he knows me... as if he remembers me. How do I feel? I feel lonely, head. I feel unloved, head. I feel unappreciated at my job, head. What's that? Yes, I am over taken with pain over the pale ugliness of my own face, yes, I am. I have no friends, head.

Hector: That is simply enough now, Mr. Smith! I shall phone up the booby hatch this instant and request your outright transfer there! They will give you electro-shock, jam you to the brim with fresh insulin, and throw baseballs at you until you come to your senses, dear boy!

Smith: No! Don't!

Hector: Yes!

Smith: You mustn't! 

Hector: Yes? Fairtown Facility for the Mentally Deranged? Yes, it is I, Doctor Zorloff. I request the forms to fill out to lock a man down in your facility until he comes off his mad ravings!

Smith: No! You can't! Put down that telephone! Put it down you cannot do this!

Hector: The kind men shall be here soon enough, I suggest you comply and march quietly to Fairtown where they will treat you humanely, very humanely, until your bout of madness passes, Smith. Now, cheerioh!

Smith: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

Violet: Hmmmmph. Welcome home, Hector. I made something different for you today since you hate my loaf so much. It's a chicken pot pie with BROWN sauce instead of PEA sauce.

Hector: Great, I could use some brown sauce. Let me just, oof, put down my books and parcels, here.

Violet: What in the world? Is that the head?

Hector: It's not a HEAD. It is a BRAIN!

Violet: Why is it back here? Ewww, please put it in your study! I can't stand the sight of that monstrosity! 

Hector: That monstrosity as you refer to it is my research! It is my work! That monstrosity buys that chicken pot pie and that brown sauce! You should be thanking it!

Violet: Oooooh well maybe I will, then! Hey there dead man's head! Thank you ever so much for putting food on our table with your deadness you big dead head!

Hector: Don't talk to my head like that!

Violet: It... it can't be.... yes, I do feel bad, head. I feel low and lonesome... and unappreciated, head. I try hard to make meat loaf, head... and I try to liven it up at times with various sauces, head. It's just... I'm not that great at cooking... I never really got the hang of it and I try and I try and I try to come up with delicious sauces, head. I tried to make a creamy sauce out of mashed peas and mushroom stalk the other month, head... and I thought it came out really well and would taste so good... but he didn't like it... and... and... its eyes? The head's.... eyes. Can it be? Its eyes... even its temples are bulging! Hector! The head is getting bigger! It's growing in front of my very eyes! His eyes! Our eyes! They are expanding! Make it stop! Hector! Make it stop! Aaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeiiieieieieieieeeee! Make. It, Stop. You must MAKE IT STOP!

Hector: I'm taking it to my study, I understand a dead man's lifeless eyes can drive many students mad. It happened today as a matter of fact. I understand how you feel and shall take it away to my study.

Violet: A student went mad?

Hector: Oh yes, a terrible sight it was. Smith.

Violet: Smythe, you mean?

Hector: No. Smith. He went barmy over the glassy lifeless dead eyes of the head. He outright lost his marbles and I cast him straight away right to the booby hatch.

Violet: You cast him to the hatch? I thought you were kidding about that?

Hector: Unlike you, he is a trained medical student at the institute, and therefore he is not allowed, like a civilian as you are, to go off the deep end and way down into crazy town over the eyeless eyes of a dead man's skull. I had no choice... I cast him. Cast him away to the hatch.

Violet: But don't they throw rocks at people's stomachs there?

Hector: Oh yes, they shall. They shall pump him to his limit with insulin to make him well, shock his brain with state of the art electro-currents until he's full of pep... and throw baseballs and rocks at his stomach until he learns to calm down when he sees a dead man's skull. He'll be fine in a matter of days... four at most... and back at the institute. No worries, no fuss.

Violet: That doesn't sound so bad. Maybe I should take a week or two at the booby hatch to get my mind together, Hector. It sounds like a fun little get-a-way. Well, then again, someone's got to take care of this big old house. Maybe next month I'll sign up for the hatch.

Hector: Sounds good. Now, I shall be in my study with the brain... please do not disturb us.... um... I mean me.

Violet: No problem, Hector. There's some more brown sauce in the frigidaire if you'd like some more with your chicken pot pie.

Hector: Now where was I, ah yes, I must extract his bare leftward core and not damage it... now, where did I put my tools... ah yes... here they are. Yes, thank you, Head.

Head: ....you are welcome.

Hector: Yes, here are my tools..... 

Head: ....

Hector: No, it can't be. I must've just been hearing the wind gently shake the frames of the windows upon the sill. 

Head: How do you feel, Hector?

Hector: Yes, yes... it must be an erratic gust that has shaken the window frames to clack and brack about the sill in a fashion that has caused it to sound as if the Head was asking me something. Yes. I feel a bit fatigued, head... you know... a little lame and lacking of luster of late, old Head. I remember in my youthful days I would enjoy the music of the phonograph for hours on end ... and truly relax to the splendid sounds of the music. Now my days are filled with sorrows and ever more sorrows, my good Head.

Head: ... tell me more, Hector.

Hector: You know something, Head. I never really wanted to be a doctor, especially a dead head doctor. I wanted to play the sounds I heard on the phonograph as a mere boy. I wanted to be a musician, Head. I study the brain now... but to even think the thing that lets me enjoy music is just a hunk of cold matter... is troubling and removes the zest from my being, Head. 

Head: Yes.

Hector: Yes, to learn all the joys of my youth... especially joys from music... were just sugars and salts and pro-tee-ins wiggling across portions of some egg muck... some concoction of yokery and veins and things up there... it makes me deeply uneasy, my good Head. I yearn for the days of innocence when things were full of mystery and wonder. Now they are sterile and cold... like a dead head. Just like you. You must understand, Head.

Head: I do...

Hector: You've doubled in size since I've found you. Was Smith, right? Do you grow by the day. How? Your eyes are glowing like a candle... like a dimly lit candle. Can it be? I must be dreaming! I must be! Violet! VIOLET HELP ME!

Violet: What is it, Hector? The head... it's gigantic! It wasn't that big before at all!

Hector: I KNOW! This dead man's head is real and alive! It's glowing like a candle and bulging like a snake digesting a rat! It simply cannot be! Is it laughing? Do you hear it? 

Violet: ... I do. I heard it before too... after it asked me about my feelings about my meat loaf.

Hector: Smith was right! You were right! It feeds! It's alive and it feeds! It is feeding on us! Feeding on our fears! Feeeeeeding on our worries. Feeeeeeeeeeeeeding on our suffering! How!? How can this possibly be happening! Nothing in my medical books and records have ever spoke of a fear-festering living dead man's brain! It is a work of the unreal! A trifle tale of ghastly amazement. It is something very very unbelievable, even!

Violet: What should we do? We must throw it away.

Hector: It is a wonder! We must study it and understand it, Violet!

Violet: No, we mustn't! We must throw it out... smash it with a hammer and throw it out!

Hector: What is that, Head? What are you trying to tell me, Head? Yes... yes... of course she doesn't understand. She's not a woman of science like myself. Don't worry my sweet dead man's head... I will never throw you away... you are amazing, awe-inspiring and great! You are the best thing! I am in awe of your magnificent splendor! What's that? Throw HER out? Of course! She cannot get in the way of my research! I shall cast her out! I shall cast her straight to the booby hatch, HEAD!

Violet: No! I was kidding about wanting to go there for a short sojourn! I will never go to the hatch! The crazies there shall torment a normal person like me and make me as mad as they are! They shall shock me with electric prods and throw things at my body... day AND night! Nooooooooo!

Hector: Don't worry my best Head, I'm on the line now with the hatch. Yes, Fairtown? Yes, it's me again, Doctor Zorloff. I have another need for forms. Yes, another student of the faint heart has lost it thanks to the eyeless cold stare of the dead. She was not meant or cut-out for medical science and will need a good MONTH in the hatch! Yes. Right away, send the booby truck right away and haul her away! A good stay there will bring out the rosiness in her cheeks again! Hahahahahahahahahahahahhaahahaha!

Violet: No! No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooohohohohohohoooooooohoooooooo ooooooooh. Oh no!

.... and that was the first part of our play, gentle readers. I hope those of you of the faint heart did not wig. If you did it's okay. Wow, I wrote this so fast... I'm sweating. I am drinking tea though, so maybe it's the tea. Depending on how the story goes and how October goes... we'll see how many parts it has. The next part might be right on Halloween for the spirit of the season... or we'll do two in October, mid and end... make it a Three Piece play. I wonder how it'll end, myself. I am worried about Smith and Violet who have been sent away to a local mental facility and now Hector Zorloff is all alone with his ever growing crazy dead guy's head. What's going to happen? How big will the head actually get? I guess it depends on how many fears and pains are swimming around old Hector's brain right now. If he is a very troubled guy... I'd guess that head is gonna get pretty big. I hope it doesn't get Godzilla big, though, friends.... and I wouldn't want to be the people that gotta destroy it and clean up the mess after Hector is finished messing around with that dead man's brain.

Until then, It is D, of Writings on Subjects, saying goodnight to all of you.

To be continued....

Part II

Welcome back, now once again please turn your screen brightness down.... everyboooooooooody.

 

Announcer: Let us now continue our play, as here in part two, we shall be introduced to two new characters... they are steel workers by the names of Ludwig and Giovanni.

Two honorable working men who just happen to have the bad luck of meeting the unbalanced mad doctor Zorfloff and his non-stop everly-growing dead-man's head. They operate the blast furnace on the over-night shift at the steel mill. Their shift usually goes well and they go about it without much of a care in the world and get along quite well together.

Let us begin, act two, set in the steel mill, but first a word from our esteemed sponsor...

 

Pitchman: Hello friend, are you well? If not... would you like to get well soon? It's a lot easier than you think. Many people, just like you, go through the day feeling less than fresh and having pretty much no pep in their life. It's alright... just because you stink or smell or maybe are very skinny and probably unbefittingly homely does not necessarily mean that you can't alter your state and become way more vigorous and good at things again. 

There's been people all around the continent who simply have dry and listless brains. Have you ever thought of maybe investing in a compact portable electric humidifier for the room you sleep in currently? You can even take them to motels, I think, you can ... I'm quite certain you can, anyway. The moisture of the air will be better and your tired, dense, and boring brain will get wetter and more better air circulating through it... what do you even have to lose anyways?

Announcer: Thanks, and now again, we warn you in advance that these plays are scary and will definitely make you wig out so if you are a faintly person of very low-pep then these plays are not for you and you should close your browser tab now.

Alright.... now turn your screeeeeeeeen briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightness down, everybooooooooooooooooody....

 

Ludwig: Ooooof, it ees snowink out der, Giovanni, eet's cold.

Giovanni: Whaddya talkin' bout you!? You complainin'? You getta break from da blast furnace inna here! It almost 120 dagreeeeese inna dis mud-sucking a place! You getta a break from dis a heat to go outta der and getta da coffee and all you thinkin' aboutta is da cold!? Da snow!? I standin' a here puttin' da gimmick inta da furnace to make-a da heat and I'm a sweatin' a my ass offa here... you a dumbbell a you!

Ludwig: But Giovanni, I get for you a coffee. Da man at this store ask from me how you are doink. I tell to him that you are doink quite vell. He vas wery happy to hear that you are doink vell.

Giovanni: I'm a doing well? Whaddya tell this guy this for, huh!? Who dis guy, from da coffee-a shoppa? I know dis guy! This fat guy this guy!? Why a he care if I'm well or no? Who cares if a dis guy know if I'm a well or no? Huh?

Ludwig: We are da only customers who go to dat store dis late at the night times, Giovanni. He really likes us. He is our friend and he likes to know how ve are doink... and he is happy dat ve are doink vell!

Giovanni: Ludwig... whadda is it a good to have a friends, huh!? What a friend ever done for you in your stupid bad life? Huh!? HUH!? Tell me!

Ludwig: Giovanni, maybe it is joost da flames of dis horrible all-da-time never-it-stops buuuuurning foooornace of horrible and immense heat dat maybe are makin' your head very very hot. Maybe you should drink dis coffee vit me in the outside so to give your head da chance to coooool down, a little bit, eh, Giovanni?

Giovanni: Not it's a ok, my friend. I'm a sorry big-time I get so mad at you like dis. You a right, you a lot right dis time, you are. Dis no-good infernal heat inna dis furnace.... it make-a my brain so hot.... like a dog ... like a dirty dog runnin'.... runnin' right over da damned sun, Ludwig! You a making so many a good points today, my friend. You a right so much this time. I am sorry, a lot, that I told ya you are a dumb-bell guy. You're not this, at all, you are for-sure not a dumb-bell kinda guy.... you are a very good guy, guy.

Ludwig: How's your coffee, Giovanni?

Giovanni: It's good. Thank you.

Ludwig: You know of somethink? One of dis days... I'm really really really gonna do eet and make eet.

Giovanni: Me too, Ludwig. I'm a gonna make it, too. Make it big time... and get outta from here dis steel mill.

Ludwig: Someone is knocking at da doooor? Who can knock at late times like dis?

Giovanni: Must be the dumb foreman coming back-a-here because dis dumb guy forget to punch da clock on his a way outta here before, you know? 

Ludwig: Moost be. Ya, ya. Moost be.

Giovanni: I'm a gonna go answer dis. I take-a you advice and get a little fresha air... and a let this dumb guy in and get a little bit of da cold air in my lungs, my friend. 

Ludwig: Dat's a good idea.

 

..........................

Giovanni: Hello? Who dere? Is dis you... you dumb guy? You forgetta punch out after you shift you peece'a'chit? I'm a gonna letta you in you dumba peece-a you!

Hector: Ohhhhh.... ooooh my.... oh my heavens.... oh my heavens. Please, take this satchel.... you must cast it to the flames! It must be incinerated immediately! I cannot tell you what is in it! I can't let you open the satchel! Please heed my cries! You must take it to the furnace and cast this satchel straight to the flames! The world may depend on it! If you safely administer this satchel, no questions asked, into your furnace... you may very well spare the world of total and complete disarray and disaster!

Giovanni: Whatta da heck you belly achin' about, you crazy guy!? Getta you hands offa me! I 'aint putting nuthin' in nuthin' you whacked-out crazy foolish a guy you!

Hector: No! Please just don't ask me why or how or anything! You must believe me! You must trust me that this satchel must not be opened and cast without heed or second-thought into the furnace of fire to be burned out of existence! PLEASE!

Giovanni: I know a flim-flam scam whenna I see-a one ya flim-flam scam man! LUDWIG! It's some-a crazy a guy! Call the crazy guy house and getta dem here! Getta dem here to haul this crazy guy outta here!

Hector: NO! YOU MUST LISTEN! I AM NOT MAD! I.... I ......

Giovanni: The crazy house 'aint even so bad, guy. They gonna calm you downna and shock you uppa and maybe whip a coupla baseball at ya... you know... freshen ya up, big time, guy.

Hector: NO!

Giovanni: Ludwig, you callin' dis guys!?

Ludwig: Oh yes, I am. I am on da telephone with da booooby hatch, right now. They vill be right over here pretty shortly, they vill.

Hector: You are making the biggest mistake of your lives! The biggest mistake of your LIVES! THE! BIGGEST! MISTAKE! OF! YOUR! LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!

..........................

 

Giovanni: Dey wrap him up good, huh? In the crazy guy jacket? They putta his arm in dis crazy guy jacket. He be okay in a coupla days, eh? Dey gonna fix 'em like a new. Make a him feel more good, you know?

Ludwig: Yaaaaa, yaaaaa, ya. Dey vill make him come to his senses and find his bearings. Uh oh...

Giovanni: What a "uh oh" you sayin'? Whaddaya talkin' from a "uh oh"? What ya mean when you say this... "uh oh"?

Ludwig: I mean... THIS... "uh oh".

Giovanni: The satchel? Oh no. We forget to give it to this guys from the crazy guy house. Oh no. Maybe we open it, huh?

Ludwig: Maybe not so good idea, ya?

Giovanni: What can it be? What a kind of crazy crappola some foolish kinda guy like dat runnin' around da town with, eh? What you think? It must be just some dumb crazy guy stuff, no?

Ludwig: Moost be, moost be. Ven I vas child back home... I used to drive da ambulance for to pick up the crazy guys.

Giovanni: You never tell a me dis, my friend. What was it a like?

Ludwig: It vas alright... but von day I vas drivin' da crazy truck to pick up a crazy...

Giovanni: Oh yeah?

Ludwig: Ya.... und I get to dis hoose and dis guys are all in dis hoose and I walk right up to dee dooor and I knock on to it....

Giovanni: GET TO THE POINT!

Ludwig: I open to the dooor......

Giovanni: ....and?

Ludwig: ....and, I hear voices, but is no one in hoose. I walk more towards hoose.... and there it vas.

Giovanni: What? What it was?

Ludwig: It vas..... a hand.

Giovanni: No.

Ludwig: Yes. I vas so much scared.

Giovanni: What you did though, you picka it up?

Ludwig: Vat? No. I quit my job and moved to America.

Giovanni: Oh.

Ludwig: Ya. You never know, really. You never really-really-really know what these crazy people are doink. I look to dis satchel, before me, dat dis crazy man bring here... and I cannot know, really, what could be inside of this. What might be in dis satchel... a hand? Might be in dis satchel... a foot? Might even it be in dis satchel ... maybe ... a million dollurs?

Giovanni: You are joking! You a tellin' me jokes.... it can't be a million dollars in there... why he wanna burn it up all to ashes in the furnace den for!?

Ludwig: Vhy? Because he's crazy, that's vhy. The crazies they do crazy tinks.

Giovanni: I'm a open it.

Ludwig: No, don't.

Giovanni: I am.

Ludwig: ......uh, okay den.

Giovanni: You right, it probably just a hand or a foot... but maybe it's diamonds or munny.

Ludwig: Ok, I won't get scurred at all. I am a very tough man. Open dis satchel.

Giovanni: ......

Ludwig: .........

Giovanni: Damn it. It just like a you said it... it is just a body part from a dead guy. That's all.

Ludwig: Oh vell... you vin sooooome and you looooose some. No big deal. I very vell knew it probably vouldn't be maaahnny or jewels.

Giovanni: Just our luck. Wealth escapes us yet again.

Ludwig: What part of the body is the part?

Giovanni: It is a dead guy's head is whadda it is.

Ludwig: .......

Giovanni: Why you lookin' like dis now for? You a scared like a dumb baby over seein' a dead a guy's head? What a matter you?

Ludwig: In my country... this is a curse.

Giovanni: I don't believe in any curse you dumb a guy! Stop tryin' to gimme da willies!

Ludwig: My grandmooother in the back-home times... used to all-of-the-times tell to me tinks like dis ... she vas alvays-alvays tellink me of the Curse of the Dead Head... you know it, unlike a hand or a foot... the heads of da dead people .... they carry on bad stuff from the olden times. The fears, and hopes, and anxieties of the living are carried on in the heads of the dead....

Giovanni: No, no, no. That's crazy talk. I never heard this nonsense before. You made this up. Where-a you-a grandmother she come from? Huh? Stupid town?

Ludwig: No, she came from da Mernterns.

Giovanni: Where da heck dis is? Huh? You tell me. Where da heck is "Da Mernterns"??

Ludwig: You know, Giovanni, the Mernterns... vith da rocks and da yodeling and da high places. You know?

Giovanni: Ooooooh, you talkin' 'bout da MAHNTAHNS! I know from there. Whadda is da matter wit you? You live a here in America for so long and you still a don't know how to a talk good you peece'a'chit!

Ludwig: Sooooorry. I only tell you this because I know it is da trooff. We must throw dis head into da foornace before we catch a very bad Merntern curse.

Giovanni: Good idea... dis is what dat crazy this guy was telling to us from the start anyhow.

Ludwig: Yes.

Giovanni: This dead-a-guy lookin' pretty good for bein' dead, though, no? He have a big eyes, this guy. They burn, big-time, like our furnace, this guy's eyes.

Ludwig: DON'T LOOOOK! You vill catch dat cuuuuuurse, I'm tellink you!

Giovanni: What is that, dead guy? How is it that you can talk to me, huh, dead guy? Ya I hate my job so much big-time one-a-hundred-a-percent and a for sure, yeah. What you sayin' to me, guy? Yeah, man, I like munny... a lot.

Ludwig: Giovanni! Stop! My grandmother was right... you vill be coorsed if you keep lookink into dat dead man's eyes!

Giovanni: Dead guy.... you really understand me good. You are da first person on this world who a understand Giovanni, big time. What's dat you tellin' me? Ya.... I hate it so much to not have a da munny. I hate this, a lot. My biggest dream, I have, is for to have sooo much munny, guy.

Ludwig: Its.... eyes.... are making bulging! Its.... its skull.... it is gettink biggur and bigguuuuur!

Giovanni: No.

Ludwig: Yes!

Giovanni: This dead guy's head is starting to a wig me out, Ludwig. Let's throw it da furnace....

Ludwig: ........

Giovanni: It's rollin' around! It's rollin' offa da table, even!

Ludwig: I don't vanna touch it!

Giovanni: Not me either... not even once... that head is cursed, a lot, just like a you said it was.

Ludwig: It is the cooorse of the Mernterns. This head is bad news and we should NOT touch it.

Giovanni: I'm a kick it!

Ludwig: No! It's rollin' off da table! I tink it vill leave here on its own! Let us open da door and let it out!

Giovanni: Okay... oh my goodness... it is rollin' right outta here, is whatta it is doing! It's a rollin' out da door... right a in front of our very own eyes!

Ludwig: Where do you theenk eet ees goink?

Giovanni: I dunno.

 

 

News Anchor Man: Residents are reporting of a gigantic dead yet somehow living head that is sweeping through both the city limits and the country side... spraying Pea Sauce and Brown Sauce out of its eyes, covering everything in its path. I repeat: Pea Sauce and Brown Sauce out of the chasms of its gigantic dead eyes! Stay inside of your homes! The head is too big to be dealt with by any means available to you! It is very large. It is bigger than a building. It will cover you in filth. It will bash you and send you flying. If you go near it, it will shoot endless amounts of pea sauce and brown sauce out of its eyes at you! You will drown in a sea of pea n' brown! You shall drown in pea n' brown, concerned citizens!!

Ludwig: Oh no! Giovanni you have to listen to the radio!

Giovanni: Why? They tellin' the races!? Are they tellin' da horse races, right now? I'm a coming fast!

Ludwig: No, it's this dead guy's head, Giovanni. It's so much more bigger now than it vas before!

Giovanni: How big? Bigger than a house?

Ludwig: Ya. Bigger.

Giovanni: Wow. That's no good. What's it doing, is it doing bad stuff or what?

Ludwig: It is shooting pea n' brown out from its eyes. It's very bad. It's doing bad stuff, ya.

Giovanni: This no good.

Ludwig: I know, my friend. Ve should have thrown it into da foornace ven the chance vas upon us, no?

Giovanni: For sure, yeah.

Ludwig: I am gonna call back the booby hatch and ask what this crazy guy who brought dis tink here is doink.

Giovanni: Good idea, maybe that crazy doctor guy know something about dis dead guy head dat we don't even know about!

 

 

(Part II shall continue next week, gentle listeners. It seems Hector, Violet, and Smith are now all inside a mental institution thanks to their dealings with the head. Thankfully our friends Giovanni and Ludwig were not swayed by the temptations of the charming Head and may be able to reach Hector Zorloff and his cohorts and hopefully figure out a way to stop this thing... but... it could very well be far too late... as the Head is now far bigger than a house and for some reason is shooting Pea Sauce and Brown Sauce out of his ever-living dead eyes. Tune in next week for the exciting Part II of Part II!

Let Us Continue....

We ask you once again to turn your screen brightness down.... everyboooooooooody.

 

Announcer: Our heads get filled with so many fears and worries but the funny thing about it is... in a strange way... do our fears and worries become our friends? Do we learn over the years to trust them? At least our pain and sorrows can't be taken away from us like everything else can be. 

Things that have material weight... jewels, fancy automobiles, luxuries of all forms... can be taken away from us at any time without warning. In a way, isn't our pain our own? A thing we have that can never truly be taken away from us? Strangely, because it cannot ever be taken away from us... it is more a part of our own lives than any common material possession could really ever be. There's Safety in Pain. Your worries and sadnesses may not exist... but at least they are foreverly yours.

Can you get addicted to fear? Addicted to pain? They are a constant never-altering fundamental mainstay in all of our lives... almost like pillars we learn to lean on....because, well, at least our worries are always there where we know where to find them. Should we lean on our worries? Should we lean on our pain as if it is an old friend? That's a great question and one this play is dealing with but first let's hear a word from our sponsor before we continue...

In this 30 second short-spot we shall hear of the lament of a young woman who just can't seem to find any pep. I hope you enjoy this commercial....

 

Pitchman: In any given town in any given place.... we find young women who are down on their luck and riddled with lackadaisical bemusement at their current humdrum condition. They are cursing the heavens wondering when their betterment shall find them and whence they can finally uncurse themselves from the torment of their unfulfilling and lacking of pep lives.

Why wouldn't you know it... here comes one now....

 

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Oh fiddlesticks and crumple dumplings... I'm starting to think my humdrum condition will be for an eternity!

Pitchman: Oh come now, Wrinkly ol' Jane... you shouldn't be so hard on your old wrinkled self.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: What good is it to have any hope at all, anymore? I just have to face to facts... I have absolutely no pep whats-so-ever and men think I'm just some withered flower gently rocking back-to-forth in the lonesome breezes of time. Once I was a vermilion shade, sweet-smelling tulip that got almost a hundred dates a month... but now... I'm just a bum. A complete bum.

Pitchman: They don't think that. They don't think you're a complete bum, Jane. It serves you no purpose to think those thoughts.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: You're just humoring me, you fine fellow. I know a goat when I see one... a run-down one at that. I have mirrors, you know. I'm no spring chicken anymore, sailor. In fact... I'm not even a hen... I'm just a pile of chicken bones bein' bleeched in the hot sun!

Pitchman: Now, now... you're not THAT homely, Wrinkly Jane. You'll never break free from the shackles of worry if you keep beating yourself up, Wrinkles.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Oh you're one to talk... you're a dashing young catch. What would you know about my deep inner-sadness and soul-crushing destitution Mr. Looks-so-Good?

Pitchman: Well... truth be told, old gal... I wasn't always this young, full-of-pep, and sweep-ladies-off-of-their-feetingly Dashing! I was once an old wrinkle-fest just you like you are.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: You don't say?

Pitchman: Oh yes... but I changed. A real metamorphosis, sister! Five years to the day, now. Back then, before I turned my life around miraculously, I was probably even uglier than you.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Really?

Pitchman: Well, almost as ugly.... maybe slightly less... but close.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Wow.

Pitchman: Yep. I was a total wash-out, a beatnik, I wasn't even showering. 

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Did you get any dates?

Pitchman: Nope.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Golly.

Pitchman: But... then one day... five years ago to this very day... all that changed. I found something that set me free from my shackles of self loathing and constant debilitating worry.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: What did find, you dashing gentlemen, you?

Pitchman: Wrinkly Jane... I went down to my local electronics retailer and purchased a purchase that saved my life and renewed me with complete pep. Would you like to know what it was?

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Yes! Do tell! I'd sell my own mother at the World's Fair to know what you know!

Pitchman: I purchased a small compact humidifier that plugs into any standard wall outlet and is available in two stunningly interesting colors! Off-White and Egg-Yoke Yellow. It takes the air from your own house, apartment, or even motel room... and transforms that air into more wetter and refined air that will improve your breathing tremendously and set you on the right path towards totally re-inventing yourself as a contemporary new-age woman that many sailors would want to talk to at length!

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Wait... hold on.... even an old wrinkled up jamoke like myself... can be set on the path to invigoration thanks to slightly wetter air being breathed by my beat-up ol' lungs? Oh, you're just trying to make a wrinkly low-pep gal smile, you dashing young interesting man!

Pitchman: Hardly.... why don't we put our hollow words to the iron-clad tests of human reality, my dear. How about you high-tail it down to your electronic retailer and put in an order for a unit... give it a week or two to change your run-down low-pep life... then go down to your local corner tube bar and see if any of the sailors see anything they would like to converse with at great length and get back to me, Wrinkles.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Will it really work? I've been had by flim-flam men before!

Pitchman: Trust me. If I was you... knowing what you know now about the secrets to living a full pep life... the only worry I'd have in my mind was whether I wanted Off-White or Egg-Yoke Yellow, old gal.

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Hahahaha! Now THAT'S a worry I WANT in my brain, sailor!

Pitchman: Off you go now, Wrinkly Jane... don't forget to save your serial number on the box... it can be mailed in for a chance to win many luxurious prizes!

Wrinkly ol' Jane: Thank you so much! You're a saint in human skin!

.................................

 

Pitchman: My goodness, after all these weeks, if it isn't Wrinkly ol' Jane! I haven't seen you in ages, old gal!

One Hundred Dates Jane: Wrinkly ol' Jane? Who's that? You're looking at One Hundred a month Dates Jane!

Pitchman: You don't say? May I ask... did you get the Off-White or the Egg-Yoke Yellow?

One Hundred Dates Jane: Egg-Yoke Yellow, baby! Now if you'll excuse me I have a hot-date!

 

Pitchman: Oh my! The pep and energy has been restored to another broken-down ol' pile'a'bones! You could be just like Jane.... turning the wrinkles of today into the hot-dates of tomorrow! The thundering skies have opened and renewed the fire of youth into another one! Yes, it looks like my work here is done... now excuse me... I have places to be and things to sell......

Announcer: Thank you. In reality it seems worry is easy to solve... or at least some smooth talkers sure make it appear so. However in our play... the fears have gotten out-of-hand... the disembodied Head of the Dead.... has eaten the fears of the populace for weeks and is now bigger than a building. It appears the nucleus of its fester-feast was built off of Violet's worries over the quality of her sauces.... and even now that the Head is gigantic it still has that worry at its very core. Pea sauce and Brown sauce are its core nucleus... its central beating heart ... and that nucleus of fear has rolled around in countless other fears and anxieties and has built itself into a flying juggernaut of mindless destruction. 

As The Ever-Growing Deceased Head covers the townships in a constant stream of Pea n' Brown... one must begin to wonder... how was it ever allowed to grow at this rate? Why did humanity fill the Dead Head with so many unique and delicious flavors of forms of suffering? A dead head that feasts upon the materialized fears of society as if it were a bat sucking the non-coagulated blood out of a dead cow.... surely is a recipe for problems... one would have to wonder if it is indeed the End for our friends... Hector, Violet, and Smith... as well as our favorite duo of Ludwig and Giovanni....

.... the conclusion of this ghastly tale shall find you on Halloween Night! Until then, keep your screen brightness down...

..... everyboooooooooooooooooooody.

 

 

Part III

Welcome back, now once again please turn your screen brightness down.... everyboooooooooody.

 

Announcer: Let us now join Hector in the asylum for the mentally deranged, shall we? A facility headed by the just and fair, Mr. Wertz.

Mr. Wertz: It is time for your session, Mr. Zorloff.

Hector: No....no....please. I cannot handle another one.

Mr. Wertz: You'll never get better without your treatments, Hector.

Hector: What you call treatments are anything but! This is pure torture! How can a treatment consist of throwing rocks and baseballs at a man's stomach for endless hours upon endless hours! TELL ME!

Mr. Wertz: This is the most advanced treatment of the age, Hector. You know that... being a doctor yourself who's requested forms upon forms over the years and has had many committed here.... including your own wife!

Hector: Yes! But! But the HEAD made me do it! The Head made me do it!

Mr. Wertz: Yes.... the Head. It is now the size of the Sun.... it shall destroy us all. A foreign man called here a few months ago and told us you knew something about the Head... but we didn't believe him.

Hector: They could have stopped this! The men at the Steel Mill! They could have put an END to this MADNESS if they only could have trusted me!

Mr. Wertz: Who would trust a man like you? A man who sends his own wife to the Booby Hatch?

Hector: Is she here? Please let me see my beloved one last time.... before the Head destroys the entirety of Earth.

Mr. Wertz: She's no longer with us, Hector.

Hector: No.......

Mr. Wertz: The treatments proved too much for her many weeks ago.... and she died whilst we tried to save her. We gave her as much of a thrashing as we could to scare the demons from her mind... but in the end her demons were too powerful for us. She kept whaling into the night, into the throws of death, whaling that it was all her fault.... all her meat loaf's and her own fault.

Hector: SAVE HER!? Your torture couldn't save anyone from anything!

Mr. Wertz: It doesn't matter now, nothing really matters now that the Head is going to destroy us and then move on to the Sun and destroy it. All is lost. All we can do is honor our oaths and continue your treatment... at least you will be Well when the World Ends!

Hector: No! No! Put that down! Put down that object! You cannot throw it at me anymore! I... I... I cannot bear it!

Mr. Wertz: Come on now.... it's the least we can do for you in these troubling times.

Hector: NO! OW! NO! PLEASE STOP! OOWWW! OUCH! NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

*GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG*

Announcer: We thank you for tuning in to tonight's play. In reality, fears don't weigh anything and deceased cursed heads can't grow into out of control entities that destroy our world... but figuratively... can they?

Do you let your fears eat away at you? Rendering you immobilized and paralyzed to your surroundings even though they don't really exist and aren't really there? If you could actually remove all the things that weigh you down inside of your own mind... how much do you think they would weigh... a ton? Ten tons? One hundred?

Perhaps we can learn something about Fear. Perhaps we can learn something from Hector Zorloff and the others. Perhaps we should stop obsessing over our past pains and foreseen future sufferings for a moment and live in the present tense. Enjoy the time we have and hopefully we can let those obsessesed painful thoughts linger longer when we meet our own demises... as we'll have more than enough time to obsess over fear when we are No More.

Goodnight.... and Lights Out Everybody.

 

Hold up....

Bonus Feature: Secret Ending

Wayne: Schaaaa riiiiight... ex-squeeze me? That ending was lame, Garth.

Garth: Tell me about it, Wayne! That Doctor guy was a complete Sphincter!

Wayne: Schaaaaaaaaa, you called it. That play wigged me out and made me feel like the back seat of the Mirthmobile!

Garth: Ya, right after someone blew chunks in it!

Wayne: Schaa.

Garth: What about a Ghostbuster ending, Wayne?

Wayne: Good call.

 Squeeegly-doo, Squeeegly-doo, Squeeegly-doo......

 

Announcer: ...and now, we shall rejoin our play at the Steel Mill with our favorite pals Ludwig and Giovanni.....

 

Ludwig: I am gonna call back the booby hatch and ask what this crazy guy who brought dis tink here is doink.

Giovanni: Whaddya talkin' 'bout you dumb-a-bell-a guy you!? What's this crazy nutty outta-of-it guy gonna do about a gigantic Head that is a shooting Pea n' Brown outta his got damned eyes, eh!? Nuttin' at all that's what! Nuttin'! Ya know who we should call, Ludwig?

Ludwig: Who should ve call?

Giovanni: Da GHOSTBUSTERS!

Ludwig: Ya. Good idea. Ya.

Giovanni: I'm a genius guy, me, no?

Ludwig: Yes, hello, is it da Ghostbusters?

Janine: Ghostbusters! Whaddya WANT!?

Ludwig: Oh yes, uhhh dis is Ludwig callink you, you guys are for serious, yes? Verll, ve vish to report a gigantic ever-growink head-thing that ees spewink Pea and Brown all over the darned Town!

Janine: Yes of course they're serious, Ludwig. You do? You haaave? No kidding? 

.............WE GOOOOOOT ONE!

Gonna tell you a story
About a little Steel Mill I knooooooow
That had a real big problem
With some big-big kooky Heaaaaaaaad
This Head was makin'
The whole city lose controoooooooooooooool

Ray: Egon, Peter! Does this pole still work!?

Peter: I don't see why it wouldn't, sweetheart.

Egon: I don't see why you wish to barrel in headstrong into a situation of which we have very little understanding of, at the present moment, Ray. I think we should conduct a thorough background check on this ever-growing head before we rush off into battle.

Peter: You must be great at parties, Egon. You're just so much fun!

Ray: Egon's right, Pete. There's no point going to bust this disgusting Head if we don't know anything about our game plan. I'm going to consult the Tobin Spirit Guide.

Egon: Yes, I concur. Meanwhile I'll run a benchmark dry-run test on the proton packs to see if they're tuned.

Peter: Great ideas guys.... meanwhile I'll be calling Dana and cancelling ANOTHER hot-date with her on account of my work. All work and no play.......and you know the rest. Sigh.

Ray: Here it is. Tobin's Spirit Guide has an entry for an out-of-control ever-increasing floating head. It calls it the "Pitchman"... an ancient salesman from Sumeria... who gets reincarnated every one hundred years to reap people's currency from them with his haunting words. It feeds on people's uncertainty and worries like some kind of ancient Sumerian blood-sucking sponge!

Peter: Just great... I get to cancel my date with Dana, who's probably in a little black dress waiting for me to come meet her... for a date... with a ghost... an ancient Salesman Ghost from Ancient Babylon who feeds on people's fears. What a life!

Egon: Sumerian....not Babylonian, Peter.

Peter: Oooooooh, well that changes everything, Egon!

Ray: How're the packs, Easy-E?

Egon: The benchmark tests seem normal. They are purring like little nuclear kittens, Ray!

Peter: Let's suit up, boys!

Ray: Right behind ya, Pete!

Peter: Doh........

Ray: Ray................

Egon: ..........................Egon!

Peter: ...

Ray: Never gets old.

Peter: It really doesn't, Ray.

Ludwig: Dat must be dem!

Giovanni: Dey here! Great! If a anyone know how-to-a bust a head itsa deez guys!

Peter: Never fear.... the Ghostbusters are here.

Ray: Hello citizens, please direct us to the Head and we'll show this Sumerian Salesman how we do things in the Big Apple!

Peter: If this Sumerian flim-flam head thinks it can float into our City and eat our fears... it has another thing coming! He can't have my fears! Those are mine!

Egon: There it is. Five o'clock! Let's light it up!

Ray: Wow! It's a big one! How is it flyin' so fast for something so big! It must've eaten some pretty healthy and nutritious hopes n' dreams or somethin'!

Giovanni: Thatta head eatta my dreams n' hopes, big time! He a no good! Blast dat thing for me, Ghostbusters!

Ludwig: Ya! Blast dat tink gud! It is a cooorsed head from da merterns!

Egon: The what?

Peter: Ex-squeeze me? From where?

Giovanni: This dumbbell talkin' 'bout the Mahntahns! With the rocks and the things!

Ray: Oh. One of the Sumerian Salesman's every-one-hundred-years re-incarnations must've been in Bavaria, then. Makes sense.

Egon: Peter! Watch your flank at 10 o'clock!

Peter: Whoa! This thing is shooting vomit or turds or something!

Ray: I got some in my mouth... mmhmmm.... not bad. It's sauce!

Egon: Don't. Eat. The SAUCE, RAY!

Ray: I hear ya loud n' clear Egon!

Peter: Guys, this is a class-four floating vomit machine! We need a game plan! Let's hit it with the Triangular Beam play... 

Egon: Good call, Peter. Let's get into an isosceles formation and focus our proton streams from three congruent yet hard-to-avoid angles! But...

Ray: But? Yeah believe me, we know.....

Peter: Yeah, E.... we, know. Don't cross the streams.

Egon: Bingo!

Ray: I'm in position! I got my stream on it! It's slowing this dirty head down! Light'em'up Venkman but don't hit my stream... or miss and burn my face off!

Peter: I'll try, Ray. Bam! Two beams on it! We be fast....

Egon: ....and they be slow! My beam is on it! We have the Triangular Strike employed it's only a matter of time until it stops fighting and we can reel this bad boy in!

Ray: Who's got the traps?

Egon: .....

Peter: Why are you looking at me, Egon? You know I don't do the traps! I'm a buster! I bust! You guys do the trap stuff!

Ray: No traps? Egon! You don't have any traps?

Egon: Sorry, that's a negative, Ray. 

Peter: Uh oh....

Ray: What's "uh oh?"

Giovanni: Yeah-a you guys? What's a "uh oh"?

Egon: It's preparing another sauce attack... Ludwig, Giovanni... I suggest you return inside the mill and find shelter... it's gonna get messy out here.

Ludwig: Okay, ve vill!

Ray: Keep your beams on it! It'll lessen its power so it can't unleash a full scale sauce attack!

Peter: Good plan, Ray. I guess we'll just keep our beams on it, all night, and every ten minutes, I guess, we'll be sprayed with Pea n' Brown until we finally drown!

Egon: At least we'll lessen the damage to the city, for the time being, if we keep our beams on it.... either way... it was nice knowing you, Peter.

Peter: I never told you this, Egon.... but you're my best friend.

Ray: What about me?

Peter: Yeah, I like you too, Ray.... it was a pleasure knowing you.

*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMMMNNNNNNNECH!*
(tire sounds breaking fast!)

You seem a little strange
Something about you not the same
Nowhere to hide from the feeling running through my veins
It was the frightening truth
That way just ain't no youth
Baby, you got the will, you got the way

Saving the Day! Ooooooooh! Saving the DAY!

 

Egon: It's the Ecto-1!

Peter: Now that's a sight for sore eyes, eh guys?

Ray: WINSTON!

Winston: Janine told me you guys went to bust some whacky head? Damn, why are you all covered in turds? Is it some kind of a crap head?

Peter: It's a long story, Winston. 

Ray: It's not turds, it's sauce. It tasted good.

Egon: Stop eating the sauce, Ray!

Winston: Looks like you guys could use some traps, am I right?

Egon: We got it locked down with a three-beam special.... we just need to trap this thing!

Winston: Damn, nice isosceles beam-formation, fellas. Let me just slide a trap right under this floatin' head!

Peter: Nice roll! Have you been bowling lately?

Winston: Nope, bocce ball, Pete. It's sort of like bowling but on grass. It's very fun and a nice light exercise. It also helps me with my trap rolls. I landed this one right under that ghost!

Egon: Hit it! Get this ghost in the box!

Winston: Here we go.......Damn, it's too big.... even with three beams on it and a well placed trap right under it... it's still fighting!

Peter: It was nice knowing you, Winston.

Winston: Hold on. I'm gonna try something I've been experimenting with on busts lately.

Ray: The triple trap?

Egon: What's the triple trap?

Ray: Winston cooked it up on a late night bust, that me and him were on, the other week. Basically, you put one trap under the ghost, on the ground, and open it with your foot.... then you spin two traps in your hands like two lassos until they are moving so fast they don't look like two spinning traps any longer but just a circle.... then you open both spinning lasso traps with your hands. So, one foot on the ground trap.... and two in the palms of your hand.... and you hold all three traps down until the ghost finds his way into one of them!

Egon: That's incredible, Winston! How come I never thought of this?

Winston: Things that work in the lab and things that work in the field are two different things, E. I've only actually done this once.... but I think I can pull it off again. Here we go!

Egon: He's spinning the ropes of the traps so fast the radius of the trap's trajectory has become circular and is combining with the trap's field spectrum on the ground to form a triple trap!

Peter: Keep your beams focused on this thing! We almost got it!

Winston: We got the tools...... and we got..... THE TALENT!

Ray: It's almost in!

Egon: Hold on! 

Peter: Yes!

Winston: We got it.......

Peter: .... and the flowers are still standing!

MORAL: YOU CALL THE GHOSTBUSTERS! YA THAT'S WHO YOU CALL!!!